#they were SO fucking judgemental when they initially asked why i liked [fandom] too

[labyrinthofcrystals]

💎. ┊    thinkin abt when I was into [fandom] & I had a mutual who very openly didn't like it so I asked them if it was okay that I still followed them & they said yes so long as I tagged my shit (which I always did, of course). but then when I asked them to tag their crit posts they said no n started attacking me 🙃 like why did u say it was ok for me to still follow if u clearly had a Problem with it then??? and then they sent other people to harass me too like wtf.

#* mine / txt #they were SO fucking judgemental when they initially asked why i liked [fandom] too #should've trusted my Instincts & blocked when they made that post tbh #''i dont like seeing [fandom] positivity'' then unfollow this blog dumbass?? block the tag hello???? idot. absolute asshat. #WAIT i remember. they did have the tag blacklisted. bc they hated it so damn much. then WHY THE ABSOLUTE FUCK— #''wish you all the best'' then repeatedly tried to harass me after i blocked them 🙄🙄🙄🙄 #shit like that is why i hate sharing my interests/fandoms/making ''friends'' in fandom #bc the moment someome finds out you like smth ''controversial'' they forget cirtical thinking skills & nuance exist #like shocker! making fun of the ''controversial'' thing that i like wont make me stop liking it. it WILL however make me stop liking YOU. #this was back in 2021 btw im just. venting ig. #i dont even like [fandom] anymore lol i only watched 2 people involved in it anyway #yet that ex mutual acted like i was commiting warcrimes or smth geeze #anyway. reminder that i dont owe u shit! i do not nor will i ''justify'' my interests to you. if you dont like something here then fuck off #sometimes i think im too mean on here & then i remember this happened n im like ''no i should be meaner'' #controversial was probably the wrong word to use it was more considered ''problematic''. not that i ever cared but. yknow #what is it w me & having terrible friendship experiences oh my god. no wonder i dont trust anyone lol. #this is y i dont talk to ppl anymore pft

[dauntless-gothamite]

Prove Them Wrong [3/?]

Fandom: Divergent Pairing: Eric Coulter x Fem! Reader Summary: Y/N is a Dauntless transfer from Erudite, and she has a drive, an ambition that sets her apart--it always has, even back in Erudite. She brings her perseverance (and need to prove others wrong) to Dauntless when she transfers, and she uses her mind to make her way through the initiation process. Along the way, she makes friends and enemies, and she finds herself comfortable around the man most people in Dauntless avoid at all costs: Eric Coulter. A/N: I like what I did with the end of this one, putting a (hopefully) comedic/unique twist on a trope and adding something original :) feedback is very much appreciated, happy reading

When you walked into the training room the next morning, everyone avoided looking at your face, specifically, your neck. Instead, people looked at the ground. You knew you had bruises around your neck from where Peter had grabbed you, but you hadn’t expected a group of dauntless to be so touchy about it; bruises were common here. 

“Alright, listen up!” Four yelled. “We are doing some target practice today, so line up and get throwing,” he said, pointing to the line of targets against the wall. At least you weren’t fighting today; your body could use a break. That fight with Peter really had worn you out, and since you guys had thrown knives a couple times already, you were starting to get familiar with the technique. 

You walked up to a free target and looked over the knives positioned on the table before you, holding one and turning it over in your hand. “Well? Are you going to throw that knife or just stare at it all day?” the gruff, aggressive voice of Eric asked. You turned to look at him, and a part of you was pleased to notice that he was looking you in the face, not avoiding your eyes and neck like everyone else around here. 

One side of your mouth quirked up in the beginning of a smile before you replied, “I’m about to throw it.”

“Then get on with it!” Without hesitation, you turned your body to the target, and you positioned your feet similar to how you would if you were throwing punches instead of knives. Gripping the handle, you drew the knife back, aimed, and twisted forward, releasing the knife as you traced an invisible arc over your head. The knife stuck to the target with a thud, but it was a little lower than you’d hoped it would be. Eric nodded and said “Get that figured out before I get back, and maybe I won’t yell at you,” before walking away to stand behind some other initiate, most likely to stress them out so much that they’d miss the target completely. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t yell at me very much, you thought to yourself. Because I don’t break under the pressure of his judgemental stare. After taking many math tests with teachers walking around the room, looking over each student’s shoulder as they frantically scribbled down answers, you were used to being watched and assessed. 

Picking up the next knife, you lined yourself up just like you did before and repeated the motion, letting go of the knife a bit earlier this time. The knife landed at the height you wanted it to, but it was a little far to the side. Grabbing for the next knife, you made sure that this time you didn’t twist as much, but you did everything the same way you did before, and the third knife landed just a few millimeters from where you’d aimed, but you were satisfied. Smirking to yourself, you looked to either side before walking forward cautiously to grab the knives from the target. As you grabbed the first knife’s handle and pulled it out of the target, you heard the sound of a knife flying through the air near your head, and in an instant, said knife embedded itself just a centimeter above your head in the target. 

“What the fuck!” you yelled. Whipping around to glare at whichever person’s knife had gone so far off course, you saw Eric standing where you had been standing to throw the knives with a smirk on his face. 

“Just testing you,” he said nonchalantly. You scowled in response, eyeing the knife he still held in his hands. You locked eyes with him, and his smirk grew wider as you backed up against the target, knowing what would come next, right before Eric’s second knife landed between your arm and your torso. You turned back around to grab your knives, and Eric said “Grab mine too, initiate.” While you were turned around, you rolled your eyes, but you did retrieve his knives for him, passing them back to him curtly. He grabbed them out of your hands, fingers brushing ever so slightly in the process, before turning around to torment someone else. 

--

At dinner, just as you were about to take a bite of your hamburger, Will asked, “How did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Get Eric not to hate you!”

“He doesn’t like me,” you scoffed.

“At the very least, he doesn’t yell at you every five minutes,” Tris butted in, to which Will and Christina nodded fervently. 

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Luck, I guess?”

“No way, luck could not possibly get that man to be even a little bit nice to anybody,” Christina countered. 

“Ok, maybe not, but like I said, I don’t know! Maybe it’s because I don’t crack under pressure or something.”

“Something like that,” Will conceded with a sigh before turning on Tris. “Your turn; what’s going on with you and Four?”

“Nothing!” Tris replied. 

“Come on, don’t lie to us,” Christina said. You badly wanted to say something to try and get more information out of Tris, but you refrained just in case they decided to turn back on you and start asking about Eric again. 

“I don’t know,” Tris said. “He’s cute, though,” she admitted with flushed cheeks. 

The banter between you all went on like that for a little while as everyone ate their dinner, until Will got up and said, “I’ll see you guys back at the dorm; I want to get there early and hit the showers while everyone is still at dinner. Get a little privacy for once,” and stood up with a smile. 

As soon as Will was out of earshot, you leaned across the table to Christina and said “So, when are you finally going to tell Will you like him?” you smirked. 

“What? No,” Christina said.

“Come on, Tris, back me up here,” you said.

“She has a point,” Tris said with a nod. 

“You guys are unbelievable!” Christina said and stood up, prompting you and Tris to do the same, and then you all headed out of the dining area together to stroll through dauntless for a little while before going back to the dorm so as to give Will some privacy. 

“You know, I think I’m going to try and shower early as well,” Tris said as the three of you walked. “But don’t worry, Christina, I won’t look at Will,” she winked and laughed before peeling off towards the dorm.

“Hey!” Christina yelled after her as you stood next to her, doubled over in laughter. 

“Will, can you calculate the speed at which my fist hits the punching bag? Can you--” you teased Christina.

“Stop it!” she shrieked, her blush deepening.

“Just admit that you like him, it should be easy for an ex-Candor!”

“Fuck off!” she said, but there was no malice in her tone. You couldn’t help the laugh that escaped you, and that was the last straw before Christina gave you a hard shove, making you stumble as you laughed at her expense. Then your body collided with something solid. You heard whomever you had just crashed into growl in frustration as you stared at their black boots. Eric’s black boots. Your laughter died in your throat as you stood, taking note of the numerous pages and folders that were undoubtedly full of important files in them scattered across the floor. You made eye contact with Christina’s, who at least had the decency to look guilty as she retreated down the hallway, as Eric said “Well, initiate. I don’t know what you were doing, nor do I care, but the rest of your evening will be spent reorganizing the files you just scattered everywhere.” 

You nodded as you made eye contact with him before bending over to pick up the pages on the floor. Once you had picked everything up, Eric started walking and you followed up three flights of stairs and down a hallway, eventually coming to a stop outside a door which he unlocked. You followed him inside as he turned on the lights, and looking around, you knew this was his office. “You will sort these pages by category and date, then leave them on my desk when you’re finished, understood?”

“Actually, I have a question,” you asked as an idea occurred to you. He raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

“What?”

“Wouldn’t something physical be a better punishment? Just because I happen to be good at sorting, this feels like it’s--”

“No,” Eric said. “I know what you’re doing. Trying to get an advantage by extra training and building it into something you already have to do. I’m not an idiot, Y/N.”

Nervous to push him any further, you decided to throw one more thing out there, and if he didn’t take it well you would shut it and sort the files. “Well, of course not, you are from Erudite originally, so--”

“Who told you that,” Eric asked, annoyed. You weren’t sure, but you thought you saw a glimpse of something else in his eyes for a moment. 

“No one, it’s just that Ms. McKimmerer talked about you all the time.”

“That old math teacher? He asked incredulously”

“Yeah, she always said ‘Eric Coulter memorized more digits of pi than any other student in his year, try to be more like him’ and ‘It’s a shame he left Erudite’ when she taught us about pi.”

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Eric scoffed. “And don’t mention that to anyone, initiate!”

“I won’t!” you said, slightly amused. After a brief pause, you said,  “But you should know, there is even a picture of you from that year on her desk, with your hair combed back and a blue collared shirt.”

Eric paused for a moment, and you did your best not to break, but eventually you howled in laughter; his wide-eyed reaction was just too funny.

Scowl in place, Eric schooled his face into a calm, if annoyed mask, and said “get to work on those files. I will check back in a bit to see if you’re done sorting them.” Then, he walked out and shut the door behind him. Chuckling to yourself, you got to work on the large stack of paper before you.

--

The door opened loudly and you woke up to the sound of Eric Coulter clearing his throat. “Did you finish sorting the files before falling asleep at my desk, initiate?” 

Sitting up, slightly embarrassed, you nodded. “Good. Now get out of my office and go eat dinner.”

You stood from the desk, hesitating for a minute. “I actually wanted to ask you something,” you said, turning to face Eric. 

“Yes?”

“Well, I noticed you have a few books in here, and I was wondering if I could borrow Mental Conditioning: Getting Your Mind and Body On the Same Page. I wasn’t looking through your stuff, it’s just on the self over there--”

“I know where my own damn book is,” he said, walking over to it and grabbing the book off the shelf. “Here,” he said, handing it to you. “Return it when you're done, and it better be in the same condition it is now when I get it back, understood?”

“Yes, thank you!” you smiled at him, pleasantly surprised that he was letting you borrow the book.

--

That night, when you got back to the dorm room, you read a few pages of Eric’s book before going to bed. It was a little hard to focus with all the noise--you’d find a better spot to read tomorrow--but you were happy nonetheless; while dauntless was great, you had missed all the books that were available to you at Erudite. As your eyes grew tired, you reached into your bag under your bed, which held your few belongings--every initiate got one--and pulled out a napkin you had been doodling some tattoo ideas on during lunch, placed it between the pages to act as a bookmark, and put the book away in the bag. You closed your eyes, surrounded by your friends, mind calm from reading, and for a moment, despite the lingering pain around your neck, you were completely at peace as you drifted off to sleep. 

Tag List: @shykoolaid, @taina-eny​, @parabatai-winchester​, @marvel-ousnesss​

#eric coulter #eric coulter imagine #eric coulter x reader #divergent #dauntless #erudite #amity #candor #abnegation #tris prior #tobias eaton #four divergent #peter hayes #divergent imagine #motherfxking-flannel #motherfxking flannel

[scuttling]

All I Have To Give

Fandom: Criminal Minds Pairings: Aaron Hotchner/Female Reader Word Count: 5,096 Tags: 18+, NSFW, Daddy kink, Dom/sub, Collar & leash, Oral sex, Deep throating, Restraints, Fingering, Cockwarming, Spanking, Unprotected sex, Come marking, Subspace, Subdrop, Aftercare Summary: A difficult case brings complex emotions, and Aaron is willing to do anything to help the woman he loves process them. *Prompted by @ssamorganhotchner and @angelhotchner and this Link to AO3 or read below! Even after all of his time at the BAU, Aaron knows he hasn’t seen it all, or even close to it—it seems like the atrocities just get worse every year, that humans never fail to find a new way to hurt one another, and that makes him and everyone else on the team constantly question everything they know. He’d like to say it gets easier, but it really doesn’t; you just find new ways to lean on your partners, new ways to cope with the horrors and indecencies the world has to offer.

The case they are currently working on is hitting one profiler especially hard, and because Aaron happens to be in love with her, it’s hitting him hard as well.

“I just can’t imagine waking up one morning and thinking you have your whole life ahead of you, and then some asshole decides he likes the way you look and wants to turn you into his property,” she murmurs that night when they are laying together in the hotel room they share. She had been so strong all day, as always, and then all but collapsed into tears the second the door was closed behind them. “It’s disgusting.”

“I know, baby; cases like these are some of the worst.” He rubs her back with strong hands, pulls her close to his chest. “What can I do for you? I hate to see you like this.” She sniffles, brushes a hand over her eyes, shakes her head.

“I don’t think there’s anything right now. Just being here with me like this, and talking to me, it’s helping. Thank you.” He sighs, because he knows when she gets this upset just talking it out isn’t usually enough, but he has to follow her lead; he just leans in to press his lips to hers, gentle and sweet, and she curls her fingers into his t-shirt and falls asleep with her head against his chest.

The next day, they apprehend the unsub after a standoff; unfortunately, he’d killed the girls when he heard on the police scanner that law enforcement was approaching—all twelve of them. She is the one to find them, and she gets sick, a first in her five years at the BAU. Aaron goes to her side, brings some water for her; her eyes are haunted when she looks up at him.

“Branded,” she croaks, and he doesn’t understand at first, until he looks more closely at the pile of bodies and sees the marks seared into their hips: DM—the unsub’s initials. He exhales deeply, and she turns around and gets sick again.

They take him back to the precinct, try to get a DNA sample, but he won’t agree until his lawyer is present; his story is that his property has been unoccupied for some time, and that he had no idea the girls were being held there, or by whom.

Aaron knows he shouldn’t let her interrogate him. He knows that, but she pleads, and that is something he’s always been unable to resist.

“Branding, huh? Are you that insecure—that worried that the women you called your property wanted nothing to do with you?” she asks, standing with her arms crossed.

“Do you mean my herd? I didn’t just call them my property, honey. They were my property. I owned them. The brands are for everyone else, not for me.” She slams her hands down on the table, sweeps them over the photos she’d laid out in front of him, and they go fluttering to the ground. He can’t see her face, but he knows from her tone that her jaw is clenched, her eyes ablaze.

“You did not own them. Ownership is granted, not taken, you pathetic excuse for a man.” He flexes his hands against the cuffs fixed to the table but says nothing. “You are so powerless that this is the only way you can get it up, isn’t it? By stealing women from their families, their lives, and pretending they’re yours.”

“They are mine!” he shouts, but then he takes a deep breath, visibly calming himself. “I took… the herd, from their meaningless, mundane lives, I brought them home, I gave them purpose. Being my property gave them value they didn’t have before.”

“And then you killed them, so what’s the value now? How dumb do you look?” She gets right up in his face, and hateful, misogynistic poison glints in his eyes, shows through the calm facade he tries so desperately to project. “It’s like burning your own house down, isn’t it? Only there’s no insurance money to collect here, Darren. All that’s left is your stupid ass and a pile of bodies with your fucking name on them.”

“Don’t call me stupid,” he mutters, and she drums her fingers on the tabletop, almost thoughtfully.

“What would you call it? Risking everything to abduct twelve women only to turn around and kill them so they can’t tell us what a pitiful human being you are?” She leans in closer, and he turns his neck to face away from her, like he’s trying to ignore her. “But the thing is, I don’t need them to tell me,” she whispers. “I know you were a disappointment to your father, a disgrace to your mother. I know the disgusting, depraved things you did to your sister, and now the whole world’s going to know. I’m going to tell everyone.”

Aaron can see the change in him from where he stands on the other side of the glass, and he glances at Morgan, then makes for the door. He’s just gotten it open when the man pulls back and spits on her cheek; she freezes, then reaches up, wipes it off, calm and collected, and grabs his jaw with the hand not covered in saliva.

“Guess what, Darren? You’re my property, now. Your ass belongs to the US Government, and I’m going to personally ensure you never see the light of day again.” She holds her hand up—covered in DNA evidence—and walks past Aaron, out the door. She is unusually quiet on the flight back to DC despite the successful interrogation, pensive and solitary; even on the ride from the airport back home she just leans toward him, silent, hand resting on his thigh, her eyes unfocused.

He knows how hard this case hit her, can only hope that she will open up to him when they get home so he can give her what she needs to get through it. He will do anything, just needs to hear it from her.

“Why don’t we take a bath?” he says softly when they get home, dropping their bags in the laundry room, and he brushes a hand over her cheek. “We can soak the day away, and then maybe if you’re feeling better we can talk about what I can do to help.”

She looks up at him, nods, and they rid each other of their clothes and he draws them a bath, hot and foamy with calming aromatherapy oils she enjoys. She lays along his body, curled up, head on his chest, and he holds her close, massages the back of her neck and her shoulders with gentle fingers.

When they get out and dry off, she heads for her closet, returns with a box as tall as a thick book, a little less wide; she sets it on the bed, perches next to it, and looks up at him with expectant eyes.

“What’s this, baby?” he asks, approaching, and he kneels down, puts his arm around her and sets a hand on the box. “Is it for me?”

“Yes, daddy. It’s for you to put on me. I bought it a few weeks ago, but I… I need it now.” He lifts the lid, pulls out what he thinks at first is a wrist cuff but is actually a thick leather collar, with two metal rings attached to the front, and a… a leash. It’s made of metal chain, not long, with a leather loop to hold, and to say he’s caught off guard by this gift would be an understatement.

“You want me to put this on you? Can I ask why?” She moves toward him, puts her hands on the collar too, looks up at him with wide, wet eyes.

“Because I’m not my own person. You own me.” She tilts her neck, bares it, clearly waiting for him to put it on her, but what she’s saying doesn’t sit right with him, too many parallels to the case that made her so physically and mentally unwell.

“Baby, you are your own person. I love you for exactly who you are, and I would never try to own you, to take who you are away from you.” He presses his palm to her cheek, and she leans into it, kisses it with soft, gentle lips.

“It’s not you taking, daddy, it’s me giving. I need to give this to you—it’s the most important thing I have, and I need you to let me give this to you.” He exhales deeply, still not sold on the idea; she may think she wants this in the moment, feeling low as she is, but, what if she changes her mind? What if she no longer trusts his judgement because he plays into this when she’s not at her most clear-headed?

“Are you sure?” he asks, looking into her eyes, checking them for hesitation, but she only nods; he moves his hand from her cheek, gently pulls the collar out of her grip and brings it to her throat, buckles it at the nape of her neck. She sighs, something like relief when he leans back; she wets her lips, and her eyes are heavy.

“You own me, daddy. I’m yours, see?” She tilts her neck again, but all he sees is that it’s tight against her skin, maybe uncomfortably so. He frowns.

“Is it too tight? It looks too tight. I think we should take it off; maybe we can try again another night, when you didn’t have such a hard day.” He moves his hands to the back of her neck, wants to unbuckle it, but she gets upset almost instantly, looking down at her empty hands like they’re causing her pain. He covers them with his own, shushes her softly. “Oh, what is it, sweet girl? Daddy’s right here, it’s okay.”

“I just wanted to please you, daddy. Your name is on me, and I thought you would like it, but if you don’t want me this way…” That makes him pause, and he brings her hands to his lips, kisses them.

“What do you mean, my name is on you? What does that mean, baby?” She pulls her hand out of his, moves her hair out of the way, and then he sees it: his initials, AH, embossed on the collar in silver script.

God, it’s no wonder she had such a visceral reaction to the branding. And it’s no wonder she is stressing wanting to give this to him, when the other women had their choices taken from them. She has a choice, and she’s making it, and all he has to do is accept the gift she’s trying so hard to give to him.

“Please, daddy. I need to give this to you,” she murmurs, further solidifying what he now knows, and he wraps the chain around his hand, pulls it tight, tugs her close for a kiss.

The easy way the tension leaves her body at the possessive gesture makes him groan, and he kisses her so long and hard that—between the kissing and the collar—she is already in subspace when he pulls back to let them catch their breath.

“You’re mine, baby girl; my name is on you. I own you.” She pants, nods, puts her hands on his shoulders and looks into his eyes, so grateful, beautiful.

“Yes, daddy. Thank you, daddy. I’m yours so tell me what to do and I’ll do it, anything. Please.” He kisses her again, then climbs onto the bed, loosens his grip on the chain a bit and pulls her with him as he lays back against the pillows. Her gaze is warm, brilliant, and he guides her to kneel between his legs, drops the leash and takes the black hair tie off of her wrist to sweep her hair back into a ponytail. It’s by no means perfect, but she likes when he does it, knows what it means; she’s already staring at his cock, and he’s willing to bet her mouth is watering in anticipation.

“I want you to suck for me, sweet girl. Owned girl.” Her eyelashes flutter and she wets her lips, nods enthusiastically. She wraps one hand around his cock, presses the other against his thigh, and he picks up the chain again, tightens it as she drops to cover him with her mouth.

She starts with short, wet, slow strokes, looking up at him through her pretty lashes, and he’s reduced to just his love for her and his need to come, as always when she does this for him. He moans softly, reaches down a hand to squeeze her breast, to give her some contact and pleasure, and she whines, moves a little faster.

He wasn’t planning to come this way, but he can think of plenty of ways to keep her occupied and feeling good while he recovers, so he wraps the chain around his hand one more time, guides her down, so she’ll take him deeper. She can do it, has been trained at her own request, because almost nothing makes her wetter than having her mouth full of his cock.

“Good girl, you’re doing so good for daddy. Can I come down your throat, baby? Can you take it?” She nods, bobs, and he yanks the chain just to see what she will do.

It turns her into a bit of a feral little monster, humping her hips against nothing, digging her nails into his thigh, doubling down on her efforts to make him come, and he just tips his head back and enjoys it, pinches her nipple between his fingers.

“Yes, sweet girl. So close. Keep moving your hips, baby; horny, desperate girl. Daddy will let you come soon, just keep going.” Perfect woman that she is, she hums around him, takes him deeper yet; the chain is wound so far around his hand he thinks absently that he may as well just hold onto her collar, and when he hooks his finger around the metal ring she looks up at him and moans.

He comes holding onto that ring, and when she is finished swallowing for him he pulls her up by it, kisses her passionately, gratefully, and whispers praise against her lips; she is soaking wet, he can feel it where she is sprawled on his stomach, so he guides her to lay back on the bed and leans in for a couple more kisses.

“That was perfect, my sweet, owned girl. Did you like that?” He holds the chain loose and rubs two fingers over her clit, and she bucks up, nods her head.

“Yes, owner daddy. I love when you let me take you that far. It makes me achy,” she whines, and he spreads her thighs apart, very wide, presses a finger inside.

“I know, baby. I can feel how soft and wet you are for daddy. I want you to come on my fingers next, okay?”

“Yes, please, I want to. Want to come on them hard for you.” He leans in for a sweet, soft kiss, slides his finger out of her, then takes her hands and brings them together under her chin, wraps the chain around her wrists so they’re loosely bound, holding the handle in his fist. She moans like he’s destroying her, though he’s barely touched her, but when he slips two fingers inside her she just gasps softly and throws her head back, her stomach tensing.

“Such a pretty girl for me. I’m so lucky you’re all mine.” He is calm—or at least, he’s projecting calm—where she is keyed up, eager, desperate, and he always loves it like this, loves to see how much he can tease her, how long she will hold out until she’s begging for him to fuck her with his hand. “Can you stay still for me? I wonder how long you can stay still for me, sweet girl.”

“Mmm, daddy.” Her chest is heaving as he thrusts his fingers slowly in, then out, then rubs them up her pussy, between her lips, and then thrusts them back in. It’s got to be torture for her, but she just breathes. “I can stay still, daddy. I can do whatever you ask.”

He closes his eyes briefly, collects himself so he doesn’t let all that power go to his head, and pushes his fingers into her a bit faster just to watch her struggle to behave.

“Does that feel good, daddy’s girl?” She bites her lip and nods, offers him a strained god, yes, so he adds another finger; the fact that she can speak at all means she’s far too coherent for his liking. He leans up for a kiss, brushes his nose over her throat, along the edge of the collar, right where his initials are, and she lifts her hips but stops herself, whimpers. “Oh, baby, what is it? Are you needy?” he whispers in her ear.

“Needy, please daddy,” she pleads softly, her eyes focused on him when he pulls back to look at her face, but also a little far away at the same time. “Please, please, I need to come. I need to come, I’m achy.”

“Shh, it’s okay, I’ve got you. I’ll make you come, sweet girl.” He presses their mouths together a couple times, losing his composure a little as she loses hers, and then he moves down between her open legs and rubs his tongue over her clit while pounding his fingers inside.

She is unable to resist moving her hips as she gets closer to climax, and he pulls away, pausing to look up into her eyes again. They’re very hazy now, and she’s whining high in her throat at the sudden lack of stimulation.

“If you don’t stay still, daddy will have to spank you, baby girl. Do you understand?” She nods lazily, and he taps his hand against her pussy, a couple of light slaps just to get her attention. She blinks, makes eye contact, and he asks again. “Do you understand?”

“Yes, daddy.” She flicks her tongue over her lips, closes her eyes, and he leans back in to roll his tongue over her clit, fingers moving quickly in and out of her. She remains still for about thirty seconds and then slams down hard against his hand, and from there she doesn’t stop. “Oh please, please. So close, please daddy,” she begs, pressing into the thrusts, and just when she is starting to come he wraps his hand around the chain around her wrists, tugs her body up so he can reach her mouth, and kisses her deep and wet while he fucks her through her orgasm.

She comes hard as promised, soaking his hand, moaning into the kiss—probably due to the fact that he’s holding her up by the leash, because displays of strength make her feel extremely submissive—and when she is through he lays her gently back, unwinds the chain and kisses her wrists.

“Good girl, you did so well. Daddy is so proud.” He leans up to press easy kisses to her cheeks and mouth, and she wraps her arms around his neck, making soft noises of contentment against his lips. “I love you so much, sweetheart. I love making you feel good. Do you love making me feel good?”

He knows she does, but likes to hear it, even when it’s just a sigh like the one she gives him now—he knows what all of her sounds mean, when she’s so deeply sunken into subspace that she's all begging and soft noises and daddy.

“Yeah, I know you do, sweetheart. Are you ready for me to come inside you? Daddy comes inside because he owns you.”

“Daddy, mmm,” she breathes, and he gets up on his knees, spreads them, and drapes her thighs over his, slides in easily because she is still so open and slick. He wraps one hand around her thigh and brings the other to the chain hooked to her collar, loops it around his forearm, and thrusts quick and smooth, grunting when she grabs his wrists and bucks her hips against him. “Oh, fuck. Oh.” She gasps when he pulls on the chain a little harder, bounces roughly against his thighs and whimpers her pleasure, then drops a hand to her pussy and rubs as he slams into her with equal desperation.

“Yes baby, fuck daddy. Good girl, rubbing your little pussy; if I come before you, you’ll have to wait a while, so I hope you get off first.” She whines unhappily at that, rubs faster, her head tipped back, and when he squeezes her breast with the hand holding the handle of the leash she wraps her legs tightly around his thighs and comes with his name on her lips.

It doesn’t take long for him to follow: he takes his hands off of her completely, since she’s holding on to him with her legs, and fucks her hard, pulling on the chain and muttering praise until he spills deep inside her. She is breathless, still but for the rise and fall of her chest, and he takes a moment before pulling out, unwrapping the chain from around his arm and encouraging her to turn onto her stomach.

She complies easily, looks fucked-out and spent, and he kisses along her spine, between her shoulder blades when he slides back into her.

“Again, daddy?” she asks, barely a whisper, and he runs his hands over her body, soft and soothing, leans in to put his weight against her back, his mouth at her ear.

“Not yet, baby girl, but I want to stay inside you, okay? How are you feeling?” She turns her head for a kiss, hums.

“Fuzzy. Good.” He kisses her again and moves his lips to her jaw, then her neck, right up against the collar.

“Is it uncomfortable? Too tight?” he asks softly. He doesn’t want to upset her by suggesting they take it off, but he’s been rough with it, so he wants to check.

“No, owner daddy. It’s perfect.” She gets her arm out from beneath her, reaches it around his neck and pulls him close, nuzzles against his throat. “I love you and I love being owned by you.”

“I love you, baby girl, and I love owning you. You’ve given me everything.”

This may have started as something to do to get her through the lingering effects of the case, but he would be lying if he said he doesn’t see and feel the value in the voluntary transfer of power, how easily she gave herself to him, willingly, completely. He kisses her again, sweet and slow, and then leans up, puts his hands on her ass, massages it.

“Do you need anything?” She murmurs yes, and he smiles a little to himself, rubs a hand up her back. “Thank you for telling me, baby. What can daddy do for you?”

“I need to be spanked, daddy. I couldn’t hold still.” She slides up to her hands and knees, knees spread wide, and though he’s no longer hard inside her, he doesn’t see that being a problem for long.

“That’s right. Good girl for reminding me.” He squeezes her ass, then lightly taps it, and she whimpers. “You were too horny, you couldn’t stay still. I’m not mad,” he promises with another tap. “I know how you get when I touch your pussy: you become such a messy, needy, desperate baby. You can’t help yourself.” She sighs, presses her ass back against him and tilts her head back a little.

“Can’t help myself, daddy,” is all she says, voice breathy and short, and he picks up the leash, holds it loosely along the length of her spine, and smacks her hard on the ass with an open palm.

She gasps, digs her fingers into the bedding, braces herself for more impact; by the sixth, she is grinding against him, panting and whining, her ass an angry red. She’s drenched in slick, and he’s hard again, so he grabs her ass roughly with both hands and thrusts a few times before spanking her a seventh time.

“Fuck daddy, yes daddy,” she moans, pushing eagerly into his thrusts; she fucks herself on his cock even when he’s still, even when his hands come down hard on her already irritated skin. “Mmh. I’m bad, daddy. I’m bad and I’m not perfect, but you still love me.” He exhales deeply, because he knows his girl well, and he knows this means she will be dropping, hard, as soon as she comes; he mentally prepares for the worst, just in case.

“You’re not bad, sweetheart, you are so good; not just to me, but to everyone.” He moves one hand to her hip, holds her steady, then grabs the chain with the other hand and pulls her closer while he pounds inside her. “And no, you’re not perfect, but you’re perfect for daddy; you’re smart, and sweet, and so beautiful, and I love you.” He drapes himself over her back, tugs on the chain so she will meet him for a gentle kiss, their lips so soft in contrast to the way their bodies meet, eager for release. “I love you, baby. Come and let daddy take care of you. Daddy will make it all better.”

She reaches back for him, covers his hand with hers and takes a deep, shuddering breath; it’s only a matter of time before the tears fall, and he would like to be holding her by then, so he curls his hand around to rub at her clit, murmurs reassurances and repeats that he’s got her, and she comes trembling, gasping beneath him.

He kisses her shoulders, thrusts a few more times and then pulls out to come on her hot, marked ass; breathless, he eases her body down onto the bed, leans up to brush her hair back and unbuckle the collar, sets it aside.

“That’s it, sweet girl. Time to rest and let daddy take care of you. You did so well for me, baby. You gave me everything; I will be so careful with it.” He squeezes his eyes shut, feels so much emotion for the sensitive, thoughtful, incredible woman beneath him it makes his chest ache. He brings a hand to her ass, rubs his come in, knows that it stings—but they both like this, and he knows she will expect it, would feel somehow inadequate if he didn’t. He presses a kiss to her lower back. “I’m going to get you some water, good girl. Amazing, special girl. Be right back.”

He grabs a pillow, brings it to her head and lifts it up so she’s pressed comfortably against it, then gives her a peck on the cheek and heads to the kitchen for water and a snack. When he returns, she’s clutching the pillow, turned to face the door so she can see him enter. He pulls her close, sits her up enough to give her a few sips of water, then sets down the glass and holds her against his chest, soft and shivering slightly in his arms.

“I know we just had a bath earlier, but would you like another? Or a shower?” He tugs the blanket loose and wraps it around them, rocks her a little. Gently removing the ponytail holder from her hair, he shakes it loose with his fingers, rubs her throat where the collar left a slight indentation. “Sweet, owned girl, I will give you anything you need, always. Just tell me when you’re ready.”

She cries, clutching at him, and he soothes her, squeezes her, moves his hands through her hair and brushes the tears off of her face; when the sobbing slows, he reaches carefully for tissues on the bedside table, dries her eyes and helps her blow her nose, then gives her more water. She looks a little better after drinking half the glass, so he convinces her to take a couple bites of food, rubs her sore ass with a soft hand.

“Can we shower? And then more of this?” she asks, just a whisper, and he nods and leans in for some slow, sweet presses of lips. Her fingers card through his hair, and he presses a hand to her cheek. “Thank you, daddy. I’m so grateful for you.”

“I’m grateful for you, too, baby. The world just isn’t right when you’re upset—when I can’t find that brilliant smile.” It’s not quite brilliant, but the corner of her mouth does curve up for him, which he considers a good sign. “Let’s go get cleaned up and then I’ll hold you until you’re sick of me,” he teases. He unwraps them and gets off the bed with her in his arms.

“Could never be sick of you ever. Perfect daddy, perfect man.” He shoots her a look, something like yeah right but not too self-deprecating, and she cuddles closer. “Okay, perfect for me, anyway. Strong, gentle owner daddy I know I can trust with everything.”

They shower—she practically purrs when he scrubs her head with shampoo, when he combs conditioner through her hair with his fingers—and slip into pajamas, and he takes the comforter to the laundry room and grabs the spare, wraps her up tight and pulls her close, hugs and kisses and talks to her about everything and nothing until she’s ready for some dinner and a movie on the couch.

She thanks him for everything he did to help her through it, but it’s really his pleasure; it’s where he finds his value, and he tells her so. Because she can’t wear the collar to work, he makes a stop on his lunch break a week later, sneaks into a jewelry store, and buys her a ring.

There is no room to inscribe his initials, but his intentions are heavily implied.

Taglist ❤️: @thaddeusly @arsonhotchner @mrsh0tchner @ssahotchie @sleepyreaderreads @mintphoenix @meghannnnnn @disgruntledchowchow @azenpal @g-l-pierce @my-rosegold-soul @ssamorganhotchner @heliotropehotch @angelhotchner @qtip-blog @gspenc @wishuhadstayed

#aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner fanfic #criminal minds #criminal minds fanfic #aaron hotchner x reader #aaron hotchner x female reader #hotch x female reader #hotch x reader #request #prompt

[dyinginlava]

Analysing “Let Me Be Your Vassal” (aka that one Dream & Wilbur conversation)

Wherein Cy decides going line by line through a scene from five months ago is a wonderful idea

Alright, let’s go! Recently I went back to watch Wilbur’s ‘Am I The Villain?’ video, since it was the first DSMP video I actually watched and I noticed something that made me actually go and find the vod from October 8th to specifically watch it: the details of Wilburs conversation with Dream where he asks for the TNT. Now, this did happen about five months ago now, but I think it would be good to look at this scene both with further character information we have now, and hopefully to clarify some things that newer fans might not be aware of! There’s also the fact that c!Wilbur is likely returning to the story soon.

I will be using quotes with timestamps to support my analysis, from this video. When [...] is used, it is to indicate an irrelevant tangent or repetition. Also, I feel it is important to note that this analysis is not meant to indicate moral judgement in any way: it is intended as a unbiased look at character actions and motivations.

First, let’s establish the exact situation here. At this point in time, we’re before the festival, and Dream has volunteered to help Pogtopia and has already given Technoblade supplies. He had also written a book to Tommy wherein he stated he didn’t support Schlatt due to his power-hungry ambitions, unlike Wilbur. After being seen as a villain in the last war, he didn’t want to become publicly involved especially through breaking a peace treaty, and instead offered to help from the shadows. He also gave Tommy his crossbow and some armour along with the book. While some may doubt his intentions as stated, I have reason to believe he’s being honest, as will be mentioned later. (Information taken directly from the book Tyrant, given to Tommy by Dream).

On Wilbur’s side, he’d just had his ‘then let’s be the bad guys’ moment after seeing Schlatt announce the festival, talking with Tommy on the way back to Pogtopia.

“We burn the place to the fucking ground!” - Wilbur 1:10:50

He starts making a plan:

“Okay, here’s the plan, right? Dream, Dream is on our side, Dream has TNT, Dream has everything, right? I say, we talk to Dream, and we ask him, very nicely, very kindly, ‘Dream, give us all the TNT you have’” - Wilbur 1:12:20

“The only reason Dream is working with us is because of the fact that we are the enemies of his enemies! That’s it! That’s all that joins... this!” - Wilbur, to Tommy 1:14:30

I feel a need to note here, that anything Wilbur says to Tommy about their allies shouldn’t be taken at face value: at this point his paranoia has begun clouding his view, as he also distrusts Tubbo, and later even doubts Tommy.

“Everyone who’s claiming to be on our side, they’re lying to us! Tubbo? he’s lying to you man! He would drop us at the second he realises that we’re not in the lead anymore!” - Wilbur, to Tommy 1:16:10

He has no proof to back up his claim about Dream, and personally I’m inclined to not believe his claim, seeing as Dream previously had no issue with L’Manberg after the peace treaty.

After some tunnel shenanigans happen, Wilbur asks Dream to talk privately: the conversation starts at 1:31:30

The conversation begins with Wilbur informing Dream about the festival, which he was previously unaware of. Dream laughs at the mention of the festival being a celebration of democracy, but whether this is because of his disdain for Schlatt or a personal dislike of democracy is unclear (question for another time: is c!Dream a monarchist? The SMP is technically ruled by a king after all, but they fulfil more of a neutral peacekeeping role in general. Theocracy???).

Wilbur then asks Dream if he thinks he and Tommy are the bad guys in the situation, and like Tommy, he disagrees. Wilbur proceeds to explain his reasoning, and then asks Dream what he thinks.

“I think that sometimes, a ruler is unfit, and that causes problems” - Dream 1:32:50

Wilbur then starts trying to persuade Dream to help him.

“Dream, I think you have vested interest though, I think that you would enjoy there to be conflict between Manberg and Pogtopia. And you know what, I’m here to facilitate that!” - Wilbur 1:33:00

Dream immediately denies this, and returns to talking about Schlatt.

“I don’t— Jschlatts a little bit more ambitious than you I’d say” - Dream 1:33:20

Note that at this point, Tommy meets up with Wilbur but is not in vc. Ignoring what Dream has just said, Wilbur makes his pitch:

“Dream, Dream, let me be your vassal! Dream, I understand you have a lot of TNT?” - Wilbur 1:33:25

Dream confirms that he has TNT.

“Dream, I want to be your vassal, I want to set this up, I want to rig the city” - Wilbur 1:33:40

This is the first time Wilbur mentions using the TNT to destroy L’Manberg. I also want to point out the use of the term ‘vassal’ here, as while the line itself is very well known, I’ve yet to see someone point out the relevant definition here is ‘a person or country in a subordinate position to another’ which you might notice, isn’t really the case here. Wilbur is asking Dream to supply him with something, there’s nothing subordinate about it. It could be that he’s implying that he’ll owe Dream for the favour, or it could be him seeing it as ‘helping’ Dream by destroying L’Manberg, as we’ve established his paranoia is leading him to see his allies in a negative light.

The two decide to meet at Pogtopia, and Tommy speaks up for the first time in the conversation.

“Dream, Dream don’t give it to him. It’s not right!”- Tommy

“Tommy it’s too... I have to.” - Dream 1:33:50 (overlapping)

‘I have to’ is an interesting line, and I’m assuming he’s referring to the promise he made to assist Pogtopia by supplying them. It does highlight how, at this point in time, Dream still seems hesitant about the plan.

Wilbur then starts talking to Dream but abruptly switches to talking to Tommy instead.

“Dream, I appreciate ... cause you see Tommy, the thing you’re not understanding is Dream only gave you that gear so that you could cause this conflict! You see, this is what it’s all about, Dream doesn’t want us to win! Dream just wants both Pogtopia and Manberg to be weak! [...] and Dream I’m not scolding you on this, it’s smart, you’re smart..” - Wilbur 1:34:00

To clarify my stance on this to people who are newer to the fandom, during Pogtopia, Dream and Tommy were actually on good, even friendly terms. It’s not until Dream joined Manberg that they became enemies again. Personally, I see this as Wilbur trying to make Tommy distrust Dream just as he did with Tubbo, although interpretations may differ. Wilbur complimenting Dream can be seen as trying to get on his good side and/or trying to persuade Dream that he wants to help Wilbur with the TNT.

“I’m here to help you, I’m here to weaken both of us!” - Wilbur 1:34:25

Dream then gets a chance to speak.

“I do want Pogtopia and Manberg to be nothing more, and I want L’Manberg to be... something” - Dream 1:34:40

Tommy asks why he wants L’Manberg back after he fought against them over it before.

“Schlatt is ambitious, and that’s a bad thing. He wants power, he wants land, he wants to expand. You having your own little server [...] that’s fine by me!” - Dream 1:34:55

Here Dream claims that due to Schlatt being power hungry he stands against him, but didn’t have an issue with L’Manberg just existing. I’m inclined to believe this claim, as it matches up with his actions in between the war and the elections. He also claims to have had a change of heart about L’Manberg, which again, seems to line up with his actions.

Wilbur then lets out a very evil sounding laugh, very melodramatic, I applaud cc!Wilbur for it. He then says something that I think is extremely important to this analysis, and part of why I made it in the first place.

“Dream, this has made me ambitious! If I’m taking power again I will be ambitious! Let me blow it up, let me destroy it all!” - Wilbur 1:35:15

Now considering what both Wilbur and Dream have been saying, there a very obvious conclusion you can come too here: Wilbur is claiming that he’d be just as bad as Schlatt if he was back in power, that there would be no getting the old L’Manberg back, that Dream would be better off helping his plan. Now obviously Wilbur isn’t evil— he’s paranoid, angry, and desperate— but this is what he claims to Dream, who’s knows he’s been willing to fight for L’Manberg before and has said he (Dream) wants to avoid fighting L’Manberg again. I know a lot of c!Wilbur fans get annoyed at people saying Wilbur manipulated Dream during Pogtopia, but you can’t deny that this moment specifically is manipulative: he’s specifically lying about his intentions to convince someone to help him. And it works! Dream arrives, and hands over the TNT to Wilbur.

Wilbur heads back to the entrance to Pogtopia, where Tommy holds him at bowpoint before Dream steps in, handing Wilbur a shield. Tommy talks about how they can rebuild L’Manberg rather than destroying it, but Wilbur laughs at it. Dream turns to leave.

“Dream, I will do you proud” - Wilbur 1:36:55

Dream offers to help him if he needs it, and Wilbur warns him about the festival. Dream leaves the game, marking the end of the conversation at 1:37:41.

When heading back into Pogtopia, Wilbur talks to chat about Dream being a ‘good guy’ but also repeating what he said before about Dream just wanting both sides to be weak.

Now that the main analysis is done, I did want to mention a few things that didn’t really fit within the main body for whatever reason: not enough evidence, may be biased etc. For one thing, I definitely noticed a shift in how Wilbur spoke to Dream, from initially just asking him for TNT to almost acting like the TNT was Dream’s idea. This could tie into the manipulation I noted, or it could just be a result of his paranoia causing him to misinterpret what Dream really wants. Or both! As I mentioned before, Wilbur’s narration can’t really be trusted because of this, but what we can do is compare actions and words: if what a person says their motives are lines up with how they act, then they’re probably being honest. There’s also the matter of context— Dream claiming to Eret that he’s always wanted everything to be Dream SMP territory when dethroning them doesn’t make much sense if you compare it to how he acted about L’Manberg after the war, at least until you realise he’s talking to the king of the Dream SMP and trying to play into what he thinks she wants— he even emphasise that them being able to take over after the war between Manberg and Pogtopia is only a possibility.

Anyway, this took a while but was fun to write, and hopefully even if you don’t agree with my personal interpretation of these events, looking at the quotes will hopefully be helpful for coming to your own conclusions! :D

#dream smp #dsmp #dream smp analysis #Wilbur soot #dreamwastaken #my analysis #Pogtopia

[ectonurites]

hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

[feckin-zicons]

that's why i hate larries, i hate them with all my heart. besides being boring they are hypocrites 🙄

Hey nonnie, sorry its taken me so long to reply but if you’re following me you know I’ve been travelling lately and have been more scatterbrained than usual. Not that I’m ever not scatterbrained, but its been just a little crazier than usual!

Now I wouldn’t go as far to say I hate Larries. After all their delusions can be pretty funny sometimes!

Joking aside, I don’t hate Larries, I love Larries, I’m a Larry, so I really hesitate to tarry the whole group with the same brush. However I do strongly agree with you that there are those who are complete hypocrites. Nothing annoys more more than when Larries ™ treat the other boys, other celebrities, their friends and even family as one more side character to the Larry Show.

In particular when Larries ™ flood comment sections asking or in some cases, ordering people to confirm rumors/the couple being together. The absolute fucking disrespect. Not just because they’re flooding comment sections in videos streams, tweets, what have you, that sometimes have nothing to do with the couple in question, but because its presumptuous and rude as fuck to think they’re owed a coming out- just because they’re fans of the boys.

Stop it. Thats fucking ugly as hell.

While I have no doubt all the boys will one day be out (as referenced by their continued efforts in fighting the closet. I don’t get the sense the boys will just stop at being freed from their contractual obligations). It should and will be on their own terms. Provided they’re not forcibly outed some other way.

Coming out is a deeply personal experience and no one, no one ever, has the right to out someone else. I’ll never not be absolutely furious at the Larries ™ who posted about having ‘receipts’ that would out the boys. Which… tbh weren’t receipts at all but thats a whole other story. I’m also still angry at the reactions after Liams Attitude spread that wouldn’t have been as bad if not for the entitled fandom that peddled ridiculous claims beforehand about Liam confirming Larry to be real.

I mean… What the actual fuck. Setting aside the fandom experience of the time, and boy was it an experience. What right would Liam have confirming Louis and Harry’s relationship? I mean, get some perspective? It doesn’t help that a lot of fandom adults were the ones coming up with, and reblogging those theories and the younger fans ate it up. It would have made more sense for Louis and Harry to do it but idk maybe I’m still out of touch for thinking so. I mean, it felt like every other week someone was talking about Larry coming out. It was such a shit storm oh my god.

Biggest issue I still have with them is that the entitled behaviour hasn’t stopped. For some it seems like, Larry coming out is it for them. Like pack it up, goodbye, shows over, Louis and Harry are gay and in a relationship and everything is rainbows, we get to see cute pictures of them and everyone lives happily ever after.

Yeah, no. Coming out, for anyone, is just the beginning, can’t even begin to imagine what its like for them. They’re still going to need everyones support, and it irritates me that for some fans it seems so fucking conditional.

Time and time again, I’ve seen tweets, and posts, and videos, whatever, going on about Larry coming out and it reads like a fucking wattpad story. Not just that but its always on the assumption by the poster, on the off chance they consider the other 3/5ths of the band and Ziam being a possibility, that Larry will come out first?

What?

I’m sorry but, what?

Everything I’ve seen from the boys tells me they’re all in this together, they support each other and are working through the bullshit as a team. We have all seen the No Judgement music video yes? The merch, posts, double speak etc referencing each other, yes?

I mean, I suppose if you only look at Louis and Harry, like so many do, sure. Only Larry matters, everyone else is a side character in their life.

(Lemme just, scream for a second).

However, that kind of thinking leads them to the wrong conclusions. Like… assuming the SBB/RBB countdown was attributed to nothing, when it counted down to Liam finally being free of Sophia. In the years since, I’ve seen Larries ™ backtrack on claiming the bears had anything to do with the boys, that they weren’t behind it at all, or that they were just trolling the fandom.

You know, despite all the proof otherwise, and some really, really good posts breaking down clues about what the boys were trying to tell us. The moment something might not actually be about Louis and Harry its like all their thinking shuts off. Its frustrating. Really fucking frustrating.

Seriously, fans of the other boys as individulas, not just Ziams, have been talking about the stunts too and how they fit together. Its why we tend to be right, because we’re considering the entire group. They’re still a group. They’re not free until all of them are free.

Just for that Nialls coming out first. Lmao. I’ll call it now. Lets go Niall, whens the baby coming. We all wanna know. Its been years.

Imagine, imagine! Acting like coming out is some race to be won. The fucking audacity.

Go outside and touch fucking grass you absoulte ninny.

I get it, you want to be vindicated, you want to be rewarded for putting your faith in two celebrities being together.

Newsflash you dandelionfluff, its not a race, Louis and Harry coming out isn’t a fucking prize. Thats not what supporting a relationship looks like.

Its worse when someone admits they don’t know much about Ziam or the possibility of Niall being LGBT+, and claim they’re open to it, but then immediately tweet or reblog or sub tweet or tag comment a post or answer an ask from another Larry ™ talking about how Larries ™ are the most marginalized and persecuted group.

???

In what fucking world?

IN WHAT FUCKING WORLD?

If we wanna play that game, boohoo, the media claims Louis and Harry aren’t friends anymore because of crazy shippers. Meanwhile Zayn publicly isn’t friend with anyone and “left” the band… despite the Ziam fandom calling the stunt about either Louis or Zayn “leaving” and getting it down to the exact week (the second article coming out a week before about the Ziam kiss pretty much cemented it for Zayn leaving. Which did a lot to fan the flames of the already rabid fanbase when Ziam got two articles confirming a Ziam kiss over the years and Larry got nada. Like that actually means anything).

Not to mention Larries ™ using the hetties and management tactics against the other parts of the fandom to silence them.

Who cares what the media says anyway!  TPTB, 1DHQ, The Sun, The Mirror, Simon and his minions and their unpaid interns have used the media to split the fandom apart and it worked.

Who the fuck cares if the media calls the 1D stans delusional, you know the truth! The truth it out there and you’ve seen it! The truth is coming! Who gives a damn about what some two bit “journo” who failed out of their creative writing course writes? They get worse by the year. If it wasn’t so pathetic and hilarious I might actually feel embarrassed for them. They can’t even come up with new stories and have just taken to copying old articles, but you’re upset with them??? Give it a rest. Honestly.

The sense of disconnect, entitlement and victimhood of some Larries ™ is absolutely ridiculous.

Oh my god they’re Karens. I’m not trying to be insulting, but thats exactly who they remind me of.

I’m not going to say its a surprise to me that so many in the Ziam fandom are POC, LGBT+, and Neurodivergent and any combination of those, but I am going to say I’ve read a lot of Larry fics that just have Het sex made gay. Those in the Ziam fandom just tend to look at facts in a different way than Larries do due to their life experiences. A interfaith, interracial, relationship where one or both partners fall under the Bi umbrella (not saying Louis or Harry can’t be or aren’t Bi+ but rumors, and the way the fandom markets them, puts them firmly in the gay category) looks very, very different than gay or straight relationship. Both looking from outside and being in one. There’s just different dynamics at play that aren’t often realized or understood by the gays and hets.

Its not a bad thing. All relationships are different. The issue is that theres a lot of biphobia/racism/religious prejudice etc that arises from people being unwilling to understand the inherent differences.

Taking myself for example, I’m bi, like, bi as hell, and I don’t understand how gays and hets only like one gender. I just don’t. Can’t wrap my head around it. If someone asks me to choose one gender over the others to prefer I can’t. Its so stressful. My brain goes into panic mode and it feels like I’m being torn apart. My sense of identity is shaken- its a shit feeling. I just can’t lie to myself like that. If other people feel the same well, its no wonder bi+ have such high rates of depression and suicide. Its not about choosing who to like, there is no choice, I just feel attraction to everyone. Aces, I get. Its similar to being the opposite of what I feel, or not feeling an attraction to someone I’m not interested in. Easy. Gays and hets? I’m completely lost on.

Completely, and I know I’m not the only one who feels that way. But that doesn’t mean I’m not willing to try and understand where they’re coming from. Its alien to me, personally, but I’m not going to shut down the fact, that theres a fuck ton of people who only like one gender or try and make up reasons as to why they’re actually bi+

I digress, none of the boys fall neatly into the gay stereotypes, its just that parts of the Larry fandom have boxed Louis and Harry into certain roles to fit preconceived notions (likely do to them initially fitting in better with the white, sassy, somewhat effeminate twink thats been plastered all over Hollywood as their “LGBT+ representation” for years. Gag), they can understand better, and only look for proof to back up their theories but don’t look at things objectively.

They really need to get out more and make some LGBT+ friends that aren’t on the internet and talk to some gay elders. They need educating that’s not the often sanitized and insulting Hollywood version, that’s all I’m saying.

They made Louis and Harry more palatable for themselves and its… really gross.

I don’t know, I don’t get it.

Some Larries ™ turned the boys into their fandom and fanfiction stereotypes when they’re so much more than that. The Sony leaks should have been enough to dissuade the fandom, and prove that the brand sold to the broader audience is just that- a brand, and yet… Niall only talks about food and golf and Ireland and is only allowed to be straight or ace. If he exists at all its just to be Capt Niall. Liams slow and dumb and depending on the day he’s either Capt Liam or a horrific abusive homophobe. Zayns just The Worst, a unstable drug addict, and the boys hate each other, and they should have kicked him out of the band sooner because he never wanted to be part of them anyway, etc.

It drives me absolutely around the bend some days. They’re real people who don’t owe anyone anything, especially not coming out.

Yes, I think they will. But they’re not obligated to. They can change their minds, I’ll support them regardless of an “official” coming out or not.

Look, a part of me gets it. They wanna be right, they wanna prove the haters wrong, they want to be able to say I called it all along! The vindication will be sweet.

But like, it takes a quick look at someone other than Louis and Harry to realize theres something hinky going on with Liam, Zayn and Niall. Please listen to their fans who have spent just as much time as you have looking into Louis and Harry compiling together evidence.

It might take a weekend to watch the ILYSM and pterodactyl bros videos and a few more hours looking into some Niall blogs, which isn’t much compared to the hours I know they’ve spent looking into Larry. At least then they’ll have enough information to form an opinion on things.

I wonder, for some, what would happen if Larry didn’t come out, or didn’t come out first, or one of the other boys was outed against their will. Because… I don’t know. It seems like some would rather just be proven right at this point.

I get it. We’re tired. Its been eleven long years. But this isn’t a television show were everything can come to a head with a s3 or s4 cliff hanger and fixed in the series finale. Its real life, and they started off as boys trusting industry veterans who never had their best interests at heart.

Iduno. I just want some Larries ™ to take a step out of the echo chamber, realize life isn’t The Larry Show & co. And especially. ESPECIALLY, that every instance were someone, friends, family, co-works, industry peeps etc support the boys they are SUPPORTING THE BOYS, NOT THE FANDOM. They are not “confirming Larry for the fans” they’re doing it to support the couple, not to cater to the fandom. Please stop confusing the two. There’s a huge fucking difference. Learn it.

#Honestly it should be the Liam Payne the three guys who’ve had a crush on him and the one who married him. #aka the hill I'll die on #lmao #sorry not sorry #IM SORRY IT LOOKS LIKE I HAD A LOT MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS THAN I THOUGHT I WOULD #ASDFGHJKL; #also please don't think I'm calling anyone out specifically #these are a lot of generalizations and trends I've noticed after being in fandom for nearly 11 years they pop up all the damn time #circles we're just going in circles #I've been following Ziam in particular since the Nov 2011 interview #but suspected Liam had a crush sometime before when I saw a gifset of him talking about Zayns birthday presentsbc he as acting the exact sa #e way I was when I was crushing on a girl I knew #I saw myself in him and ignored it for another day #lmaooo #ziam #larry tunnel vision #larry vs ziam #Larry vs Niall #fandom bs #ask

[pathofcomets]

soldier, keep on marching on (2)

fandom: mass effect andromeda

pairing: (eventual) jaal/ryder

summary: Sara Ryder will replay that moment before she died for the first time many times afterwards.

playlist: spotify

It started normally, as it should, things working out as they were promised, all those galaxies away. They even offered her coffee, which truly, for her was the only requirement. A bit of nepotism was at play, for sure, in having her assigned with the Pathfinder team, instead of simply being put in the science cryo area, but considering that her father gave everything for the Initiative, Scott right on his tails, at this point the other remaining Ryder came as a package deal. And while whatever field action her dad had prepared for Habitat-7 would not necessarily be the nicest of things first thing after waking up after a 600 years nap, she trusts the old man’s judgement. She knows her way around a pistol, she knows her first contact protocols, and she knows to balance out both him and her brother, which is probably the most important thing.

That is, until the gravitation setting goes off.

And Scott won’t be able to wake up.

She pales, her hands trembling, listening to what doctor T’Perro is trying to tell her, words that simply burn down to: he’s not going to be around for a while. Her heroic brother, missing the start of humanity’s new hero. Even she cannot believe it. She doesn’t want to imagine what her father is feeling, the weight not only of Scott’s life on his shoulder, but of every one of the 20,000 souls on their ark.

She calls him “sir” and the word doesn’t sit right on her tongue, not when her father is looking at her like she is the sun of this new galaxy, like… like when he tells her that Ellen would have been proud of them, he actually means him.

Sara Ryder is not a fighter, but she’s almost everything else. Her father never quite let her forget her only failure though, and where natural inclinations didn’t make themselves knows, Alec has trained her night and day. She can recall the video calls as a teenager, her father in a cramped dorm, a soldier or another grinning at her over his shoulder in greeting, and her father grilling her about military strategy and battles: years and tactics, on top of her school work and third language classes. She can recall the weeks when he’d be back on the Citadel, a training room rented out, and the bruises that will take an entire month to heal afterwards, when he’d be back and force them to do it all over again. How Scott nursed her wounds, as she did his, and Eleanor treated them with cake after waving Alec’s ship goodbye.

These are the moments that she thinks about when Cora clasps shut her armour on her back, new world just a ship drop away. She thinks: I am not ready, I am a child, I want to sleep. Her father takes her on his squad, so he clearly doesn’t think the same. The heaviness of the pistol in-between her fingers is enough to bring her to the present moment. The soldiers present are enough to make her realize the reality of the situation.

Not a fighter, but a fighter’s daughter. The Pathfinder’s daughter, even. It was impossible not to get here eventually.

She cannot disappoint him, even as she has a history of doing exactly that. But seeing her dad do what he was meant to, blooming into a role that he himself invented is different from having your father teach you the tricks of his jobs. Here, his voice waits for no reply, knowing that his orders are to be respected. Here, he allows no breaks, because every pause is a chance of dying. Here, he’s a leader, not just the head of a family. She finally understands the reverence in everyone’s voice when saying his name. She understands why he’s never been too detailed, too graphic in the stories he told them so far.

She tries to ignore the echoing tremor in her bones after every lightning that hits a bit too close for comfort, and the buzzing of her ears as she wonders, obsessively, what would happen if she’s not fast enough. It’s simply not a possibility – she almost avoids another lightning, just in time to roll and take cover before her shields go up. The first enemy bullet barely misses. She feels Scott’s absence like she’s lost a limb, just empty space and unprotected back, when he should have been blazing in all his glory. It’s harder without him: both for her heart and courage, and their team and tactics.

It takes a while to catch up with her dad, her ammo almost spent and she’s so relieved that she doesn’t even use his title. Liam looks quizzically at her, finally making the connection, though their features are in fact quite similar. Cora even laughs at him.

“Good work,” Alec says softly, to her, something unrecognizable in this man that she has not found in her father so far, before debriefing everyone about their current situation.

She doesn’t have time to overthink it, because SAM takes over the conversation, as they’re trying to fight enemies and find out what’s going on with this new planet. She sighs in relief when the pole activates, and then it all gets blown apart. Literally.

The wind knocks her off her feet, and she’s trying desperately to hold on to the edge of the hill, but her grip is too weak, and the gust of violent wind is too strong, and off the edge she tumbles through the air. She thinks she must have been knocked out for a few seconds, and her vision is blurry as she tries to see around her. The first gulp of air burns against her throat, and her hand immediately flies to her helmet, finding shards and just an empty nothingness.

Fuck.

She holds her breath, and she can barely hear her dad asking for urgent support. Four minutes is long, too long for her to last and in the fraction of a second that Alec catches her eyes, he knows it too. She breathes in the toxic air again, in panic this time when her dad removes his helmet, approaching her hurryingly, connecting it to her own suit instead. His palm is over her chest, guiding her to breath, as she’s scrambling to grab at his shoulder, beg him not to do this, beg him to tell her this is nothing but a nightmare –

She cannot make out his last words, and her vision turns dark even as she prays for it to focus on the shape of his lips, around his unheard voice.

Sara Ryder will replay that moment before she died for the first time many times afterwards.

#mass effect andromeda #me: andromeda #female ryder #scott ryder #alec ryder #mass effect #soldier keep on marching on

[woodrokiro]

Hollowed (fic) Part Five

Fandom: Bleach

Pairing: IchiRuki

Summary: They call her a miracle, but he looks at her as if she’s normal. It scares her. Fantasy/Futuristic/Zombie kinda?AU. Read Parts One, Two, Three, and Four. 

It turns out to be a Hollowed… Because of course it is. 

Luckily it’s only one, and small from what the messenger describes. Still, from the way the messenger’s eyes widen while describing it, Ichigo assumes it really has been a while since these people saw one, and must’ve given the soldiers quite a drill.

But he could care less if the soldiers panicked. What he wants to know is if it’s dead.

“Y-yes sir! I saw if for myself, its eyes had clouded over, and its mouth--”

“I don’t need to hear about it.” And he really didn’t, as he could already imagine it: its yellowed fangs bared into a nasty snarl, the eight legs curled pathetically into its jet black body, its eyes peering from behind a horrific mask, milky with death.

He’s seen enough of them. 

“Were there any casualties?”

“No, not that I’m aware of--”

“Aware of? What does that mean?”

“Well, all soldiers are accounted for…”

“But not civilians here?”

“If you’re worried about your friends,” Rukia calls from behind him, and the messenger straightens as if he’s forgotten she’s there-- “there’s not much to worry about. Very rarely are civilians even let outside the compound. When soldiers go out, they are often flanked and covered by the remaining at the walls. It’s all planned far out in advance. We would know about it.”

That clears a bit of Ichigo’s anxiety, but not enough. 

In truth, he’s worried about his sisters. The last time they all encountered those monsters, they were even more horrifying than all the previous times before. Their village was destroyed, people left dead in the streets, their father fighting with all he had left…

Not that he’s not worried for his friends’ mental well being, but his sisters are just twelve years old: too young for any of this bullshit. 

And yeah, it’s always been a part of their lives… But he’s their big brother. He’s supposed to be their protector, or at the very least comforting them. 

Which is why being cooped up here in the name of a job is driving him insane. 

When the bell first started clanging, a soldier ran through to tell him he was to remain here with Lady Rukia at all costs until somebody gave him further instruction. When Ichigo tried to ask when might he be given further instruction--let alone what happened--the soldier sneered. 

“This is your job now,” he spat. “And an important one at that. You are never to leave Lady Rukia during your shift. As for what’s going on, you’ll be told when the information needs to be relayed to you. I recommend you stop asking questions.”

Fucking hell, he’s tired of hearing that. The guy is lucky he ran out so quickly, as Ichigo could’ve throttled him. Instead, all he could do is pace around his partitioned space like a tiger in a cage, ignoring the girl on the other side of the room who probably wouldn’t speak to him anyway.

And now, apparently, she feels inclined to butt in, all uppity and knowledgeable. He spins to face her. 

“Yes, I’m worried about my friends,” he grits out his teeth. “But I’m also worried about my sisters. I’m all they have, and the last time one of those things were within such a vicinity to us it was a real fucking nightmare. Now,” he turns back to the messenger. “If you have the time, I’d really appreciate if you could go to the kitchens and relay a message to Karin and Yuzu Kuro--”

“Go to them.”

Ichigo turns incredulously back toward her, and is starting to think this twisting back and forth is getting really old. “Huh?”

“I was clear enough, fool. Go find your sisters. Take the rest of the day off.”

He nearly sputters. Is there something he’s missing here? “B-but you heard that other guy--”

“That ‘other guy’ is technically correct, in any other situation you won’t be able to leave me.” She’s got her arms crossed, with a superior look in her eye that Ichigo kind of hates but also he’s feeling hopeful about what she’s saying so he’ll just ignore it for now. “But today is your first day. I believe you’ve received basic training enough--”

“Well, I mean I didn’t really do anything--”

“Don’t be so modest, sir. You’ve done plenty.” She looks at him with raised eyebrows pointedly. 

He shuts his mouth. 

“Some soldiers will probably be here shortly to relieve you in any case. They always take me when this sort of occurrence happens...” she drifts softly, before her eyes suddenly shine (yes, shine) toward the messenger. “Sir there! Would you be willing to chaperone me in Sir Kurosaki’s absence, until then? I would be most appreciative of it.”

The messenger shifts, but Ichigo can see a blush rise on his cheeks. “Oh, w-well I’d be most honored, milady. But I’m afraid I’m not of military calibre to watch you. You see, I might as well be a grunt--”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. So long as you’re a soldier, you can protect me. And don’t worry, if any of the higher ranks or even Lord Yamamoto raise questions about it, I’ll be happy to take the blame.” She smiles sweetly before turning back to Ichigo. “Thank you for your services, sir. You are dismissed.”

He blinks. “So, does that cover for me too or…?”

“What, you believe I would cover for one party in a situation and not the other? Yes, Mr. Kurosaki, you as well. Now, goodbye.” She waves him off dismissively. 

While that kind of pisses him off--and it’s bizarre how fast she changed gears--he’s grateful.

---

He finds the girls perfectly safe and sound when he rushes into the kitchens. In fact, they hadn’t even heard the news of the Hollowed… Which Ichigo finds quite eery how news like that isn’t relayed to the service as quickly as the bell clangs for the military--but at the very least, he’s glad to find they’re safe and not scared. 

He tries to express some sort of a game plan to them: that if he’s not able to go to them in times of danger, find Chad, or even Uryu--well, not Uryu, as he might be on the front lines--

“Relax, Ichigo.” Karin cuts him off with a gentle smirk. “We know how to take care of ourselves for this sort of thing… Or at the very least: how to not get killed. Worst case scenario, I’ve got kitchen knives here I can use.”

“Plus, they’ve got me.” Inoue steps forward from the spot she’s been quietly listening and kneading dough. She claps her floury hands together. “I know that I-I don’t look like much, Ichigo, but you can count on me to protect the girls! All this kneading is giving me some real arm strength! Not to mention when I put in my secret ingredients, that makes it even tougher!!” 

She strikes a pose with her biceps flexed, and while Ichigo’s not quite sure if that’ll be enough to tear apart the creatures responsible for the near extinction of humanity, he still smiles and thanks her. He has to remember that the three in front of him are smart and very much capable of taking care of themselves.

He doesn’t really have a choice, otherwise. 

---

Later that night when everyone else but the boys are asleep, he asks Uryu whether he saw the Hollowed. 

“I did. In fact, one of my arrows got stuck in its putrid ribs.” He pushes his glasses up.

“I saw it as well,” Chad offers. “My boss and I were restocking the weapons on the wall while they burned the body.”

“Chad, you too? So I was the only one to miss out on the action, huh?”

“Not much action, Kurosaki. Truth be told, the military is true to its word. Pretty organized on the killing, once they got past the initial shock. I imagine they’d have a harder time with a horde of them, though.” Uryu opens his mouth to say something, but hesitates.

“What?” Ichigo eyes the look passed between Uryu and Chad. “What was wrong with it?”

“It… Had some… One of its legs was a human arm.” Uryu grinds his teeth. “Recently turned. I think… It might’ve been someone from our village.”

Ichigo prays it wasn’t anybody he knew well, let alone his dad. Trapped in a horrid body like that, slithering miserably up the mountain for fresh blood--it’d be a nightmare he can barely stomach. 

But it wouldn’t matter in any case, he guesses.

A loss is a loss is a loss. 

---

The next morning, he’s informed that he has to report to Yamamoto before his shift. It must be because of what happened yesterday, he realizes. The old man is pissed.

He drags himself into the office, where Yamamoto is (seemingly) calm, reading a book.

The old man smiles. “Ah, Kurosaki! Do sit. Why, you look quite uncomfortable. Are your concerns with the Hollowed yesterday? I hope your sisters were all right.”

Well, shit. 

“Yeah, they were… Thanks.” Ichigo eyes the man across him, waiting for an explosion. “So… Rukia told you…?”

“Lady Rukia told me she dismissed you, yes. Oh dear, you thought I might be upset about that? Well, I suppose on any other occasion I might be quite angry.” 

Ichigo shifts uncomfortably. “So… Why not this time?”

“Well, I suppose I never did properly explain Lady Rukia’s position in this place. Certainly, she is technically ranked above you--ranked above many generals, in fact--and so I cannot blame you for following her orders. How did you like her, by the way?”

“Well… I mean she’s… Quiet. But okay, I guess--”

“She can be quite quiet, you’re right. But I hope you’ll find she’s also very kind. Gentle. Clever, too.” Yamamoto raps his knuckles against his desk. “But she’s also rather frail. The soldiers that took her after you left go to her quarters quite often to escort her to the medical facilities. She runs through quite a number of tests and medicines there for her condition. She’s very smart and capable, yes; but also can suffer some… Sufferings in judgement. Sometimes she doesn’t know what’s the best for her, so a select few including myself make certain decisions for her. Does that make sense?”

Ichigo doesn’t think the girl he saw yesterday looked sick at all, let alone capable of being anything but a smartass brat--but he nods. 

“So next time it happens that my lady gives an order that you’re not quite sure about, request my presence immediately and I’ll sort it out. I trust your judgement. In fact, I’ll be requesting meetings every few days to ask you about updates on her condition and such.”

“... So you’re asking me to spy on her?”

“Not at all! Just that she gets quite tired sometimes… You’ll see. I just want to know how she’s doing after her treatments, so we can get her the help she deserves.” Suddenly, the old man’s focal point shifts to somewhere past Ichigo. “Ah! Well, speak of some sort of devil. Ichigo, this is Lady Rukia’s older brother, Byakuya. He’s a captain within our military.” 

Ichigo turns around to see a man with long black hair standing in the doorway, eyeing him coolly. He clumsily gets up, walking over while reaching out his hand. The guy looks like a complete douchebag, but an older brother deserves to know his sister’s taken care of. “Ichigo Kurosaki, it’s--”

“I know who you are, thank you.” Byakuya drifts past Ichigo’s outstretched hand, toward the seat where Ichigo was previously sitting. 

All right. So he really is an asshole.

“Give Rukia my regards. Lord Yamamoto, I have some reports with you I’d like to discuss.”

“Of course. Kurosaki, you may go now.” And just like that (again!) it seems the Yamamoto forgets his existence. 

Ichigo is just about to shut the door when the old man’s voice calls out. 

“Oh, and Kurosaki?” 

He holds the door, waiting. 

“I understand some--including Lady Rukia--warned you against being in her quarters with her, past the screen. This is one of the occasions I’d like you to ignore her order.”

Ichigo looks back inside at Yamamoto. “Um… I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. Not if she isn’t.”

“Of course, completely understandable. But if she ever relays a sense of danger in being there… Worry not. There is none.”

Ichigo shuts the door.

He’s not about to go into some girl’s room without her wanting him there.

#ichiruki #bleach #ichigo kurosaki #rukia kuchiki #my stuff #hollowed

[malereader-inserts]

Love is a Fragile Dance

Fandom: Good Omens Pairing: Crowley x Male!Reader x Aziraphale Summary: The two were very respectful of your boundaries, but it seemed like everyone was dancing around each other Word Count: 1,836 Request: (1) So after just finishing GO, I would start armageddon for Ineffable Husbands X Reader where the reader has to get used to affection (Especially from Azira). Thank you! (2)If you want angsty here is some. I’m hella mad at this guy I like because he said why are u so guarded and closed off like seriously!!!! I have reasons and I don’t have to fucking tell him. You can put this in whatever fandom I just had to get this off my chest. Warning: Mentions of past relationship abuse, touch starved A/n: yes, I would also start the end of the word for Ineffable Husbands. Also, fuck that guy, I was gonna make Crowley the bad guy but I just couldn’t. asdfghjkl so frustrated my angst isn’t working out well.

You were a standoffish person in general.

And it didn’t help that you were a touch starved person, yearning and craving affection. You just didn’t know how to cope with it because sometimes in the back of your mind, even just the simplest of touchest repulsed you. You knew you weren’t touched repulsed because any sensation didn’t make you feel sick or like it was some burning sensation.

Everything is complicated when you are a closed-off person, you had a rough past and it’s hard to connect to people, coming to terms with people you like was even tougher as you think about the past, you’re terrified to let yourself out there and be free. 

Which is why you’ve been ignoring both Crowley and Aziraphale’s advances towards you.

You love them, your heart had decided, but your mind was feeding too much to your demons which sat on your shoulders whispering the dirty things. They’ve told you that they would love to pursue a relationship with you, but you always come apprehensive, were you ready to be loved again?

And you were apprehensive about the two being entities, and one of them being a demon. You’ve seen it first hand and heard it from Aziraphale, Crowley is somewhat “nice” for a demon, but nevertheless, he sometimes loses himself and slips up.

But, you realise, sometimes, humans are just worse than demons.

“Does it matter to you?” You asked bitterly as your friend, Gryffin, sat across you with a look, “You know exactly why-”

“No, I do not!” He exclaims as you scoffed - some friend he was, “All I want to know is why you just don’t put yourself out there anymore, one bad relationship-”

“It was more than bad, Gryffin,” You hissed as Aziraphale and Crowley enter the dessert shop, immediately turning when they hear your voice. Despite the place being busy and loud they could always trace your voice which was slowly turning upset, “You can’t just tell me to get over it.”

“Why not?” 

You’ve been friends with Gryffin for a few years now, but tonight he was truly showing you his true colours. You don’t know why you were even meeting him, you could tell it was going to go sour the moment he was about to mention your love life.

“You’re so guarded and closed off,” He scoffs, rolling his eyes as you cowered down and locking your jaw, both in anger and in fear.

This movement was not missed by Crowley, who was watching you whilst Aziraphale was quickly ordering, Crowley was feeling the negative vibes from you, he was a demon so he could feel the strongest negative emotions and currently, it was coming from you rather than the crying girl who had been broken up. 

“I barely know you anymore (Y/n),” He continues, shaking his head as he continues to sip on his milkshake whilst you timidly sink lower into your seat, “We want to be updated in your life, what’s good?”

“I-” You looked at him in disgust, yet Crowley could see from afar that you were masking the fear of slipping up around your friend.

Aziraphale returns with drinks and immediately turns to see what Crowley was staring at. He immediately picks up how you’re tense, shoulders stiff, yet cowering away. He sees that you’ve closed up your bubble and he looks his boyfriend in concern.

“I’m going to run that man out, I don’t care if (Y/n) says anything...” Crowley grits his teeth, “It’s unbelievable, Angel, the negativity is all from them.”

You looked at your friend who was still talking, “What’s up with your relationship status? I’ve noticed that you’ve been single for two years now.”

The two supernatural entities kept their ears peeled as they hear you take a sharp intake of air. Your hands tremble as you try to prepare yourself for the next vicious blow of judgement and you couldn’t even attempt to stop it.

“Get’s hit once by an ex-boyfriend and suddenly you’re screaming abuse,” He scoffs, shaking his head and that was the final snap for your actual friends as you froze in the spot, “Get over yourself (Y/n).”

“Hey, dick!” Crowley growled, making you snap your head at his direction, “That’s really shitty behaviour.”

You were surprised to see him there but Aziraphale couldn’t help but noticed how you flinched at the tone of Crowley. He carefully taps you, and motions for you to move out of the conflict. 

Aziraphale doesn’t want to touch you, he sees how you jumped when he touches you. He follows you out, giving Crowley a look, before keeping an eye on you. He noticed that you sit down by the curb, by the Bentley. Your arms wrapped around yourself in the cold harsh autumn weather, London was facing.

Aziraphale shrugs off his coat and gently puts it on you, you smile up at him with softness as he sits next to you. He smiles wider when he sees you tug on his coat closer to him. 

“Thanks, Azira,” You softly say as he nods, “You probably want to eat your crepes whilst we’re waiting for Crowley.”

Aziraphale blushed as you hummed, looking anywhere but him. Crowley comes out after five minutes and sits on the other side of you, he lets out a huff and turns to look at you and his boyfriend.

“Well,” His tone is softer, and his heart breaks when he sees you relax because you shouldn’t even be afraid around him, “He won’t be bothering you anymore, think you’re better off without him.”

“Yeah...” You breathed out, sending him a tired sad smile, “Thank you, Crowley.”

There was silence between the three of you, the two entities not wanting to push you. But, their presence was just enough for you.

“Sorry about that,” You mumbled at the two turns to face you but you were comfortable at least not making any direct eye contact to them, “I-”

“Hey,” Crowley soothes you before you worked yourself up, “You don’t need to tell us anything unless you’re ready. We’re patient.”

You nodded before smiling, “Of course, you waited for Aziraphale, didn’t you?” Crowley and Aziraphale blushed but smile at each other, “I just want to say thank you again, I’ve been trying but it’s hard.”

“And no one is forcing you to do it, my love,” Aziraphale says, you were safe in the nickname he’s decided for you, “We’ll be by your side until you’re ready.”

“Come on, love, we have to get home before you get yourself hypothermia,” Crowley teased as he stands up, lending you a hand with caring eyes. You looked at Aziraphale, who nods.

You were safe.

Aziraphale was quick to pick up how much you wanted affection, but you were so hesitant into asking. Whilst he hadn’t known much of your past, he could infer that it wasn’t the best so he tried to do it in small doses, sometimes you would barely notice, but by the reaction of your body - it seems to give good reviews.

There would be times he would drape a blanket on you, comfort and smells like him and Crowley, which you subconsciously coo. He smiles at you when you turn embarrassed but he noticed how grateful your eyes shine.

Aziraphale made it benefit you and him, he likes seeing how your eyes sparkle happiness.

Sometimes, he would offer his hand and you two would hold hands walking in St James Park when Crowley wasn’t around. Sometimes Aziraphale would open his arms to invite you for a hug, he offers but never forced. He initiates the affection but waits for you to be comfortable, and never feels offended when you decline.

You barely decline the offer as you thrive in his affection like when he holds on longer than usual in a hug, when he softly kisses your temple. Even a simple brush of the hand.

Crowley gets told by Aziraphale about your situation, and like you, he was in the same boat. Craving and wanting affection but afraid to ask. Yet, when he’s around you, he never fails to at least give you something. Like when it’s just you and him, he would have his arm thrown over your shoulder like he was your shield of protection. 

Like Aziraphale, he has a tendency to open his arms to offer your hugs, no words spoken as you dive into his embrace. Sometimes Crowley turns into your snake and sits upon your shoulders and wrapped around your neck, hissing at anyone that seems to come with negative energy towards you. 

Between the three of you, there was an unspoken agreement about dating.

You couldn’t hide that you loved them when Aziraphale can detect love radiating from you, you were all dancing around each other. In respect to you.

When you come bouncing into the bookshop with the brightest smile, the two entities cannot help but smile and melt at your sunny aura, in the winter of England.

It had been a few months since the incident, you’ve got back on your feet and you were radiating such love and happiness that Crowley cannot but help to almost vomit due to his demonic nature.

“What’s got you all happy?” Crowley asked, scrunching up his nose in disgust as you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t listen to him, boy, he’s just happy to see you happy,” Aziraphale waves his boyfriend off, whilst Crowley sticks his tongue out in all good fun nature. 

“Well, I’m ready,” You announced as the two paused to look at you, making sure they had heard you right, “I ready for us and to tell you everything about me, if you would have me?”

The two broke out grins as Crowley picks you up and spins you around, you laugh out loud that the two supernatural entities feel at ease. 

“Of course, we’ll have you!” Crowley shouted, putting you down and squeezing your cheeks before kissing your nose, “We’ll forever have you!”

“I’ll get the kettle running, it’ll be a long afternoon!” Aziraphale exclaims, “And some snacks.”

“I’ll get the blankets and pillows,” Crowley announced as the two rifles through the bookshop as you found yourself beaming at their antics.

“You two...” You hummed softly, shaking your head in amusement.

“Oh, my love?” Aziraphale says as you stare at the two of them who stand side by side. Aziraphale on the right whilst Crowley occupied the left.

“We’re proud of you,” They spoke in unison as you tilted your head and eyes soften at the words.

“Damn it guys, I shouldn’t start crying now, we haven’t even-” You chuckled, sniffing, “I love you guys.”

The two let out a glorious noise of happiness as they motioned you to the backroom. You found yourself wedged in between the angel and demon, comfortably safe. You relaxed as you held your mug of hot beverage. The two listen carefully, love is a fragile dance but in the end, it’s worth it.

#crowley x male reader x aziraphale #good omens #good omens imagine #good omens x male reader #x male reader

[guardiandae]

Why Asexual Awareness Is Important To Me

because growing up, I was told that one day I’d get married and have a honeymoon. like it was as inevitable as death. it terrified me. I didn’t know there was any other option. “You’ll understand when you’re older.” 

because when I started dating, I was never exactly opposed to sexual experiences. but I got rejected anyway out of impatience, because I didn’t pick up on clues, or I didn’t initiate. I’m still not sure. ‘We’ve been dating a few weeks and you don’t wanna do anything, so forget it.’ You didn’t ask. How am I supposed to know? In retrospect, I’m glad.

because when I came out to my mother as gay, it felt so simple to me. matter of fact. how could it be any different? but she made sure it hurt. she twisted my words and screamed at me. she called me an embarrassment. she asked if i’d ever had sex with a girl, and of course I said no. why would I have to have sex to know? why is straight the default when no one else at my age has had sex either? why would sex ever be a prerequisite? but she screamed at me that it didn’t count then. I couldn’t be gay. didn’t count. she made sure that I ended up in tears. and to this day I see other LGBT screaming at aces that we don’t count. That not having sex or not feeling sexual attraction towards the same sex is homophobic. the same homophobic arguments that were used against me when I identified as a lesbian, recycled by the people whose rights I’ve stood and fought for my entire life.

because when I had my first Real girlfriend, my first Love, my first sexual experiences, I was never frightened, but also never into it. I didn’t understand why it didn’t click for me. Why I was never struck breathless by her beautiful form but instead, oh no. How am I supposed to react so she doesn’t take offense? because she was Gorgeous, but whatever I felt was clearly... lacking. not enough. and I felt broken, broken, broken.

because in my time, the A in LGBTQIA often did stand for ally. Sometimes asexuality was mentioned offhandedly, interchangeably. an afterthought. barely a footnote. but I never knew what it was. The information I was given was limited. aces aren’t interested in sex. as if it were all wrapped up in a neat little bow for them, content and perfect. but i was interested in sex. how could i not be? it haunted me. I didn’t know you could feel romantic attraction separately from sexual attraction, or that aces could deal with sex without feeling attraction. I thought I was “gay but just really bad at it.”

because I spent so many sleepless nights crying myself to sleep wondering and worrying if the person I was dating really knew and believed that I loved them even if I couldn’t feel sexual attraction towards them.

because I was so terrified of sex that I became obsessed with it. I thought I had to learn as much as I could and that would somehow cure me. Read articles, learn in theory how to do the acts, what to expect, how to behave. Consume fiction, consume porn, brace myself for the inevitable, condition myself to grow into it. All I managed to do was become very good at writing smut and still have a complete disconnect in real life.

because when I finally questioned myself, my ex boyfriend, who was asexual, told me flat out that because I wrote and enjoyed fictional porn, I “didn’t count” as asexual. because I thought that he, as someone who had already claimed the label of asexual, surely knew better than me what it meant. and nothing online that I could find, at the time, contradicted him. I thought to myself, but... that’s fiction. but nothing supported me. so I cried and then I buried it and I tried even harder to fit in with my sexualized peers and didn’t let myself think about it anymore. for years.

because I admittedly put myself into really dangerous situations, thinking that if I could just lose my virginity and get it over with, I’d be better off down the line for someone else. like it was something I could just break out of me.

because despite literally years of trying to condition myself to think and behave sexually online, to roll with the jokes that made me cringe, eventually it got to me. I started having breakdowns, panic attacks, crying fits, and I had no idea why or what was wrong with me.

because when I revisited asexuality and finally found just a single line that said aces can masturbate and enjoy porn and still be ace, it was the single biggest relief of my life. I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. I didn’t have to keep breaking myself trying to fit where I didn’t belong. I wasn’t broken in the first place.

because when I came out as ace, on my first ace week, several of my fandom friends did as well, and none of us had known the others felt the same way. We’d been so lost and isolated and alone and now we weren’t anymore.

because just knowing and being able to set boundaries for myself and give myself permission to walk away from conversations that became too uncomfortable, was a tremendous relief on my mental health and happiness.

because when I came out, my blog was posted on r*dd*t for the lulz and I had anons coming to harass me and ask me if I had been assaulted and traumatized and wishing for me to seek a ‘cure’. Complete fucking strangers. I saw my friends get death threats and rape threats just for saying ‘I’m ace’.

because despite personally writing smut and knowing other aces who write smut, I’ve still been personally attacked and accused of ‘hating nsfw’ and I’ve seen aphobes react like aces existing is somehow a fucking moral judgement against non-aces

because even aces who are completely sex-repulsed shouldn’t have to suck it up and act like they personally approve of sex in any form, in order to make other sex-crazed people mind their own fucking business and give them a ‘pass’. I’m not ‘one of those good aces’ just because I like fictional porn, to a degree. and I’m not breaking into your fucking house to stop you from wanking just because I personally don’t like a thing. It’s called personal preferences. one person having negative associations with sex is not a reflection on you personally. Someone saying “I don’t like sex, it disgusts me” is not the same as someone literally saying “you’re disgusting for having sex.” Grow the fuck up.

because not knowing that asexuality was an option caused me years of pain, and being given wrong information and gatekeeping held me back even longer in that prison.

because there are still misconceptions about what it means to be asexual.

because I remember what it was like to be stuck in that dark place, feeling broken and confused and alone because I didn’t quite fit the mold, and I want to help others find themselves sooner.

because despite all of the bullshit thrown at us, embracing my asexuality has made me the happiest I’ve ever been. I love being asexual. I love being me.

because I’ve had numerous people come to me privately inquiring about their own asexuality, just for the sake of confirming it privately, and then vow to never come out publicly because they’ve seen all of the hate and harassment aces get, even from fellow LGBTQ folks, and they couldn’t handle that. and I don’t blame them one little bit. it would be naive to pretend that doesn’t exist. it does, and it’s ugly, and it hurts so much to see. but just remember, there are so many more people who will love and support you.

you don’t have to come out. but just knowing for yourself? is so much better. and there are so many more of us than you’d think and you’re not alone.

#asexuality #actually asexual #ace week #long post #aphobia

[tyranttortoise]

Hey Ty, what made you play Undertale? And what brought you to the Undertale fandom?

It was actually my s/o’s doing; when Undertale came out, he said, “Hey, there’s an RPG out that I think you might like.  Wanna play it together?”  So, I started playing while he watched.  I didn’t listen to Toriel, so I killed everyone in the Ruins, including her, because I thought “Oh.  Standard RPG, kill or be killed, I got it.”

But then I started to feel uneasy about it.

The skeleton brothers came, and they were much more interesting than Toriel.  ‘course, I was possessed by Chara, so I didn’t go along with any of their puzzles, and they were making me feel guilty.  I got to Lesser Dog, and he was so cute that I just couldn’t kill him.  “Is there any way around this?  I can’t kill the cute dog!”

And then my s/o turned his phone toward me, and on his screen was “Undertale: The Friendly RPG Where Nobody Has to Die!”

“HOW?”

He shrugged.  “Apparently, you can talk to them and then spare them.  You fucked up.”

So I spared L.D. and the rest and kept going.  “You’re going to get a shit ending,” my s/o warned.  I was pissed off about accidentally going Genocide, so I got to Papyrus, fell absolutely in love with him during his battle, Spared him, and then went on a date.  

And then he crushed me.

“WHY?  IS IT BECAUSE I’M A MURDERER?!”

“You look like you’re actually upset that a skeleton rejected you.”

“I AM!  DAMMIT, I NEED TO START OVER!”

“But this is so boring, and that combat is garbage.”

So I stopped at Papyrus and forgot about Undertale because honestly, I didn’t have the will to go through the Ruins again, either.  

Fast forward to about six months later, and I’m having a slow day at work.  I happened to have my laptop with me for some reason, so I decided to play a game.  I looked through Steam for something my laptop could run, saw Undertale, and thought bingo.

As soon as I got to the skeleton brothers and experienced their puzzles the way it was supposed to be–as a Pacifrisk– I fell in love all over again.  I knew Papyrus was probably going to reject me, however, so I kept thinking about Sans.  He was a mystery to me–some funny guy that was always around, seemed to know a little too much.  When it came to the Judgement Hall, I wasn’t even surprised.  That’s not to say I didn’t love all the other characters in Undertale, too; they all had a special place in my heart.  I was just paying attention to Sans because the moment he caught my interest, I knew I wanted to roleplay as him.

When I finished the game, I made an rp account for him that night, and then devoured every bit of info I could on the wiki.  I read all his different dialogue options because I wanted to get him right.  While I was looking for other RP’ers, I saw that a lot of them were versions of the characters that I didn’t recognize.  Underfell, Flowerfell – was I missing something?  So, I got a Frisk RPer to explain the AU’s to me.  I rp’ed as Red before I ever even got to do a serious RP as Sans, and my take on him was just based on the Underfell wiki info.  

I jumped to GaiaOnline to look for more Undertale rp, and I lucked out and found a ton of partners.  I didn’t know anything about any other AU’s–just Underfell and Flowerfell–so when I had partners ask if I could do Underswap, I just looked up the wiki for it and thought, “Papyrus that has Sans’s personality and smokes?  Yeah, I got this” and ran with it.  I admittedly hated tumblr at the time– I didn’t understand it, and it was so confusing–so I didn’t even think about the fandom on here.  I was just having fun roleplaying and meeting people that way.

Someone linked me to Ao3–I’d never heard of it before–and showed me that Reader-insert was a thing.  Initially, I kinda blew it off because second-person was so foreign to me (and seeing second-person in rp always rubbed me the wrong way, which is funny considering that’s how I always respond on the skelelodge now), but then… man, I loved it.  The skeletons having a thing for me?  Yeah, count me in.  

I really wanted to rp as Frisk, though, and it was hard to come by.  I was almost always a skeleton or Mettaton or Asgore– and dammit, I wanted romance of my own.  I got someone to agree to be Red for me, and I wrote and sent a starter that never got a reply.  

I really liked that starter.

Soooo, I took that starter, pasted it in a word document, and then expanded on it.  Man, I expanded on it.  And that became the first chapter of Broken Promises and Timelines–it has my original starter interspersed throughout it!  I posted it up just because I wanted an excuse to write about the AU’s, mostly to practice for RP purposes, and because I wanted to try my hand at smut outside of an RP setting.  

People were commenting, telling me about AU’s I didn’t know about, and I eventually started coming to tumblr to read about them.  I saw other writers on Ao3 had tumblrs, so I took a jump and signed up with no idea what I was doing, other than that I wanted to write and talk about Undertale.  And somehow, I ended up actually being a part of the fandom, and it’s just so amazing because I’ve never been an active participant in any fandom before!  

#undertale #the tortoise talks #long post #the tortoise rambles #this was much longer than intended #but thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about it! #all of my characterizations come from how i roleplayed the skeletons based off the wikis #anonymous

[ladyyatexel]

what are some good comments to leave on FF? Also, are there statutes of limitation on the relevancy of commenting on a fanfic? Like if something was written in 2012 and you left a comment like "holy shit I fucking love this! Do you think you'll ever revive the fic and write more or is it dead forever?" would that be encouraging, or would it be more annoying and out of the blue random? (basically, what is good FF reader etiquette?)

Well, full disclosure here, I'm not really one of the people who's running around yelling feedback is dead. I've always witnessed about the same amount of small interaction on the other end of my work, and I always just try to realistically expect a small percentage, so if there truly is something widespread going on, it doesn't really look any different to me. Things change depending on popularity of pairings and genres and fandoms on the whole and I've noticed that difference as I move between subject matter and time passing, but I'm not sitting here crying about the fall of fanfiction civilization or anything. I hold tightly onto the strong interactions I've received from a few people and I'm cool. I do like the ideas that the person in that post proposed though, because I think it allows for authors to see continuous support for long works, which are the sort I tend to make, and it makes it easier for that support to come from people who don't like or want to comment, which seems to be the sort I tend to attract, haha. And that's fine, no judgement here. I've probably made a single digit number of initial comments for a variety of anxiety and conditioning reasons, so I get it. Anyway, on to what you actually asked...I don't know about anyone else, but I personally like seeing comments that cite favorite lines or ones that mention emotional reactions. Also questions or people pointing out details, because then I can talk your ear off in return! Comments are so few and far between that I really don't think I should be saying I would prefer to get one type over another type but... My inclination is to beg not to receive comments that just say, "more please" or "update soon" and absolutely nothing else after I've updated a 15000 word chapter. It makes me feel like some sort of paragraph vending machine. I would also like to stop receiving comments that just comment on the fandom. Even a comment like, " there aren't enough fics in this fandom," makes me feel like, "okay? Because mine was unsatisfying? Or so you're grateful to have mine? Or did you even read it??" Ones that say, "god i love this show" are confusing to me because yes, I do as well. That is why I have written 26000 words about it. I assume that's also why you read those 26000 words. Soooo...?You try not to be ungrateful and you know that that means that they enjoy what you put out enough to want more of it but it is hard to look at these kinds and not feel like all of your effort is not enough. As far as leaving comments on older things, I say go for it. I think a lot of people have work that they made a long time ago that they thought was under seen or underappreciated, so you may be giving them the boost that they were hoping for back when they made it. I know I personally pretty much stopped making something when the only feedback I got was some website in another language tearing apart every aspect of it, and I dropped another thing like a stone because somebody sent me a message telling me how many of their kinks I had managed to set off. I'm sure other people must have abandoned old things too because they just didn't get back even a little bit of what they put in for whatever reason.And again I don't know about other people, but for me getting a comment that says oh do you ever think you update this again is nice, and it'll make me pleased, but will probably just make me nicely say " yah, maybe someday!" Because it's likely to be something that I've moved on from because of lack of stimulation or something. If it's something I've written from like two fandoms and seven years ago, a better way to inspire me to make more of it would be to talk about what in that work you really love or ask questions. I realize this sounds kind of indulgent. The way I function though is very much that I follow Passions, so I'm likely to write (or paint or make) whatever I am feeling passionately fueled by. So an enthusiastic discussion of the pairing or the story or the genre or something is more likely to get me back into something that may have been sitting for a few years than just a "hey, would you do this again?" might. The words are fueled with more words.I never stopped loving anything that I've loved enough to write about, sometimes you just need other people to be breathing life into it too.

[sibilantly]

hi, sib. i sent you an ask about writing a while ago and you were super helpful, but i have found myself in yet another conundrum - i'm blocked. it took me some time to figure out why, and i'm pretty sure it's 'cause i'm supposed to be starting my mfa this fall and i'm just scared shitless. i'd really appreciate some advice on how to unblock the block. i just feel so useless right now. this nonsense in my head is honestly wearing me down.

You sent this several months ago, dear writing anon (as I now dub thee), and I’m terribly sorry I haven’t replied before now. RL got in the way of my online/fandom time again, but, more than that, I’ve been musing and reflecting on the situation you described, and I’ve only recently been able to marshall it all into semi-coherence. I assume you’ve started your MFA already (CONGRATULATIONS, BY THE WAY!), so all this navel-gazing and advice may be moot, but on the off-chance you’re still stymied, here’s my take and (for what it’s worth) my advice:

The thing about ‘writer’s block’ (air quotes), which you seem to have figured out already, is that it’s really emotional block. And the most common emotion is fear.

It’s not surprising, really, when you consider the fact that writing is both a craft and an art. (Well… alright, every art form is a combination of craft and art - of technical skill and vision - but we’re just going to focus on writing right now). And, just like every other art form, the very best writing requires self-expression. Think of your favourite authors, both published and in fandom. Could you ever mistake their writing for another author’s? I’m willing to bet my last dollar that your answer will be ‘no’.

However, self-expression also means baring yourself. It means producing a piece of writing that says, in effect, ‘this is what I think, this is what I feel - this is how I see the world, this is my perspective on this trope/theme/topic, this is me’, and putting it out there to be looked at and judged by strangers. Strangers who may then have all sorts of reactions and opinions - negative ones, even - about not just your work, but about you.

And for the vast majority of people (myself included), that is fucking terrifying on a visceral, lizard brain level. In prehistoric times (or… whenever… anthropology is not my strong suit), being rejected by others meant isolation, which in turn meant increased risk of starvation or death by megafauna. We’re not in prehistoric (or whatever) times anymore, but rejection and negative judgement still hurts and looms large in our psyches because… well, the lizard brain is a powerful motherfucker that has gotten our species this far. It’s like that douchebag in your social circle that you just can’t drop entirely because they’re handy/annoyingly right in certain situations.

Anyway.

I suppose what I’m trying to say is: take heart, writing anon. You’re in good and numerous company. This fear - this emotional block - you feel is common. It’s unbelievably common. I personally grapple with it every week. Like, literally every week. From a certain evolutionary perspective, you could even say the fear is reasonable (DEATH BY MEGAFAUNA).

…however, that perspective is severely unhelpful in motivating one to write, so let us acknowledge said perspective like it’s an acquaintance we’re on nodding terms with, and move on.

The fact of the matter is, we’re not in prehistoric-whatever times anymore. Rejection will not kill us, no matter what the lizard brain keeps shrieking. And while the lizard brain is powerful, it’s also primitively dumb. Which means we can trick it.

There is a reason why pretty much every notable book on the art and craft of writing will have a chapter or a section which says, essentially: half the battle is getting your arse in the chair.

It’s because, a great majority of the time, getting started really is the biggest hurdle. Once you’re actually slapping some words onto a page? It may be painful, it may present its own challenges, but it usually doesn’t require as much effort as just. Getting. Started.

As the number of days you spend not writing builds up, the act of writing - even the mere thought of it - becomes more and more psychologically loaded, more threatening to your sense of self. ‘YOU’RE GONNA BE REJECTED AND STARVE TO DEATH IN THE DESERT,’ says the lizard brain. The more rational part of your brain says, ‘You’ve spent all this time not writing. When you finally summon up the power to do so, by some act of God, it’s going to come out mediocre, at best, because you’re out of practice. Why bother?’

And, look– to be honest, rational brain will probably be right regarding your restart writing attempts coming out mediocre. But it’s wrong about it being pointless to start.

Because here is something else you should tell yourself: writing is not just the words you publish. It’s not even just the words you publish plus the words you wrote in draft and then killed because you realised they were darlings. It’s not even all those words and the time you spent brainstorming and outlining. It’s all those words plus that planning plus the emotional work you go through - in character and as yourself - to get those words and ideas out.

Don’t get down on yourself if you have only one hour to write and you spend fifty of those minutes psyching yourself up to write. Psyching yourself up to write is part of writing. You’re getting your arse in the chair.

So, sure, maybe on day one you’ll spend just ten minutes getting some words out. But on day two, when you sit down again, you’ll remember: I did this for ten minutes yesterday. I can do it again. It’s like a gradual stretching and strengthening of a muscle. You should– no, you need to take your time, because writing is a years-long (ideally, lifelong) journey. You’ll need to pace yourself accordingly.

I’m not saying it’s easy. I have spent years devising weird tricks, strategies, and schedules to fool my lizard brain into viewing the act of writing as non-threatening (and sometimes I still fail and will stop writing for a couple days). I know it’s not easy. But it’s doable - you just need to find the right set of tricks and strategies that will fool your lizard brain.

EVERYTHING THAT I, SIB, HAVE PERSONALLY DONE TO FOOL THE LIZARD BRAIN

1. Automate that shit - COME UP WITH A VERY, VERY SIMPLE PRE-WRITING ACTION

Okay, so at this point, you might be going, ‘Great, Sib, but how do I get myself to start?’

And I say: ‘Automate that shit’. You can make the initial action (usually the action that requires the most effort) more likely to happen by making it very, very simple.

For (a non-writing) example, I have a weird thing about dishes. I don’t like doing them. What I don’t mind doing, however, is clearing the dish rack. But what tends to happen is, once I’ve cleared the dish rack and find myself standing beside the sink, I think, ‘well, since I’m already here…’

That’s what you need to trigger with writing - that casual thought of, ‘well, since I’m already here…’. The point of the pre-writing action is to trick yourself (or, at least, your lizard brain) into perceiving writing as being so simple, so easy and non-threatening, it’d be almost silly to not do it. This is especially important if you haven’t written in so long that writing has come to resemble a nigh-insurmountable mountain or a time bomb strapped right against your heart and your sense of self-worth.

Even if you don’t do anything else that I suggest (seriously, you don’t have to, I’m just listing everything I’ve tried on the off-chance that it might work for you), I’d say this is the strategy to try. The whole point of it is that it should require almost no effort to perform. Why not do it?

My personal pre-writing action is fifteen minutes of free writing/journalling (‘I’m not writing, lizard brain, I’m just talking to myself’). You don’t have to do that. But whatever action you choose to go with, make sure it’s easy and flows on automatically to writing. The point isn’t to force yourself. If you’re forcing yourself, the action is too complicated. You’re removing the automaticity of the process, and the whole point is automaticity.

Examples of pre-writing actions you could do:

1. Sitting in your dedicated writing spot. Just sitting there. You don’t have to write. But since you’re already there…

2. Summarising the last scene/chapter you wrote. You don’t have to write anything new. But since you’ve already picked up that pen or typed out that sentence…

3. Making a cup of tea (or coffee or whatever) and thinking about your writing as it steeps. You don’t have to do anything with the idea you came up with. But since it’s already formed… ;)

I know it can be embarrassing to set your bar so ‘low’, because it feels like you’re admitting you’re incapable. But you’re not incapable. You’re just human. You have multiple responsibilities, coupled with limited time and limited resources, both physical and mental. You’re doing the best you can with the time, ability, and energy you have. No one can expect more of you than that. You, especially, should not expect more of yourself than that.

2. Grab a notebook or open a document, and DESCRIBE YOUR PROCRASTINATION BEHAVIOUR(S) IN SPECIFIC, OBSERVABLE TERMS. Don’t just say ‘I avoid writing’ - be specific (says Arthur).

For example, here are some things from my list:

I open up my WIP, stare at the cursor, and tap the page up/down/delete/backspace keys for thirty minutes

When my reminder alarm for writing goes off, I open up my WIP, then open tumblr in another browser

I do all the household chores when it’s time to write

3. Take that list of behaviours and WRITE DOWN AT LEAST ONE SPECIFIC, ACTIONABLE SOLUTION FOR EACH BEHAVIOUR. You may come up with more than one solution for each behaviour. It’s fine. Write all of them down.

Here is what I came up with for the above:

Staring at the cursor: 

Pull the page up/down and backspace keys off the keyboard (this didn’t work for me.)

 Free write for fifteen minutes before starting ‘real’ writing (which has, yes, become my pre-writing ritual. It works beautifully for me because, after 5-10 minutes, it tends to segue into ‘real writing’. As in, I’ll start off writing like I’m telling a friend about what should happen next in the story - complete with tangents and sentences full of ‘and then he’s like, you know, completely aghast’ - and then as I relax and get more into the story, I drift into draft prose and dialogue.)

Opening tumblr at the same time as my WIP:

Install Clear Focus on my phone and StayFocusd on all browsers, and put a strict limit on tumblr

Write longhand in a notebook and then transcribe (this is my go-to solution these days)

Doing household chores instead of writing:

Schedule writing time only after I finish all chores (this is a meh solution for me - I can always find new things to clean, if I’m really, really trying to avoid writing.)

Write one hour before bed/when exhausted (this is like the non-alcoholic version of the apocryphal Hemingway edict ‘write drunk, edit sober’. Exhaustion gives you all the benefits of writing without your conscious filter with none of the cirrhosis or other alcohol-related diseases!)

Stick these lists up wherever you tend to write. Now whenever you catch yourself engaging in one (or more) of these procrastination behaviours, you also have a solution (or solutions). Again, it will not necessarily be easy. But in knowing your bad habits and being prepared for them, you’re setting yourself up for a much better chance of success, and reducing the likelihood that you’ll slip down the procrastination shame spiral. The rest is the unglamorous process of trying, maybe failing, and then trying again.

4. On the cognition side of things, ASK YOURSELF: WHY DO YOU WANT TO WRITE?

Why, given all the frustration and fear and isolation (because writing is a bit of a lonely thing, at times), do you keep trying? Write every reason you have down, and be honest about it. No one is going to see this list but you.

The reason I suggest you do this is because there will be days (or weeks, or months) where it feels like all you’re doing is eking out paragraph after paragraph of dreck. It’ll feel awful. And if you don’t know why you’re writing - if you have no goal to set your sights upon, or no internal touchstone to remind you why you’re putting yourself through this - it’ll be so much more tempting to give up.

5. I’ve said this to you before, but I’ll say it again because if you’re anything like me (and I’m still riding on the assumption we’re at least a little alike, because every message you send me I’m like, ‘ah, man, yeah, I feel you, I feel you’), some advice requires repeating before it sinks in. Especially when the advice is unglamorous. So. SET YOURSELF A SMALL, ACHIEVABLE WRITING TARGET, be it a word count or a set amount of time each day.

And when I say small, I mean small. If writing 100 words a day feels uncomfortable, set your target at 50. If writing for one hour is exhausting, set your target at 30 minutes (or 15, like I did! :D).

ONE MORE THING

Writing requires discipline.

There is the discipline of sitting down and doing the work, every day, even if you’re not feeling it, of course. We’ve all heard that advice, and we’ve all (at some point or another) gotten royally pissed off at it.

But there is another sort of discipline, one that flows on from doing the work every day. In working through the fear, you teach yourself that these periods of mediocre writing or zero writing are temporary, just little halts in your overall writing journey. That’s a kind of discipline, too - training yourself to believe, heart and mind, that the fear will pass, and the words are always with you, even if they’re not coming out the way you want. It’s just going to take time. Be patient, and be kind to yourself (which I know can be hard).

You’re not useless. You’re not failing at anything by being afraid, because the fear - and learning to work through the fear - is as much a part of the writing process as getting the words down. And the value of writing for a writer is not in the finished result, not really. It’s in the act of creating, in being willing to start, to try. If you’re psyching yourself up to try, then hey. That’s half the battle already.

You can do it, anon! I’m still rooting for you!

(P.S.: You’re more than welcome to message me off anon using tumblr’s chat function

#writing #writing is hard #do it anyway #text post #very very long post #writing anon #anon #anon reply

[hotcocosharing]

REQUEST: Fool In ❤ (KBTBB Angst)

Reader said: Hello there lovely, I was wondering if requests were still open and if so could I have an angst kbtbb you can choose the guy, I’ve recently discovered my boyfriend cheating and although unorthodox I wanted to read something similar to my situation with someone else’s words… so I wouldn’t feel so alone, I found out about him and her about a month before he knew I wasn’t stupid, I’m the idiot in love who took him back because I love him but, you can take a different path, thanks. Love ya.            

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

Fandom: Kissed By The Baddest Bidder Category: Angst / Comfort Character: Soryu Oh Notes: One of the rules when I write fanfic- Cheaters don’t get happy ending. And yet, one day I got this request. It really got to me when I see the part “I’m the idiot in love who took him back because I love him”

We are no fools, my loves. We all make our choices and there is no right or wrong when it comes to love. I am leaving the fic with an open end because I can’t create an ending while not knowing how this would truly turns out since I write this base on the reader’s side of the story.

And I believe the “ending” isn’t what usually get us through the tough times, it’s the process. As painful as it may seem, we grow and learn from experience. Whatever the lesson is, I wish you finding true happiness. I am here if you need to talk or simply someone to listen. Lastly, I do hope you feel less alone.

♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡ ♡

At first, you think the worst is your broken heart then you begin to realize things are never the same, the two of you could never go back to how things used to be even though you’ve forgiven him. You even pity yourself a little for being such a fool for so long, trusting and sticking up for him when everyone keep telling you to give up.

You refuse.

Your love is strong, much stronger than some random girl. He loves you dearly, he’s just lost. He didn’t know what he’s doing or how to stop. He feels guilty and begs for your forgiveness. Your love is strong, it has to be.

But what really hurt you most is the fact that he turns to someone else when he needs help, it isn’t you he chooses to talk to, to lean on. It’s another girl who makes the move, who takes initiative to flirt with him and eventually rocks on top of him.

His depression may have clouded his judgement, fucked up his emotions but what about his feelings and love for you? What’s he thinking when he’s inside her? Has he ever thought of you when they do it the second time, the third time?

Does she make him feel good?

Why? Why does she feel bad and decide to tell you about it? She makes the first move!!! She wants him to cheat, right? Is that her way of gloating? Showing off that her claws are all over your man then she “feels guilty” and shows your their intimate conversation?

You have no idea how a heart can be shredded into that many pieces. Confronting him isn’t hard, he admits immediately with relief as the secret has been eating him alive. Why? Why does he bother cheating if he suffers too? Your love is strong, you have to stay strong for him.

He needs you, you can’t give up on him. Not when his world has crumbled, not when he’s suffering from depression. He has lost his position at the Dragons, Inui has recently lost his life during a drug deal because of the reckless new leader. Soryu stops talking about it and pretends he knows nothing about the Ice Dragon but his eyes never sparkle like they used to and he’s even lost his smile when he eats your omelette. You’ve failed at being the supportive girlfriend, you need to do better and leaving him in the cold isn’t the way to do it.

You ask Mr. Ichinomiya for a transfer since there are hotels all over the world, the man agrees as he wants his right hand man back.

“Soryu,” You return to the suite and embrace your man from behind, “Let’s move to England. Mr. Ichinomiya has agreed with my transfer, we’d use a fresh start.”

The love of your life turns around and cups your cheek, “_______, I’m so sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry. I should have been there for you when you need me.” You tip toe and plant a kiss on his lips, melting into his sweet scent. “I love you, Soryu. And always will.”

#soryu oh #kbtbb soryu #soryu cheats #kbtbb #kbtbb angst #kiss by the baddest bidder #kiss by the baddest bidder fanfic #kiss by the baddest bidder angst #voltage angst #voltage fanfic #request #ask is open #my ask #request away #voltage smut #Soryu fanfic #Soryu angst

[wellthatwasaletdown]

Hi there, I just stumbled upon your blog and I scrolled through it for some time and read a lot of the messages and I've got a few questions because I don't understand. 1. What exactly don't you like about Harry's promo and stuff and how they're showing him off? I just don't understand. I haven't followed his solo promotion that close.. 2. Why are people so angry with Harry & say that he broke up the band? I mean, I know that H proposed the hiatus but why are they so angry with him? And I read a few times that it wasn't okay what he did to the boys and I just don't get it. I genuinely don't understand all of this 3. Why are so many people against Nick?

4. Seems to me that a lot of people also don't like Jeff Azoff? Why is that? I'm also really sorry, I don't want to get on your nerves. I just would like to get an explanation because I haven't been following everything since the hiatus & there's a lot going on .. Thanks for your time to read & maybe answer this. 😊

***

Hiding my response under a cut, cuz I know it’s going to be abominably long, because I’m abominably long winded at the best of times.

Hi Anon! Don’t worry about anything, I’m happy to answer questions and I’m sure other followers in here will be happy to give their side as well since everyone has their own reasons and viewpoints on the subjects that you have brought up.

I will answer best as I can for each one! I just want to start this with the caveat that this is just MY opinion. I do not demand that others agree, and I fully respect that others feel otherwise about Harry, I only ask that they respect that these are my feelings.

1. I’ll start this off with the point that I used to be a big Harry fan. I came into this fandom as a fan of Harry, though I’ve only been a fan for about a year and a half (I came in about two months before the hiatus began, aren’t I so smart) but I was interested in what he would end up doing because I sorta assumed he would be a solo artist at some point and it’s safe to say I was not in the least bit surprised by his solo album coming out (more on this later though). I spent that year while he was recording and what not getting to know more about him, what he said publicly, watching interviews, etc, to try to suss out his public personality. I choose not to delve into the personal, I know he’s a private person and I respect that, but I’m not blind or an idiot, tabloid stories are hard to avoid but what I found with Harry, at least back then when I was watching interviews and older things he did with 1D, was that the person the trash media was trying to sell me didn’t seem to the be the same guy I saw in interviews. He struck me as very genuine, down to earth, kind hearted, intelligent, talented and witty. Not to mention that we shared an interest in classic rock, so I was definitely interested in what he would produce musically as a solo artist.

So you can imagine my shock and surprise when he released that bizarro, cheesy little video/teaser/commercial/whatever the fuck that was. Because my initial, immediate gut reaction was that it screamed arrogance and pretentiousness. It assumed that everyone who saw it would immediately know it was Harry Styles and that it was for a song. Except it didn’t really tell us anything, other than the fact that he can show off his body while wet and stare doe-eyed into a camera while a date scrolls across the bottom with some tinkling piano music in the background. I saw someone describe it as a bad cologne commercial once and frankly, that is the best description. Point is, I was highly unimpressed, it seemed very much at odds with the public personality I knew Harry as and I’m afraid things just continued to go down hill from there in my estimation of him.

Since then, with every interview, every appearance he has done, this arrogant, pretentious, but also rather robotic and lifeless personality has continued to prevail. There have been moments when I’ve seen glimpses of the Harry I used to see publicly, but they are few and far between. What really gets me is that this seems to be an Image that he is trying to sell. This aloof, above it all, sex, drugs and rock and roll star that hearkens back to the 70′s, which frankly is an era best left behind us for a lot of reasons.

So the question remains, is this the real Harry? Or is this a fabrication made purely to sell the image and music? I know that he is fiercely protective of his privacy and therefore his private self and I fully respect that, but if he is the super nice, kind, sweet, gentleman that we often hear he is from people who meet him personally, why not just be himself for the most part? Because that is someone I can get behind, that is someone I can support even if I’m not so into his music. This current image is just so unlikeable, cold, haughty and frankly, a little gross.

Speaking of the music. Despite my altered opinion of Harry, I was still very much interested in hearing his music and chose to keep an open mind and reserve judgement until I heard it. Unfortunately, for me, SOTT was kinda wah-wah. It bored me and I found the lyrics very lacking and not very interesting or deep. I heard ESNY on SNL and didn’t mind it at first but grew bored of it after about 5 listens. I’ve only heard Two Ghosts twice, when he performed them and it too bored me. I will be honest and say that due to my general dislike of those three songs, I haven’t bothered with the rest of the album. I’m a first impressions kind of girl and I gave him three and decided that I was done. I’ve heard enough about some of the lyrics, ones that make me incredibly uncomfortable because of their nature (and before anyone says it, I have ZERO problems with him writing about women or sexuality in his songs, I know he’s an adult and welcome a mature, adult sound from him, but I feel that not only did he cross the line into vulgar with some of his lyrics, he also pissed on the line and set fire to it).

2. Now, I do not have nearly as strong an opinion on this as many others and I believe that’s down to the fact that when I came into this fandom, I already knew the hiatus was coming and fully expected solo work from all of them. It does seem now that Harry might have been a tad disingenuous in his methodology, claiming to need a break but also hitting the ground running with a behind the scenes movie already set up and recording (under the presumption that people would care that bloody much about him recording the album in the first place, which is, once again, kind of on the arrogant side). But because I haven’t been a fan as long, my opinions, knowledge and feelings on the subject are frankly limited, so I will allow others to more concisely and clearly answer this question for you.

3. With Nick, for me it’s a personal feeling, which I know really only has merit for me at the end of the day. But he seems a bit slimy, as though he hooks on to his more famous friends to get more fame for himself. He’s often lacked tact (as someone mentioned, he was glibly chatting away about meeting up with Harry and what they talked about less than a week after Harry lost his step-father) and seems to bring up Harry and his other famous friends more often than he changes his underwear. He’s a name dropper and in my opinion, a user. Again, others can give their reasons for liking or disliking Nick to maybe give you some more concrete evidence than just my gut feelings.

4. Jeff Azoff, oh Jeff Azoff. I’m not a Larrie, and I wasn’t around when there seemed to be a strange consensus in the fandom that the Azoffs would rescue the entire band (from what, I’m not sure), but like Nick, part of my dislike is gut feeling, he seems like a coat-tailer, who is using Harry to build up his own business (which has failed once already, but rescued by daddy before any real embarrassment) and to have the bragging rights of landing a big whale.

Speaking of daddy, here is where I have some more concrete dislike with the Azoffs, namely Irving. The man is known as the Poison Dwarf for a reason to start with. But back in 2010, when all kinds of mergers and buy outs were going on and he suddenly found himself on the board at Ticketmaster, he received a whopping $2 million dollar bonus (plus another million later), his entire full years salary, and other cushy financial benefits while thousands were laid off from their jobs. I’m sorry, but that is shit business practice and as someone who has been laid off multiple times and knows how horrible that can be, the uncertainty and fear of what will happen next in this job market, I was thoroughly incensed to read that.

Jeff did work for Irving during that time at Front Line, though he has since parted ways to go off to start his new business, with only one client.

One client that he seems to cling on to like a turd that won’t let go.

Now I know a lot of people believe they are friends and yadda yadda, but from my perspective, it seems as though this friendship is built entirely on business and in my opinion, I would not be in the least bit surprised if Jeff dropped Harry like a hot potato should he no longer deliver. But again, this is my personal opinion and I will leave it open to others to also add their own reasons and perhaps some more facts than I am able to provide.

Anyway, this is as predicted, very long winded, but I hope I gave you some insight into where my head and opinions are. I know a lot of Harries believe firmly that if I don’t like Harry or his music, I should just bog off and stop paying attention to him. And maybe they are right, however, I work a boring job and frankly I enjoy conversing with people on the subject because as I said to a friend the other day, I invested in Harry. Not just financially, but emotionally, being a fan, with my personal interest and with my support and no one, not even me, likes to feel duped. If it turns out I’m completely wrong about some things, I will fully admit that, but it’s hard to be wrong about how something makes you feel. His promo gives me arrogant, pretentious vibes, that’s my subjective viewpoint. Others may disagree and that is absolutely their right.

Feel free to hang out though, ask questions or tell us what you think!

#Harry Styles #Anonymous #Question

[atomic-tourist-fanfic]

Love They Say, Chapter 03

Fandom: Law & Order SVU Rating: Explicit Pairing: Rafael Barba/Sonny Carisi Characters: Rafael Barba, Sonny Carisi, Carmen Content Notes: light dom/sub Word Count: 2,074

[Read on AO3]

Sonny found himself outside of Barba’s office two days after their...hook up? Sonny didn’t know what to call it. He started to knock on the closed door but stopped short, not wanting to disturb Barba in case he was in an important meeting.

“He’s taking a phone call right now,” said Barba’s paralegal from her desk and Sonny nearly jumped out of his own skin. He was so focused on seeing Barba that he hadn’t noticed her sitting at her desk. Where she always was whenever he went to see Barba. She smiled at him, amusement showing clearly in her eyes. “If you don’t mind waiting, he’ll be out in a moment.”

“Uh, thanks,” Sonny said. There was something in her expression that made him feel like she saw right through him and knew why he was there. He paced back and forth in the small waiting area outside Barba’s office, trying to shake off the worst of his uncertainty.

After several minutes, Barba’s paralegal got up from her desk and walked gracefully to his office door, letting herself in without knocking. A few murmured words that Sonny couldn’t quite make out, and she reappeared looking more amused than earlier. “Mr Barba can see you now,” she said with the barest hint of a smirk.

“Your paralegal knows what we’re up to,” Sonny blurted out as soon as the door was shut behind him.

“Her name is Carmen, and of course she does,” Barba said as if Sonny’s observation was painfully obvious and not worth saying out loud. He didn't bother looking up from the paperwork in his hand.

“Did you tell her?” That wasn’t what Sonny meant to say, and he could feel his face scrunch up involuntarily at his misstep.

Barba scoffed, still not looking up from his work. “No. But Carmen is intelligent. You should do her the courtesy of assuming she knows. Anyway, that’s beside the point. Why are you here? My schedule is full today.”

“Look...I, uh, wanted to apologize for the other night,” Sonny stammered out. To be fair, he probably deserved Barba’s clipped tone. His stomach had been twisted up in knots since their encounter in the squad room and their following lapse of good judgement in that alleyway. Barba had seemed enthusiastic, had even initiated some of it, bt that didn’t stop Sonny from worrying that he had crossed a line. It wasn’t like him to be so dominant; normally he liked for his partner to take the lead, to do what made them happy. But months of unnecessary digs at his competence had worked him up until he couldn’t take it anymore. Which wasn’t an excuse but…

Barba looked up from the case file he had been studying through Sonny’s awkward conversation. Sonny was never sure if Barba focused on paperwork just to annoy him or to appear in control. Possibly both. He regarded Sonny with annoyance and offense, all in one expression. “I hope you came down here in the middle of the day to apologize for leaving so abruptly after I asked you to come home with me,” Barba said pointedly. “Otherwise you’ll need to elaborate.”

Sonny wasn’t expecting that and it took him an embarrassingly long moment to recover. “I, uh, wow, counselor. Yeah, that was rude of me. You’re right. But I thought I had...um, I was ashamed of my behavior, ok? I didn’t even ask before I did all those things to you. I thought I hurt you.” He rubbed the back of his neck and did his best to hold Barba’s searing gaze.

“No more than I wanted you to, detective,” Barba said in a low voice that made Sonny’s dick twitch. His vision started to go hazy at the edges as he worked out the implication in Barba’s words.

“You wanted me to? You were ok...with that?”

Barba smirked, slow and infuriating. Sonny hated that smirk as much as he loved it. He wanted to strike it off Barba’s face with the back of his hand, and he felt ashamed at how thoughts like that surfaced in his mind whenever he was around the assistant district attorney. He ducked his head so low that he barely registered Barba standing from his desk and crossing the room.

“Carisi,” Barba whispered in that soothing tone Sonny had only ever heard him use when questioning witnesses. Hearing it directed at himself made Sonny feel lighter, calmer. It was easier to meet Barba’s eyes, all green and sympathetic, as Barba crowded into his personal space.

“There’s clearly a lot we need to talk about. Should have talked about before we started this. Why don’t I…” Barba continued while he smoothed down Sonny’s tie and waistcoat. Sonny’s eyes fluttered shut at the slow, gentle pressure of Barba’s hands sliding over his chest, then his stomach and back up again. “...come over to your place after I finish up here? Would that be more comfortable for you?”

Sonny nodded, swaying into Barba’s touch, but Barba pressed his hands flat against Sonny’s chest. “I need to hear you say it.” His voice was still soft but commanding.

“Yeah...we should definitely talk. I’d like that. At my place. It’s probably not as nice as you’re used to, though.” Sonny cringed at how plaintive his voice sounded.

Barba looked at him like he was afraid Sonny might spook and run out of his office. It wasn’t far from the truth. “Text me your address. I’ll see you at seven-thirty, ok?” Barba said.

At the end of his work day, Sonny had enough time to go home, change into comfortable jeans and a hoodie, and work himself up into an even worse ball of nerves.

At exactly seven-thirty the buzzer rang.

“I’d give you a tour, but this is kind of the whole thing,” Sonny said as he let Barba into his apartment. It wasn’t like him to be apologetic about his living situation -- everyone knew that even on a detective’s salary, affording a nice place was a challenge -- but he felt self-conscious when presented with the stark contrast of Barba looking so expensive in the kitchenette-entranceway of his cramped, shabby studio apartment.

Sonny bounced nervously as Barba took in their surroundings with an inscrutable expression. He was hyper aware of the dishes still in the sink, the coffee table littered with homework and empty soda cans, the unmade bed.

Barba smiled gently and sighed. “Carisi,” he said in that same tone from earlier as he closed the short distance between Sonny and himself. “Nervous is a cute look on you, but I need you to calm down. I grew up in the Bronx, in a place not much bigger than this. You’re okay.”

Barba’s hand had slid up to curl around the back of Sonny’s neck, and Sonny felt himself being pulled down into a kiss. Barba’s lips were soft and gentle against his, a reassuring anchor grounding him in the moment. When Barba moved to pull away, Sonny deepened the kiss, drawing Barba in by his hips until they were flush against each other. Sonny kissed along Barba’s jaw and down his neck, emboldened by the way Barba’s sighs hitched in his throat with each kiss. When Sonny bit down he was rewarded with Barba’s hand in his hair, clenching hard enough to hurt.

“Goddammit,” Sonny cursed, regretting it as soon as the word left his mouth. He shoved Barba away from himself like the older man would burn him if they stayed against each other much longer.

They stared at each other for a beat, a sad smile playing at the corners of Barba’s mouth. “Come here, Carisi,” he said.

Barba guided Sonny to the couch where he seated both of them so they were close but not so close to risk more distractions. Their knees barely touched, but Sonny felt like he was going to overheat just from that one small point of contact.

“I need you to be honest and clear with me,” Barba said, holding Sonny’s gaze in a way that left Sonny feeling exposed, “you’re not going to shock me, ok?”

Sonny felt overwhelmed by his own shame. His thoughts regarding Barba were dark and violent, everything his job, not to mention his good sense, told him was wrong. He had brought it up in the vaguest terms possible during Confession the previous night and it had only left him burdened with more guilt. It wasn’t his attraction to another man that bothered Sonny; he had accepted that part of himself a long time ago. It was the things he wanted to do to Barba, how the thought of inflicting pain made him so incredibly hard.

After several false starts and so much awkward stammering, Sonny blurted out the worst of it in a flurry. “I can’t stop thinking about how much I wanna backhand that smirk off your face when you look at me that way. I...I wanna push you down on your knees and fuck your mouth. God, I wanna fuck your mouth so bad.”

He said all of this to the coffee table, not wanting Barba to see the shame heating up his face, but when he found the courage to meet Barba’s eyes again, he saw unmistakable lust on the other man’s face.

“Is that what you want to do to me, detective?” Barba said, voice low and dangerous.

“Yes,” Sonny said after a long pause, trying to affect more confidence that he felt.

“Have you ever had these desires before?” Barba asked the question like he was at a grand jury hearing.

Sonny shook his head. “No...I, uh, usually like being the one getting hurt.”

Barba’s smile was somewhere between tender and predatory. “We can do that too, if you would prefer, but I would very much like you to hurt me, detective.”

“You would?” Sonny’s eyes widened in disbelief. Despite all the evidence that Barba was telling the truth, Sonny couldn’t bring himself to completely believe it.

Instead of answering immediately, Barba neatly undid his cufflinks, placing them on the coffee table next to Sonny’s homework, and slowly rolled up his sleeves to reveal rings of bruises and scrapes around his wrists. He held out his arms, turning his hands to show the extent of his injuries. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about these. It’s been a long time since I’ve wanted someone to hurt me like that, detective. Please trust me when I say I would like you to do it again.”

Sonny swallowed thickly at the sight of Barba’s exposed forearms and those bruises. Those bruises he made. With his hand holding Barba’s wrists tightly against a brick wall. And he had unwavering consent to do it again. He felt suddenly possessive and feral, all of his previous shame forgotten, but he pushed those feelings aside for a moment, wanting to instead show his gratitude for what Barba was giving him.

Sonny took Barba’s hand in both of his and bent his head to press a kiss reverently to the bruises on the inside of Barba’s wrist. His eyes never left Barba’s face as he repeated the gesture with his other hand. Barba’s eyes fluttered shut and his mouth parted; Sonny felt his pulse quicken against his lips.

Sonny watched as Barba took a deep breath and composed himself before once again meeting Sonny’s gaze. “Well, detective?” he asked; there was a challenge in his voice, but Sonny could see in his eyes that it was all bravado.

“You’re just as scared as me,” Sonny said, a statement not a question. He continued to hold Barba’s hand in his, gently rubbing circles with his fingers.

“You’re a better detective than I give you credit for,” Barba said. Sonny rolled his eyes like he always did when Barba was sarcastic. “I’m not normally this...open about my inclinations”

“Yeah, me neither,” Sonny said. He felt hopeful, like maybe they could figure out whatever was simmering between them together.

Barba slipped his hand from Sonny’s gentle grip and reached out to toy with the drawstring on Sonny’s hoodie. “It seems we’re on the same page then. This thing makes you look like a college student. Wouldn’t you look better out of it?” He smirked and arched an eyebrow as he said it.

Sonny grinned without reserve as he reached back to pull hoodie over his head.

#fan fiction #law & order: special victims unit #law & order svu #barisi #rafael barba #sonny carisi #slash fic #fan fic