#because i hav no self control
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Potential Short Stories
hey, while looking to next year, i have a number of short stories I'm considering and i'd like to gauge y'alls interest in them and see if there are any that should move up my list.
these are all just the top ideas i'm considering at the moment and are subject to change when i get back to writing in Spring 2024, but i really want to know if any of these grabs ppls attention as often more interest in a story motivates me to write more!
see under the read more for summaries of each story in the poll
if ur interested in more than one, vote for your favorite and mention the others in the comments/tags!
See this post for a poll on short vs long stories!
See this post for a poll on long stories!
see below for summaries and minor details (titles subject to change - but i'm also lazy and hate titling things so maybe not)
Courtship Confusion: You’ve been working with Morgan for a couple years. A consummate flirt, you’d initially been put off by his whole charming deal, but now that he’s your best friend you’ve been wanting to see if he’s still interested in dating you. Unfortunately he’s not picking up your hints. Before you give up, a pair of visiting concubi remind you of cultural differences when it comes to dating. Maybe you’ve both been misunderstanding each other. Maybe it’s time you set the record straight.
Modern w/known non-humans, ReaderxMaleSiren
Quid Pro Quo: You’d thought the only remotely positive about your husband’s death would be that you wouldn’t need to deal with your terrible in-laws anymore. Then you found out that demons were real and your husband’s family had made a deal decades ago trapping all their descendants in service to one. You manage to set up your own deal with a different demon: if you help Adriel figure out who is embezzling from his realm spanning organization, he’ll help you figure out how to get your kids free of the contract. After hitting dead end after dead end, you finally think you’re both getting somewhere, but will it be enough?
Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon
Goddaughter: You thought you’d seen the last of your family when you left—you’d certainly done everything you could to cut ties with them and with your father’s enemies. Unfortunately, they finally seem to have caught up with you—running into you by chance in the grocery store of all places. Now you and your daughter have been captured, you’re tied up while they’ve taken her who knows where, your father is just as useless at protecting you as always. Then you hear a familiar voice. What on earth is your neighbor, Vee, doing here? Why does he know your father? And why does he sound positively…demonic?
Modern w/secret demons; ReaderxMaleDemon
Bedwarmer: When you heard your Chancellor had died in battle and his lands given to a mountain orc who’d practically won the battle singlehandedly, you weren’t sure what to think. When the steward put out the call for a bedwarmer for said new Chancellor, you figured species didn’t matter much after all—powerful people were all the same. Still, the role came with a year reduction in indenture for whoever was selected from the candidates. You’ve never had any problem with no strings attached sex so you add yourself to the list. It’s not until you meet this Kor’Shearda and are chosen that you begin to realize how wrong you were.
Fantasy w/known non-humans; ReaderxFemaleOrc
Runalong: Sometimes you feel like you’ve spent your whole life on the move. Shuffled from one place to the next with no real say in the matter. Is it any wonder that on those long car rides from somewhere that just started to become familiar to somewhere brand new and unknown that you might imagine a companion along side you? And what does it mean that now you’re an adult and you still think you see them sometimes?
Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxGNSpirit
Feral: You’ve been so happy living on your own in the little house you inherited, you didn’t even mind the strange stipulations in the will about hanging plants and markings on fence posts. You were never particularly superstitious. Or you weren’t. Strange noises at night, eyes that glow, tracks around the porch—it’s all starting to freak you out. What could be lurking in the shadows of your yard? Is it all your imagination? Or does something—someone—mean you harm?
Modern w/unknown non-humans; ReaderxFemaleHellhound
#polls#stories#my stories#just want to see what ppl think#was gonna put this up lik next weekend but i hav no self control#i'll likely do what i want lol#because if i'm not up for it i wont be able to write it as well#but i do want to know what ur thoughts are#(i'm sometimes very easily persuaded - thats how the DSM bonus happened)#and giv a little preview of what stories might be coming up next#i'd likely only be able to get to 4 at most next year#so choose wisely!
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Astrology Observations: Scorpio Edition ☠️
🦂In doing these observations, I like breaking down the differences between the Sun, Moon and Rising in a sign. With Scorpio, I look at each as the different elements of a crime scene.
(These are analogies/metaphors, btw. Please don't take this literally)
Scorpio Rising is like the detective. They are investigators, obsessive thinkers, and will dig and dig until they find the info they need. It is very hard to hide around them because they will ask questions, get in your head, and figure out your motives. Most people don't know what they're doing and the extent of their manipulation. But, like the detective, this skill can be used for good.
Scorpio Sun is the murder victim. And, hold on, I am not saying they are weak or powerless. It's more so that the metaphorical "deaths" they have to endure end up shaping who they are. And, like a murder victim, they become very well-known for how they "died", whether it was through heartbreak, betrayal, career/financial loss, mental health struggles/breakdowns, etc. But, the good thing is that they learn that any kind of death is only a transformation.
Scorpio Moon is the killer. As nice and charming as this person may appear (and genuinely be), there is a fierce, sometimes even ruthless instinct within. It's just about learning how to destroy what needs to be killed off, in a positive/constructive sense. But, heaven help those who fuck around and find out. Like a killer, they can be both vaguely intimidating but also the last person you'd expect. Their dark or ferocious side can catch people off guard and that intensity is not only unmatched but can rage out of control if not managed.
(All three placements have a little of each archetype in them but each displays these respective energies the most)
🦂 People with Scorpio placements = love of horror movies. Most of the time, anyway. Especially Scorpio Sun, Moon or Rising. This obsession may begin young and even extend to a fascination with true crime. This is my Moon sign and I loved horror and serial killer documentaries so much growing up that I got side-eyed a few times lol. (But, now, of course, that's become trendy)
🦂 Scorpio Venus people are not necessarily the die-hard, super-serious, "I love you so I must breathe your oxygen" relationship types that they're made out to be. Some of them channel a lot of that intensity into the sexual part of relationships while remaining casual or emotionally unavailable otherwise. So, this placement can be as much of a player or serial dater as anyone. That just may not exactly be how they want to act deep down.
🦂 Those with Mercury in Scorpio usually have some skill with divination, whether or not they are tapped into it. They could make excellent astrologers or Tarot readers. Some of them are naturally good at spell work, as well, or could be skilled mediums or channelers.
🦂 There are two types of Scorpio Risings: 1) the ones who give you witchy or sexy vampire vibes (and who may identify with either archetype) 2) the ones who seem like adorable, harmless elfin/fae beings who are much more powerful than they initially appear.
🦂 Scorpio people look great in all black and this isn't limited to the Venus or Rising sign. It is a power move of sorts and a way to honor one's shadow self (which every self-respecting Scorpio person will thrive on). Also, try black boots, ultra-high heels for those who wear them, and anything sheer like mesh or lace.
🦂 Scorpio Moon people are either very naturally seductive/erotic/alluring (even if they don't try or aren't aware of it) or has the sex appeal of a bowl of mashed potatoes, even though they may try very hard to be sexy. Sexiness can vary with Scorpio people and does tend to exist in extremes. But, since the Moon is what comes instinctively, this is truest for them. They either have it or they don't.
🦂 Scorpio Mars people can be very, VERY petty. This is the lower expression of it. The evolved ones will have a past of vindictive behavior or holding ridiculous grudges but learn to rise above that. And I mean ridiculous grudges. Like, "you ate the last slice of pizza that I wanted two years ago and I haven't forgotten it".
🦂 Scorpio Suns and daddy issues go together like peanut butter and jelly. In most cases, either the father figure walks out on them or dies during their upbringing or they just have a super-complicated relationship.
🦂 It's hard to find a sign that is more proud of their sign than Scorpio. Virgo's may outdo them (because so many Virgos LOVE telling you they're a Virgo lol) but they're up there. This extends to the Moons and Risings, as well. They are quite likely to get a tattoo of the Scorpio symbol or a scorpion or phoenix or eagle.
#astrology#astrology observations#astro observations#scorpio#scorpio energy#scorpio placements#scorpio sun#scorpio moon#scorpio rising#scorpio mercury#scorpio venus#scorpio mars#scorpio stellium
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Hiii! I hope you’re doing well!! I’m just wondering if i could request some yandere Forget Me Not headcannons? If not, some general romantic hcs would be fine!
That said, don’t overwork yourself and feel free to decline this if you feel like it!
;R1999 FORGET ME NOT - Yandere Headcanons
Compilation of headcanons about Forget Me Not as a Yandere.
I am doing well, ty for asking! and ty for the yandere request, I love writing this type of stuff <3
warning for yandere content and everything it entails. as well as self-harm and suicide themes
Forget Me Not as a Yandere would be pretty standard, I think─at least from the beginning.
I want to say that his lack of experience and proper, healthy examples when it comes to relationships and interpersonal skills is the basis of his Yandere profile: he's hindered by even more twisted impulses and intrusive thoughts, and thus would cling even HARDER to his self-imposed restraints because the stakes are higher now. The consequences would be even more severe should he lose control.
From an outsider's point of view, perhaps he appears to be meaner than usual, there's more bite behind his words as opposed to his elegant way of serving backhanded compliments. While those who spend more time with him would notice that he's unbelievably tense and high-strung. Essentially, it's the same fight between indulgence and restraint that I've been portraying in previous FMN posts, only ramped up to 200%.
The thing about Forget Me Not as a Yandere is that he would be extremely malleable and reactive to his darling. He's so very easy to influence, for better and for worse─the attention he pays to every single detail about you, your habits, your gestures and every little "tell", borders on predatory. It's very ironic, the way he can't understand his own feelings nor thoughts but he actually can read you crystal clear, that he may know you better than you know yourself. The dynamic of your relationship would be determined in your first interactions with him, and it AAAAAALL depends on you. But it's not as binary as who gets to be the "dominant" party and who gets to be the "submissive" party!
When I say Forget Me Not is malleable, I mean it.
In the context of entering a relationship with him, yes, there is the chance that, if you show any signs of "submission" (a more timid and meek personality) Forget Me Not will take advantage of it to the fullest─either through force, coercion or manipulation. We all know he's not below playing dirty and acting to get what he wants, after all. And there is also the chance that, if you show the opposite (a more stubborn and combative personality, to go against him whenever possible) that he will meet you with as much vitriol as you show him, or that he will become even more obsessed with making you submit to him, to blur both love and hatred together as mentioned before. You know, all these classics traits in Yandere content!
But the secret third option is that, if you play your cards right, he will be at your absolute mercy as well.
You can play the exact same mind games he plays and have him eating out of the palm of your hand. After all, he's just looking for ANY excuse and justification to unravel and let loose─you taking the reigns is just as good as him taking the lead. At the end of the day, as long as he gets your undivided attention, the dynamic doesn't matter. We're talking about a guy who pretends to be a poised gentleman and a functional member of society. A cowardly snake who doesn't want to face the consequences of his actions and would absolutely prefer to double down on his awful behaviour and then die at the end than think of apologizing to a single person.
This guy? As a Yandere? Yeah, he will adapt to you, but he will also allow you to manipulate him if you have the courage to reach out and tug at his leash, to take advantage of his obsession. I would even go as far to say that THIS outcome would be the best one for him, as it means that he doesn't have to take responsibility for his own life: that burden is now on you, you own him now. Good luck!
For this post, I'll talk about this secret third option since it's the most interesting in my opinion!
I'm not sure how to format my headcanons and thoughts properly, so I'll do something new and rate the general Yandere traits I think are relevant for him! Obsessiveness is one I specifically left out because it's the most basic requirement for Yandere characters, it feels unnecessary to discuss it. That shit must be cranked up to the highest setting or else there's no Yandere in the first place!
Possessive: ✦✦✦✧✧✧
In this context, he perceives his life to belong to you and only you─the nuance of the situation and whether it gets worse or a better for him are up to you, there's literally endless possibilities─and so it makes sense for him to be possessive, but not in the traditional sense that we're used to, so to say?
Because one of the important aspects of Forget Me Not as a character is the self-loathing. To me, this is one of the few core aspects that must remain in every AU or iteration for him to feel in-character. He's defined by revenge, self-loathing and a delusional mind. And it's this self-loathing that leads Forget Me Not into a very, very insecure mindset─because he's fully aware that YOU could aim for a better lifestyle, a better partner, someone who wants what's best for you instead of wanting to drag you down, deeper and deeper into the mess that is his life. Of course, this is something he won't allow now that you've so gracefully let him latch onto your side like a parasite, but it's a possibility that will continue to haunt him forever.
And so, he's possessive of your ownership and control over him, what he perceives to be the bond that ties you to him or viceversa. It's not quite "You're mine, and no one else's", it's more of a "I'm yours, and no one else's".
No matter what you do to him, he will remain by your side. The idea of you favouring someone else, or choosing to be with someone else and keep him by the sidelines, well, it will ruin him, of course! But Forget Me Not has been waiting for the other shoe to drop his whole life, and so NOTHING you can do can convince him to leave or do anything to "get back at you" in a direct way─aside from manipulating the world to leave you behind instead, perhaps. I like to think he'd still be a pretty pathetic, soggy and miserable guy. Desperate to prove to you that he's going to stay no MATTER what you do or say to him.
It's fine if you hate him, it's fine if you love him. But at the end of the day, you should at appreciate his loyalty and treasure him. Forget Me Not wants YOU to be the possessive one, to want him despite how awful he is, all while accepting the fact that you will never truly be his, because he doesn't deserve you.
Not to say that you keep the guy on a literal leash 24/7, of course! But to if you were to flirt with someone else in front of him, chances are Forget Me Not won't move a single finger. He would stay there, glaring daggers at the perpetrator, and then whine and guilt trip you into paying attention to him. But if someone were to flirt with him instead, he would be pretty ruthless in his rejection, proud and loudly declaring who he belongs to.
Perhaps it would be better to describe him as clingy instead? I think as indulgent as Forget Me Not can be when it comes to his vices, being by your side would be his utmost priority in this context. He won't follow you around like a lost puppy like other characters might do, but he would instead pull a few strings here and there behind the scenes to ensure you always happen to be within his line of sight.
Actually, now that I'm thinking, Forget Me Not as a Yandere would have EXTREME separation issues. This guy would ABSOLUTELY be the type to watch you sleep, because he just can't fathom the idea of being, what, 8 hours away from you? All of this being tied to his anxieties and codependency. I don't see him being very vocal about his love for you, or if he is then the sort of shit he spouts could easily be misinterpreted as thinly veiled threats, or just self-affirmations for himself.
Delusional: ✦✦✦✦✦✦
I'm giving him full points in this section because aside from the aforementioned anxieties, paranoia and self-loathing that gets him to be so, so very miserable, Forget Me Not is pretty much Delusional with a capital D.
Regardless of the path that led you to him and this situation, Forget Me Not would cling onto the fact that you currently own his heart, his mind and his entire life─this OBVIOUSLY means, in his book at least, that you care or love him just enough to take on such a burden. It's pretty much everything I discussed up until now mixed into one big cocktail of delusion and desperation. There's no takebacksies now!
Regardless of your treatment of him, Forget Me Not wholeheartedly believes that you love him to some degree, and that is more than enough for him to fuel his delusions, to overthink every action and every gesture as an act of love. He can still read you like an open book, he knows whenever you're nervous, whenever you're scared, whenever you get angry at him─how else can one explain such reactions, if love isn't at the center of it all? If you didn't love him, you would treat him with indifference, you would discard him like a broken toy!
Of course, if you WERE to treat him with indifference or attempt to discard him and get him out of your life, he would just find more and more ways to come back, to twist your words and their meaning to something that fits his narrative, to worm his way into your life the same way you've done, worming into his own heart. There's no point in trying to make sense of his logic, there is none, it's just the nonsensical, lovestruck fantasy he's built for himself.
Whether you kick him in the mouth or hold him close to you, the only truth Forget Me Not will stand for is your love for him.
But I think it would be fun if this is something he only made known to you? To the outside world, he makes them believe what they want to believe, make whatever assumption about your relationship with him─the muddier the truth becomes for the rest, the easier it is for him to trap and isolate you. Forget Me Not has a talent for acting, to play every unassuming role required for whatever schemes he's got under his sleeve, he might be a pathetic, desperate excuse of a man, kneeling and clinging onto you, but he still retains his cunning mind when it matters. And when you're not around to cloud his vision, he's dangerous.
No matter what others might think, Forget Me Not would find a way to profit─it doesn't matter if your best friend has an inkling about the true nature of your relationship, he will capitalize on it to ensure they remain far, far away from helping you escape. If your coworkers or classmates or what have you believe you two are an odd couple? Then that's what you two are! It's not like they know any better!
Forget Me Not knows more than anyone that there is no fighting the perception of others. There is a group of humans who simply decided he was the Devil himself, based entirely on his heritage rather than his actions. So he plays his part and lets their own biases do their thing, easy.
In that same vein, if you've indulged or pampered him a lot, then he would be more ready to believe anything you say. Sure, Forget Me Not knows that you may lie to him, you might've done that already many times before, but how can he say no when you've been so sweet to him lately?
Manipulative: ✦✦✦✦✦✦
You know what. Self-explanatory, I don't even have to ramble about this because I've talked about how manipulative Forget Me Not is in pretty much all of his posts. He rarely chooses direct confrontations,
I'm inclined to believe that he would only do so in extreme situations, and even so, he would only dirty his hands and confront whatever obstacles in his path─but confronting you? He's too much of a coward, he would never dream of confronting you without ensuring that you will deliver the answer and reaction he seeks, out of fear of hearing the truth from your own lips. I insist, he's not afraid of digging himself into his own grave with his schemes and manipulations if it means maintaining this whole status quo.
So, instead let me talk about how you can manipulate him instead, to level the field a little!
Physical touch in any way is the easiest way to force Forget Me Not to listen. From pulling on his hair to caressing his cheek─I don't think he will ever get used to having you touch him. Again, he thrives with whatever you throw at him, so it's up to you to choose.
I think lying to him and getting away with it is very difficult. In fact, if you think you've successfully lied to him, it's probably because he decided to let you believe he's none the wiser. so instead you would have to appeal to his emotional side. It's as easy as bringing up the whole ownership/possessive aspect, any reminder that he's all yours is enough to get Forget Me Not to comply after some minimum reluctance and pushback from him. It doesn't matter if you're guilt tripping him or threatening him, he thinks it's so romantic that you would go out of your way to reassure him of his position.
Sadism ✦✦✧✧✧✧ / Masochism ✦✦✦✦✧✧
Lately, I've been seeing Yandere content being slowly portrayed as a watered down version of what it used to be, like, to call a character who is just possessive a Yandere and that's it.
But I'm a fan of dark content, and to theorize about everything that comes with these themes─this includes physical harm, something that people are more sensitive towards, which is fair and I understand if this isn't everyone's cup of tea!
So far, most of the violence towards the reader has been emotional and psychological, with physical violence being directed instead to third parties. Here, there will be discussions of potential physical violence towards the reader and Forget Me Not.
That's why this section is at the bottom, so that you can opt out of it!
Something I forgot to bring up directly is the themes of idealization and religious parallels when it comes to the way Forget Me Not interprets his relationship with you.
Despite all these things, he still considers you way above him, a holy figure deserving of everything he can offer─so I don't think he would be physically abusive nor be threatening in this way either. He finds zero pleasure in the idea of physically harming you, and would very much prefer to chip away at your mental stability and vulnerability by hurting himself. Hell, he would prefer to have YOU hurt him instead, to have physical proof of your influence on his body. It aligns perfectly with his self-loathing. If you could scrape off all of his scales with your nails and replace when with the scars you leave him, he would be so, so very grateful.
Or to have you pluck his scales off one by one as punishment, he would absolutely love that. I think that, in those days in which he cannot tolerate nor deal with himself, when he cannot drown his sorrows in alcohol, he would become an active nuisance for the very small and off chance that you lash out at him. It's very cathartic to him.
This post focuses on a very specific outcome of the whole Yandere situation with Forget Me Not, but even so, I believe that every other version in every other situation would still have Forget Me Not being more of a masochist than a sadist. At least when talking about his darling. Given the type of person that he is and all, he would still prefer more mental games.
#reverse 1999#reverse 1999 x reader#reverse 1999 forget me not#forget me not#yandere#this feels a little like yandere x yandere#but thats partially bc FMN is a fucking freak#phew i think i got the whole dark content for FMN stuff out of my system now
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hello hello I would love to hear about your skye sisters headcanons if you wish to indulge me 👀
OH, WELL. HERE WE GO!
- lana's entire personality is actually sort of shaped by the fact she had to raise a person by herself since she was herself pretty young. she missed out on core parts of socialization, so she's not exactly the best with people, she has a caretaker mode and an interacting with strangers mode, and it hasn't exactly worked the best for making friends; she did learn how to sort of open up and talk about herself and her interests and views on the world in college, but she never really.. demands attention or focuses on herself? it doesn't actually really cross her mind at all. she's well-spoken, thoughtful, has her own set views on the world and is anything but boring, but she only ever drops it Sometimes, like untalkative fathers casually having half a conversation that is so good you start wishing for more but then they just go quiet again, sort of slipping-through-your-fingers sort of person, because she's always sort of been a means to an end. not that she didn't get to show her personality with ema at all, but the conversations they had were mostly her teaching her something, or her making sure she's okay, or her listening and giving ema space to learn conversational skills, talk about her interests, etc - it was all about ema. and I should empathize lana was fine with it. lana was giving large parts of herself up long before rfta began - she ways always living for ema. she sort of just had to. even her fight against crime and pursuit of justice and the maintenance of peace and etcetera were probably Partially rooted in a desire to give ema (everyone else too, but especially ema) a better world to live in. she's ultimately defined by how deeply self-sacrificially she loves. she's a lot like nahyuta in that regard.
- ema hates how self-sacrificial lana is. lana never flaunted it in her face or demanded any gratitude - that's not why. I think it's rather about something that peaked in rfta and probably showed in small moments here and there before that. lana closes off to suffer in silence. she probably tried to never let ema see that she was struggling in any way, and it could have manifested in her sort of getting lost in herself and just being cold and quiet and not showing as much attention to ema as usual, and until ema was old enough, that surface level of the problem Was the problem, but later ema inevitably starting to understand lana was just running away not to let her help. later ema inevitably starting to understand the things that were being done for her were not easy and they were being done in noble suffering For Her Sake. and, being a teenager that she was, ema would yell at lana to stop giving her all of these things, then, and lana would just shake her head and tell ema she knows nothing about how anything works. you know how parents start being more honest with you about how much money they spent on you and tell you more about themselves as you grow up? lana did the opposite. after sl-9, pretty much the only thing lana talked to ema about was ema's grades, mental state and whether she was sure she didn't need therapy or not. when lana would manage to tell ema she was proud of her or something like that, she sounded so tired ema would just cry and tell her to stop. they barely spent time together, but ema liked it better that way when she didn't have to put to with lana's exhausted awkward attempts to connect.
- actually, though, ema did still want attention. she was a teenager, she was human and had emotional needs and, to put it bluntly and perhaps rudely, she was lucky enough to be used to getting more. she would find multiple reasons to hate lana - calling her care control, calling her cold and unfeeling, claiming she didn't care about her or know her, complaining to her friends at school lana only cared about her grades and would be disappointed in her for failing. all of that might have been Partially true, but it was never the core issue, and later ema always felt guilty for talking about her sister like that. she knew lana cared, she knew lana would talk to her more if she could, she knew lana wouldn't actually be just completely disappointed if ema started failing class - more likely concerned, - she knew lana wasn't bad, she was just suffering. but she had no way to help. she didn't even know what lana what suffering From. and there was no way lana was ever telling her. in a way, ema would feel she ruined lana's life.
- and again, I'm not just talking about the aftermath of the sl-9 here, although that probably drove these issues up to eleven - rfta is representative of the problems they had for years, this particular story is just something that made it to court and had some outside involvement for it's resolution. I'm not sure they would even be able to completely resolve it after rfta? but they would definitely Attempt it.
- I don't actually think lanamia would have had worked out for long. they could definitely both bring something good out of knowing each other, but ultimately, their paths only crossed for a short moment - they met each other, they found something to respect and admire in each other, they helped each other grow and perhaps, hoped to be each other's emotional solace and salvation, but ultimately never were, because they inevitably got pulled in the opposite directions by their respective priorities. mia never kept in contact with anyone she met in college, even if she actually sort of wanted to - she had a goal to work towards, and she couldn't afford to keep anyone close enough so they could potentially get hurt by the obstacles She would face. she knew where she was going and never wanted to drag anyone down with her, that's why she never even told anyone. she moved on past lana right around the time she started working for grossberg, not because she never cared, but because the truth was always more important than herself. the same way she let go of lana, she eventually had to let go of diego - she didn't stop visiting him in the hospital in his coma, from time to time she still did, but she couldn't let what happened to him keep affecting her. she never let maya know, she never let phoenix know, she appeared all fine and well held together in aa1 despite her loved one being in a coma and her not even knowing if he's going to survive. mia is just this type of person - she leaves and moves on despite not wanting to, and feeling guilty for it, and kind of being an asshole for it - she left her sister in the village alone and then called her on the phone to check up on her and congratulate her on coping so well with living alone knowing full well she's part of the reason maya has to grow up so fast. mia couldn't have stayed with lana even if she really wanted to, mia always leaves. and another side of that coin, lana never let ema meet mia? ema heard about mia as a lawyer recommendation and knew vaguely how they met, but the "intellectually attracted" phrase makes me think ema didn't actually know they were in a relationship? lana wouldn't let her personal life get in the way of her raising her daughter sister. lana wouldn't talk to ema about her personal life the way it's kind of normal for sisters to do. lana was a parent and made sure her image in ema's eyes stayed untainted with any silly romantic stuff ema would giggle about. (I think it would be part of the reason ema would be so uncomfortable with lana dating umaru later down the line- nevermind let's not touch on that right now.)
- I also don't want to go into huge detail about it here, because it's.. not something really based in canon and might be perceived by some people as silly, but I headcanon marshalls and angel starr as being lana's buddies from college, and jake was unexpectedly good at helping babysit ema and ended up becoming sort of a weird uncle for her who would give her shoulder rides and tell her cool gun facts, ignoring concerned looks from his more well-adjusted brother. (my headcanons about marshalls are their own wild beast, but they're just that, headcanons, they're not actually based on literally anything.) and I think it would really really hurt ema that after sl-9 jake would close off completely from everyone, and whenever he would meet ema again he would just act like they're strangers because he was just that entrenched in his grief. jake would actually fix his relationship with ema even before lana did, though - he would break out of prison to do it, show up tight as she was leaving for college and tell her they're anything but strangers and he'll always be ready to help, should she just call. (he would constantly have to change numbers, though, because from this moment moving forward he'd be on the run from the police.^^)
#maya posts#baby's first ask!#ace attorney#ema skye#lana skye#mia fey#jake marshall#lanamia#ace attorney headcanon#ace attorney meta#sort of#I actually only stopped because I grew tired and picked the least canon related hc to end on#i could have gone into how lana's self sacrificialness affected ema's relationship with nahyuta#I could have gone into how I see their relationship in the post trilogy although I do have quite a depressing take on it#i also.... had to compromise my nonbinary ema headcanon for this and use she/her for them in this post... just because I kind of want it to#have a wider reach....#but yeah in my head ema skye is actually nonbinary#transmasculine and uses they them pronouns#but I wanted to lean more heavily into analyzing their canon relationship rather than just headcanons
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I am saying bye to any potential redemption of writing that Shinoa’s character could have ever had right now…
(OR how to completely destroy a FMC Kagami style…)
It’s just sad when I reminisce about those 2015 times and think about how, if things had went differently, Shinoa could have ended up there up in the podium with the other select few best written female protagonists of the shōnen genre.
I know many people use “x character has so much potential” frequently (including myself) but for me, Shinoa’s character is the biggest waste I came across in all these years of watching anime, and reading manga and LNs.
In shōnen, you usually have male characters who are the son of an important clan or the vessel of an important creature or something of that sort whereas female characters don’t really have much going on. At most they will be a girl from a noble family, but this is just for the rich girl archetype and the rich girl-peasant guy dynamics between fc and mc. The family in itself most likely is not relevant to the plot or to their character development.
That’s why Shinoa was something more unique. She is all what the male characters have in one. Her story is on par with that of Mika and Yuu. She is a member of the most influential family in the story, she is the sister of one of the central figures behind the apocalypse and the weapons the army uses, she is the vessel of the villain of OnS, and her past of isolation, experimentation and family abuse has massively shaped her personality which has been quite highlighted throughout the manga and the light novels (i.e. her dry personality, her self-deprecating comments, etc.).
However, all of these just went into the drain. Shinoa just lost all what made her interesting to me. Putting aside the fact that it seems like the Hīragi family lost their relevance in the story, Kagami placed more importance on Shinoa’s feelings for Yuu than her family situation for her character arc. The arc didn’t touch upon aspects like, what Shinoa wants to do in respect with her family? When it comes to her sister, putting aside that Mahiru seems quite secondary lately, the importance of their relationship to the story is past their expiry date. We didn’t even get a proper reunion of them or Shinoa being shocked to see her after 8 years. They had hours to have a talk (the car scene could have been a good setting for it since they had nothing else to do), and if they were to talk now, the timing would be just so off that it would just completely lose its emotional purpose.
As for her being the vessel of Shikama, well, what I need to say: her character arc was anticlimactic. The female protagonist being possessed by the most powerful being in the story would have been such a big moment for the story, Shinoa’s big moment, but that only ended up in disappointment for the expectations it created. From the build up to this moment to everyone being worried about her heart stopping and every faction sensing the awakening of the First, what followed after was very underwhelming. Literally after she gets possessed everyone of her squad goes on to do their own thing and the plot’s focus just shifts onto Guren and Yuu’s fight, and Mika’s death without first giving enough conclusion to Shinoa’s arc. Thus, one big event overshadowed another big one. Nothing really happened with the possessed Shinoa, just Shikama causing some ruckus around the city. We could have seen Shinoa struggling to regain control, her feelings while Shikama was using her body, her squadmates calling her to come back to their senses, a powerful scene of friendship but nothing of that sort happened. Instead, Shinoa came back just because of some sinful keys that Guren, Mahiru and Noya used, and then those three left and went to Mika and Yuu. So basically we are left with the impression that Shinoa being possessed by the First was something to take care off quickly, 10 minutes of sinful keys and onto their next task. This at least could have been used for a powerful Hīragi sisters reunion, but again it just didn’t happen, and even when she comes back to normal, everyone treats her as if they forgot she almost died. We see no reaction of Yuu and Kimizuki. We see Yoichi being relieved to see both Shinoa and Mitsuba alive, but there is no distinction between them even though Shinoa was in far more danger than Mitsuba. The only one we got a proper reaction from was Mitsuba, and instead of being a rare moment of female friendship in OnS, this was quickly played off as a boob joke.
Ironically, some of these moments I mentioned only happened when Shinoa got possessed for a second time. We see Yuu running to her in worry (the shoulder scene) and her being the one to fight off Shikama but this in my opinion was a very poor choice of timing. All of these should have happened when Shinoa got possessed the first time. A second possession just doesn’t have as much impact as the first one. Why do we see Yuu worry for Shinoa after her second possession but not after the first one? Overall, this makes his worry come off as cheap even if the author didn’t mean it just because the timing is so wrong. Her fight against Shikama was just frustrating to look at because it was all just a Mary Sue bullsh*t when we all know that it was the drugs holding Shikama back. Then, the author kills it by making Shikama abandon her as if she wasn’t actually a necessary piece in his millenia old plan, even though he has spent centuries looking for a vessel.
Overall, it feels as if Shinoa’s character arc happened not for the sake of her character development, but rather to use Shinoa as a means for other characters’ stories and plans. One example of this could be Mika and Yuu. Every scene with Shinoa (with or without Yuu) follows or is followed by a mikayuu scene that has far more emotional impact, and a lot of Shinoa’s actions and words parallel Yuu’s actions and words to Mika, as if to use her character to tell the readers that yes, Mika and Yuu’s relationship is a romantic one because if Shinoa has romantic feelings for Yuu, and she says the same words to Yuu that Yuu says to Mika, doesn’t it mean Yuu loves Mika romantically? Something of that sort… And these parallels are way too many now that it looks like Shinoa’s scenes are a cheap copy of mikayuu scenes.
I stopped liking Shinoa years ago but I still had hopes that after Yuu’s “rejection” she would have some time to calm down, let her feelings out and maybe talk with the rest of her squad for emotional support. After all, everything happened just in one day for her. I still had this tiny hope because Kagami said he was studying storytelling, and it’s not like we have many female characters in OnS, much less active ones and to be frank Shinoa is actually the only female in OnS that has been getting substantial screentime in these last years, as Mitsuba, Krul and even Mahiru have been quite secondary. So at least I wanted one positive input of female characterisation into the current OnS events.
What I did not expect was Shinoa going full obsessive rejected girl mode and threatening the life of her crush’s most important person while also starving the poor and hungry to death. This is such a massive downgrade for a girl who said that at the beginning of the manga that she didn’t want to be like her sister. With Mahiru it felt natural and well written because her character was established like that from the beginning but for Shinoa the writing is all over the place. Now not only she is a copy of Yuu, but also of Mahiru, and this makes her lose all her originality.
Her order of burning the food of all Ikebukuro’s settlements is not only inhuman but also plain stupid and unnecessary. It’s as if this chapter tries to make Shinoa look cool with her acting like the leader but all that comes out of her mouth is garbage. After all the interesting things that she lost, what remained for her was her role as squad leader. True, she stopped acting like a leader way long ago but as I said before, after Yuu’s “rejection” this time could have been used on her bonding with her other three squadmates. Kagami could have still had performed a minimal rescue of Shinoa’s character at this point. However, the writing failed when trying to make Shinoa take the spotlight in the group before working on her leadership abilities, establishing that she was smart or at the very least, form a bond of trust between Shinoa and the other three. That’s why these scenes don’t give the impression that the rest are letting Shinoa do the leading because they know how capable she is and place their trust on her, and rather it looks like simply a matter of screentime. It’s simple: Shinoa is the female protagonist, she speaks, those three are cardboad cutouts, they don’t get to speak. Take Ferid, Crowley, Mahiru and Krul conveniently out of the picture too. That’s why her being the leader now feels anti natural.
Now I feel like Shinoa’s character is completely unsalvageable. It looks like Kagami really embarked on a journey to make Shinoa as unlikeable as possible. Her character arc should be over by now; a good portion of the manga was spent on her and she is no longer relevant to the plot now that she lost Shikama, and the story from now on should be focusing on the main events. If I remember well Kagami said he wanted to give the Hīragi sisters a happy ending but if that means Shinoa will finally learn to move on, I must say that at this point is too late for it. Too much time of this manga was spent on ruining her character to make her a “good” character ever again.
I know it’s not only her that has been ruined by Kagami’s writing, but again, to me she had the biggest potential and that’s why it’s even sadder.
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Dominant Blade and Fist is a perfect event to me but i understand how it can feel confusing and regressive(?) if you haven't kept up with the Akatsuki stories, and it probably would've benefited from a chapter where Souma and Keito do the stuff they talk about in the end.
A really, unfortunately common sentiment is that Souma and Kuro are being held back/used by Keito, and that Keito becoming involved is a negative, because he can get overprotective and controlling, but it's never been as simple as that. Never trust the enstars unreliable narrator, especially Kuro Kiryu, in this particular story.
The thing about Kuro Kiryu, is that he... Self-harms in a way. When he feels hopeless and depressed, he digs a deeper hole to die in. He becomes sacrificial, resentful and pessimistic.
The vibes are so rancid that they replicate the ones that the audience in Kanatas execution.
Kuro is absolutely right when he monologues about his dependency on Keito. It's true that to an extent, they've still been letting Keito do the heavy lifting in terms of unit proposals.
However, the one time he tries to help out, his outfits end up becoming the critical weakness.
He's not good enough, Akatsuki isn't good enough. This is like. Factual. They cannot compete with full on traditional performers, and traditional idols. They're starting at the bottom.
Unfortunately, this is a lot for Kuro, who gets stuck in his own head, to bear. He immediately sticks himself in an extreme line of thinking. That his dependence on Keito is a complete weakness and flaw,
And once again, while this is true to an extent, it isn't to the extremes that Kuro is seeing it.
And well, He avoids Keito because Keito would tell him as much. (Unfortunately, Hasumi is right again lol. You can't take on the burdens of the world on your own, Kiryu!)
Instead, Kuro turns to Souma, another person that Keito 'protects'. He asks Souma, isn't it unfair that Hasumi does all the thinking?
And... Souma is inclined to agree! I mean, he's being left out of the unit conflict and proposals.
However, one thing about Souma
He LOVES akatsuki. He loves when all three of them perform, side by side. And he recognizes, when Kuro relays his plan, that Kuro is self-destructing.
I mean, if it wasn't obvious that Kuro's plan is a form of self-deprecating it should be via the references to the Ryuuousen, and the fact that it's centered on making a power grab, regressing to their old platform at Yumenosaki.
He's going to villainize himself, take all the blame, so that Akatsuki can regain their 'power'. And they'll do it WITHOUT Keito, to protect Keito, to prove themselves.
But... Souma can't let that happen. Because it would mean the end of the Akatsuki he loves.
So he fights to protect Akatsuki, for three whole days, he does nothing but dodge and take hits, not even fighting back, until Kuro is exhausted.
When he wins, he brings Keito back into the picture. And they still go through with Kuro's plan, but they do it together, with the goal of trying new things, using Yumenosaki as grounds for experiments, having fun.
And at the end of it, Kuro is able to come to terms with the fact that he's not 'perfect', and that he's going to make mistakes. But he won't stop fighting and let himself fall. He'll be reborn through his struggles.
And he wants Keito and Souma right there with him. To watch him grow into someone he can be proud of.
Because at the end of the day, they're barely adults. And it's not fair to expect them to be the Best. They have to become okay with the process of learning their ABCs.
And MOST IMPORTANTLY. That they're there for eachother, to rely on, to work together with. With Keito's help, they were able to rework the plan into something that allowed them more freedom than they agency ever granted. And Keito also held back and let them take charge.
Akatsuki is a three person unit! It's always been! It's a three person unit of three people that have shouldered so much responsibility, have had to mature so fast,
Learning their ABCs all over again, with eachother :) akatsuki iroha uta
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Dance as a motif in UnderTale and DeltaRune
Wow, I actually went and wrote out some of my more unhinged DeltaRune thoughts. Let's not waste this and get right into the analysis.
We're gonna start with DeltaRune because I think that's where the thematic ties are more potent, and then we'll look at UnderTale to see if there's any additional stuff in it that supports it.
Firstly, a detail we'll return to multiple times in this post: Kris's solo act option in the Jevil fight is to pirouette. The specific choice of dance move sticks out to me, as it makes me think of those little ballerina figures in wind-up music boxes. We'll get to why that image sticks out to me later.
Next: In Chapter 2, there's the fight with the robot trio that's resolved by everyone dancing. On its own, it doesn't seem too thematically relevant, but I do think it's significant that this is the battle where Susie unlocks her and Ralsei's ability for them to ACT on their own. In theory, this is them gaining more autonomy... but they're still following Kris's (or, perhaps more accurately, our) command. Not to mention that Susie technically forces Ralsei into it.
I find that this brings out an interesting tension in the thematic idea of dancing: on the one hand, it's an expression of one's bodily autonomy, their skill and creativity. It's often spontaneous and symbolically an expression of freedom (think of the movie/musical Footloose, where the teens of the conservative religious town are banned from dancing).
On the other hand, many dances are tightly choreographed, with high-level performers expected to perform them perfectly. And even those that aren't are still, for the most part, bound to the beat, the rhythm of the music.
In other words, dance encapsulates the dichotomy of freedom and control. Of chaos and order. The dichotomy at the heart of DeltaRune's narrative.
Kris's pirouette action in Jevil's fight also contains that dichotomy of chaos and order in it. At first, it seems like its effects are random, but one can figure out that they're actually tied to the turn number, and always occur in the same order. As Toby Fox said about Jevil's attacks, all chaos has some order in it.
Not only that, but there's also a second dichotomy one could consider as part of the first: dancing for oneself, as a personal artistic expression, versus dancing for an audience.
Here's where we begin to transition to talking about UnderTale. Because there's a character in UnderTale who's all about performing for an audience, and has super sweet dance moves: Mettaton.
And Mettaton has a pretty clear parallel in DeltaRune.
Spamton. Who takes DR!Mettaton's artistic creation (the NEO body) for his own, hoping to achieve freedom through someone else's self-expression, and is therefore doomed to fail.
Spamton, a puppet dancing on his strings.
Spamton, who calls out to a heavenly audience.
Spamton, whom Kris is heavily implied to relate to in some capacity.
Kris, who, when faced with the first secret boss, pirouettes. Like a ballerina in a music box, forced to spin around for as long as they've been wound up.
Kris, who plays (used to play) the piano, but can't do it - can't express themself artistically - while their body is under someone else's control.
Kris, who, when they rip out their SOUL and regain their autonomy at the end of Chapter 1, pulls out a knife and gives a cheeky grin to the heavens. To whatever audience might be watching.
...Some of that is more generally music-related or performance-related than dance-related, admittedly. There's a whole ton of stuff one could discuss re: music as a theme/motif in these games, but I'm gonna leave that for others to go into for the sake of time.
Let's properly transition into discussing UnderTale now, where I have two main examples to point out.
1. One of the pairs of items you can get are a Dusty Tutu and Ballet Shoes. Not just dance-related items, but ones of the same type (genre?) of dance as Kris's pirouette.
This item pair is tied back to the blue Integrity soul. To have integrity is to be honest and have strong moral principles. You could say it means being true to oneself. This connection, therefore, basically confirms the thematic association between dance, personal expression, and autonomy.
2. Now, I could go more into Mettaton here, about how his character arc (and that of Mad Dummy / Mad Mew Mew, from whom Spamton stole the "festive jig" bit) reflects the theme of integrity; or how he has that one musical scene with Frisk where he has this strict, boring choreography while Frisk can move around however they want, but no matter what they do, the ending of the scene is still the same; and how all of Hotland is scripted by Alphys, but Mettaton still enjoys the performance, until he doesn't and then decides to make the dance his own...
And I guess by typing all that I kind of already did. But what I meant to get to, is this:
This is the dialogue for the mushroom in Temmie Village. They do a little dance when you interact with them, then look above Frisk's head with piercing eyes to deliver the rest of the dialogue.
The most interesting bit of this to me is the initial, standard dialogue, where Ragel describes their dance as being an expression of their imprisonment and torment. Their lack of autonomy, of freedom. A pain and lack unique to them, as even the destruction of the barrier won't solve their problem.
They have just enough autonomy to express their feelings via dance, but they're still limited by their circumstances. By their very body. Like how dancers are still bound to the beat, and the capabilities of their own bodies.
Can you see the parallels to DeltaRune here?
To Susie, who keeps "breaking the narrative", but was also the one to tell Kris "your choices don't matter" and, at the end of the day, mostly falls in line as a Delta Warrior under their command?
To Ralsei, who's wed to the prophecy but still tells Kris that their choices are important too?
To Kris, who's forced to follow our commands, but begins in Chapter 2 to show more of their personality through the way they speak the lines we give them, finding ways to add their own flair to this tightly choreographed dance? Kris, whose restriction of their autonomy comes back to their very body?
Speaking of DeltaRune and Ralsei, there's one more thing I'd be remiss not to mention, as it's what set me off on this path of inquiry months ago: Ralsei has a weird, out-of-place sprite that has a small chance of showing up at a certain point in the Weird Route. A sprite that's stored, hidden, among his dance sprites from the robot trio battle. This video goes over that whole thing if you want to know more.
In conclusion, dance is a prominent motif in DeltaRune, tied to some of the game's most prominent themes, which UnderTale helped lay the ground for. We'll see how the use of the dance as a motif evolves in future DR chapters, likely coming to a head with the festival Susie teased at the end of Chapter 2.
After all, while one can certainly dance on their own... what about the time-honored tradition of dancing with a partner? A tradition that requires finding a balance between personal expression and following another person's lead?
I'll close out with a quote from the old version of the website for The Stanley Parable, which you may or may not deem resonant with what we've discussed here today:
“The game is not here to fight you; it is inviting you to dance.”
#deltarune#undertale#player theory#not tagging every character i mentioned here. nope.#mushroom dance / mushroom dance#whatever could it mean#image descriptions in alt text
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Transitions- Chapter Twenty: Bonding With Layla
Series Masterlist
Previous Chapter
Next Chapter
Pairings: Steven Grant x (platonic) Reader, Marc Spector x (platonic) Reader, Jake Lockley x (platonic) Reader, Layla El-Faouly x (platonic) Reader
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Two weeks have passed since you last heard from Jake. It was near the end of August, so there were plenty of tourists trying to cram in their sightseeing at the end of the summer. There were too many customers and not enough employees to be able to keep up on everything. You ran out of premade rotisserie style chicken and sliced cucumbers during your shift so Lauren had to go prep more and leave you on the line to serve the lunch rush by yourself. It wouldn’t have been as terrible as it was if you got tipped well, and several customers didn’t change their order while you were in the middle of making their sandwich.
What makes it even worse was that a Karen complained to you about the rising prices as if you had any control over it and that you were making her sandwich wrong. She told you that the pepperoni goes on first before the salami and not the other way around. You didn’t see the point in that because the same meat goes onto the same sandwich. She held up the line because it had to be in that specific order and refused to move on until you put the pepperoni onto the bread and then the salami on top of that. Then she was very specific with her cheese and the amount of shredded cheddar she wanted. You wanted to tell her that this was a fast-food restaurant and not a fancy Hell's Kitchen or some shit place that she could boss around the employees living on more than minimum wage.
You were just a tired teenager who was one more Karen away from a mental breakdown and probably throwing a roast beef sandwich at them. By the end of her ordering, she paid the equivalent of nearly eleven American dollars and didn’t tip you. You hoped that that was the last time you’ll ever have to deal with her. In the last hour and a half of your shift, you had to hide in the walk-in fridge to call Layla to pick you up. Usually, you would send her a text saying that you were nearly done with work and to pick you up at a specific time before heading back to work until you reached the end of your shift. But, you needed to be saved way sooner than that. You were too frustrated to work the full six hours today and the thought of spending another hour and a half at your workplace was awful. You lean your forehead against the metal shelf and shiver a bit as the fridge begins its regular cooldown process and bring your phone to your ear after dialing her.
She picked up on the second ring, “Hello?”
“Layla.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Can you come pick me up?” Your voice cracks in the middle of the sentence and you take a shaky breath to help steady yourself.
“Right now?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, I’m leaving now.” She says. You could hear the sounds of her feet hitting the wooden floor and the jingling of her keys. You close your eyes and imagine her walking to your neighbors door and opening it and shutting it behind her before she locks it shut with the spare key Jake gave her. “Are you okay? Is everything alright?” The air blowing onto the back of your neck helped relax you as you listened to Layla walk softly. She probably just called the button for the elevator and is impatiently watching the numbers ascend.
“Everything is fine.” You tell her. “It’s just been a tough day.”
“And you don’t feel like you could stick it out for your full shift?” She asks. You shake your head despite her not being able to see you.
“No,” You breathe out. “It’s my Friday and I am ready to begin my weekend.”
“How are you doing on bills and payments?” She asks. You imagine her chewing on the tips of her fingers as the elevator dinged in the background of the call.
“I got it.” You tell her. “I have plenty saved up for the last couple of months.” It was mainly thanks to your poor self-care habits and Steven and Marc that caused you to have enough saved up that you could splurge on yourself; But, you haven’t yet. You choose not to because you needed to repay Steven and Marc in thanks for what they have done for you so far and because you were worried that you may need to use the money for rainy days or emergencies. If they don’t return, then all you have to rely on is yourself. You ask, “You’re on your way?”
“In the elevator now.” She replies. “You want to have a movie night tonight?”
“Sure. We’re continuing the Harry Potter series, right?”
“We’re on the third one, I think.”
“Prisoner of Azakban.” You smile and add, “I’ve been craving general Tso chicken and Lauren told me that there is a good Chinese restaurant south of London. We don’t have to get it, if you don’t want to-”
“No, we’re getting it.” Layla cuts you off. “I could go for some mandarin chicken and rice.” The fridge door opens and you stand up straight, your eyes resting on Laurens curious face. She holds the door open as you both make eye contact. She looks tired with the bags underneath her eyes and the lack of makeup she didn’t put on today. She told you earlier that it was a long night with getting Molly to rest because the recently turned six year old was so excited for school to start and going into the second year of primary school. School begins on Monday, but still she was hyped to meet new friends and learn new things. Lauren told you that her plan for the weekend was to go to the store to get school supplies for Molly and maybe some new clothes for both of the kids.
“I have to go,” You tell Layla. “I’ll see you soon?”
“Not too long.” She confirms. You could hear the Vespa bike start in the background of the call.
“Okay, bye.” You reply and she repeats the goodbye back to you before you hang up and hold your phone in your hand as you awkwardly shuffled from foot to foot.
“Who were you sneaking off to to call?” Lauren asks with a wiggle of her brows. She reaches past you for the container of shredded cheddar cheese and the fresh mozzarella slices. “Are you calling your lover in the fridge?” She fakes an exaggerated gasp as she takes a step back to allow you out of the fridge. “Your secret girlfriend or boyfriend or partner?” You slide past her and walk to your locker and place your phone next to your lanyard with your keys attached and the Eye of Horus paper.
“My aunt actually.” You answer as you shut your locker door and adjust the tightness of the strings of your apron wrapped around your waist. “She can’t pick me up later but she can pick me up sooner. Is it okay if I leave early?” You felt a little bad lying to Lauren about leaving early, but not bad enough to tell her that you just weren’t into the game of serving the public today after the lunch rush.
“When?” She asks and you glance up to the round clock above the exit to the lobby. It was nearing two thirty and you were scheduled until four.
“At three.” You say and she nibbles on her lips as she glances up to the analog clock. “She has a doctor appointment at four for her annual breast cancer exam.” You add onto the lie and the guilt in your stomach grows bigger. You hoped that it would emotionally trip her into saying yes. “The doctor office called her not that long ago and moved her appointment since this one opened up today and I would have carried more money for the bus if I knew that there was a big possibility that I would be taking it. But, I don't have enough for the fare back to my place and I don’t have another way to get back to my apartment.” The latter half was true which made you feel a little less bad but not by much.
“Okay,” Lauren says. “Only if you agree to covering my shift on any day that I need covered.”
“Like a one time thing?”
“Yes, but there's no excuse for you to get out of it unless it’s absolutely important.” She says. “Like, you broke your leg or something.”
“Any day, huh?”
“Any day.” She confirms and arches her brow at you in question. You had no choice but to agree since Layla was on her way and you didn’t want her waiting outside the shop for an hour.
“Deal.” You say and she sticks out her hand. You grasp her forearm instead and she copies you with a look of confusion before you shake once. “You sound like you already have a particular day in mind.”
“I do,” She smiles and gestures for you to follow her, in which you do. She leads you to the line and places the two containers of cheeses onto the counter. You wash your hands and dry them with the paper towels before pulling on a pair of latex gloves to help stock the line before you leave. “Kris and I want to go on a weekend trip up to Manchester, just the two of us to make up for the date-night and to spend time together without the kids..”
“I’m sorry.” You say, you still felt bad about being the reason they canceled their date night. She waves you away as she puts on her own gloves before exchanging the empty banes of cheese for the new ones.
“Don’t worry about it,” Lauren says. “Kris and I get to have a full weekend to ourselves and not just one night. So, thank you for that.”
“What day do I need to be expected to accept the call to take your shift?”
“Friday, the fifth of September.” Lauren replies. You focus on looking at the food that seems low enough to be stocked as you take in the up and coming day. The fifth of September was your birthday and you didn’t have anything planned for it besides working. So, it wasn’t an issue accepting it, you haven’t celebrated it since you were fifteen anyways. But, still it was your second year around the sun without your parents to blow out the candles with.
“Okay,” You say as you open the mini fridge behind you and grab the banana peppers to fill the round bane with. “It’s not a problem.” You weren’t going to celebrate the day of your birth at all. You were just going to treat it as if it was any other normal day, so you wouldn’t break down at work. You grab a handful of the peppers and drop them into the cup until it is full to the brim before putting the vegetables back into the fridge behind you.
“You said your aunt, right?” Lauren asks as you grab the olives from the mini fridge to fill up the metal container. “I thought you said your uncle was divorced.” You spare a glance outside of the shop window. Bystanders walked on the sidewalks and the roads were busy as ever for a Friday afternoon in the summer.
“He is.” You say as you grab a handful and dump it into the smaller bane. “I still talk to my aunt.” The lie rolled off your tongue easily and, as always, the pit of guilt in your stomach tightened. “They don’t live together.” You add and Lauren nods.
“How’s your uncle?”
“I don’t know,” You shrug. “We haven’t been speaking much.” Your neighbors weren’t your uncles but you had to pretend they were for the sake of keeping up the lie you told her sometime last month. You had to be careful of keeping your lies filed in your head so you wouldn’t get them tangled and slip up. You don’t think you could talk your way out if Lauren ever found out about the lies you’ve been telling her, especially if she ever found out your real age of sixteen. It was true that you haven’t been talking to the men, you don’t even know where they are and if they’re safe. You hope that they are and that Jake is taking good care of the body…and himself.
“You get into an argument or something?” Lauren asks as you put the olives back into the fridge and look at the other vegetables to fill.
“Something like that.” You say. You and Jake did kind of get into an argument before he left. You did call him a toad even though you only meant half of the insult, you really don’t think that he looks like an amphibian; and you did kind of argue about leaving you in the dark even though he says he’s doing it to protect you. You didn’t want to think about your acquaintance that had semi-good intentions after threatening you with a knife and slitting your throat like the God he serves wants him to might be the last time you’ll see him. Now, that you’re looking back on it, the insult of calling him a toad is nothing compared to the trauma he put you through.
Fuck you, Jake Lockley. You close the lid on the vegetable side to keep them cool and fresh from any possible bugs before you glance into the meat and cheese side of the cooler that Lauren was working stocking. It was full enough that you didn’t need to help her collect any meat or cheeses, so you lean against the bread cabinet as you watch her close the lid of the cooler.
“Did I ask you how Molly's birthday went?” You ask as you peel off your gloves and toss them into the bin next to you before collecting the dirty banes and walking into the employees only area to wash them. Lauren follows you.
“You didn’t.” She says. You wince a bit and stop in your tracks to spare a glance at her before turning on the faucet to fill up the sink. “But, it went well. We watched the new Paw Patrol movie that just came out in theaters and then we went home and she unwrapped her gifts and we ate cake.”
“I’m sorry,” You say. “I meant to ask you sooner but I got too wrapped up in other stuff and her birthday completely left my mind-”
“You’re fine.” Lauren laughs a little as she cuts you off. “You have a lot going on in your life. I noticed it and I’m sure anyone else in your life has noticed it.” She places a gentle hand onto your shoulder. “You’re okay, I’m not angry that you didn’t ask. My family and I don’t play a big role in your life anyways.” You swallow as she squeezes your shoulder once before she removes her hand entirely.
They do kind of play a role though, one that you were jealous of and that you can’t admit to anyone. Lauren had something that you wanted: a family. She had her wife and her children, she didn’t get blipped and lose five years of her life with the people around her. Lauren had something to go home to at the end of the day and you had nothing but an old couch and a stolen table. You were jealous of Lauren because of that; and you didn’t want to admit it.
You don’t tell her how she plays a role in your life but rather you ask, “Did you get Molly the phone she wanted for her birthday?” Lauren lets out a small groan as she leans against the metal table as you turn your attention to the soapy water.
“No, Kris and I bought her one of those make-up phones with lip gloss though, and Molly threw a fit about it. She really wanted a phone like Megan had last year and she doesn’t understand that we can’t just buy her one.” She says. “We didn’t even get her a flip-phone for emergencies like we were considering.”
“Oh man,” You chuckle a bit as you turn off the knob on the faucet before spraying the dishes with the nozzle. “Is she still upset about it now?”
“A little but she calmed down enough that it’s not on her mind as much as it was.” Lauren says. “She’s more preoccupied with the doll house we got her and the dump truck toys she wanted.”
“Well, I’m glad that she had a good birthday.” You say honestly. Lauren nods in agreement. “When is Jamie turning three?”
“In May.” She answers. “Not for a few more months.”
“Are you and Kris going to adopt any more kids?”
“No,” She says, a bitter-sweet smile resting on her face. “We thought about it, but two is enough to handle for now. Maybe we’ll foster when the kids are older.” You nod as you place the banes on the counter to dry.
“Have you heard the news yet?” Lauren asks. You spare a glance at her with a look of confusion written on your features.
“What news?” You ask. You haven’t been paying attention to anything as of lately because you were too worried about hearing news of the masked vigilante Moon Knight being found dead or the revealed identity of Marc Spector or Jake Lockley or Steven Grant. You should be more attentive to the news because of that so you wouldn’t find out about your neighbor's death or arrest by your coworker. But you just couldn’t watch the news without feeling like you’re drowning in your anxiety since Jake left to go destroy Harrows remaining members. How long does it take to kill a cult? More than two weeks, apparently.
“Okay so,” Lauren starts. “Y’know that kid that was murdered at Towers Bridge last month?” You hang up the nozzle and dry your hands with a paper towel as you give her your full attention.
“Yeah?”
“The kid's identity was released.” She says. Your eyes widen and your brows raise in surprise.
“What?” You breathe out and Lauren nods.
“Yeah.”
“Who is it?”
“Elias Dean.” She answers. “The news released the information that he was a sixteen year old with a history of skipping school and going down to the tracks to do drugs.” You frown and toss the towel into the trash can. Poor kid. A sorrow filled silence settles between you and Lauren. You didn’t know what to say, your mind was running with several questions surrounding his death. Why was he murdered? Was there any specific reason that he was chosen to be killed? Did Jake kill him or was he telling the truth that he didn’t?
“Is it selfish of me to be glad that it wasn’t Daniel?” Lauren asks. You trailed your gaze away from the tiled floor and to her. The name sounded familiar. Daniel was the teenage neighbor that helped her, right? He was the kid in the missing person poster taped to the elevator in her building. You give her a sad look and shake your head.
“No,” you say. “I wouldn’t want it to be anyone I know either.”
“I wonder if he’s safe and if he’s still…alive.” The last word comes out of her mouth in a whisper. You don’t know if he’s alive, you don’t have the answers for that. But, with the shit you know about a cult and the death of a teenager named Elias, chances are that Daniel was dead; and, as bad as it might sound, you hope that he was dead and not suffering in the hands of the cult or anybody else who might want to do harm. You wouldn’t want to suffer that fate. You wouldn’t want anybody to go through that.
You tried to find the words to comfort Lauren. You don’t know how close the two of them were, but from how she talked about him, she sounded like she cared for him like he was her own kid or a little brother. The bell above the entrance rings, causing you to look up at the monitor, you could clearly see a customer walking in and getting ready to place an order.
“I don’t know how to comfort you,” You admit. It was a little embarrassing telling her that since Lauren always seems so good to you whenever it comes to your stress or sadness. “But, whatever happened to him will eventually be brought to light.” She cups your cheek with her hand and gives you a soft smile, a bit of sadness lingering behind her brown eyes. You bring your own hand up to rest on hers and gently rub your thumb across the back of her hand in comfort.
“Everything is always brought to light in due time.” She agrees before she glances up to the clock above the door. She clears her throat and removes her hand from your face before stepping away and walking backwards as she speaks, “You can clock out if you want. Tell your aunt that I’m hoping that she comes back negative in her results.”
“You sure?” You ask and she nods. Her baby hairs brushed against her cheeks with the movement.
“Have a good weekend.” She replies before disappearing around the corner and you could hear her greet the customer in a friendly voice and apologize for the delay. You punch your card out as Lauren said you could before you walk to your locker and take off your apron, draping it over your arm as you stuff your cap into the storage space. You snag your phone, keys, and the Eye of Horus paper before placing each item into your pants pocket and shutting the door. You said your goodbyes to Lauren as you walked through the lobby and shot her one reassuring and yet grateful smile before you pushed open the door and let it shut on its own behind you.
The sun beamed brightly down onto you, it was a surprisingly clear sky for London. Usually it was cloudy, no wonder there are more people out and about enjoying the sunshine towards the end of the summer. You could see Layla sitting on her Vespa at the end of the street, it was always hard for her to find any parking along this road. One day, not too long ago, Layla had to stop traffic so you would be able to get onto the scooter because there wasn’t any parking space for her to be able to safely pull over and let you on. The two of you had a lot of angry and upset drivers behind you because of that.
“You’re early.” You say as soon as you are within earshot of her. She turns her head away from her phone and to you.
“I could say the same.” She says. You clocked out at two-fifty, a whole ten minutes early. Her helmet was still on her head and strapped snugly underneath her chin. She puts her phone into her jeans pocket before handing you the helmet resting on the seat next to her. It was a red one with black trimming and some scratch marks on it that was chipping the red paint. When you first saw it, Layla tried to tell you that it was from wear rather than any possible accidents she got in and you were skeptical about it. You straddle the seat behind her before placing the helmet on and strapping it underneath your chin.
“I thought you would be still driving.” You say as you place a single finger between the strap and your chin so it wouldn’t be completely strapping your mouth shut and it would be more comfortable for the ride to the Chinese restaurant and to Marcs and Stevens apartment.
“I got here quickly because I thought you needed help.” She shrugs. You stare at the back of her helmet for a moment at her answer. You remember hearing her worried tone in the phone call and the scramble of getting her keys before leaving the flat. You just thought that she would take her time on the drive after she hung up, but no, she sped to your workplace and sat outside of it until you clocked out.
“How long have you been sitting out here?” You ask.
“Not that long, maybe ten minutes.” She answers and your mouth parts open in a bit of surprise. The ride to your work from your apartment building was about thirty-five minutes and Layla made it in twenty-five. You stuff your apron underneath your thigh so it wouldn’t fly away while you ride and you wrap your arms around her waist as she starts the scooter.
“You really thought that it was an emergency?” You ask over the sound of the Vespa and traffic around you.
“No,” She says in a sarcastic tone. “I thought it would just be fun to beat the time of a half hour drive and risk getting pulled over and arrested without an excuse.”
“Well, you do have an excuse now.”
“Which is?”
“Your doctor's appointment for your annual breast cancer exam.”
“Is that what you told your boss?” You could hear the smile in her voice.
“Assistant manager, actually.” You say. “But, yeah, she's basically my boss until the manager returns from whatever she took time off for this time. Besides, I couldn’t think of any other excuse besides that one. Luckily, Lauren understands that cancer is important to look out for and that I didn’t have enough money on me for the bus fees.”
“You could have told her that you had some family emergency.” She says. You could feel her torso tighten the moment she registered what just came out of her mouth.
“Yeah…I could have…” You trail off. For a few minutes all you heard was the sound of the wind and the traffic as Layla weaved between cars.
When she reached a stop sign and the loud sound of the wind stopped temporarily, you heard her ask, “You want to share the spring rolls I ordered?” You knew that this was the way of her apologizing because she felt bad. Marc and her were similar in that way. Him: by offering to teach you how to cook and Layla: sharing food she ordered for herself. You wanted the tension between you gone, it wasn’t her fault that you were still touchy about the subject of your parents. You rest your head on her back as she placed one of her hands on your own and squeezed before placing it back onto the steering bars.
“Sure,” you say. Slowly, you felt the tension leave her body after your acceptance, and the drive became a little bit less long.
---
You carried the paper take-out bag in one hand and your helmet and apron in the other as Layla unlocked the door to Marcs and Stevens apartment. She held the door open as you walked past her and placed all three items onto the cluttered table. The blue folder that held all the information Marc researched about your life rested next to the project Steven was working on months ago. Stevens' project was a book of knowledge about all the Egyptian Gods and Goddesses. It was incomplete, you could tell because it left off halfway through the information on the God Anubis and there were notes next to the book that seemed like he was going to copy onto the page and because there were only four Gods completed while there was a list taped onto the surface of the table of over thirteen Gods and Goddesses. You briefly flickered through the book, the sharp sketches of each deity and their name written neatly next to them. Khonshu, Anubis, Taweret, and Horus.
There you stopped on the god that brought you the most comfort as of late. Horus, the God of the sky. The falcon headed god was traced neatly onto the page, you could see the pencil imprints on the pages from where Steven copied it onto the paper. The same eye symbol you carry around in your pocket was traced onto the page on the left side of the paper while information about the god was written carefully in ink. You were about to begin to read the paper when Layla interrupted you.
“Go change into something that you could get dirty.” She says as she holds up a white canvas and smiles at you. “I don’t want you getting your work clothes stained with paint.”
“What are these for?” You ask, gesturing to the canvases and paint.
“You don’t know what this is?” She gives you a look. “Did you get hit over the head at work today?”
“No, I do know what these are,” You say. “I’m just wondering what you’re going to do with it.
“Paint.” She says. “I haven’t decided what yet but I brought some extra in case you wanted to.” You open and close your mouth a few times, trying to word together how you feel. You were touched that Layla remembered that you liked to paint and she bought some canvases and paint for you.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks.” You smile. “It’s been awhile since I last got to paint.”
“I’m more into making clay sculptures but I don’t think Steven would appreciate the clay sticking to the surfaces.” She says as she sits on the edge of the cluttered table.
“I don’t think he would notice.” You say as you gesture to the messy room around you. It was clearly an organized mess with Egyptology books stacked on one side of the room and other books about aliens and some history of Asgard in another pile. It wasn’t a dirty apartment, the dishes were always washed and any trash was taken care of. The only issue was finding a non cluttered surface that wasn’t the couch or bed to do anything at.
“Go change.” She repeats and you raise your hands into the air as you back away from the table and towards the door. “We’re on the third movie right?”
“Yeah.” You nod as you carry your apron with you. You spin on your heel and quickly leave the apartment to head to your own. After shoving the key into the lock multiple times and jiggling the handle until you were able to get your door open, you walked into your own flat and emptied your pockets of the paper, phone and key onto the counter that your jacket and the stick stain remover rested on. You still haven’t got your door handle and kitchen light fixed and you still haven’t used the remover that the vending machine spitted out at you the day that Khonshu decided to be a bitch and scare you. You haven’t bothered to call maintenance because it would take a much longer time getting ahold of them than the length of time it has been broken, which was about over a month and a half. You peeled off your pants and shirt as you walked to the bedroom to change into more comfortable clothes that you could get paint splatter over and you wouldn’t fuss about it.
The sunlight filtered through your window and the blankets you used as makeshift curtains were twisted and pulled off to the side so the natural light could enter the apartment better. You haven’t straightened out the blankets since the night Jake left, mainly because you lived on the fifth floor so the chances of break-ins were low enough that you felt like you didn’t have to hide the little you had in your flat. The other reason was because you haven’t slept in this place for the last two weeks so the brightness of the rising sun or the moon beaming into your apartment wasn’t an issue.
Once you changed into a navy blue shirt with a hole in the shoulder and a pair of gray and red knee length shorts, you snagged your keys and phone off of the counter. You slipped your shoes back on despite the short length to Stevens and Marc's flat, you didn’t want your bare feet touching whatever germs may be out in the hall the fifth floor shares. You stand still with the exit behind you as you look around your apartment. Your laptop rested on the table with the pictures of your parents underneath the computer. The couch was on the other side of the table you unintentionally stole with your nearly flat pillow and blanket sitting on the sofa cushions.
It was a near empty apartment with the bare essentials after living over a year in London. You would think that you would have enough money saved to buy a bed or thrift a mattress, but you have yet to do that. You opened and closed the door behind you and successfully locked it after several tries before heading down the hall to your neighbors apartment. You turned the door handle and let yourself in.
“How was your day?” You asked as soon as you kicked off your shoes and rested them by the door before walking over to Layla. She sat on the ground next to the coffee table with an open box of mandarin chicken and a fork while she opened a tube of pink to squeeze onto a paper plate. You sat on the other side of the table and crisscrossed your legs before opening the box of general Tso chicken and the plastic forks that they gave Layla when she picked it up.
“Eh,” She shrugs and pauses in squeezing the tube of pink to press play on the remote to begin the movie. You popped a piece of chicken into your mouth and chewed with bliss. Oh man, you missed the food. It was one of your favorites back in New York. She adds, “I spent the morning shopping and collecting things for us to do over the weekend.”
“Oh?” You say and spare a glance away from the television playing the beginning of the movie you saw so many times when you were younger and to her. You arch a brow at her despite her focused gaze on the canvas in front of her. You watch her stab a piece of chicken and chew on it before her eyes flicker to you. You ask, “What did you get?”
“Paint supplies and groceries so I wouldn’t have to fight the Saturday crowd at the store.” She pauses as she dips the paint brush into the pink before carefully applying it to the canvas. “I bought some notebooks for you and pens for school.” She says without looking at you. You stare at her. You don't know what to say. You were thankful for her trying to help you and your education, but you didn’t want to feel pitied. You knew Layla for a while, you only really began talking since Jake left her in charge of you. She was more of a friend than acquaintance at this point but you were still a bit unsure because you knew little of her.
“You don’t have to use it for school either. You could use it to journal your thoughts and feelings so you don’t bottle them up.” She adds and you still don’t know how to respond. This felt like Steven and Marc buying your groceries all over again or Lauren's excuse of making too many Christmas cookies last year. People cared for you and you wanted that, you wanted to know that somebody cared. But you didn’t want to get close enough to them in case there's another blip or Marc and Steven go back on their deal and turn you in for fraud; and where does Layla fit in this? Although you knew little of her, you knew that if this relationship continued that you would become attached.
You would look forward to Layla picking you up from work and eating dinner with her and watching a movie. You would look forward to painting by her side as you talk about your day. You would become used to her sleeping by your side and her comforting you from your nightmares. So, what’s going to happen if Jake doesn’t return? You would go back to sleepless nights of staring at your flat's ceiling and eating peanut butter toast for breakfast and dinner. You would go back to sitting in an empty flat without anybody to ask how your day went. You don’t want to get attached to her and to suddenly not have someone to talk to at the end of the day and return to how you lived the year before you met Marc and Steven.
You don’t want to do it, but you could feel yourself becoming attached to her and your neighbors and you were terrified. This was a different type of terrified compared to a Egyptian God fucking up your kitchen lights to be extra dramatic or shaking the washers and dryers like a five point zero earthquake or a guy dragging you away to take you wherever. This terrified was one that you could protect yourself from but you don’t know if you want to save yourself from the hurt that's to come. When they leave it will hurt like hell but their current presence makes your heart ache a little less.
“I know you don’t want to talk about your nightmares. But that doesn’t mean you can’t write it down in the journals so you could get it out of your system and to stop whatever your terrors are from ruining your life.” She says. “Marc and Steven and Jake would kill me if they ever find out that I let you succumb to whatever is going on in that brain of yours.” She laughs it off but you could tell that she truly meant every word.
You still stare at her, trying to form anything coherent to fall from your lips; but all you could focus on was the pain in your chest, the lump in your throat, and how the sun shined on her curly hair. Her eyes were focused on the canvas on the coffee table, the corners of her eyes crinkle a bit as she squinted at the art piece she was working on. The freckles that dotted her skin reminded you of the stars in the night sky. She spares a glance at you before returning her gaze to the painting and doing a double take. She says your name gently as if she was trying to coax a baby fawn out of running away. You don’t know the expression you were wearing but whatever it is, it causes her to set down her paintbrush and give you a worried look.
You should reject her gift. You should tell her no and leave it at that. You should only stick to one hour dinners and return to your apartment like you were doing with Marc and Steven in the beginning. But rejection doesn’t fall from your lips, instead a rather grateful acceptance with wobbling lips and tear brimmed eyes that you refused to let run down your cheeks. Layla gave you a pitiful look, one that you did not want. She repeats your name softly and opens her arms.
“Come here,” She says; and you, like a child, crawl over to her and wrap your arms around her waist, and she wraps her own around your upper body. She smells of sandalwood and clean clothes. The side of your head rests against her chest as she gently rubs your back with her hand. You don’t know how long you sat there with her holding you, you just knew that you missed being hugged. You only pulled away once the tears dissipated from your eyes and you felt like the redness in your cheeks had faded away to your natural skin tone.
You don’t look at her as you return back to your spot and stab into your chicken, chewing on the slightly warm piece slowly as you try to find the normal between you. Your eyes rest on the television, it was at the scene that all the classmates were trying out the spells on the bogart. You watch it for a few minutes before you trail your gaze over to Layla. She was continuing her painting. You place the take out box onto the coffee-table before you pick up a tube of red and squeeze the paint onto the paper plate Layla supplied to use as a palette. You dipped your paint brush into the mason jar filled with water before you dabbed it into the paint and carefully streaked a line across the surface of the canvas. You didn’t know what you were painting, you were just doing whatever your heart-desired.
“What else did you get from the store?” You ask. Your voice sounds nasally to your own ears.
“I bought some ingredients for chocolate chip cookies.” She says. “I was thinking that we could pass the time this weekend by baking; and I also bought a game for us to play. It’s a murder mystery one and I don’t know if you’re into true crime but I-”
“I like listening to true crime YouTube videos.” You cut her off. “I think we’ll have a fun time solving crime.” You glanced at her and she was smiling. You return your focus to the painting and let your red tipped brush glide across the surface. “I’m not the greatest detective but, uh, I think us having fun and not playing Monopoly for eight hours sounds great.” Layla laughs and the corner of your lips turns up into a smile.
“The length of time on the box said two hours, I think.” She says, you could hear the happiness in her voice. You grab a tube of green and squeeze it onto the paper plate before cleaning the red off in the mason jar and dipping the brush into the green to add to the red. The two of you sat comfortably without speaking as the movie played in the background. You only put down your brush to eat more of the chicken as you wait for the two colors to dry before you add the blue paint to the mix. Your eyes were back to the television, but you weren’t quite watching but rather thinking.
How did Layla end up with somebody like Marc? Layla is beautiful. She’s the type of person that you would expect to be a model for her career if you didn’t know that she stole trinkets and sold them to the black-market. Marc is handsome, but his emotionally distant personality surprises you the most for the relationship that Layla and he had. He had to show enough emotion for Layla to see and know that Marc was in love with her. They got married. You wouldn’t marry someone who you struggled reading the feelings of because you would need constant reassurance throughout your marriage that they did love you.
“How did you end up with Marc?” You ask. “I mean, no offense but he looks like he has a stick up his ass most of the time and speaking about how he feels isn’t his forte.” She chokes out a short laugh and you smile in victory as you watch her calm down enough to speak. The expression on her face was one that you would best describe as bitter-sweet.
“He…we met in a café.“ She says. “He ran into me while I was waiting to order and he told me how cute I looked and asked for my number.”
“Did you give it to him?”
“No, I told him that I wasn’t going to give a stranger my number.”
“So, what happened?”
“He bought me my coffee and asked if we could talk in the cafe.” She says. “We talked and I gave him my number by the time that I ran out of coffee.” She drops her brush and hands over a small paper box. “The spring rolls.” You take the box and open it, taking one of the two that was sitting in it along with some of the sweet and sour dip in it. You hand her back the box and she sets it on the table. You dip it into the sauce and take a bite. It was good, you really liked it. You didn’t ask her anything until the roll was gone and you picked your brush back up. You cleaned it off in the pink water of the mason jar before dabbing it in the blue you squeezed out onto the paper plate.
If the beginning of the relationship started out decent, what happened? You know that Marc divorced her to protect her from Khonshu but from how Layla seems to handle her job, she seems to be able to protect herself from any other harm outside of the deity power. Did Layla find someone else during the time that Marc was blipped? Did he want her to be happy with her new found partner during the time that he was gone? Or was it something else? Marc was obviously older than Layla, so was it an age gap thing? You’ve seen celebrities get married at twenty and the other partner is like thirty-five; and it just didn’t work out because the younger partner felt like they were too young or couldn’t do anything that other twenty year-olds were doing.
You debate on asking her this for a while. You know that it’s rude to pester about something that’s obviously difficult for Layla to talk about, but you were sure that you wouldn’t get the answers from Marc if he ever comes back. The question is eventually blurted out of your mouth, “When did you and Marc get married?”
She hums in thought, “About a year into the blip.” She says. “I was about twenty-five and Marc was thirty-two.” You stare at her in disbelief. A year into the blip? That doesn’t sound right. Marc told you he was blipped. He lives in this apartment complex where all the residents are the victims of the blip and they lost their homes during the time that they were gone. She must be remembering it wrong, old age does that to you.
“Marc told me he was blipped.” You say. “I think you’re remembering it wrong, old lady.”
“He wasn’t.” She replies. Pausing in her painting and giving her full attention to you. She tilts her head to the side. “When did he say that?”
“The night after they saved me from being mugged. They bought me my groceries that night. We made a deal that night that all I had to do was stop by and they wouldn’t report me for fraud.” You could feel the lump of panic knotting in your throat and the absolute simmering of anger beginning to boil in the pit of your stomach.
“Well, Marc hides a lot of things.” She says. “I’m not surprised.”
The one thing you had in common with Marc turned out to be a lie. The one thing that you felt like you could connect to him on was fake. You lost five years of your life with friends and classmates and your family; and you thought he did too. But it was fake this whole fucking time. Did he tell you that because he pitied you? Because you lost your entire life due to the blip and he just wanted to make you feel less alone? Or was he hiding something bigger than that? What the hell else was Marc lying about?
You grasped your paint brush tightly in your hand. You wanted answers and waiting for Marc to tell you himself wasn’t going to happen. If he can pull up your history of the life you left behind, you can do the same to him. It’s time to have your own blue folder for Marc Spector. You pressed your brush a little harder into the canvas, leaving a thick line of blue in its wake.
—
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#moonknight#moonknight x teen!reader#moonknight series#post moonknight season 01#marc spector x teen!reader#steven grant x teen!reader#Jake lockely x teen!reader#khonshu x teen!reader#Layla el faouly x teen!reader#marc spector x you#jake lockely x you#steven grant x you#layla el faouly x you#gender neutral fanfic#gender neutral reader#marvel x gender neutral reader#platonic!reader#reader#reader insert#transitions
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This is the post post for days 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 20. I was going to do 21 days of subliminals but because I’ve been sick and people have been asking me to extend this to a month or even 3 months, I might give a try on at least covering a whole month then I’ll see if I’ll extend it even more.
I’ve been mostly sick since there was a heatwave in my city and next week there’s going to be a severe weather change of cold and strong rain and storms. I’m chronically ill and while my health isn’t usually an issue, severe weather changes affect it. My defenses are really low and when someone arounds me carries something even as dumb as a cold, I get sick immediately. I feel much better but it has been hard juggling illness and work deadlines.
That being said, things haven’t been that bad. People close to me has brought me food and even my cousin came to take care of me and even did housework for me so I could rest. While this may sound like the most normal thing to anyone, in my case, this wouldn’t have been the case for me a year ago and even months ago. In my wildest dreams, I would have never imagined myself being this cared and treasured by so many people except for my SP. And when SP wasn’t around, I would be alone and miserable at bed whenever I was sick and that was very frequent.
With the discovery of the law, improving my self concept and the helpful subliminals… I don’t get as sick as often and when I do, I’m pretty much cared by others.
During this time, also people whom I thought cared about me showed their true colors and I decided to just think about myself. I was hurt on purpose and then gaslit, so I just wasn’t going to put up with that anymore. Especially because the same people have been gaslighting me for several months and disregarding my feelings towards matters that were really important to me. I decided to openly open up about this to a close circle of friends of mine and while people got really protective towards me, I told them that I could stand up for myself but I was really grateful that people finally understood my feelings and point of view when it came to things important to me such as my career path and my feelings towards SP.
While this isn’t a “cool manifestation” such as my phone and computer to possibly many people, this is a very valuable thing to me since my feelings tended to be dismissed a lot and there were a lot of people accepting me wanting SP for example but were really against him. But they finally understood that I’m aware of SP’s actions, I am not justifying the bad behavior and I can still love him while acknowledging that. Fear is one of the most scary feelings someone can have and it makes you do things that hurt you and others, he is now facing his demons and I know he’ll be back. But waiting doesn’t mean my life stops and that I’ll put up with hurtful behavior from him again if he cannot control his negative feelings. I’m in love but not pathetic.
Plus, what people doesn’t know is that I’m manifesting the best version of him. People currently think I’m lucky or that I do witchcraft and it works, it’s difficult for everyone to understand the law because of the fear of cults, the toxic positivity and wellness industry and that a lot of people are quite young in the community so they think it might be a fad. It doesn’t help that subliminals hav become famous due to the wrong reasons.
Still, it was shocking for people to hear my have an outburst and being strongly serious because I’m either too carefree or too controlled when it came to my feelings. But now, I know who’s a true friend and who’s not besides seeing who came to visit me when sick and whatnot. I don’t count the people who’re too busy with their own stuff though, I’m not that selfish.
As for my career path, somehow as soon as I voiced what I wanted to do, I am coming across tools and things that make my desires for my career path be either more easy or possible. So that’s another point for LoAss there lol.
About material things, I got many things for my new computer for free and it feels amazing. I have a new keyboard, small things to raise my screens, etc…
Still, one of the best things I’ve done with LoAss was to ask this to the law:
-I know what I feel about my SP, I’m totally sure about him. Still, I know that maybe I haven’t been as specific when it came to many things about what I want in this relationship to visualize this better. Because of my old story with parental abuse and even abuse by partners, it’s difficult to define what I would like because in the past I felt I wasn’t even given options. So, law, as a God… Show me what lies in my heart and how good in can get, turn SP into what I really want and need once you help me see better.
As soon as I did this, I came across romantic material and such that resonated with me. Also LoAss content that actually resonated with me and now I feel much calm and better. I really can feel I really shouldn’t worry. He really is with me because I’m the best.
I see the signs more intense than ever too… So I’m ready.
Still LOL how the hell am I going to explain many of the things in my life to him when we are together? I guess I’ll shroud myself in mystery, poor him.
#law of assumption#loa tumblr#loablr#manifestation#loa blog#affirm and persist#loassumption#loassblog#loa success#subliminals
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I don’t want to dig on my heels here but I feel like there are so many people who look at matters of relationship and loneliness with so much entitlement.
Great, you’re working on yourself and you can’t stand to stay on unfulfilling one-sided relationships, you’re not willing to put up with crappy connections anymore so you “opt in” to singlehood. You know, one day whenever you feel like dating again, you’ll do it.
Now, what happens next is that this configuration, this “lifestyle”, is then, pushed as the ideal and a goal people ought to meet - understandably so, it’s healthy to live your life for yourself and to work on yourself for your own sake, to dedicate time and energy on yourself.
But it becomes a huge problem when that spreads to places and people who are trying to “escape it”.
It’s likely said people never had (or feel like) any saying on this. They cannot “opt out” of their singlehood. Chances are this has been an ongoing issue and they’ve been alone for many, many years.
There’s this unsaid assumption that these people are “not working on themselves” and even if that was true (it can be or not, it doesn’t matter) it doesn’t mean they deserve to go through that. No one does.
I have seen so, so many people talking about “just go to therapy” and this is especially true for men.
Look how ironic: taking cisnormativity into account, women generally have better support and the fact that they’re generally more in tune with their own emotions, straight women might have a “lot” to choose from and yet, they need to worry about being assaulted and more. Men are supposed to be tough and bottle up their feelings, support might be harder to find/keep and this leads to straight men treating women as sexual objects or worse.
All of them get involved in crappy relationships with awful people of both genders and, supposedly, therapy can “fix it”.
And this is not even touching on queer genders and genderless people such as myself: where do I fit in all this? Can I have any voice in these discussions?
I am in tune with my emotions and go to therapy. I don’t feel like “there’s always fish in the sea”. I worry about suffering violence because of my identity. I find it difficult to build and maintain a support system.
I’m not a woman, nor I am a man.
Well... I got a little sidetracked but the matter of fact is that I don’t feel like I had any choice in my circumstances and my attempts at addressing all that have been unsuccessful so far. I suspect the lack of a support system make matters much worse.
It makes sense to me that I relate more to experiences of lonely men who lack social support, and people will see them as nothing but creeps - I get it, many are insufferable and I have my own share of dealing with them in my life even today. It’s the whole “friendless people are friendless for a reason (so you better watch out)” and “people who don’t have a social life/hermits/NEETS/hikikomori/etc are a bunch of creeps that should stay away” and “not being able to hold a job is a red flag” and so many other feelings like these. Pure and normalized ableism.
It also makes sense that the people who do manage to bounce back, and whom might rely on their own support systems, might feel like they’re more in control of those circumstances and can opt in and out of things. Women or anyone really. This is not a binary issue, unfortunately.
The thing that grinds my gears is assumption that it’s a personal failing that you just have to go to therapy for. Therapy is not a support system, it will never be. Your therapist is not your friend (and they shouldn’t be! It’s unprofessional and can really affect treatment negatively).
Or that you can “just get used to it” because “being single is not that bad, and actually it’s great” and that you can just focus on self-improvement (as if me and so many others don’t already do that...). Self-care is not a support system or make me less alone, I think being alone sucks even though I tried so hard to embrace it. I have found that none of those coping mechanisms to “combat loneliness” work for me because they don’t address it: I’m still alone. What’s the goddamn point of exercising, hobbies and touching grass as a “remedy” to isolation? You just do them on your own! It feels good, but it doesn’t address it.
It makes me want to scream when I see this kind of stuff, all of this, since I’m busting my ass here in therapy and treatment, doing all the “right” things, going outside, trying to build a life and find enjoyment regardless and I can’t complain about being chronically alone and single???
Oh yeah sure, that’s my fault! What am I supposed to do then??? I’d love to hear suggestions because I have tried pretty much all I could think of.
And the thing that really does leave a bitter aftertaste: my lack of a support system is somehow because I’m not trying hard enough, right??? I just need to chase after people harder, and I just need to be someone wonderful for them, right?
I’m aware nobody is going to save me, but I don’t want to fucking hear any of this shit is my fault or that I should accept and embrace my current circumstances as something tragic and terminal, that should be framed as “inspiring” and “empowering”. FUCK THAT NOISE. I hate it! I don’t want to see it on the bright side so I’m not going to fucking do that.
I believe in changes, and I still have hope, somehow.
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rant time: disability and ableism
(don't worry there's a hopeful happy part at the end)
being disabled is a weird experience, just like in general. I have a disability that's more hidden than others, but it's still very real. i also have a mental disorder lol.
I hear ableist things all the time, even said directly to me. It's mostly from my grandma because we work together, yet it's still so awkward. Shes very judgmental and misinformed, and she's said harsh things to me about my own disability. Our boss is hiring two(2) new people for building, and they are both autistic, she thinks they shouldn't be allowed around power tools. if they had self/movement control issues then they likely wouldn't be going out of their way to do the job they're being hired for. It strange how utterly misinformed that she, and one of my coworkers who agreed, is. Her words are hurtful, and while she lived in another time, she still can't accept the change. And she has so much internalized ableism because she's growing older and medically disabled. It's so bad that she ends up hurting and pushing herself to prove that she's "stronger" or something, everyone knows she's strong, but she sees disability as so bad that she dreads it and hurts herself.
My own mother told me I wasn't disabled. She corrected herself and fully supports my disabilities, but for my own mother to doubt my issues just because I didn't fit a stereotype hurt.
There's also my aunt, a proud cancer survivor, who shamed me once for complaining about my disability. She told me I was being dramatic and that she wasn't bothered as a 50yr old woman who fought cancer, the activity we were doing was causing strain to my hips (i have hip dysplasia) and it was causing no strain on her whatsoever.
her partner is even worse, she grew up with tough love, so she gave me tough love. I have issues with social interaction and cues, shes made me cry a lot and refuses to change her language and style around me, knowing it hurts me. Our aunts take us on vcation every year, so we were having a conversation, somehow on the toipic of adhd. My aunts partner said something incredibly abelist(and also supporting child abuse) and i corrected her and told her that adhd is not something that can be BEAT out of children, it something in their brain. She decided to be the "bigger person" and say, infront of everyone, that I was a "bitch", im way too judgmental ad corrective, and that "thats the reason no one likes you". Safe to say i did shed a few tears. Yes, i correct people who are being abelist. However i also misinterpret social cues and "moods" and thought it was an actual conversation, i though as someone who was apart of the conversation was alowed to voice an opinion, didnt know that being anti-ableism and anti-abuse is bitchy. and i hav eproblems making friends because of my disability, and i also genuinely believe everyone hates me sometimes, because of my disability. the worst thing is that no one stood up for me, they just let her say terrible things to me. Thats how its always been, even when people see an injustice or something rude they just ignored it. It was a froup of 7, including my brother. And no one said anything reasssuring to me, she never apologized.
Also, my friend who knows exactly what my disability is, who is a complete asshole to me. when she gets mad or just bored shell completely shut down and ghost me irl. so much so to the point I've started crying multiple times and begged her to stop, she knows being ignored triggers my anxiety. she also likes to take things I care about (ie; my ceramics project for SCHOOL and my entire phone) and pretends to throw/drop them just to freak me out. She constantly tells me she hates me and gets pissed at me when she finds out that I was genuinely convinced she did. she speaks in very vague ways and refuses to elaborate, despite me not understanding social cues and asking for her to elaborate.
hatred is everywhere in this world, however, there are some safe places I've found.
I have a sole confidant, the one person who completely understands me, and listens. He respects me and assures me that he cares. He is also neurodivergent, so he somewhat understands, and even when he doesn't, he still treats we with respect.
When I started treatment for my anxiety I started talking more, my family was so proud of me, they praised me for opening up at family gatherings and they included me more. It was like I finally felt their love.
there are some good people in the world, people who care and love unconditionally.
#rant/vent#disability#neurodivergent#i actually started crying while writing the section at the very end cause its so sweet to remember#why did i write this#abelism#rant time#maggot
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Dear Journal, Tuesday, March 5, 2024
My name is Danielle Jean Wynn. I am 30 years old. I was born in Forks, Washington. But now I live in Hamilton, Montana. With my mom (Caroline Wynn) and cat (Nala Baby Girl Wynn).
I am a graduate of The University of Arizona Global Campus. I graduated on May 15, 2023, with two degrees. The first one is Journalism and Mass Communication. The second one is Sociology.
I will admit that this is my first major project since taking time off after I graduate from college. Now it is time to get serious about my writing each day. I hope that you will enjoy going on this journey with me. I am starting this blog to help everyone (regardless of mental health diagnoses). It doesn't matter if your mental health has an illness or not.
We all have hard lives in one form of another. I know that last night I was having a hard night. I reached out to a group that I am a part of to support. Just reaching out made a huge difference. I will admit that I don't like change. At this point my mom is going through some changes at work. I know that at one point it will come to affect me in my daily life. Soon I will have to get my mom up for her work meeting. This is when we will find out what is going to happen. Unfortunately, until then I worry about the future. It really does mess up my whole day when I keep worrying about something that hasn't happened yet.
Truthfully, I will probably not really notice the difference. I don't tend to focus on something that much. One thing that I always do is self-care. That is the most important thing that I could do. Like right now in the background while I write this blog post. I hope to share my mental health journey with each of you. There will be days when I do have a bad day and you will see how I handle that. Like yesterday my best friend (D.R.) triggered me yesterday. When I started feeling this way I immediately turned to self-care.
Like last night I was doing meditation and playing video games. The good thing about this method is that it helps me to relax before I go to bed. If your mind is in a dark place, then you are never going to get to sleep. Then the next day you just can't function. You deserve peace of mind. No matter what time it is. But it is something you must work for. You can't wait for anyone else to do it for you. I know because if I could get someone to take control of my life it would help so much.
Since that is not a possibility, I must take care of myself. I might need to take a nap today to be honest. Sometimes you must just slow down and take a nap to recharge halfway through the day. Then I always feel like after those naps I get so much more done when I take time to take care of myself. Of course, I do limit myself to how long I can take a nap. Otherwise, I would just sleep until news time.
I also like to read a good book. In fact, my mom is going to go get my latest stack of library books after her work meeting. I am trying to write this post while I am trying to get my mom up. She can be a bit stubborn. I will keep trying because she must be in person for her work meeting.
I do hope to someday make this into a podcast, but baby steps are important. I am already going to admit that I am starting to fall asleep. The sad part is that I am drinking a large cup of coffee. I know that I should quit drinking it but it is so hard.
It seems like she doesn't want to move. Now since I didn't get to finish this post earlier, I am taking some time to finish it now. Sometimes I just cannot leave a project undone. I am one of those people that must be doing something all the time. They call this ADHD. Half of the time I can't hold still. I rather be out and about doing something. But when I can't go anywhere the thing, I do is find a leisure activity that keeps me busy but relaxes me. For me that is my video game. When I have some down time, I will sit down and play them. I must admit that I have started collecting them.
For me this is a calming thing to do. This morning, I had a struggle my mom needed the computer because she had a work meeting. Well of course I have just been working on this blog. I didn't want to stop for nothing. But I gave it up so she could use it. But then later in the afternoon at about 4pm I felt like I was leaving something undone.
I went and got my laptop out once again and started typing like I haven't even stopped for a few hours. I just must finish this post so that everyone can read it. I love sharing ideas with other people. Even when they might not necessarily agree with me.
Exchanging ideas is an important part of life. No matter what stage you are at in life. I hope to help others with my writing. I know that there are so many of us who suffer with mental illness. We need to work together and support each other. We are creatures of love. Not hate. I am a lover not a hater.
To tell you the truth it drives me crazy when someone does something mean to anyone including myself. I always try to be kind to them. Not to annoy them but because I think we should all love each other. It doesn't matter what church you go to or anything else in your family. I am glad that I took the time to finish this draft so I can get it posted. Danielle Jean Wynn
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‘My Omega sibling always craves chocolate after their Heats, so I bought you some too.’ Alpha Charles being a cutie to omega max
Oh, this is so cute! 😍
Charles swallowed hard as he rang the door bell of the building of Max’s pack.
He come bearing gift true, but he was an alpha, courting Max who was just around at the end of his heat, and he didn’t want trouble.
After a few seconds the door opened and Daniel stood in front of him. ‘Hello, Charles.’ He greeted the brunette with a smile. ‘I’m afraid Max is still sleeping.’ He said while peaking behind his shoulder, not even having to ask why the other one was there.
‘It’s okay.’ Charles was quick to answer. ‘Um, hi, anyway.’ He was shuttering. He wasn’t used to deal with Max’s pack yet, he barely dared to ask the omega out a few weeks ago yet. He was disappointed Max couldn’t come out but he tried to shake it off quickly. ‘I thought he might not be able to come, but I bought these to him.’ He said lifting the small package. ‘My omega siblings always crave chocolate after their heats so, I thought, Max might like them too.’ He said shyly, his fingers holding the package securely.
A huge smile spread on Daniel’s lips, looking tenderly at the alpha. ‘That is very nice, I’m sure-‘ he trailed off stepping aside, ‘-oh, hi Max.’ He opened the door wider revealing the tired omega.
‘Max.’ Charles eyes lit up, a soft smile spreading on his lips, he wanted to step closer but a low growl stopped him. ‘Sorry.’ He looked at Daniel, before turning to Max, taking him in. He looked like he just woke up, which didn’t surprise Charles. Heats, mostly heats without a mate could wore omegas out endlessly.
‘Hi.’ Max smiled and gave a look at Daniel, he didn’t need to be babied. ‘I heard your voice, so I thought I’d come.’ He explained, earning a soft happy sound from Charles and surprising Daniel at the same time.
‘How are you?’ Charles asked, his body instinctively trying to lounge him forward to hold his omega, but he tried to control himself in front of Daniel.
‘Tired.’ Max laughed and reached out wrapping his hands around Charles’ free wrist, stepping closer, ignoring Daniel’s concerned looks. Sure Charles wasn’t his mate or part of their pack, but he knew the brunette too well, he knew Daniel was afraid that Charles won’t be able to control himself around an omega barely out of his heat, but Max had no doubts. Also not like Daniel, an alpha , would know how Max felt in that moment, finally seeing the person he was yearning for in the last week.
‘I brought you this.’ Charles lifted the box once more, proudly, handing it to Max. ‘Chocolate. I hope you will like them, my siblings go crazy for them after their heats.’ He repeated himself just in case, curiously examining the omegas expression.
Long fingers wrapped around the box, leaving Charles a bit disappointed when Max let go of his wrist. After some rummaging it was open and Max examined every piece carefully. They were not a selection you can buy anywhere, they were hand picked by Charles. There were a few he knew he told the alpha he liked and a few, he never tried but were very similar to his favourites. It warmed his heart and it might have show, because he caught Charles inhaling deeply, his pupils dilating as an effect of smelling just how happy he made Max.
‘I love these, thank you.’ He said, putting the box to the self next to the door, stepping closer to Charles, his fingers holding the freckled hands, pulling them gently, and Charles couldn’t resist. He wrapped his arms around Max, embracing the tired omega, letting his sweet scent filling his entire being and his own catch Max’s skin, marking him immediately.
‘How was your heat?’ He asked carefully, gently caressing the broad back and the soft hair.
‘Shit.’ Max admitted it bluntly. ‘I was begging the others to bring you here, I missed you.’ He mumbled slowly. ‘I never needed anyone so much in my life before, I thought my skin would break, and leave my body raw, if I can’t have you.’ His words sent a shiver down on Charles spine and a dull ache in his chest.
‘If you will still want me I can be with you next time.’ He promised, nuzzling into the pale neck, his hands now scenting Max all over without even thinking about it.
‘Yeah, that would be nice. I mean I love the chocolate too, but I might just need you to be with me more.’ Max was grinning ear to ear, making Charles blush a little, which he found endearing. The soft lips found his easily, kissing him gently, making Max gasp when he could taste Charles finally after almost a week, it was intoxicating and soothing to his nerves at the same time. He purred into the kiss, making Charles strengthen the hold around his body. ‘Do you wanna stay a bit?’ Max asked a bit breathless. ‘We could try one of those chocolates then I’ll most probably fall asleep, but I rather have you with me this time.’
‘I’d love to, but I’m afraid Daniel would tear me to pieces.’ Charles laughed, bringing his hand up to cup Max’s cheek, his heart fluttering in his chest finally being with his omega.
Max snorted, shaking his head. ‘No, he just like to act tough, actually he is a sweetheart.’ Before Charles could have protested Max pulled him in and shut the door, picking up the box with the chocolates. ‘It’s okay, actually only he is here now, looking after me, since the other omegas are gone to catch their breath. They were with me in the last days and it was rough.’
He walked Charles trough an empty corridor, which looked like connecting several rooms, before Max opened his door and led him into the room. It was small, but cosy, most of the space was occupied by a bed and Max’s nest. The blonde on autopilot climbed into the nest, placing the sweets next to himself. Charles followed a bit insecurely, not wanting to over step any boundaries, but Max looked confident enough to trust him it was ok. He didn’t want a pack of angry alphas after himself.
Picking a package Max opened the chocolate starting to munch on it, while the alpha climbed next to him. It was nice and calm, Max’s scent overpowered everything in the room, and Charles could pick up faint memories of it from his heat. It was different, it hit him differently, but it was still unmistakably Max. He fed the blonde with some chocolate, before sensing just how tired Max quickly become, falling into sleep in his arms easily.
‘Sleep, sweet omega.’ He kissed his forehead, scooting closer to cuddle up to the sleepy blonde. ‘You still need to recover.’ He let Max fidget a little, trying to find the most comfortable position.
The mumbling was barely audible. ‘You know my nest will smell like you now, and that is the best part.’
Charles shook his head and placed another kiss to the plump lips. ‘I promise I’ll be with you next time.’ Max mumbled something else something Charles couldn’t understand then he could only hear the soft even breathing of his omega. His heart was soaring, fingers slowly moving in soothing circles on the plain cotton shirt, he was happy.
After some time he slid out of Max’s embrace, discarding his shirt and placing it back to the omega’s hand. He quietly padded out of the room, closing the door behind him. He was almost at the entrance when Daniel found him. ‘That is not your shirt.’ He teased, looking at the oversized T-shirt the brunette was wearing.
‘Yes I left mine with him, it might help him sleep better.’ He shrugged with a small smile.
‘I’ll tell him to return it to you when he is feeling stronger.’ Daniel winked and opened the door for Charles, waving him good bye.
#charles leclerc#lestappen#max verstappen#omegaverse#abo lestappen#omega max verstappen#alpha Charles leclerc
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DITM is my fav even though it doesn’t have Catra POV. She’s so different in that fic. She’s so in control, confident, open…HEALTHY, almost? For lack of a better word. She like really has her shit figured out in that fic. She just seems so kind and put together by comparison. What is it like to write a fic not with her POV?
its very interesting to write catradora at different stages of healing/growth. like asdlm catra is FUCKED UP, and many of mine are in a halfway place where we're dealing with like, season five catra, but ditm was one where i was looking towards Post Series catra and approaching her from a place where she's more healed because she 1) had adora as a lover with her for years before their breakup and was confident that adora did care deeply for her, just wasn't sure about true love being mutual, 2) their breakup did not happen because of deep insecurity (like in beg for me) or some big slight (though self-doubt was still a factor), 3) she had friends who were with her all the way (scorpia, lonnie) as well as new ones who provided a support structure for her when she fell apart, and 4) she had been away from Shadow Weaver for several years and managed to actively contradict a lot of the insecurities she instilled.
the success of her career was a major factor in her healing, because shadow weaver always told her she and her dreams were nothing. shadow weaver was dead wrong about that and she could be wrong about catra being unlovable too. catra had ire from the public to deal with like any famous person does but she was used to that with how she grew up and she also had thousands of fans that really helped with her self-doubt. she was making money, she was getting roles, and she was winning award (minor awards, until the oscars, but still awards). her life was coming together even when adora wasn't in it.
the final factor is the album heartstrings itself. Adora hardly needed to come apologize to catra because the album already told catra how she really felt. adora was willing to tell the entire world how much she loved catra, wanted her, and missed her. catra knew adora was going through everything she was too and had a couple months before they reconciled to process that. she also had things like counseling on navigating the public that helped her process and compartmentalize her feelings from a private perspective, which is a big factor in her composure, as well as her acting passion in general.
basically there are a lot of factors why catra is more healed in that fic and i did not mean to go off on them so much before answering your question lol XD
as far as writing from one perspective, it is something i do on occasion. not to bring it up again, but asdlm is one where i wrote from just catra's perspective, though due to it being longer and adora being literally unable to speak sometimes i did need a couple short interludes XD
every perspective holds its own challenges. if im changing pov by chapter, what happens when i need to switch perspective in the middle of an arcing narrative that should be self contained? do i break to a new chapter for a short scene with that POV and then jump back? that just feels unnecessary and disruptive, hence why this is probably my least-used perspective (i think just lotd, OESAB, and then a few short OotW fics). it's a freeing perspective to write in some ways (i can break a scene whenever i want and it doesn't matter) but comes with major drawbacks.
if im constantly switching POV back and forth by scene, then sometimes there are two scenes that need to be from the same perspective and i have to figure out how to either make them one scene (see: the first scene of the final chapter of sw&d) or how to insert a scene that transitions between them without slowing down the narrative, feeling unnecessary, or just being annoying to write (see: nearly every fic that uses this pov style).
if im alternating pov randomly... well, i rarely do this because it can get confusing. you have to be very careful establishing who is speaking every time you start a scene and keep the shifts from being jarring. however, this does give you the most narrative freedom, i just also think it takes the most skill to do cohesively. i've also never known of a published book to do this. not that i know a published book which alternates pov every scene, but i'm certain they're out there. alternating randomly i would assume to be rarer. i remember how well rick riordan utilized a form of this in one of his books where he switched pov based on chapter, always, until the one time he didnt and a new, third character perspective popped out of nowhere for a scene that really made the moment stand out (do i remember the moment? no it was like ten years ago, but ive been thinking about how strong that writing choice was ever since).
as for why i chose to do only adora's perspective for that one... honestly i'm hazy, but im pretty sure it was because all the scenes i came up with before writing were from adora's perspective. i do vaguely remember having that thought, because i had things like the reunion scene (adora dropping her coffee, introducing catra to her coworkers, and then taking catra somewhere private to the side to talk, all separate scenes) which were in adora's perspective when i imagined them and going to stay that way.
scenes happen one of two ways: im in the middle of writing, need the next scene, and so i just... write one, meaning i know what the previous pov was and thus what the new scene's pov should be, informing what i picture/write, OR the scene comes to me as im going about my day-to-day. in the case of the latter, it may be equally balanced in my head as im thinking it through and i only pick a pov for it later, or it has a distinct viewpoint im picturing it from. i may change this when i go to write it (because it works better from the other one, or because there's no reason for it to be that pov over the other and the "wrong" pov is up next in the fic), but in general those povs hold true, so having only adora povs in my head at the time made me just stick with it for the fic.
ditm was also only the second long fic i ever did. i was writing a lot of oneshots at the time, which i tend to do from only one pov (or, more rarely, alternate by chapter. alternating by chapter in ditm wouldn't have worked though because the reunion was split over two chapters). i was in one shot mode at the time, and unused to the long format, so writing from just one POV was more "normal"/natural at the time. I don't think i put a lot of thought into it honestly, though i did think about it some.
#ditm#ficmeta#fic rambling#ask#anon#holy SHIT why is this answer so long#i am incapable of shutting up#oh new SaD today btw!!#coming soon
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A few days ago, I was in the kitchen making my way through some pancakes I made for breakfast when my mother came sauntering down the stairs with her open laptop propped up on her arm, clearly with the intention to show me something she had come across on Youtube. Placing the laptop on the table, she clicked the play button and we started to watch the video linked above. She wanted to see what I thought of it, saying "Hey look at Edison Chen scold this interviewer lady." I took another bite of my pancake.
What has he done this time?
For context, this is not the first time I'd heard of Edison. Born and raised in America, he was scouted and soon became a well-known actor in Hong Kong. Later, he was embroiled in scandal when he became the victim of a major photo leak that involved NSFW photos of many well-known Hong Kong actresses and made international news, shortly followed by yet another photo leak that involved a 16-year-old model. Later, I learned that he had moved back to America to start his own luxury clothing brand. Safe to say that when his name pops up, the first thing I think of is the scandal.
As I watched the video, I was expecting to immediately side with the interviewer. But as the video progressed, I found myself empathizing with Edison, understanding the perspectives of both parties, and found it a fascinating example of a bigger issue that Edison touches on in the video.
As evidenced with the advent of AI being explored in all aspects of the Art industry (traditional & digital art, writing, music, film, etc.), the discourse surrounding the topic of whether society as a whole respects Art and the making of Art when it can be easily automated with the click of a button has resurfaced and is calling a lot of what people believe about Art into question.
To be clear, by Art what I mean is the expression of the self. The part that has something they want to say, so they pick their medium of choice and use that as a channel for their thoughts and feelings. That's the Making of the Art, and then there's the Marketing and Distribution of the Art if they so choose to want to share it with others, and then there's the Consumption of the Art which is ultimately out of the creator's control but has the potential to become a spark of inspiration for other creators to start their own cycle of Art. This is the basic process of how Art travels from the brain of the creator to the brain of the public. It's clear that in the context of the video, the product they're trying to promote is part of the Making process, while the interview is a part of the Marketing process. Simple, right?
But hold on a second, why is Edison so heated? He doesn't even look like he wants to be there. The clash, I believe, lies at the crossroads of the Making of the Art and the Consumption of Art. Here we have an artist who has put a lot of heart, time, and effort in creating this Art, who now wants to Market their Art to their target audience, only to be faced with an interviewer who can be considered a passive consumer at best, and also unfortunately caught not having done her due diligence.
As an artist, the Making of the Art is almost a sacred process. Everyone has their own way of going about it, and a lot of the time it's a lot of blood, sweat and tears poured into this piece of work. There's a piece of our Selves that is included in the work. On the other hand, Consumption of Art can be a rather passive process from the perspective of the "normie" because obviously we're not talking about the people who vibe with the art, the active consumers who may take it as a direct representation of their identity. We're talking about someone who probably was told a few days prior that she would be interviewing this guest, probably had decent past experience interviewing guests in general, but was unexpectedly taken out of her element when asked to go off-script.
This disconnect is a fascinating phenomenon to witness when both parties are simultanously having separate realizations at once. That when the Creator moves out of the Making of the Art stage, they are effectively relinquishing control of how it is consumed, that regardless of the blood, sweat and tears poured into a piece of work, there will always be a gap between the Creator and the Consumer and that's okay. That for the Interviewer, she is immediately faced with the responsibility of the position she's put herself in, the expectations that guests expect from her professionally, faced with someone who wants to speak and connect with her as a person, not as the interviewer who has cards to follow and a strict schedule to adhere to.
At the end of the day, I don't hold it against Edison for the things he said in this video. I do think he could have exercised some self-control and held back on a portion of it as it seemed he kept going once the main point was made, but otherwise it wasn't uncalled for as he did still stay in his seat when there was always the option to walk out. As for the Interviewer, I hope she's learned her lesson in making sure she does her due diligence prior to interviewing guests. Their time is precious, her time is precious, the entire staff and camera crew's time is precious, and it was all essentially wasted on what could have been a way to connect as humans and make art.
When the video ended and my mother and I had nothing left to comment on, she headed back upstairs with the laptop, presumably to continue watching one of her many chinese dramas that she has on rotation. I, on the other hand, realized I had made one too many pancakes and left the remainder on the table for my father to find when he wakes up as I headed back to my room.
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Saturo won't confront, but he will def feel some way about it. He will either havs internal damage or he will show signs of being jealous but not in a agressive way..Like more passivs. I feel that he will compete with Suguru in a non obvious way. But idk for the next chapter, I feel that Y/N will start to reject him or finally push him away. And it will break him as he continues to see another man try to heal her meanwhile he can't even get close to her anymore.
Saturo finally realizing he cheated will change up alot of things I feel. The guilt now is even way bigger. He also knows there is a high chance he will not be forgiven which is breaking him, let alone even see her. Gojo might be "inlove" with Rie, but how he reacts to Y/N's rejection will determine who he really loves in his heart. I mean to me it is already a big telling when he feels that he needs to be with her 24/7 and also protect her. Also wow...how easily he lies to Rie is also for me a big telling that he really isn't that weak for her.
As for Rie, she isn't stupid. She is realizing now that she really isn't the only one in his heart. She is realizing now what goes around comes around. Before Gojo was lying for her to sneak around with her, now Gojo is lying to her to see Y/N. Jealousy already looks ugly on someone else, let alone someome who has no right to be jealous when they only stole someone elses love. Her accusing Y/N for attention seeking with her self harm is really low blow. I can understand the jealousy, but not this one. No one in their right mind would accuse someome of attention seeking for self harm, it is almost like she is making excuses for herself to save her and Gojo from guilt. Because like I said Rie isn't stupid, those marks were caused by the pain they put her through and she knows that.
As for Suguru, love him but I do not see him as a potential Y/N lover. If Y/N really wants to move on from Saturo, it would be best to not associate herself romantically with someone who is close to Saturo and also will remind her of Saturo. As much as everyone loves Suguru, it really isn't difficult to understand that he will mtl just end up being a rebound or a second lead. I also have no clue how these two will develop without having Saturo in their conversation all the time.
As for a next potential lover, love Nanami butttt BRING BACK OUR SOFT BOI TOJI ❤ Toji would be so perfect for Y/N, especially with how you write Toji 🥲
But I honestly do not feel the *tragedy* thing is going to be Y/N again...I have a high feeling it is Gojo. With how he is now in the chapters, it is making me wonder how much more guilt, shame he can take and especially when all his friends and Y/N pushes him away..How much more can he take. Even if Rie is there, it is obvious he is desperate to be with his friends and to resolve things with Y/N. He goes out of control when things do not go his way which just makes me more curious how we will be when rejection from Y/N happens. He is so used to her being soft, it will be a big change when Y/N pushes him away and distance herself. Also he has not learned what Y/N went through fully, how those cuts were made and why. He really still has no clue what pain he puts her through her. It will really break him once he finally learns.
I know he is an ass of a character, but Gojo is making me worry with every chapter. Not only is his guilt and shame are getting bigger, but people who he loves are starting to deny and turn their backs at him. Shoko, Suguru, and Y/N are a big part of him. Deep infatuation can not match a friendship for a lifetime. Deep infatuation can not match true love from friendship. He will break as he already is starting to realize he is only hanging by a tiny thread with his friemdship with them. Because their is nothing more painful than being isolated and ignored by your own friends who you thought would always be there for you.
yeah, i agree. the fact that satoru knows that yn would probably never forgive him for what he did will make his shame and guilt continuously grow. i mean, any person who knows that they'll never be forgiven by someone will always have an ache in their heart. i once read in my philosophy class that when a person hurts someone, it is their own soul that gets damaged, i think that relates a lot to how satoru is feeling :(( and OMG soft boi toji i miss him smmm 😭
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