#after which you try reaching more people who all agree you're the worst | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

doberbutts · 2 months

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I very much see your points! I suppose the only real difference between your viewpoint and mine stands in the fact that while yes, I do agree that to use the terms TME/TMA to sort of "gatekeep" specific experiences is bad, I feel like that's more of an issue with individual (although decently widespread, unfortunately) misappropriation of the language, rather than a conceptual flaw with the framework. I believe there's a lot of people who intend to use the terms correctly, and if and when they happen not to we should aim to correct that individual behavior rather than throw the baby out with the water, so to speak. I do understand that it's a bit of a tall ask when everyone's at each other's throats and often not willing to return the favor, but at the very least that's what we should strive for if we want to reach mutual understanding (I say all this knowing that's your goal too, I wouldn't assume otherwise).

After all, I do believe that the way "transandrodorks" are treated stems from a similar misunderstanding or overgeneralization of what we actually stand for, and an unwillingness to reach out a hand and actually listen to what we have to say rather than assume the worst from a few bad actors. That's why when the positions are reversed I want to at least try to reach out and meet the other party in the middle, even if the same courtesy isn't always afforded to me.

As for your example with Caster Semenya, I do believe that intersex people should absolutely be allowed to use the term TMA to refer to themselves regardless of AGAB if they feel it's appropriate, as their experiences often exist outside the strict framework we tend to employ and they would know best which terminology applies to them and which doesn't (and should also obviously allowed to make up their own when needed). I don't see eye to eye with anyone who advocates for TMA/TME while disagreeing on this point (and I'll admit I'm not sure what the general consensus here is).

And as for the other example, I'm a bit hesitant to continue that specific analogy (which I do believe to be absolutely valid, btw) since I'm white and I would rather not say anything out of turn, so I'll instead offer the usual rebuttal to the analogous point: when someone who is TME experiences transmisogyny, it's an atomic experience, not continuous. They might be mistaken for a trans woman, but as they are not actually a trans woman they don't live in the same state of constant fear and threat of (this specific type of) violence. They can prove they're not transfem, and the attack will stop, or at least lessen. They have the option of simply not being transfem, something which obviously isn't afforded to transfems. That doesn't mean that the experience they went through didn't affect them, or did so less, but they would live it differently from someone who would be the actual intended target.

Now, I relayed that point but I personally am not sure I agree with it 100%, specifically the latter half. If the TME person being attacked happens to be another trans person, rather than cis, they don't get to escape the danger through proving they're not transfem, because then they're just trading a type of violence for another (the one actually meant to target them, which might look differently). Not to mention that you won't always be in a situation where you can/want to prove it, or where the other party will believe you or care either way. I guess the bigger point here is that if you're TME you're not always experiencing transmisogyny in every facet of your life, though.

Either way I believe there's plenty of more nuance that could be had here, and in that sense I do dislike how that's lost when using TME/TMA, but as terms they were never intended to encompass every possible experience in shorthand but rather just give a general idea, which could then be complemented by any additional info you would be willing to share.

Ah but you see, that's the talking over someone else's experience I'm talking about.

When TME people experience transmisogyny, it is incidental and not continuous. Well. For some, like my example of the idiot mistaking me for Mexican for being brown while saying a French word, that is true. I am not commonly mistaken for Mexican, though it's not unheard of, and it hasn't happened in years. Specifically, when I stopped wearing my hair long and started binding, I stopped being read as *Dominican* (which racist people do not see the difference between the various Latin American countries) and thus stopped experiencing this problem. It's incidental, but I still think that the best choice is to ally with Mexicans and other Latinos and Hispanics to stop the bigoted behavior from happening altogether.

But what happens when it IS continuous? Black cis women, also labeled TME, are disproportionately transvestigated and heavily punished by transmisogynist laws and rulings despite not being transgender themselves. Not only does showing birth certificates not help (and, also, I think this is Bad Logic, because if I have to show my personal private documents in order to be left alone, I'm still being Affected By The Oppression because I have to carry my documents everywhere. Like that's just Baby's First Fascism) but I have personally witnessed multiple black celebrity and politician cis women be forced to prove they are women *while they are pregnant*. And yes, that is misogynoir. But it is practiced by utilizing the exact same societal systems to hurt trans women. Thus my logic on the other post- all oppression hooks into each other and back onto itself somehow. Not only is that not incidental and very much continuous, but this a systemic problem and why cis and trans women and *especially* any person of color regardless of gender should ally among themselves to fight it.

And, finally "they can prove they're not trans fem and the attack will stop or lessen"- sure, much like how Hannah Gadsby was able to say "no no I'm not a faggot you see I am a lady a woman no man-liker here" and the guy left her alone wait no he didn't he beat the shit out of her anyway. Like that's the problem I have with this- the reality is that this does not apply to every single person and that real living people are being hurt and sometimes killed while being labeled exempt from the very thing that kills them. We have had cis people die due to bathroom laws meant to hurt trans women. It is absolutely not a matter of just proving you're not one because transmisogyny is one help of a drug and it is used as a dangerous weapon to any and everyone it's pointed towards.

And that is the crux of my problem. People can use whatever words they like to describe their own experiences. Pointing these words to describe someone else's experiences for them, however, and denying that their very real lived experiences have happened or that it matters less is where I draw the line.

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thestraggletag · 2 months

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Ties of Blood, aka the Rumbelle cursed!faux!incest, Part Two

Summary: There’s nothing more tragic than ripping two lovers apart, except piecing the broken pieces together wrong. Never say the Evil Queen doesn’t know about revenge.

Rating: NC-17

Part One here.

Hey, it only took me FOUR YEARS to put up part Two! This fic will likely have four parts so I'll be finished before the decade's over.

Enjoy the big cliffhanger at the end of this chapter!

She figured it out seconds before Miss Swan blurted it out to the entire assembly, too late to make a hasty and discreet retreat. She forced herself to look relaxed and betray no emotion as Emma confessed the truth.

"The fire was a setup. Mr. Gold agreed to support me in this race, but I didn’t know that that meant he was going to set a fire. I don’t have definitive evidence, but I’m sure. And the worst part of all this was - the worst part of all this is - I let you all think it was real. And I can’t win that way. I’m sorry."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw her brother stand up and slowly walk away, understanding that he'd avoided sitting next to her because he knew what would happen. Knew Emma Swan enough to predict exactly how she'd react, down to her spontaneous confession. It was terrifying, how he could do that. And it was terrifying, for a whole lot of different reasons, how much he seemed to already know Miss Swan. How he could get inside her head so easily.

Once he was gone she felt some people turn their attention towards her, and it took all she had not to acknowledge it, to pretend she didn't notice it. As soon as she could, however, she slipped out of the hall, hastening home. She felt a sad sort of relief to find the house dark and quiet, Rabbie having retired to his room early for the night, allowing her to do the same and be alone with her thoughts. And they centred around Emma Swan and Mayor Mills, the two women who seemed to hold her brother's interest. It was difficult to tell which one he seemed to favour, and she could see either as being his preference. On the one hand he seemed to be doing the impossible to try and keep Emma Swan in town, toying with her in a way that could easily be interpreted as flirting, but on the other his hatred of Regina bordered on obsession, and could have easily been hiding a deep attraction. She was certainly privy to a side of him Rabbie fought to hide from Belle herself. Besides, the mayor had a dangerous sort of beauty that she could understand would be attractive to someone like her brother. Things were getting out of control, were escalating. A fire was too much to ignore, to excuse.

The days after the fire and the election were filled with the tense silence of things unspoken, both of them lost in their own thoughts. Though neither mentioned it Belle heard about clandestine meetings in the woods with the mayor and unexpected acts of kindness towards the sheriff, including the exchange of information- something Rabbie priced highly- in exchange for "tolerance".

Though she had told herself that she would've been happy if his brother decided to pursue Emma Swan she wasn't sure of it now. But she should try to embrace it, try to see the positive side of it. It was good of Rabbie to take an interest in someone new, good for him to interact more with people. When she expressed a wish to invite either woman for dinner, however, he seemed set against it, as if he found the idea distasteful.

"It's just... you seem to have so many things in common with both women, Rabbie. I thought inviting either for dinner would make a nice change from lonely nights with the town lunatic."

Her brother banged a closed fist on the table, startling her into dropping her cutlery. He seemed contrite as soon as he saw the scared expression on her face, reaching out with that same hand to take one of hers.

"Do not refer to yourself as that. Please. You're not... you're not crazy."

She wished she could agree, but she knew there was something wrong with her. She had dreams sometimes, strange and elusive and unsettling, and often she'd be hit by a sense of wrongness in the middle of the day, as if the world around her... wasn't real. Certain people also made her feel strange, like Maurice French. There was something about him that made her strangely nostalgic and yearning. The mayor, on the other hand, terrified her, and she didn't very well know why. But it was a cold, visceral sort of fear, deep and inexplicable. And her brother... Well, of course she loved him, but sometimes that love felt... wrong. In ways she didn't really want to explore at all.

It was happening more and more, which in turn had her feeling more and more like the little girl trapped in the asylum she'd once been. And like she'd deserved to be there.

"I'm sorry. I know you worry. And I don't want you to, I want you to... enjoy yourself. Mingle a bit more. Perhaps take the new sheriff for a drink or two, now that things seem to be better between you."

He looked puzzled, as if it had never occurred to him to view Miss Swan in a romantic light. Then again her brother was good about lying to himself when the mood struck him, it was altogether very possible he was in denial.

"You're seeing things, dear."

Belle chuckled, a mirthless sort of sound.

"Wouldn't be the first time."

Without Graham to go to for some peace when things got to be too much Belle got into the habit of visiting his grave to bring fresh flowers and sit awhile to enjoy the peace and quiet. Her brother had thoughtfully seen fit to install a wooden bench, Marco's handiwork judging by the simple elegance of the design. Unwilling to go visit her friend empty-handed she became a regular visitor of Game of Thorns. The flower shop was poorly kept and Moe French looked like a man who could barely keep things running or his life together, but there was a sort of dignity about the man, the shadow of something great that had faded away with time. His flower arrangements were certainly beautiful, and his merchandise well cared-for.

Though he was wary of her at first her sunny disposition soon had him warming up to her and once she expressed her interest in flowers he became a veritable chatterbox. Every time she stopped by he'd have a new flower arrangement for her, taking great pains to tell her interesting tidbits about the flowers. She got used to stopping by with something to share, muffins or cookies or anything else she might easily carry in a tupper, once she realised the florist seldom remembered to eat during the day. He spoke, sometimes, of his wife- Belle hadn't known he was a widower- and how she'd been the one with the business sense, a force of nature that had kept the house and the shop running smoothly and profitably. He'd tried to emulate her efforts after she passed away, but he'd quickly found himself overwhelmed by daily life.

"I'm just no good outside a greenhouse, it seems. Plants come easy to me... Everything else usually becomes too much."

For some reason, she felt the overwhelming need to fuss about his clothes and his eating habits, though she knew that would imply far too much familiarity. Moe French was a gruff sort of person, and she was nothing but a glorified customer. He did seem not to mind her intrusions on his time, cheering up when she entered the shop and not at all eager, it seemed, to send her away.

Once, after a particular rotten day- she'd woken in the middle of the night with the remnants of some sort of horrible dream about her and made her way to her brother's room only to find him gone, and nothing had quite gotten better after that- he'd offered to show her to his greenhouse, which was fascinating. A large portion of it was occupied by rows of hydrangeas.

"It was my wife's favourite flower. Funny, some days I can hardly remember her face, but I've never forgotten she loved hydrangeas."

For some reason it didn't surprise her to find the late Mrs French had also favoured hydrangeas. It certainly explained why the flower shop always kept them in stock and in such an array of colours. Belle had thought perhaps that the florist did it to curry favour, to try to appease her brother come rent day, give him a reason to be lenient. She rather liked the more romantic explanation, it made the flowers seem less mercenary. And it fit her newfound understanding of Moe French as a man who'd loved fiercely and lost, who was hopeless at anything remotely business-related- something her brother often commented on, in a far less diplomatic manner- but made the most beautiful flower arrangements imaginable and spent a lot of his time talking to his plants in his greenhouse, claiming it helped them grow.

Changes were definitely happening, and though Belle could have done without a lot of them she rather liked some others.

He hated it. Couldn't quite tell why, but he hated it. Somehow the florist had always rubbed him the wrong way, for no apparent reason. He was a snivelling, barely-functional excuse of a man, with the worst business sense he'd ever seen, who saw fit to blame all of his woes on others. Granted, he was not the only person in Storybrooke Gold was less than impressed with, but there was something about him, something special that pushed his dislike into outright, seething hate. Being in the florist's presence for long tended to make him violent, to fill him up with an inexplicable rage.

Belle's soft spot for the old man made him strangely apprehensive and anxious. It felt almost as if he thought Moe was dangerous for his sister, like he wished to do her harm, which he knew wasn't true. In the past, however, that awful feeling in the pit of his stomach had not been recurring, since Belle crossed paths with Mr French only seldomly. The flowers that decorated their home were picked up by him or, more often, by Dove, his only employee. The library and the flowershop were far enough away from each other and Moe French wasn't into reading anything longer than a magazine. Gold doubted he even had a library card.

But after Graham died Belle had acquired the habit of visiting his grave, often bringing with her a bouquet to place near the headstone. Which meant she was suddenly visiting the flower shop often and that set his teeth on edge. Especially when it became clear his sister was taking a genuine interest in the florist and he seemed to be responding in kind. Belle had never given him the impression of wanting a father figure. They had both tacitly agreed, once they'd been reunited, that each was all the family the other needed. He didn't like the notion that he wasn't enough, that he'd failed somehow, in some way he couldn't fathom. That he was lacking.

Moe was a lonely man, who likely found himself nearing retirement and dealing with the regrets of a life half-lived. He had a vague notion that he'd once been married, long ago, but there had been no kids, and later on his wife had passed away, leaving him all alone. A man with no family, with no friends, with very little in the way of a future. He could understand that someone like that might start to covet things that weren't his, things he desired. For some reason the idea that Moe might actually have... an unseemly interest in his sister had never crossed his mind. Man was no lecher, which might easily be his one and only virtue. But he did have some sort of interest in Belle, man lit up whenever she was around and became someone capable of carrying a conversation and not simply grunting. He'd tell her about plants as if they were a fascinating subject and, much to his chagrin, it led to botany books joining Belle's multiple book piles around the house. Books were how Belle best expressed herself, and so he'd learned to read the book piles. Victoria Holt novels when she was feeling down and needed a bit of romance with a twist, Agatha Christie when she was feeling bored with the quiet daily life of Storybrooke, Cortazar for when her mood was dark and strange and she needed stories to match and so on. Everything new that caught her eye would eventually end up in the piles and, over the years, he'd been their biggest influence. Law review books when he was handling a tricky case, art history books to learn more about whatever big project he was working on, even the odd medical journal whenever there was an interesting or relevant article about physical therapy for people with his sort of injury. To see a bit of Moe French in the piles set him on edge.

He tried to tell himself when rent day came along that he wasn't taking any sick pleasure from running the numbers and discovering that French was a whopping three hundred and fifty bucks short. Told himself that he was simply following protocol when he called Dove to provide muscle protection as he prepared to seize the florist's collateral, his van. So what if he'd perversively and carefully picked out what he was wearing that day, down to the paisley purple and silver tie? It simply meant he knew the power of appearances.

He told himself over and over he was in the right, preparing the arguments in his head to tell Belle once she, without a doubt, went off on him for it. He rehearsed them over and over and was in the process of reciting them in his head for the seventh time as he approached his house when he noticed the front door open. It was too soon for Belle to have closed the library and made her way home so his guard was immediately up. Once he made his way inside he reached for the Walter PPK he kept near the front door, removing the safety quickly as his eyes surveyed the living room, already noticing some valuables missing, as well as things strewn about, clear evidence of a robbery.

The appearance of Miss Swan a few seconds later, far from welcomed, put a damper on the plans already forming in his head. It was too much of a coincidence, being robbed the same day he'd moved against Moe French. This had all the markings of French's brand of sloppiness, down to the many expensive items he'd left behind because they weren't glittering baubles. He wouldn't have guessed anyone else was involved if he hadn't noticed a particular object missing. It was a small, insignificant thing, a bone china cup, dainty and chipped, that had once belonged to an expensive tea set his aunties had owned. Belle had chipped that cup as a baby, and so when the aunties were forced to sell it they had omitted the cup, which he had saved from the trash and kept in secret for years, the one thing Belle had touched that he could get his hands on. It was worthless except to him, nothing that could have possibly attracted the attention of someone ransacking the house for valuables.

No one knew where he kept the cup, though. Only Belle, of course, who might not remember breaking it as a toddler but had heard the story enough times to repeat it from memory at the drop of a hat. But no one else even knew the cup was of any significance.

‘Regina.’

He turned around, as if expecting someone to materialise behind him. He shook his head, wondering if there was something in the water. First Sheriff Graham seeing wolves in the woods and now he was hearing noises. And there was a nagging feeling, one he couldn’t explain, regarding the mayor. As if some part of him knew she was responsible for it, just like Belle had been sure she was responsible for the good sheriff’s death.

It didn’t matter how the florist knew anyway. Perhaps it was a coincidence. What mattered was getting the cup back intact. Everything else could wait.

He felt off kilter, in a way he could not explain away. Like he had spent half the day on autopilot, doing things without a conscious thought or a good reason. Kidnapping the florist had been a deliberate move, that one he could not excuse. After all the man had touched what was his and needed to know that such actions carried consequences. But what happened later… that he had no reasonable explanation for. The rage that overtook him when he heard Mr French’s pathetic pleas for leniency, his desperate attempts at reasoning with him, he could not explain. It felt like something foreign, something subconscious he could only scratch at, that was dying to push its way out of his body. A voice told him that Maurice had done something awful. Something beyond redemption. That he had taken Belle from him, in a way that was permanent, and that he needed to pay for it.

‘He hurt her,’ the voice told him, over and over until it was howling inside his head, drowning out the desperate cries from the florist and the sound of Sheriff Swan identifying herself on the other side of the door, demanding entry. It wasn’t until she barged in and cuffed him that he snapped out of it, as if awakening suddenly from a dream that felt too real until the last second.

“What the hell were you thinking, Gold? What did he do?”

“He stole.”

He thought about the cup, but somehow other images kept popping into his head instead. Of Belle, dressed in a blue dress he could not recall her ever owning, lounging around in an unfamiliar, palatial place. Of them dancing around each other, the air charged with something he could not describe. And then himself, alone. Devastated. Because Belle was… gone?

“That reaction was about more than taking a few trinkets. You said something about how he hurt "her", what happened to "her"? Who was that? What did he do? If someone needs help, maybe I can help. Unless this is about your sister, in which case I would remind you about the virtues of sharing. She’s a grown woman capable of choosing who she socialises with.”

“No. I'm sorry, Sheriff. I think you heard that wrong.”

He was in no mood to have whatever discussion this was turning into, not with the Sheriff or anyone else. He knew what people thought about him, and his relationship with his sister. But it wasn’t any of their fucking business. They weren’t family, not like-

Except he had called Maurice her father, hadn’t he? Why had he done that? At the moment he hadn’t thought about it. Words had just poured out of his mouth, as if he had always wanted to speak them. As if he had been dying to say them.

“You really don't wanna cooperate.”

He really, really didn’t.

“Look, we're done here.”

He didn’t want to talk, didn’t want to have to explain to others what he could not even begin to make sense in his head. He just wanted to go home, to Belle’s relaxing company. Sheriff Swan slapping cuffs on him jarred him out of his little fantasy.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

The cells back at the sheriff’s station were not known for their comfort, and his headache wasn’t helping matters. His mind felt scattered, as if it was difficult to concentrate. He struggled to make sense of things, to keep it together. Nonsensical images flitted about his mind, of places he had never seen, a life he had never lived. And that voice, that damnable sing-songy voice, kept whispering in his ear, taunting about how he did not remember, how he had forgotten something important.

When the mayor came, it took everything in him not to snap because he realised that whatever was going on wasn’t happening in his head. Regina knew. She knew and he was in the dark, yet for some inexplicable reason she thought the opposite. There was a power struggle happening, and he was on the losing end of it unless he figured out fast what the fuck was going on in his town.

The glee in the mayor’s face when she realised that he did not know what she was talking about was a bitter pill to swallow, but the return of his chipped cup softened the sting. He needed to be out to figure out what was going on and how it connected to everything else wrong around him.

A quick call later, which Sheriff Swan had allowed him only after he had rather mockingly reminded her of his rights, had him out of the station in little time at all. DA Spencer was nothing if not shady, after all, and though he had no expectations of loyalty- he was sure Spencer was dealing with him only because Regina had not come knocking with a better offer- it got him out of his more immediate and pressing problem. He would deal with the charges themselves later.

He hoped, rather foolishly perhaps, that his slightly-rumpled estate would put off whatever inevitable confrontation would eventually happen between himself and his sister but it was a testament to how angry Belle was that she seemed not to notice the way his limp was noticeably more pronounced once he was finally home.

“What the hell has gotten into you? Are you mad?”

He shrugged off his coat and hung it in the rack near the door, unable to help the way his eyes went up and down Belle, making sure she was alright, that no harm had come to her in the time he had been indisposed. She looked healthy. And absolutely furious. Worse than that. She looked betrayed.

“I was merely seeking justice. The good sheriff didn’t seem to be going anywhere with her investigation of the theft in our home, so I took matters into my own hands. Miss Swan clearly did not appreciate me showing her up, so to speak, by finding the culprit and making sure there wouldn’t be a repeat offence.”

So what the handle of his cane was covered in a bit of blood? Headwounds bled easily, everyone knew that.

“Moe French is in the hospital! You should’ve seen him in the hospital bed, covered in bandages, practically unable to move!”

“You went to visit him?”

It felt like a betrayal, knowing that while he had been seething in prison, dealing with Regina and getting his precious cup back, his sister had been visiting the person who had violated their home and taken things of untold value to him. Hadn’t she thought about visiting him? About his comfort? He had done all he had to protect her, after all. To protect them.

“I had to! I had to see for myself, apologise on your behalf and make sure he knew we would cover all medical expenses.”

“Like hell we are.” He had never raised his voice to his sister before, not that he ever recalled, and yet something about their current dynamic felt so strangely familiar. “Not an ounce of my money is going to that snivelling little leech.”

“So it’s your money now? That’s how this is? Your money, your power, your reputation. That’s what you were protecting when you were beating a defenceless Moe French, wasn’t it?”

“He doesn’t deserve your fierce defence of him. He never has. He’s beneath your notice, and yet you’ve insisted on paying attention to him. Of spending time with him. Of course he was going to take advantage of it eventually, of your kindness and your bleeding heart.”

He stalked off towards the wet bar in the corner of their living-room, serving himself a generous three fingers of 30-year-old Macallan, trying not to remember it had been a gift of Belle’s for his last birthday.

“I’m not some idiot that someone can easily take advantage of! And you don’t get to dictate who I spend time with! I keep quiet about your social life, don’t I? Meeting with the major in the woods at night, having questionable encounters with the sheriff. Things any other person might have questioned you about. But I kept silent, I’ve not complained about how much less time we spend together, how you’ve become more secretive, more cagey. You have no right to dictate to me in return.”

Rabbie scoffed, downing his drink and contemplating pouring himself another. It wasn’t the first time his sister implied he was paying too much attention to either the mayor or the sheriff, and he was sick of it. It wasn’t true, for one, and he disliked that his sister kept both pushing him towards the two women and then acting strange when she perceived he was spending too much time with either of them. He disliked how they had wormed their way into their home. For him, both women were… business connections, which he cultivated and utilised for his own benefit, to maintain and grow his hold over the town and make things go the way he wanted them to. But all that stopped mattering as soon as he crossed his front door. Their house was their private sanctuary, a world of their own. That’s why he had taken such a dislike to the mere idea of Moe French violating their space. And it rankled that she didn’t seem to hold the same sentiment.

“Stop it! Stop whatever weird little thing you’ve been imagining it’s happening between me and the sheriff or, God forbid, the mayor. I don’t know what’s gotten into you, you’ve completely lost-”

He stopped himself, the enormity of what he was about to say hitting him a second before he did. But he could see from the way that Belle’s eyes suddenly filled with tears that it was too little, too late.

“My mind? Say it. It’s what everyone thinks, after all. The truth is you’ve never cared about my social life before because I had none. Because everyone in this town keeps their distance from me, like I’m some sort of wild animal that’ll attack them unprovoked at any moment. And they’re not necessarily wrong, are there? I… I have these dreams, sometimes. So vivid they feel more real than my life here sometimes. And I have these inappropriate-”

This time she was the one that stopped herself, her eyes suddenly not meeting his as she side-stepped him to head towards the stairs. He knew her well enough to know she was planning to go up to the library to read herself to sleep. The library was her personal space, like the basement workshop was his, and they had a tacit agreement not to step into each other’s rooms without express permission, making them places where they could take a break from each other. He would have let her go, only he felt like she had been about to say something important. Monumental. As if she had been about to give voice to something that had, for the longest time, been unspoken between them. He grabbed her by the arm, gentle in spite of the tone and charged air in the room.

“What were you going to say?”

“Nothing.”

He could see her folding into herself, escaping into that bit of her mind he could not touch and it infuriated him. She never did that with him, not on purpose. She was always an open book where he was concerned, the one person he didn’t have to worry would have ulterior motives.

“It’s not nothing. Why are you lying to me? You’ve never done that before.”

“Wish I could say the same.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to reply that he only ever lied to her for her protection. There were things she was better off not knowing, things he was happier if she could safely deny having knowledge of. Things she might find unseemly or unpalatable and would struggle to reconcile with her values. Belle was a much better person than he was, than most people were. He didn’t want her to have to pit her love for him against her sense of right and wrong.

But saying that suddenly sounded incredibly condescending.

“Don’t change the subject. This isn’t about me, it’s about you. And when it comes to us I’m always honest with you. And until now you’ve done the same. But there’s something you’re keeping from me.”

The way she wouldn’t meet his eyes told him that he was right.

“Can you really say that? You think I don’t realise you’ve been different these past few months? Ever since Emma Swan showed up, as a matter of fact.”

She was right, of course, but not in the way she seemed to be implying. Something had indeed changed the day Henry Mills had dragged his very reluctant biological mother across the townline months ago. He could not pinpoint what, or when he had first noticed it. When things he had kept mostly buried beneath layers of denial, started to surface. When he began to hear a niggling voice in the back of his head that told him there was something wrong with the way he felt about his sister. In the ways his eyes and hands lingered on her at times, in the way he felt when other people- other men- took her from him, even if it was only for a little while. It was the only part of what made beating Moe French make sense, this notion that this man was there to take Belle away from him and needed to be stopped. The other part of it, the blind, consuming rage, that remained a mystery to him.

“Stop this obsession with the bloody sheriff. Who cares about her? Why do you insist on bringing her up between us? Acting like-” Like a jealous girlfriend. “-like you’re insecure. Like you’re afraid we’re drifting apart.”

“Aren’t we? When was the last time we had lunch together when I wasn’t the one taking the trouble of going to the pawnshop to make it happen. When was the last time we went a week without something making you skip dinner? The last time we sat down to watch a movie?” Belle’s eyes welled up, her face a mixture of anger and sadness that made him want to wrap his arms around her, even though he knew she wouldn’t appreciate it. He still held on to her, both hands on her arms now, his cane dropped. He trusted her to keep him upright.

“Sometimes… sometimes I think I love you more than you love me.”

“No one could love anyone more than I love you.” He felt his hands tighten around her upper arms and though a part of him knew he must be hurting her he could not make himself pull away. “You’re mine. And I’m yours. It’s the only thing I’ve ever felt sure about in this world. The only thing that feels right.”

“Does it? Because it hasn’t felt right for me lately. Like I’ve woken up and realised that the way we are is not… It’s not good for us. It’s not healthy. It’s not normal.”

“Fuck normal. No part of our lives has been normal. What we have is not normal, it’s better. Better than what most people will ever have. It feels good, doesn’t it?” He let one of his hands wrap around the back of her neck, the other going around her waist to pull her closer to appease the blind panic welling up in him at the idea that Belle might pull away. “You feel this? Whatever this is, it can’t be bad. Not between us.”

They never knew what happened first, whether it was Belle looking up or Gold looking down. One moment they were simply close, foreheads touching, the air charged between them, and the next their lips grazed, tentatively at first, the pressure increasing as something sparked between them. Belle sighed, her hands pressing against his shoulders to be able to stand on her toes and lean into the kiss and it was all that was needed for Gold’s carefully-curated self-restraint to snap. Suddenly he was hauling her close, his mouth pressing insistently against hers, coaxing her lips to open so he could slip his tongue into the warm heaven that was her. He growled, feeling exhilaration course through him as he kissed her frantically, with a desperation he had never felt before. Something sizzled between them, something that felt a bit like electricity travelling all over his body but he pushed that feeling aside, concentrating instead on the feeling of his sister’s hands sliding to the back of his neck, one taking a lock of his hair and tugging on it, urging him closer. She was soft and warm and wonderful in his arms, and he could not shake the feeling that this was right. It was what they had always meant to be doing, what their entire lives had led to. Why he had always been resentful of men sniffing around Belle, why he had always compared women to her. The few women who he had dated had all closely reassembled her, but he had never noticed. All a pale imitation of her, he could see now as he fisted the back of her shirt, his hand seeking the warmth of her skin. She was perfect, and she was his. His beautiful little sister, his true love.

‘That means it’s true love!’

There was a bright flash of something and next thing he knew Gold was on the floor on the other side of the living-room, a searing pain in his forehead and a deluge of confusing memories hammering into his brain. A spinning wheel. A dagger.

Baelfire. His son.

A curse to become reunited with him. And just as he was about to accomplish it… a flicker of light. One that had been snuffed out.

Dead.

He looked across the room, at his sister sprawled next to the couch, her eyes wide as she looked at him.

“R-Rumple?”

“Belle.” He had said her name a thousand times as Mr Gold, but it felt different, like he was talking about a different person. And, in a way, he was. Not Belle French, but Lady Belle. Except she was supposed to be dead. Regina had told him-

Fuck. How could he have been so stupid?

“You’re real. You’re alive.”

#rumbelle #rumbelle fic #ties of blood #thestraggletag fanfiction

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thefirstknife · 10 months

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While I 100% agree that if people aren't having fun they should take a step back/quit, I don't like the "if you're not having fun just go find another game" argument because it's so often used to shut down actual legitimate criticism from people who are otherwise enjoying the game but want genuine problems to be addressed. (I've seen it, for example, when people try to bring up bigotry in games and suggest maybe making some changes to remove it. I always get wary when I see people say it now.)

Oh yeah absolutely. There's real criticism that we have to be able to point out and discuss. A lot of the times people use this for any minor criticism someone has and I agree, that's often a way to shut down the conversation. Criticism in general is supposed to come from a place of love: you love something and you want to see it be better.

Unfortunately, in this case, when the community turns into ONLY negativity and criticism, it's kinda hard to believe they care about the game anymore. If people still had some positive stuff to engage with and were enjoying the game but had issues, then sure. But most of the negativity online right now is just purely rage bait. Bungie apparently has no redeeming qualities, and Destiny is dead. Misinformation is spreading about everything: all devs abandoned Destiny to work on Marathon (claim with no source that's accepted as fact and makes no sense: Destiny is the only game making them money, they can't abandon it before Marathon is out. Like, logically), monetisation is the worst in the industry (I genuinely don't believe that they play other games if they think that Destiny's monetisation is the worst in the industry), Bungie is maliciously banning people for fun (????) but also Bungie isn't banning people enough, Bungie is maliciously making server issues and didn't develop a "fix server" button in their office, game development is easy and Bungie is just lazy and the devs don't want to tell us anything because they're evil, Destiny is falling apart and nobody is playing anymore (just trust me bro), and most recent one which is possibly the most baffling of all - Bungie Foundation is a scam to write off taxes. Yes, that is currently discourse (which apparently gets recycled every year). Bungie Foundation, a charity organisation that's been going on for 13 years and is an independent registered organisation, is a scam. This is where we're at with the community mentality. And there's even more.

When we're at this point, it's truly something else. Like, if they believe conspiracy theories about Bungie and think Bungie is scamming them, maybe they just shouldn't play the game anymore. Why are they still here if they think this is all a scam? I would drop the game if I believed any of this so strongly.

Normal people having criticism and all is perfectly fine however! I did my fair share especially recently about the season pass pricing changes which I called a predatory practice and still believe it is. There's a lot more stuff to complain about while still enjoying the game and not basing your entire online existence and personality on hating Bungie. If they've got nothing else to do besides sitting on twitter shitting on Bungie, maybe it's time to move on.

I've also had my suspicions about the motives for hardcore Bungie hate after the incidents involving transphobic attacks on Bungie devs following the LF showcase, as well as all the crap about Nimbus and their VA. Given the recent developments about the general anti-LGBT+ mentality, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a contingent of people who are focusing on Bungie more than anyone else for how outspoken they are in their support for LGBT+ causes. Like, not to do some big reach or something but it's fairly curious that gamers online are adopting the anti-LGBT+ sentiments while Bungie is aggressively supportive. It just rubs me the wrong way that the one company that's committed to this and has been for years before most other companies jumped on the bandwagon is the one that they're choosing to paint as the worst villain. And the LGBT+ support isn't even all, as Bungie has other initiatives where they actively support women's right, reproductive rights, poc rights, disability rights and so on). I don't know, I've been a part of the gaming community for a long time and while there's been massive changes since the early days (and since gamergate days), the issues of bigotry in gaming remain. It feels particularly suspicious to, out of ALL companies, single out Bungie which invests in charities and progressive causes. Like, in the grand scheme of things, every corpo is robbing me blind, I know that, I have to give money to corpos to live on this Earth, so I at least want to give it to a corpo that considers me to be a human being and funds causes that promote my rights, instead of wanting me dead.

Ironically, all of this weird hate makes it harder to have actual normal criticism. It just gets drowned and lost in the sea of exaggerated bullshit and lies and conspiracies perpetuated by people who just don't seem to like the game anymore. At the end of the day, it's a video game. Whatever criticism we have, if it gets to the point where we just can't handle the state of the game, the best way to show it is to simply stop playing. A deluge of harassment on twitter will not bring about meaningful change nor will it adequately convey our criticism to anyone. If they truly want some changes, they would do this criticism in a way that matters, instead of creating a horde of angry gamers who will latch onto every lie and create a hate bandwagon.

#destiny 2 #bungie #long post #ask #i def agree with the premise of the ask btw. if that isn't clear #not all criticism is just meaningless rage #unfortunately it's harder than ever to parse through the bullshit to find it #and like. if this leads to less monetisation or something. sure. I'd like that too #but the methods being employed here are literally only hurting community managers devs and the community itself #the marketing board of execs at bungie who decided on monetisation aren't reading twitter comments #going at bungie won't solve the problems of capitalism #you gotta join a different cause to do that my working class siblings #check a discussion on the industry from thiccest_yosh on twitter (he's a bungie dev)#he specifically called out monetisation ruining art as well as misinformation and rage being spread by CCs #refreshing to see this being said directly and publicly by someone who works in the industry #and one more note on the bigotry stuff that made me bitter about aztecross and his stupid video the most #aztecross played supported and promoted hogshit legacy. this big 'anti-corpo warrior'#funding one of the biggest bigots in the world who actively works on trying to kill as many people as possible. totally fine i guess #'it's just a video game.' but with bungie it's life and death apparently #it makes me super bitter and suspicious. especially given how many CCs were in on misgendering characters #i dont trust any of these people. they're a business and when the business is bigotry they gladly participate

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lucienne-thee-librarian · 8 months

Text

Rose Walker and John Dee: Narrative Foils

Okay this has been percolating in my brain for awhile and I have to shout about it. So. These two characters...Rose and John Dee. Couldn't seem more different on the surface, right? One's a young American black woman, vs older British-raised white guy who's lived all over the world, one painted as a major villain, the other a main protagonist of multiple episodes of the first season. But if you look beyond that, I think these two are, deliberately or not, perfect parallels to each other for their similarities as much as their differences.

First: let's list the similarities:

Difficult childhoods. John Dee's father was...literally absent and that is almost certainly a good thing. But his mother kept moving around to survive, changing her identity. She may have done what she felt she had to do but as a result John was left with no sense of stability and a Very Big Thing about people lying because he feels his mother has lied to him all his life. Rose, conversely, had a father...part of the time. But just by the fearful way Miranda Walker talked about her husband in one scene, trying to prevent Rose from confronting him over taking Jed (but not Rose...which, SERIOUSLY who does that, this man was not a good father, I like how much this one little scene implies) away with him...you get the distinct impression she lived in fear of her soon-to-be-ex-husband's anger. So Rose had a father who was...not good and lost her brother years ago and the pair disappeared before she and her mother could find out what happened. When the show starts her mother is dead too, much like Ethel Cripps died when she went to see him. So both Rose and John had childhoods centered around absent or unreliable fathers and the traumatic loss of their mothers.

Both were given access to great power over the world of dreams, critically: when they were infants and could not possibly know, much less agree to what they were inheriting. John Dee ended up in that hospital in the first place for misusing the ruby that Ethel stole from Roderick Burgess. Rose Walker was literally born a vortex due to inheriting it from her great-grandmother thanks to Desire's interference.

Both end up being chased down by Dream.

Now, the two end up in completely opposite places. But why? What's the difference?

When John Dee gets the ruby, immediately he begins killing his way out and across the country until he reaches the diner. On some level, he wants freedom and that's understandable after a lifetime of being locked up. But he clearly is very skilled at using the ruby which he even modified, and his first and immediate act upon getting the ruby back was to kill every single guard in his way. He didn't try to find another option, he immediately defaulted to the most violent way out. He almost killed Rosemary, though in the end he decided against it, but only because she helped him and didn't lie.

And then when he got to the diner, he spent an entire day and night toying with a bunch of random people until he got bored and let them kill each other.

Unquestionably some part of John was influenced by the ruby, the more the closer it was to him. We don't know exactly how much, we'll probably never know. But it is...alarming, to say the least, how he immediately and repeatedly begins to act not just after having it awhile, but after two seconds of getting it back.

John has traveled and seen the world long before he got locked up. But despite all the opportunities for education and experience he could've had, his worldview has no room for any shades of grey. To him, all lies are equally bad as the lies his mother told him, and all equally as bad as each other. It reminds me a lot of the evangelical Christian idea of "sin-levelling" where all sins are equally reprehensible in God's eyes so nobody is worse than the other - but also, no one better. If you have a "sinful" thought or make one mistake, you're just as worthy of damnation as the worst, most violent people.

Now leaving aside how that's actually treated in these churches in practice (which. LOL all sins are equal. Sure they are) that's obviously a little...fucked? The idea that actually, thinking hateful thoughts is as bad as murder, is as bad as stealing is as bad as...lust?? Gossip? Is both failig to recognize serious harms, and the difference between that and much more minor things one can do to others, or between all that and straight up thoughtcrime. It creates an inflated sense of harm for things that don't really deserve to be treated or even thought of in the same boat with atrocities and violence.

John Dee is if someone took a look at that sort of moral thinking and went "cool system you got there; what if I hijacked it and made it all about lying?"

His worldview is strictly black and white, no room for human error or understanding past a certain point. To him, if you tell a lie, no matter your intentions or the effect of your actions, it's all the same.

Meanwhile Rose has been used without her knowing it, by both Desire and in a way, Dream himself. He knows what her fate must be but for a mixture of motives, mainly mercy but also the knowledge that she could help him find the Corinthian, he spares her.

And his doing so and not telling her her ultimate fate, was the entire reason the Corinthian was able to slip in and find her in the first place. He shows up with Jed, after Rose has tried and failed to get the foster care system to actually let her make contact with her brother or do more than the bare minimum to investigate his well-being. So honestly, no wonder she trusted him at first! He saved her brother! Her brother seems to like him so he must be fine!

Rose has spent this entire season, her entire life, at the mercy of others, trying to carve out her own destiny. But she never uses her powers to deliberately hurt others- any harm she causes is either by complete accident or in attempts meant to defend her own life or her brother.

When she was a child she had no power to save Jed; for some reason we're not told the court sided with her father and allowed Jed to be taken separately, and then the man effectively custodially kidnapped his own son before dying himself and Jed was lost to the system of another state. Rose loses her mother later to some illness, and her friend Judy to John Dee's megalomania. And when she's finally an adult, she tries to find Jed but is flatly denied not only a chance at custody but even to know where he is - at least at first. And this whole time, the vortex she carried in her blood has been hanging over her head as a silent ticking time bomb. Her days are numbered, she will soon, eventually, become a living weapon to blend all the minds of all the dreamers of that world and eventually, the whole universe together into one cancerous magical sea of madness - and the only way to prevent this, we think, is for Dream to kill her. Her fate was sealed the moment she was born and the moment Dream was freed and the vortex awoken. All this was set in motion via Desire, someone much older and infinitely more powerful than herself.

So it would be more than understandable for someone in her situation to snap a little upon learning the truth. Honestly it's kind of amazing to me that she believed Dream when he finally did tell her everything, given he'd put off doing this until the very last minute because of his own reluctance to kill her.

And yet, when Rose finally learns the truth and her fate, she ultimately offers to take the fall, freely. She sees what the activated vortex does to the minds of everyone around her - first revealing everyone's most secret fears and fantasies and then pulling them into the whirlpool of her own power. And she refuses to let that happen. She values her own life in a way most of us would, in a totally understandable and sympathetic way. But unlike John Dee, she also values other people, even when they disappoint her. Hal blatantly tells her he doesn't care about the place they all live in half as much as the chance for success, but she still cares for him. The world is full of people, some of whom have hurt her or hindered her quest to find Jed but she doesn't seek revenge.

John sees the failures of humanity and its dark side and decides that those sins are worth condemnation through the power of his ruby, and assumes he is a worthy judge. Rose hears she could destroy the world and decides that no, the world is worth saving even if that means she has to die, much as she doesn't want or deserve to.

John Dee is, without even realizing it himself, a perfect mirror himself of the potential selfishness and cruelty humans can inflict on each other in the name of "I'm just all about honesty" "knowing what's best for you better than you do" and "fuck you, got mine". Rose is a mirror of humanity at its best - someone with dignity and a sense of morals who doesn't appreciate being lied to or used, and not a doormat - her first instinct is to fight for her life and her brother's - and she's also selfless and caring even for people she doesn't know, even for people who Dee would've argued weren't even worth saving.

#rose walker #john dee #the sandman meta #sandman netflix

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sizzlingpatrolfox · 10 months

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Thanks for linking all the vmin and vminkook posts for me. Really enjoyed going through them. You make excellent points.

Also thanks for replying. Appreciate it.

Another ask for you if you have the time?

So you know all the jimin promoting jk has been doing? Like that one vlive where he only watched jimin's videos or all the other ones where he has been singing jimin's songs(among others)

You think he did all that maybe because he was feeling guilty?

Because no matter which way anyone puts it, jimin has had the worst of the promotions so far( also the most success but still..) especially compared to jk.

Hope you are well too 💜

- Lizzie

You're welcome, no need to say thanks 😅 I love the name Lizzie 🤩

Being real here, Jungkook didn't do any "promo" for Jimin. That wasn't promo. Anyone watching a Jungkook weverse live at 7am already knew face and like crazy existed. Promo is posters on the street, youtube ads, tiktok ads or challenges, billboards on Times Square. The end goal of promo is to reach as many people as possible, and even better if it's new audiences. Fans did all of that for Jimin. I can agree with calling it support, because in the end it was about Jungkook showing appreciation and enjoying Jimin's music/performances. But it wasn't promotion.

I have said that I wouldn't put it past Jungkook to do that live because he was overcompensating for something, but it wasn't about their careers. If Jungkook feels guilty or like he has to make up to Jimin for something, it's more likely something personal rather than about their careers. So no, I don't believe him watching Jimin content had anything to do with Jimin's activities.

As for FACE... things were going so well at first. I was really happy and satisfied about the rollout. The album was announced with a proper time lapse for people to buy it, Dior, Tiffany, magazine covers.

Then come March and they suddenly started dropping a lot of stuff simultaneously. As a standalone activity, things about face leading up to its release were more than ideal. The company -and Yoongi- sandwiching it between all the other releases was messed up. I saw so many people say that they couldn't buy face because they had just bought tickets for Yoongi's tour. As if it wasn't enough, everything ended after 10 days.

So to sum it up; the way I see it, all was going alright until the whole of rapline decided to release music at the same time and until hybe ignored like crazy after such success, while immediately running to try and get another member the same. Both of those things could've been sorted out.

Personally, the worst of it all is the underserved hate he got for nothing at all. He literally got defamed in every direction for having a basic, regular kpop album rollout. For doing stuff BTS have been doing since 2013. He even got denied stuff that other members and other groups under hybe are getting just like that but he's the only one who gets called names because of having the bare minimum.

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eddieslov3 · 2 years

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Idea by the lovely @thegreencanary again~ love your ideas and this time angst! and then fluff ig gn!reader

Tw: Demobats, injuries, blood. Probably a little inaccurate had to change some minor things for this but the lines are the same I swear. Use of 'Sweetheart' and 'Babe'. Reader is oblivious.

Fuckin' Bats

When they had asked you to tag along AGAIN after the previous years, you had immediately said yes. You had been there since day one, you fought off the demogorgon with Nance, Steve and Jonathan. Went to the upside down more than once and even had a demodog nearly kill you one time. Luckily Steve had saved you, smashing the beast away with his infamous baseball bat before the demodog could inflict any more damage to you already worn and torn body.

It left some deep wounds on you, these now scars. All over your body, the worst ones on your left arm. You couldn't care less, they were proof that you fought. But whenever someone asked who was oblivious to what was actually happened in Hawkins you told them it was a Dog. Most believed it. Some just knew better.

So you find yourself next to the others, the others being Eddie, Nancy, Robin and Steve. Along with Dustin, Lucas and Max. All of you we're starting at the lake. In the middle of it was one of the portals to the upside down. "Whenever the demogorgon attacked it left an opening.. what if vecna did the same thing?" Nance had pointed out, resulting in all of you just driving down there.

"How are we supposed to reach it?" Lucas asks looking over at you guys, not fully getting the hang of the plan. Eddie then proceeds to point at a small boat. Together, Steve and Eddie, throw the As the teens try to get to it you the young adults are already approaching the boat, Steve and Eddie helping out, Robin gets in first , using both Eddie and Steve to secure herself. Then Eddie gets in and helps Nancy out. Naturally Dustin wants to board too, resulting in Eddie pushing him back. "Woah you're tryna sink us? this holds three people tops, Okay?." "Its better this way" Nancy agreed. "You stay here with Max. Keep an eye out for trouble"

"You keep an eye out, its my goddamn theory", he tries to argue, Lucas and Max just knowing it's not worth it arguing. You're still on the shore, jumping into the boat before Steve. "You heared Nance" Robin says. "Who put her in charge?" he conters. "I did." she then says. Nance demands the compass from him which he unwillingly gives her.

Steve then throws Dustin his bag and pushes the boat off of shore when he also gets into the boat. "You said three!!" Dustin yells. Steve just shrugs ans whispers "Sorry!" As then Eddie jotices you're in the boat too. "Woah no no way you're staying." He begins to argue but you just shake your head.

"I'm coming with you." you say. You definitely didn't wanna stay behind and let them ho alone. Eddie groans. "Why did I even try"

As you all are safe on the boat, all of you try to move as little as humanly possible. You know that one of the basketballteam members died here, so If Dustins theory is correct, there should be a gate to the upside down right in the center of this stupid lake that made you self-conscious sometimes. When everyone talked about how beautiful their experiences were here yet you had none.

Not because you didn't want to. But right now there were bigger problems, the little boat definitely not designed to hold five young adults but you didn't and couldn't let them go alone. That wasn't like you. You couldn't just stand there and do nothing while the people you love dearest, put theirselves into massive and also life-threatening danger.

"Bedtime at nine kiddos! Miss you already!" robin yelled, teasing the teens a bit making you laugh and forget about your stupid thoughts.

After a while of rowing the compass was ticking weirdly and Nance ordered you guys to slow down. Easier said than done. The clattering made your skin crawl, you could hear dustin over the walkie and Steve was already undressing himself. So much was happening that you couldn't register all at once.

"steve what are you doing?"

"Somebody's gotta go down there and check this out... Unless one of you four can too being a Hawkins swim co-captain and a certified lifeguard of three years, then... Its gotta be me. No complaints, all right?" He says and then stands up to also get rid of his shirt.

"Hey I'm not complaining. I do not wanna go down there." Eddie exclaims while wrapping up the flashlight in a plastic bag securing it with a loose knot. With a grummled "good luck" he hands it to steve and takes out a cig. "Thanks" us the only thing Steve says before wanting to jump in. Nance asks him to be careful as he jumps in. You and Robin exchanging a glance having seen what exactly Nancy had dine while Steve was undressing before.

Faster than you, Robin took the cigarette from Eddies mouth throwing it into the lake. "Gross!" As then with a splash, Steve disappeared into the lake. Leaving the boat moving, causing you to fall into Eddie. "I'm sorry Eds" he just secures you and helps you sit up.

"where are we at Wheeler" Robin asks clearly anxious for her best friend. "Closing in on a Minute." "Okay." You akwardly play with your fingers getting more and more restless.

Eddie clears his throat as all of you cringe when something or rather someone emerges from the water. "Christ!" That was clearly Eddie.

"I found it!" Steve explained and the girls asking him stuff. As he confirmed robin took the walkie to inform Dustin. "Dustin, you're a goddamn Einstein. Steve found the gate" not knowing what she had caused.

"it's more like a snack sized gate than a Mama gate" the man holding onto the boat explained. "But its still pretty damn big" as he was saying that something pulled him down, he could manage the first time, being more than confused. "Steve?" you asked looking at him. That was when he got pulled down forcefully. All of you screamed his name and not even seconds after Wheeler was standing un the boat. "Jesus!" "Where'd he go?!" "Steve!?"

After struggling for a bit she jumped in. Making Robin call out her name, even Eddie did. You also screamed her name. "Wait here" But it was too late. "God damnit!" Eddie was very vocal.

After a few moments of contemplating Robin gets up onto the rim of the boat making you and Eddie tense up. First looking at eachother then at Robin. "No, no no no, what are you doing? She said wait" he quickly said slightly panicking. You try and reach out for her. "Robin please no don't go.. she said wait here.."

"Yeah I heared her"

"She's in charge" he says tensing up, you slipping while trying to reach for her. "Are tou kidding me? I made that shit up" she says weirdly calm and then falls into the water. He can't even be fast enough as you too jump in leaving him cursing. "Jesus H. christ this is so stupid" and then he falls into the water.

_____________________

All of you finally on the other side, the upside down, not getting to breathe properly because of the environment. Thunder and screaching make you jump and you frantically search for the others. "Guys?! Hey!?" you scream turning around in a panic you haven't felt aince the last time you we're down here, your skin was crawling, vines were clutching one of your ankles in place. You could hear them. They were nowhere to be seen.

You manage to free your foot by chance and run into something. "Christ Babes you're okay I've got you" a familiar voice says, arms closing around you. His touch makes you relax at least for a moment before you hear steve scream in pain. Both your heads turn, finding Robin and Nancy trying to help Steve. In a whim, Eddie lets you go and he runs to Steves aid.

You follow but are awestruck by what he did next. He grabbed the weird bat like creature by its even weirder tail and slams it down. Groaning as it seems to be a heavy and not cooperating creature. Steve is still struggling but since Robin and Nance were helping you decided to try and help Eddie.

"stay there I can manage!" he yelled over the screaching of those beasts and the yelling of your friends. It nearly made you shut down and just not be able to move. "No. I wanna help!" you said and just ran. Into the bats that were about to fly into Eddie and tackle him down. A gut wrenching scream made its way out of your throat as the weird demobat rammed its teeth into your shoulder. It resulted in you falling, screaming and squirming. "FUCKING hell" you yell trying to fight it off.

"Sweetheart?!" you heard Eddie yell. "I told you to stay away!" he was mad, but not at you, at himself for not being able to protect you. Protect the one he is fuckin in love with. The main reason why he jumped after all of you had jumped. He fucking loved you, with every little inch of him. He loved you. So he tried to rip off the weird bat. "Please Sweetheart don't die on me"

At this point you were crying, grasping for air, kicking every limb you were able to move just to loosen the bat just to be free. "Fucking Hell" he cursed again trying to remove it as gently as thus beast allowed him to. "Please it hurts so much I can't take... It mu-much longer" you said weakly.

One of the demobats aimed directly for your throat, as the boy, who loved you more than anything in this world, was trying to get to you. Teeth boring into your skin, making you scream. A gut wrenching, bone crushing noise that Eddie would never be able to fully forgive or forget.

"I think I'm dying"

As you speak these words your body just falls limp, yor arms wanting to pull on the beast but the grip loosend and your arms fell beside you. Eddie immediately panicked, hands moving to the beasts head ruppig it off successfully. With a swift move he threw it as far as he could manage, the adrenaline in his body making this the easierll task.

"Sweetheart?" he mumbled searching you carefully for a pulse, his body trying to shield yours as best as he could manage. This made him feel alone, even tho he wasn't. The boy felt helpless, trapped and useless. He couldn't even find your pulse. Frantically he searched every inch of you, no pulse anywhere, no frien- people close to help him.

"please Sweetheart... Please don't die on me" he had said. Tears falling from his eyes, hiccuping kore than he'd ever admit to.

He loved you, ever since he first caught glimpse of you in school. He was just mesmerized by your beauty, even now where you were laying.

Hands ghosting over you, still looking for a pulse, your eyes fluttered open as he couldn't hold in a sigh of relive. "Hey Babes" he carefully said as he pulled your bitten body to him. "You're not dying, is this clear?" he says as finally Robin finds him and helps him steady you. Not even fully aware you nodded and he tiredly smiled for a split Second. "I'm trying" you managed to press out. Gasping for air as he and Robin manage to somehow lift you up, he hold you close. "Just hold on.. okay?" he had mumbled as the carried you to safety.

The next thing you knew, you lost consciousness, you did hear them talk and held onto Eddies shirt tightly, but you were not there fully.

_______________________

After that you didn't have any idea on how you got out, the next thing you knew is you woke up in a bed, or rather in the real hawkins. "What happened?" you ask, not fully knowing if anyone was actually there or not. You could hear a low rustle and were more than relieved. "Hey Babes" a very familiar voice spoke and you had to grin. "Hey Baby" you said, searching for his face, soon he was looking down at you. You heared another voice announce that you were okay and heared a row of several sighs of relive.

"thank god" Steve said, while Robin just laughed and Dustin just smiled from a few feet away. Eddie carefully took your hand in his, squeezing it lightly. "I'm goad youre awake" he says, love in his eyes and words, so clear you could taste it. You gave him a silimar look and literally all eyes were on the two of you.

"So when will we get you two to kiss?" Dustin asked being the most impatient of all here. Making you chuckle. "Oh Dusty, I don't thunk Eddie wants to kiss me" you said laughing a bit. He himself just looked at you, his long hair falling into his face. "Who said that?" he then asked, carefully leaning over you, proceeding to press his warm lios to yours, kissing you more than lovingly.

You even got cheered on and had to giggle. "I didn't think.. you know.. you'd like me like this" you said sitting up carefully. "Well yes I have had a crush on you since.. I don't know.." he mumbled. "Since you stepped in for me.. you know.. that's at least five years back" he admits making you blush. You liked him. You really had feelings for this guy and yes they were the beautiful love kinda way. So you just grabbed him by the collar of his shirt, dragging him into a kiss.

"I like you too, you know big boy?"

#eddie munson #stranger things #eddie munson x reader #eddie stranger things #eddie munson x you #eddie munson x y/n #eddie munson stranger things #stranger things 4 #stranger things x reader #eddie munson/reader #eddie survives #eddie x reader #eddie munson fanfic #eddie x gn!reader #gn!reader

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imaradiocure · 1 year

Text

The worst day of my life

Reaching over to your side of the bed, I expected to feel you beside me

I was jolted awake because you were not there

At the time I had no idea how 'The Reach' would haunt me for years in the twilight between sleep and wake

I'd continue to reach but I'd never find you.

I got up from bed and peered out into the living room, thinking maybe you'd fallen asleep on the couch or had gotten up early

and how niave of me it was, but I didn't yet know that this was the worst day of my life.

I think I called your name, but I can't be sure as panic set it and things became a little hazy at this point.

I found you in the bathroom. You were unresponsive. I didn't know what happened but as I tried to wake you, you didn't respond.

I remember looking down on us in the bathroom, with what was likely your dead body, but my brain did not accept that. You couldn't be gone. Not my Nick. Not my love.

I heard your voice from all around me say, "I'm so sorry," it was loud but it didn't come from your mouth. Maybe it was an auditory hallucination. The brain does strange things in the face of extreme stress and trauma.

I darted for a phone, but I couldn't find mine. I was so fucking panicked and scared and alone. I found your phone and dialed 911.

Things become more hazy. I knew this was an overdose because I saw the spoon in the bathroom. I told the operator it was heroin, the toxicology report would later say it was morphine.

I had to do CPR and the 911 operator instructed me but I failed. I failed you. I couldn't stop sobbing, hyperventilating. I was trying, but I was no good. I couldn't help you and I couldn't breathe either.

The paramedics arrived and I rushed to unlock the doors. I dont really know what happened after. They took you to the living room I think and I was sat in the bedroom. I was quietly sitting in shock, I kept asking if you were going to be okay. The female officer told me she didn't know yet.

They asked me questions and I dont remember what. They pronounced you dead and the doctor came to tell me and I kicked and I screamed "No! We were supposed to get married!" and other things, but I can't remember what they were. An officer may have been restraining me.

One of the many officers combing through my home asked if I wanted to go outside for fresh air or a cigarette and I must have agreed. I was in pajama shorts, so I went to my closet to grab a coat when officers panicked because they didn't want me unsupervised. Maybe they thought I was hiding drugs. Maybe they thought I was a danger. I don't know.

I stood outside shaking, blank, empty, in shock. In shorts and an open jacket in mid February in South Dakota.

I remember a male officer say something to the effect of "you look like you're doing alright"

I don't think I looked at him. I did not respond. I had already shut down. The female officer asked me if I could call someone, my mother. I tried to give the number but I guess I gave my own phone number. I was very confused. As I said, I had shut down.

Somehow they reached her and she came to get me from the home I had shared with my fiance. I was stone cold and silent until I saw her, hugged her, and broke down into wails and sobs. Before we left the female officer told me I was not going to be charged with anything, which hadn't even occured to me as a possibility.

For months I did nothing but sit or lay on my mother's couch. Sometimes I didn't recognize where I was. I couldn't look in the mirror. I couldn't eat. I couldn't exist. All I wanted was to go with him. I didn't want to be here without him.

People who pretended to be friends came and went. Family members collected my pets and belongings from the house I shared with my fiance. I couldn't return. I paid another month or two worth of rent just to avoid going back and tying up those loose ends.

I lost friends over 10 years long because I was "too sad to be around"

I was angry

I was empty

Nothing felt good. Nothing tasted good. Nothing felt like anything except for his absence.

I would have sudden panic attacks and freak out in a totally quiet home. The only way I could curb these was to observe my cats and note that they were sleeping calmly and therefore there must be no immediate danger. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn't.

I thought a lot about suicide. I thought it was unfair for my friends and family to expect me to live in the debilitating pain just so they didn't have to suffer losing me. I should exist in the pits of hell to spare them the very grief I was lost in. It seemed so unfair.

There was no hope. There was nothing to live for. I was a shell. I either felt nothing at all or extreme emotions - anger or grief. I said extreme things to people in the deepest depths and I cut ties wherever need be.

Grief was like poison inside of me. I had a toxicity in my thoughts and speech. I had a skewed perspective and no one had it as bad as me. No one could truly understand my loss and pain and the trauma of finding the person I loved most dead on the worst day of my life.

I went crazy sometimes. I had brief periods of psychosis. I would run out of my house in fear and hide in bushes blocks away. Fear of what? I don't really know. I felt trapped and I needed to go.

Grief is a shapeshifter and it never really leaves.

It doesn't get 'better' it just changes and morphes into different contortions. Maybe we get better at carrying the weight over time. I'm not sure.

It's been six years and three days. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, the day of his viewing 6 years ago.

I still ache. I still get angry. I still love. I still yearn. I still have nightmares. I still feel cheated. Every so often, I still reach for him in the twilight of wake and sleep.

Nothing will ever fix it. Nothing will ever make it better. There's no remedy. No healing potion. No spell or ritual. Just ache. I will ache.

As I continue to live, I will only collect more grief and you will too.

Life is an endless collection of loss.

#grief #grieving #loss #widow #trauma #fiance #personal #writing #text #my story #bpd #borderline #abandonment #psychosis #complicated grief #ptsd

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dragonmuse · 2 years

Note

Was rereading sink to the bottom with you and now I'm wondering how the before dinner conversation with Owen and Felix played out...

(wonder no more!)

Felix was getting dressed when the message came through. He only had so many 'meet the parents' kind of outfits, which was severely undercut by the fact that he'd already done that dance with these very same parents once before. Which wasn't stomach ache inducing in the least.

It was possible that Felix was coming slightly undone.

So when the phone buzzed again and he picked it up to see,

Charlie: Owen is the hitman, but I was wrong anyway. He’s here to be a support team for you.

Felix just sat down hard on his bed. He told Charlie to give Owen his number and a minute later the phone rang.

"Hello?" He answered.

"Hey, man, long time to chat," and that was definitely Owen, even if the voice was deeper than he remembered.

"Yeah, it's been a long time."

"I know this is weird," Owen sighed. "But when Alma told me what was going on...dunno. I feel bad, man. You were so fucking chill back then. I liked being your friend."

"I liked being yours."

"Nah, come on. I know you were cool because Alma wanted you to be."

"Hey." He frowned. "That's not true. None of my other guy friends knew shit about music. I liked hanging out with you."

There was a short pause, then Owen laughed quietly. "High school is bad for the brain, isn't it?"

"Yeah," Felix nodded. "The worst. But I had fun being with you guys. I wasn't trying to hurt you or Ingrid or even Alma, you know? I just-"

"No, we got it." Owen interrupted. "I mean, I fucking love Alma with everything I have and you know Ingrid and her are like platonic soulmates, but when you broke up with her neither of us were that surprised."

"You weren't? Cause I kind of surprised myself," he admitted.

"Yeah, well. You guys weren't walking the same path or whatever. But it was sucky of us to not reach out. Or at least, I should've. Wished I had. You didn't know we weren't pissed."

"I didn't," he agreed. He'd imagined that entire part of his life just getting locked away and rightfully so. "I missed it. Missed all of you. It was a kind of a crappy summer, actually."

"But now you're big time, huh?" Owen teased and Felix laughed.

"Yeah, well. Charlie would tell you that it barely counts."

Owen snorted, "Yeah, little Charlie, huh? All the people in the world you could have and that's the one you went with?"

"He's not little," Felix pressed a hand to the bed. Maybe he could have Charlie back there tonight, those mile long legs tangling with his. The faint smell of chlorine back in his sheets. "And he's...he's amazing, actually."

"Oh yeah?" Owen's voice softened.

"Yeah. I know it's fucking weird, but he just kills me, man. I tried to break it off for like two weeks and I regretted every single stupid second. He was all I thought about."

Gorgeous, rueful Charlie with a smile and a laugh. Sexy, beguiling Charlie in his bed, confident in his place of power. Shielded, wily Charlie , who would give you a thousand words after a question and none of them an answer.

"Sounds like you have it bad."

"The worst," Felix agreed with a smile. "Gonna let his parents cross-examine me levels of bad."

"So I'll be there," Owen said simply. "I'm a good distraction, you know."

"You don't owe me anything."

"Yeah, but I want to be your friend again. I don't have that many that I can just be tossing them away, you know?"

Except Owen had Ingrid and Alma. Felix remembered the feeling of those friendships, how they had been bound and so in love with each other in their own perplexing ways. Felix had never had friends like that.

"I know," he said instead. "Me either. But you had to come from- wait, where are you living?"

"Like fifteen minutes away. Not that big a sacrifice. I get free dinner, even."

"What are you doing there?"

"Internship with Loam Records."

"No shit!" Felix grinned. "They did all of those indie punk tracks that we used to listen too, right? The goat...somethings."

"Yeah," Owen laughed. "Holy shit, you remember. Yeah, they did the Goat Systems and the Talented Hacks. Awesome shit. And I get to hang out there every day and make coffee. Supposed to be learning about talent management."

"That is so fucking cool," Felix deemed.

"You know what? It really really is. I get to meet the bands sometimes."

"Is that what you're going to do? Be a talent manager?"

"Maybe," Owen said without much weight. "I just want to be around it all. Any which way that takes me. Oh hey, they're coming out. I'll see you at the restaurant, okay?"

"Yeah, man, I'll see you there."

Felix survived that night and did get rewarded with Charlie back in his bed. Back in his life full-force, a consuming presence whenever he stepped into visual range and often when he wasn't there at all.

That it brought back this other simple pleasure of texting an old friend about obscure modern punk bands was just one of the many things Charlie had unwittingly given him.

#leda house and the kraken verse #ficlet #game on #charlie bonnet

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trashlie · 2 years

Note

Now don't get me wrong. I love Alyssa as a character, too! She's become my favorite girl right there alongside Shinae but for totally different reasons. She's messy, unlikeable, pitiful, and misunderstood. Her worst qualities make her the most relatable and her bad decisions make her human (not monster-ish). Quimchee put a lot of thought and care into her character and it's a shame when readers keep on dismissing her as a shallow antagonist. At her core, she's an insecure person with no healthy guidance.

I'll be honest though, part of me thinks of her as this grand foil who fails in everyway others learn to grow. Like I can't see her helping to take Yui down, at least not yet. But I can see her having an open-ending where she's shown compassion and mercy. Where she's finally free to figure out who she really wants to be with no expectations and is given the hope to redeem herself. Like Alyssa is not evil and there are characters willing to believe the best in others. Because it's never too late to change. She will always have the opportunity to turn around and grow even if we don't get to see her do it. Look at Kousuke, he'll be reaching his 30s after the big time skip and will still have a long ways to go.

Btw I really appreciate you in this fandom, it's so much fun to talk to you about the most hated characters in ILY! I can't wait until we get more of Yui 😈

GOD YOU ABSOLUTELY GET IT YOU 300% GET IT!!!!!!!!!!!!

These are all the reasons I've come to really like Alyssa, too. I can't help but find myself drawn to a messy, unlikeable girl who is desperately trying to find peace and instead making a bigger mess of it. There's something about characters who lack courage and aren't brave because that's what most people are like. We want to believe we'd have the courage in certain scenarios but it doesn't always turn out to be true.

At her core, she's an insecure person with no healthy guidance.

It pains me to see her demonized for her insecurity, honestly. "Why does she care so much what other people think?" Idk because she's a middle schooler and comes across as really, really lonely, and has been lead to believe that if you're surrounded by people you'll never feel alone? Because she's got no one in her life guiding her or giving her the advice she needs. Shinae has only learned what she has through her own experiences, which Alyssa lacks. That's what narrative foils are there for, to illuminate these little truths. Shinae learned that one good friend is better than none, but Alyssa's so insecure and probably so lonely she thinks the only solution is to overflow with friends. And yeah, maybe she seeks external validation, because again, she's insecure. She craves some kind of validation and affirmation, to feel like she's doing this right.

A lot of people take decades to finally figure out that a hollow imitation of friendship is more lonely than none at all. A lot of people deal with unhealthy friendships and let people walk all over them for far too long, because when faced with the alternative, we think that being alone is the worst option, and never realize that the kind of oppressive loneliness you feel from being around people who don't get you or understand you is worse. Alyssa's nowhere near figuring that out yet as a middle schooler, and maybe not quite yet in the present, either. I think maybe she might get an inkling of it, might finally realize that now that she has all this fame, has actual fans, the loneliness is still pervasive, they still can't fill that void, hence feeling trapped. But we'll see!

Admittedly, I agree with you. I would love to see Alyssa grow and free herself of Yui, but the thought of her going against Yui is difficult to fathom, because the Alyssa we currently know doesn't challenge authority, whether or not she respects them (and i think her "admiration" of Yui is just as complex and complicated as Alyssa herself if). While I do root for and hope for that, I've also stated before that it's unrealistic for all characters to make a 180 degree change, and Alyssa is probably the one to change the least. The thing I always come back to is thinking that there's going to be some kind of scandal that loses Alyssa her job, and that hopefully THAT will be grounds for her figuring out what she really wants and who she really wants to be. Maybe she'll always seek the spotlight. Maybe she'll be happy to write songs for others to perform. Rather than seeing Alyssa change, I think now what I hope for instead is that she finds a sense of security and makes peace with herself. I know I'm in the minority here but I'd like to see her reconcile with Shiane. They don't have to be friends - there may not be the room for it anymore - but even if it was just Alyssa acknowledging that Shinae was such a special friend and she didn't have half the courage Shinae did and as a result hurt her, I'd be happy! lol

Like you said, I think Alyssa's changes will be a little more open-ended, something that won't make everyone happy but will be really relevant to who Alyssa is and what she needs to overcome. At the end of the day, her weakness is her insecurity, that she lacks self-esteem and isn't confident yet in who she is, even though she has such a strong personality and such strong interests buried deep down! And I guess this is why I always feel like it has to do with her career failing (I mean, it doesn't help that their group name is what, GL4SS or something like that - glass. Fragile. Easy to break); if she was to lose all of that, she'd finally face true alone, and what would she be left with? When stripped bare down, who is Alyssa truly, and can she learn to be comfortable with that iteration of herself? Is she capable of shedding her mask?

THAT is what I want to see from her now. If she never finds the courage to go against Yui, I'm sure she wouldn't be the first one. If she never finds the courage to walk away from her career herself, but instead has to fail to be freed from it, then that's fine, because not everyone can be that brave and make that choice.

I gotta say, I've always thought of Alyssa as Shinae's foil, but the idea of her foiling EVERYONE does seem really likely. We can already see it a little, in how both Alyssa and Minhyuk felt about Shinae in middle school, and obviously Alyssa's betrayal has been juxtaposed against Nol's. You probably are right in that she's foil to all the choices and opportunities they face!

Also waaahhh thank you so much for saying that! ;~; In the beginning, it was just that I wanted to be really objective about characters and challenge myself to see them for more than how they appear at first glance and for more than how they make me feel. I'm a rather incendiary person sometimes, I'm emotionally reactive, so I always have to step back and examine something over and over until I can see it through another lens and i think in doing so it brought me a new appreciation for Alyssa and Kousuke as characters who simply are what they are. But also I liked to push myself like this because I know there's other readers like me who just get really drawn to all the characters and what drives and motivates them, so i'm really glad I get to talk to people about Alyssa, even if most hate her lol. I'm a sucker for the kind of thought and detail that has gone into the writing of these characters and find it hard to deny myself enjoyment of a messy, unlikeable girl who fails to make the right choice every time lol.

(GOD give us the Yui story!!!!!!! I know I have my theories but OH MY GOD GIVE US THE YUI STORY. In contrast to Alyssa, who is not evil and whose selfishness is not inherently malicious in nature, I think Yui is a person who is also shaped by her experiences and probably does lmao take some kind of enjoyment in seeing certain people [men lol] suffer. I don't think she's evil or a narcissist or anything, I just think she's been blinded by and shaped by her life and is taking it out on everyone lmao but I'll get into that more one day!!!!)

#I Love Yoo #ILY Brainrot #Alyssa Cho #relatable messy pitiful girls!!!!!!!!!!#she's so often cast off as someone who is scheming and mean but idk idk that just waters down so much of who and what she is!!!!!!!#i love this ask it made me SO SO happy to read and answer!

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forceofcalm · 1 year

Text

I read (finished) 45 books this year. It's my first year back to reading, so I'm pretty pleased. I learned a lot about myself, my writing, and my tastes. I read some really amazing books and some really horrible ones. I got the tiers from A Clockwork Reader's TikTok Book Tierlist. Most of these aren't TikTok books (thank god), but her tier labels spoke to me. You can also read this on a 5 star - 0 star-ish scale in increments of 0.5-ish. The order in each tier is ordered best -> worst. Books on the top tier will stay with me forever and will get re-reads. Books at the bottom three tiers will also stay with me forever but in the worst way.

I learned that I preferred concise and consistent books with their prose, tone, and pacing. And also that I like enemies-to-lovers, and can look past iffy writing if it scratches that itch well enough. Books that can provoke me emotionally are my favorites.

Tokyo Ueno Station by Yu Miri (translated by Morgan Giles, a real star here) was my favorite book this year. I'm eagerly awaiting more of Miri's works to reach these shores. It was so somber, harrowing, tonally consistent, and a tragically beautiful story. It's also short, and every line earns its place.

The book that stood out to me as the worst was Song of Achilles. I understand, somehow, that this book is viral, but this Goodreads review sums up all my thoughts on it. I didn't go into it knowing the hype, but I came out of it learning you can trick most people into thinking your book is good if you can overload it with pretty prose.

One of my favorite observations was the influence of a good editor. In the age of TikTok books, where fanfiction with the serial numbers filed off is getting published without passing through an editor, the overall quality of the book is going down while the overall length of books is going up (both signals to a lack of an editor, if that wasn't obvious). I thought I was biased, but C.S Pacat's Dark Rise, which I pre-ordered, waved a big fat flag on how correct this could be.

The original Captive Prince trilogy, which I agree with all of the critiques on, but it filled a void in my brain specifically, so I still loved it, was published by Penguin. Penguin is a more significant publisher, and after reading Dark Rise, which a smaller publisher, Quill Trees, published, it showed. I'm not sure if it's because Pacat received a lot of praise and didn't look at her work closely enough or if the Penguin editor pulled their weight, but holy shit, this book sucked not by its concept but by every other element of writing. I, hilariously, thought Pacat was trying to extend her range with this one, so I gave her a pass on all the weaker aspects -- dull female characters, weird lack of fantasy in a fantasy book, boring settings, extreme dumbing-down for YA -- but it turns out it's her usual gay enemies-to-lovers bit, but horrendously executed.

I wrote my first GR review on Dark Rise, which baffled me in how lacking it was, and found out many people were quietly thinking the same thing. I understand that many readers, especially young ones, are over the moon if a book is simply queer (which this one is... in the last THREE PAGES out of over FOUR HUNDRED), and I just want to say... there are many queer books out there that aren't BookTok. And they are much more captivating and are written by gay men and not straight women. This doesn't guarantee a good book (I'm talking about you, More Happy Than Not), but it's worth considering moving forward.

Overall, I'm happy queer media is taking up space. That being said, and I'm realizing now that some did not make it onto this tier list somehow (and I do not know how to remake one), a large portion of my "wish I didn't read" books this year were MLM books written by women. If you're going to dominate a space, please make your content worthwhile, or step aside.

Tomorrow, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow won Goodread's book of the year, and I just --- as a developer, as someone who actually plays video games, went to school for programming, and has had a normal conversation with a real persona at least once... What the actual fuck is that book. I picked it up because I wanted to start participating in my local B&N's book clubs and, through it, I discovered B&N has a 30-day return policy. It was physically painful to read. It nearly moved me to tears in how horrendous every inch of it was.

Giovanni's Room and Call Me By Your Name ruined my weekends in the best way, and Gary Provost has the best book on writing I've read yet.

So, yeah. I learned a lot about my tastes. Mostly to never read reviews and completely ignore BookTok. I have about 60 or so books in my house that I picked up and have yet to read, so I will be catching up on those for next year. Bye!

#calm post #writing about reading

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bones2bones · 2 years

Text

MERCURY RETROGRADE

Good evening fellow pals, It's about 7:30 pm out here in Colorado, and I am feeling TIRED, in the worst way-- raise your hand if this mercury in retrograde fucked you up, because same. Although I must say it's nice to know that although I am all alone at this laptop typing away that I am not alone indefinitely...or am i? It's hard for me to sit here and contemplate realities and what is real or not. If we are all one then that would mean I am you, and you are me (I'm sorry, haha) but we are separate entities living separate realities, the good news is if I am you than I am WAAAAY hotter than I am right now, and that- for me- is a major win. I basically created this blog as an online source of relief, at least for now, I have no intention of gaining followers or becoming this big blogger. I don't even know what I would do with all that attention and other people's opinions constantly flowing in and out, it's gotta be draining, right? However, I am putting all of this out there knowing that anything is a possibility so please feel free to engage in whatever way you deem fit. I am literally the worst with my words, and I am hoping that having this outlet will improve my communication in some way, but I also think I am the only one who thinks I am aggressively boring and hard to understand. I also created this blog in hopes to reach as many or as few people who feel and see the world, universe, consciousness in a similar light or maybe even not, maybe to gain some new insight into other views. I mean there is no right or wrong answer to anything. There just IS. I am. You are. We are. It is. I also have been trying to write more poetry, not consistently but in the means of having an idea and just flowing with it in the moment, I intend to share some of my poetry here in the future & although I have this as a creative outlet now, i will still always be a gal who loves her journals and books. I just have been feeling the need to connect modernly, and the short reasoning for that is... you're not at my house reading my journals (something you could probably be grateful for). I do have instagram and I do share some thoughts and ideas there but the platform doesn't seem like the right way to express myself, it's very surface level for me. It's like as soon as I stopped posting my tits, and irrelevant things, and recreated my page to better represent who I am and what I want to give to the world I lost followers and likes which honestly kind of sucked to deal with at first. I relied solely on social media after a really rough break up, i mean really rough relationship too, the break up was just the cherry on top. Social media gave me a sense of love and attention that I hadn't received during my relationship, and I honestly relied on those likes to feel okay with myself. Now, that's not the case but I am super bummed that more people aren't intrigued by what I have to say-- because I am BRILLIANT-- just kidding, however if you ask my dad or my dog they might agree with that statement. Anyways, I hope y'all decide to stick around for this journey, and hear what I have to say, and also express your own ideas, thoughts, opinions, beliefs, etc. later taters

#poetry #quantum physics #quantum mechanics #positivity #positive thoughts #poets on tumblr #punk #reading #19th century #portrait

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ps1demodisk · 1 month

Text

I'm going to bed now but in case any more asks come through this is like... my general thoughts after my mind cleared from how funny the ask was. This is everything I would've responded had I not been having a giggle fit, essentially. There's also a more general statement that's tangentially related at the very end.

You are allowed to think I'm a bad person and still think other people who I thought were bad are also bad. You do not have to drastically change your opinions on everyone you once spoke mad shit about just because I agreed with you. In the same vein, I can be shitty and not be the worst person to ever exist who only talks to others in an attempt manipulate them. I am actually capable of human emotion and I carry the ability to care for others, crazy I know. That's part of why the dying alone comment had no effect, because quite frankly I know I'm not going to die alone, especially not because of some internet drama I had as a 20 year old where people lost the ability to use critical thinking skills. I know what I am, and I know how I think, even if I can't fully grasp my emotions and thought processes. I saw everything, it was funny the way everyone jumped to Satan level, but it also made me think.

"You only reached out because you knew your control was slipping" did you ever stop to consider I might've just actually felt bad? No, you didn't, because from the very start I stopped being viewed as a person. It was obvious in the way people spoke, you spoke about me as if I were just an object, and at that point of course you wouldn't consider the fact I felt normal people feelings, I was almost fictional. You made me out to be cartoonishly evil, and I'm sorry I can't live up to the image you built up in your heads but unfortunately I'm just a 20 year old man who's emotionally immature and unstable, I just don't think before I speak, consequences are a future thing and I don't think about the future because the future scares me. There was never anything more to it. I spoke shit cause other people spoke shit, and I never stopped to think about how any of it would look out of context. I am not a mastermind evil manipulator, that's giving me too much credit.

I still don't think anyone there is inherently an awful person for anything they said (maybe 2 people who are bad people for actions tho), I can understand it when I take a step back and look at it all from an outside perspective. That doesn't make any of what you said better, especially not the genuine wishes I'd die, or the more vague wishes I died before I met you, but it doesn't change the fact things I said were bad either. Even if they were only bad out of context, or they were "normal" in context but still hurtful. Context matters but the words out of context also matters, even if it's not as much. Shit does hurt, even if it feels justified, even if you think you're justified in saying it. You all suck, and I also suck. Maybe I suck more than some of you, maybe I suck less than others. I don't actually care to know anymore.

I still do not think I'm a bad person, I still do not think you are justified in any of what you are doing, saying, or have done or said thus far, but I also don't think you're bad people either. I am just going to file everything I read under "hurt people hurt people" and stop trying to find any reason or justification beyond that.

As I was finishing this up I remembered the person who interacts with minors on nsfw, I do truly believe that is incredibly weird to do and you need to stop trying to deflect from it with "but Kalista is weird he said his favourite tf2 merc was whichever could bring him my head first!" which you for some reason are deciding to call a murder threat. What I said was weird, yes, but that doesn't mean interacting with minors on your public nsfw account is normal and ok to do, please think critically about that. Also do you truly genuinely believe I am going to get a plane from the united kingdom and come to your house and kill you, do you really genuinely believe that is something I want to do? Be honest. Be real with me. Do you really think I could kill you? If you do that's almost flattering.

Are we done? Cool. I don't actually care if we are, I am.

- -

I also think in general the dehumanisation of people you deem bad is not a good thing, because it means you stop thinking about the fact they're just like you and at any point if you made or make one wrong decision you could have ended up like them. It's good to recognise people you deem bad as people because it reminds you to question your thought processes, it means you'll notice if you start having a worrying thought pattern or attitude and you won't let it spiral. People don't turn shit in a day, it's often years of conditioning and ignoring/reinforcing shitty beliefs that leads them there. Seeing their inherent humanity doesn't mean justifying or agreeing with what they do, it means recognising anyone is capable of it and that includes you, and you need to watch yourself to keep yourself on a good path. Good people aren't naturally good, it's a choice.

#untagged

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theroyalbengal · 1 year

Text

2012 - 2022

I got up one day with this sick feeling in my gut;

One by one my senses clawing feverishly into a rut.

The bright sun seemed duller, the morning breeze smelt eerie;

The coffee didn't wake me up, the warm shower didn't uplift this mind which was so weary.

Everything around me was so loud, it hurt;

This lowly feeling didn't allow me to skirt.

It's been building up and up and now, it's reached its peak;

Everything I try or aspire for just seems so very bleak.

I give a bit of my soul every day, piece by piece;

When will it stop? Why won't this charity cease?

For there is some reason I was birthed, something for sure;

But it's too late for me to know why, leaving my mind obscure.

I'm destined for greatness they said, the heavy rains stopped the second you wailed under the bright lights;

I'm destined to be happy they said, not realizing how it would affect me when they walked away into the whites.

What happens when you begin to try it all?

All options, all avenues, both sides of the ball?

And you hit a dead end every single time;

You try to be strong, you try not to cry or whine.

You wait and wait while time goes on and on;

You start questioning your abilities and what else is wrong?

You put in the hours, sweat, time, you try and try;

It gets better one day and finally you breathe a sigh.

But then like a scab that prods at you every minute, every hour;

It all comes back and your efforts mean nothing, befitting isn't it - the feeling of lour.

And now you grip on the reality of what once was;

Not knowing that it's gone, seeped into history, that bloody illusionary gauze.

We're meant to look forward they say, keep striving for success;

But doesn't everyone want to succeed at some level? Do people enjoy being any less?

Don't you see that efforts put are dependent on support?

Don't you see that efforts, support and time cannot consort?

I'll be called a old man soon, the tufts of age have appeared;

Is this when your life is put on a pedestal - you're then either cheered, feared or revered?

I don't want to be put there, I'm not like other folk;

It gets claustrophobic, manipulative and I feel like I'd choke.

It doesn't come natural to me, it's alien and it's draining;

I've been taught to put in the work and never go around feigning.

But I do that everyday when I throw a dart;

People trying to control me who apparently know what's what.

Keep anger in check, don't show emotion;

Don't you see that's natural to me, it's my own world of controlled commotion.

The mind can do wonders, I agree wholeheartedly with dismay;

You can conjure up a world with peace and also burn it down in a day.

Why dismay you ask? It's your mind, don't you control it?

It's just focus, control, discipline and a little wit.

You know there are two types of people - positive and negative;

Where one always looks for the grass that's greener while the other seems a lot more tentative.

While one tempers their emotions by choosing the worst case;

The other is easily excited and looks at everything through a more colorful gaze.

Now what if you have been both of them in parts of your life;

Or what if you only went one way and looked at the other in strife?

I'll tell you now - I started out positive, I was a day-dreamer, creative and very expressive;

I then toned down expectations - I became more focussed, organized and tad bit expletive.

But this changed with time when I experienced things;

I had not yet become the puppeteer who pulled them strings.

So I knew I had to mute what I needed but still go after them;

But then for longest time nothing happened, my thoughts became glum.

It's been more than a decade now, I've given up many a time;

Only for a friend who would pull me out from the grime.

I don't pride myself on having friends, I can count them on one hand;

I can tell you there are very few with whom notable years have spanned.

It comes so natural that you can tell them all;

They make their own choices and choose you should take the fall.

Now I revel in what has happened throughout my life;

I've decided and begun to treat them like loosestrife.

So now the constant thoughts and emotions that were tempered have now arisen;

My mind and thoughts tormented, hazy and locked in prison.

When you put yourself out there for people you can expect back only two things;

The ranges would be something good or nothing at all - that's what expectation brings.

But what if you get treated back harshly and there is unwanted anger?

Why did you put yourself out there? Why this pain? You hear your mind clanger.

It's easy to say that you don't care about what people feel;

When whatever you do is seen in a very cinematic reel.

I guess I'm done with expectations of everyone, I'm just going to live how I desire;

If I can't do that, it's fine. I don't need to walk far to arrive at the pyre.

Since you know what's worse than just living your life every single day?

It's being controlled and judged by society in every single way.

And knowing that you don't want or act in a way to deserve anything to that degree;

But you conclude life isn't easy, or fair as you can see.

So then you make a choice - that will dictate the rest of your days;

Are you positive or negative? Are you ready to set the world or yourself ablaze?

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gyuphorias · 2 years

Note

hi ! this has been on my mind lately TT can i request beomgyu and reader trying to hide their relationship (beomgyu sneakily stealing kisses, grabbing reader’s thighs under the table kind of stuff) bc theyre in the same friend group? thankiee

i love this trope bye omg

what we do in the shadows | c. beomgyu

warnings | hiding a relationship, non-idol au, college au

word count | 1.3k

the only rule of the friend group was no inside dating. it'd been the only rule for ages, made in middle school to protect the group from breaking apart. the fear was that if two people in the group started dating and they broke up, the rest of the group would have to pick sides and split up, which was, obviously, the worst thing that could happen.

you'd adhered to it, even throughout high school, but now you were a full-fledged adult in college. a childhood pact shouldn't be dictating who you could and couldn't date, especially not when one of your friends had confided in you the fact that she'd and another friend had broken the rule in high school and hidden their relationship from everyone.

so it wasn't so scandalous, at least to you, when beomgyu, one of your closest and longest friends, utilized college to pursue you. you shared a lot of the same freshman classes and you lived in the same residence hall, so it was only natural that you hung out together a lot. and with a few of your friends attending different universities, you felt free from that rule that had stopped you from acting on your feelings for your friend for years.

you still had to hide your relationship from the friends who did attend your university, but it wasn't so difficult when you were all busy with exams, jobs, and otherwise. beomgyu could sneak to your room any time he pleased and vice versa. you went to the dining hall together, playing footsies under the table, and had study dates at the library and your favorite coffee shop downtown, all passed off as just something friends do.

what was harder was going out clubbing together. your friends, who may or may not care about you and beomgyu breaking the rule, insisted on your attendance regularly. and while you wanted to go, not being able to dance or go home with your boyfriend was a pain. all you wanted was to touch him however you pleased and kiss him outside of the walls of your dorm room. you couldn't even post pictures on social media without blocking out his face, for fear that someone in your friend group would get mad.

this particular night, you've been dragged out by your friends almost against your will. what was going to be a relaxing night in with beomgyu, watching movies and eating junk food and cuddling in bed, is now being turned into your night of being the designated driver, making sure everyone gets home safe. but as annoying as staying sober and corraling your drunk friends will ultimately be, at least beomgyu has agreed to tag along, to stay sober with you and keep you company.

you're halfway through the night, hoping to go home soon because after a long week of classes and work, you really were looking forward to a night of doing nothing and now you're getting a headache from the loud music and the flashing lights of the club. beomgyu is at your side, nursing a glass of soda.

"think they'll be ready to go home soon?" beomgyu leans in to ask, using his body to shield the way his hand slides across the bartop to hold yours.

you shake your head, rolling your eyes in the process. "with our luck, dahyun will find her second wind before she even loses her first and we'll be here until two."

he laughs a bit, dropping a quick kiss to your cheek. "don't jinx us. maybe we'll get lucky and she'll get too drunk to keep going. then everyone will have to go home for the night."

"you're a lot more optimistic than i am," you remark, reaching over to steal a sip from his glass.

"well, one of us has to have a little bit of hope," he jokes, snatching his cup back from you and giving you a playful glare.

you watch as he checks over his shoulder, dark eyes scanning a dark crowd before he turns back to you, a grin on his face. he leans back towards you, pressing his lips to yours. you smile, turning a bit, your knee bumping against his under the bar. it's soft and sweet and lasts not long enough. when he pulls away, he lets his nose rub against yours, making you laugh.

"how long until we don't have to hide this anymore?" you ask, pulling back fully and looking back at the crowd, trying to catch a glimpse of dahyun or one of your other friends. even if they saw you two, they'd probably be too drunk to even realize.

"until the day we get married," beomgyu answers nonchalantly, going back to drinking his soda.

you turn to him, eyes wide and flashing in the strobes of the stage. your heart is racing in moments and he looks all too calm about what he just said, not even a smidge of surprise on his face. you've never talked about marriage before; you've been pushing it back for months because even after a year of being together, things still feel too new and you both want to focus on finishing your degrees anyways, but you'd be lying if you hadn't thought of it before.

"married?" your voice is a little watery, but out of happiness. "you think we'll get married?"

he nods, his hair settling unevenly on his shoulders. he sets his glass back on the bar and looks back at you, a shy little smile on his face. "yeah, one day. unless that's not what you want."

you smile and bump your knee against his for the second time tonight, reaching across to grab his hand and bridge your fingers together. "it could be what i want. someday, at least."

you're sharing a lovesick gaze, beomgyu playing with your fingers when dahyun bounds up, her eyes wide and wild. her face is flushed red from drinking too much and she's stumbling on her feet, her hair ruffled from dancing.

"hey hey hey, um... lia is getting sick in the bathroom - don't worry, the other girls are taking care of her. so it's probably time for us to head home."

you watch her glance at your hand, still intertwined with beomgyu. a cold, creeping dread fills you, but her eyes are glassy and she seems out of it. even if she's seen, she doesn't really care because she doesn't say anything.

"gyu, will you go get the car started?" you ask, looking at him and squeezing his fingers with your own. "i'll go help the girls."

he nods and you pass him the keys from your jacket pocket. dahyun is pulling at your hand, yanking you up from your seat. she's turned around all the way and before she can pull you off towards the bathroom to collect lia and the rest of your friend group, beomgyu is able to close the gap, kissing you again.

"i'll see you in a bit," he says. "still wanna watch movies tonight?"

you smile and nod at him, trying to follow dahyun, who's still pulling at your hand, increasingly confused by why you aren't moving. in return, he smiles back and leans in to kiss you a third time. dahyun turns around right before he pulls away and you watch as her eyes lose a bit of their wateriness, eyesbrows twitching in realization, but you doubt she'll remember in the morning.

"alright, see you in a few."

he finally lets you go and you let dahyun lead the way. her mind is still turning, you can practically see the gears working as she speaks silently to herself. you're glad she's not asking about it now because if she does care, you'd rather have this conversation when she's sober, when the whole group is sober, even though what you and beomgyu do in the shadows, in dorms and private study rooms at the library, is none of their business.

but you'll be the reason why that rule is stupid. you'll prove that you don't need the rule, that you never needed the rule.

#beomgyu x reader #beomgyu fluff #txt x reader #txt fluff #🌙 — talking to the moon #🌙 — kkyubear #🌕 — full moon #🌕 — txt

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skiyoosmi · 3 years

Text

post-break up heartaches

verse 1. in the car that used to drive us to our home

⤷ kuroo tetsurou, oikawa tooru — more characters coming soon

⤷ verse 2 | verse 3

⤷ play. never let me go by ghostly kisses, forget about us by clinton kane

commissions: open

⇢ KUROO sighs for the umpteenth time of the day. he was so fucking exhausted and his body's about to give in to sleep any moment now. work has been beating his ass; there was this newbie who kept on messing up the documents needed by the board and for the whole day, he had to be the one to fix said issues. it's not like he wasn't paid enough for that; if anything, his paycheck was one of the most beautiful things he laid his eyes on— but god, even his body has its own limits and yet...

"ya.... yer not supposed to do this anymore. y-ya left me, remember?" you slurred, index finger pointing right at his chest as he circled his arms around your waist, huffing as you practically dropped all your weight on him. here he was, suddenly given the task of having to take you home after your supposed-to-be designated driver, miya fucking atsumu, also drank his brains out with you.

"be patient. still heartbroken because of you, y'know?" kenma softly tells him despite the tipsy feeling lurking in the back of his mind, shaking his head as he looked at you, whose system finally shut down and were now dozing off in the black haired man's arms.

"..... still?" he mumbles, looking down at your figure and he feels his heart contract with pain all over again.

"you can't expect her to be fine immediately, kuroo. it was your wedding day, supposed to be the greatest day of her life and yet it became the worst one... you left her at the altar alone."

he didn't reply anything— or rather, he was unable to. because what can he say to refute the truth? nothing. instead, he proceeded to his car with you still in his hold. he places you on the passenger seat, locking the seatbelts before jogging to the driver's side.

the car ride was calm as you slept soundly with your head occasionally hitting the window lightly as it swayed from side to side. he was sure as hell that if you were sober right now, you wouldn't even have the thought of seeing him cross your mind. he just knows for sure that you despise him with your whole being... at least, that's what he thought until...

"i'm sorry, tetsu. please come back," you whimper in your seat, voice quiet but he heard it nonetheless, "tell me what i did wrong so i can fix it."

the pitiful sounds and mumbles you made struck kuroo right in the heart and which makes him pull over an empty but safe road, just a block away from your (previously shared) apartment. looking over your form, he finds himself reaching out to touch your face, caressing your cheeks as drops of tears fell down slowly on them, "you didn't do anything wrong. you were fine. you were so perfect."

you squint your eyes at him, probably wondering if this was real or just a part of your drunken imagination. nonetheless, you hiccuped, "y-you... you left me and i... i still can't even bring myself to hate you... i just wanna ask you why? i just want to understand."

he thought he also knew the reason why but every single time he thinks about it, he's only led to one conclusion: because he was a coward. no way was this any of your fault— it's definitely not your fault that right at that moment, as he stared at the mirror, wearing the black suit you chose for him, the sudden fear of commitment loomed over him. it's not like it was your fault he suddenly got scared of losing you the way his parents lost each other. but now he thinks it's ironic, because he lost you anyway.

maybe... just maybe, if he had just met you where you stood at the altar, instead of leaving you alone in it, maybe he would've been happier. maybe his days would've started more with a smile from you as you helped him fix his necktie before going to work. maybe, the working hours he spends in the shitty corporate world would've been more worth it if it meant he can come home to you at the end of the day. maybe... maybe he wouldn't have to be stuck with this lump in his throat as he wonders what could've been happening if he just chose to show up and vowed his life to you.

but he didn't.

"i realized i wasn't just ready to tie my life with anyone yet. that's all there is to it, yn."

so with a heavy feeling stuck in his chest and a quiet promise to never see you again for the sake of not hurting you further, he starts the car's engine again, ignoring the words you replied but he was sure they will haunt him for a very long time... again.

i can wait for you no matter how long it takes, tetsu, you know that.

⇢ OIKAWA gives you what seems like a guilty smile as he stands in front of you, opening his arms and gesturing you to come closer. but the stoic expression on your face takes him back to the reality that the last thing you wanted to do today was to actually fetch him from the airport. it just so happens that his three best friends were caught up with work that they had no choice but to send you, the main ex-bestfriend slash ex-girlfriend, to him.

why did you agree when you practically loathe him with your whole being? well, it was probably because you weren't the devil who would reject your friends when they were literally on their knees as they begged you and for some reason, you thought he'll look pitiful going back to his home country after five years with no one to welcome him. yeah, that's it. it's not like you're still in love with him or anything.

"my car's just around the corner," you begrudgingly walk towards the car park with him quietly following. at the moment, he knew better than to get on your nerves or else there would be war. he hates that this happened to the both of you but he can't blame anyone else but himself. because who wouldn't hate their ex-boyfriend if they suddenly broke up with them over a phone call?

tension filled the car as you both sat beside each other. perhaps, this was what other people were talking about when they say that it's impossible for exes to be friends again, to not feel any awkwardness because you were sure as hell that the word "awkward" was an understatement of your situation right now. nevertheless, your eyes couldn't help but wander to his figure as he adjusted his body, opting for a more comfortable position in the passenger's seat.

he looked more youthful and you felt bittersweet— proud that his whole aura screams of "success" which meant that gone were the days where he longed to get that winter cup trophy, nor the times when he overworked himself and put a strain on his knee which led to countless arguments with you. if anything, he looked happier and it sucks because you're not even close to feeling that way... not without him.

"i heard you've finally gotten yourself your own condominium? that's great, yn!" he exclaimed as soon as you began driving to your destination, a hope lit within him that maybe you might just respond to him. just one smile, that's all i need, he thinks.

but you remain focused on your driving, choosing to reply with a single nod and a soft "yeah..."

disappointment fills his heart as he faces the truth that your relationship has really been ruined, along with your friendship. all because he was foolish to think that he couldn't handle the physical distance between you two. realization dawns upon him that he just made that same distance worse as you pull your heart further away from him.

"... i actually bought it for the two of us, you know?" he whips his head to your direction in surprise, heart clenching as he watch you let out a sad chuckle, "i just... i thought it would be nice if we had a place to permanently stay at and for you to have a home to go to when you're at japan. but yeah... i guess things doesn't go our way sometimes, does it?"

"i'm sor—"

"it's okay. i'm fine now," you quickly reply, shaking your head but keeping your eyes on the road. he tries to ignore the tears that start to form in them because he has no right to stop them, knowing full well that he was the one who caused them in the first place.

as if on cue, you halt your vehicle in front of a familiar apartment and much to your dismay, you find yourself looking back in the past when you used to live in that same place, making wonderful memories with the chocolate haired lad with you. you clear your throat to stop the sob that desperately attempts to escape your throat, "uhm... we're here."

"oh, yeah. we're here," he numbly states, already missing you despite the mere inches of space separating the two of you. you just felt so far away and he hates it. but this was the path he chose so he gets out of your car along with his things, turning to you once more, "uhh... thanks for the ride, yn. i know you probably hate me but yeah... it's very nice of you to put that past us and i guess i just want to say sorry for hurting you... i just..."

"i don't hate you, tooru," you softly tell him, "i just don't want anything to do with you anymore. to see you this happy, without me, is like a slap in the face because i'm not. it still hurts and i'm not fine. i just hope this will be the last time we'll see each other. be safe on your trip back to argentina. welcome home."

and with that, you start the car's engine again, no longer having the energy nor the strength to hear his reply. but he wishes you did because as he watches your car drive further away from him, he can't help but wish that he can take back time so that you don't have to go to that condominium and instead, go inside the home you once shared with him.

but i'm not happy, yn. because how could i call this place my home when you're not here with me?

at that moment, unbeknownst to the two hearts that long for each other break at the same time, you finally let out the tears and cries that you've been keeping since you saw him, knowing that no matter how much you try, you'll never be as happy as you were with him— simply because he left you with a hole in your heart that no one else can fill.

#haikyuu x reader #haikyuu headcanons #kuroo x reader #oikawa x reader #kuroo headcanons #oikawa headcanons #haikyuu writings #haikyuu angst #kuroo tetsurou #oikawa tooru #haikyuu imagines #post break-up heartaches

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