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#i am not tagging everyone vaguely implied in this
syaraan · 1 month
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Ok so a hermitcraft s10 au where it is just the hermits living weird but also plausible lives in some town/city somewhere.
Pearl, Tango, and Etho are mail workers trying to live out their normal lives. But Pearl's Brother/relative/longtime friend Grian has somehow started a fishing cult… and now he's got a job for the government. Oh brilliant.
And local zoologist, Mr. Scar Goodtimes, is being terrorised by snails that the local fishing cult leader/government worker, and his partner in crime - a certain Gemini Tay -, insist are from space.
Also, the mafia and the resident mad(ist) scientist are competing to monopolize the wood industry but the town's resident poet and puppet master Joe Hills is up to something (or maybe just being himself).
The local ministry has a skull and they all wear hats. Noise complaints for fireworks are the number one thing reported to police. Cleo runs a very successful cat cafe/bookstore. There is a (sword) fight club in the Japanese district. Graffiti might become a problem soon. There is now a river, somehow. And local mustached inventor almost ended the fishing cult by accidently almost scamming the leader out of his prised possession.
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I've done it. I finished Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint. It's long. It's worth binging. It's...it's everything.
I'm....I...It....I can't articulate anything coherent right now so just...just have some emoji reactions and also memes that I generated during my reading of it.
My two biggest moods during the entire thing:
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My second two biggest moods:
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Memes (in order of creation):
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Me right now?
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See you in 3 to 5 business days to spam this blog with a long post because boy do I have thoughts and, yes, I will make it everyone's problem.
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salemoleander · 1 year
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I need you to understand I have had an AU in my head for like 6 or 7 months now, and have ~2k words to show for it.
This morning's fic is not for that AU. It was written Monday night in one 30-minute session sitting outside on my deck, and then another 30ish-minutes of editing. Can someone please give me the cheat code to make my brain do this for other fics please
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1427 · 2 months
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something to prove
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Daryl Dixon x Reader
Summary: Every time your mom goes down to the city with Merle she lets Daryl stay behind and watch TV. The night your boyfriend breaks up with you, you decide you have something to prove. 
Warnings: Very vaguely implied drug use, age-gap (reader is 20, Daryl is mid30’s), smut, voyeurism/exhibitionism, masturbation (both m & f), idk there’s something else that happens but idk how to tag it (premature ejaculation???), preTWD!Daryl.
Word Count: 3k
A/n: this is a two part story, possibly three? This started out as a step-dad!daryl idea but I reworked it because not everyone’s as big of a pervert as I am. If anyone wants step-dad imagines (au or otherwise for Daryl, or Negan) lmk. 🥵😈
17+ mdni
\\part 2\\
masterlist
“Who are you?” You ask, to the man standing in your house. Well, your moms house, certainly wasn’t his house. He looked like one of your moms friends from the bar. 
“Shit, who are you?” He looks at you, more confused than you are. Scared almost. 
“Mona’s kid?” You explain, who else would you be? 
“Oh, shit. Didn’t know Mona had a kid. She just left you here?” You look at him like he’s still a stranger standing in your living room. 
“I’m 20.” You watch as he sighs a little in relief. 
“Right…. I’m Daryl. Uh. Her and my brother took a ride down to the city. Didn’t wanna go, she said I could hang here.” 
“Of course she did,” you say to yourself with a sigh. 
Daryl watches you as you run to the kitchen and grab a snack and run back toward the stairs, “Well. I’ll be in my room.” 
“Wait! Uh.. where’s the remote?” 
You sigh, with a smile this time, and step backward down the first step. You walk past him and dig your hand into the recliner that’s facing directly in front of the TV, pulling the remote from its hiding spot. As you walk back toward the stairs you put it to his stomach, and he takes it with both hands. “Thanks” you hear him say, and then you’re gone. Running up the stairs to lock yourself in your room. 
✨🚬
Daryl and Merle came over a lot after that. You didn’t see too much of them, when you’re mom had company you knew it was best to stay locked in your room. Not like you’d want to be around her company anyway. 
Daryl seemed different than Merle. Everytime you did venture out of your room for a snack, or to leave the house to go see your boyfriend, and you had to interact with things outside of your room, Daryl never spoke. Honestly, it seemed to you like he didn’t even want to be there. 
And every time your mom and Merle go down to the city, Daryl stays back and watches TV and smokes cigarettes in the living room. Never does anything else. 
You start developing a crush. And you know it’s insane because he’s so much older than you, but you can’t help it. You never thought you’d see someone older like that, but to be fair he didn’t look it. He definitely wasn’t as old as your mom. Probably mid 30’s? Probably. You couldn’t ask. And there was something about him. Brooding, quiet, but… safe. He never bothered you, never looked at you too long like most of your moms friends did. He seemed.. sweet. 
You start praying they’ll come over, and then you pray that your mom and Merle will leave. Sometimes they’re only gone for half an hour, sometimes they’re gone all night. No matter how long they’re gone, though, you always go down and see Daryl. 
You never really talk to him more than a few passing words, even when it becomes a more common occurrence. 
Obviously you try to look as good as you can when you do go down there to walk in front of him. You stand awkwardly by the kitchen island, pretending to watch tv, trying to say something. Usually you can’t come up with anything. 
You find yourself wearing more and more revealing clothing, trying to get him to look, but you never catch him looking. And, honestly? It frustrates you to no end. 
Why won’t he look? 
It’s starting to make you a little crazy, multiple times you’d had to stop yourself from coming down in just a towel.
And then your boyfriend breaks up with you. Probably better off, but the night that it happens you lose it. You’re not heartbroken necessarily, but you are pissed. And you feel like you have something to prove. And all of it bubbles up into something you normally would never see yourself doing. 
You come downstairs this time in only an oversized teeshirt. No underwear. Its dark, all the lights off, it is 2am, but for some reason you weren’t expecting it. It should make what you have planned even easier. Less awkward. 
Instead of going to the kitchen you walk right up to Daryl and put your hand out for the remote. “I wanna watch TV.” 
He looks up at you. Finally. And he hands you the remote. “Alrigh’.” 
You change the channel to something else, doesn’t matter what as long as it’s not what he was watching. You settle on an old movie, looked just boring enough. You lay down on your stomach in front of where Daryl sat in the armchair, your teeshirt riding just barely up your ass, just enough for Daryl to be distracted by it. To notice it. To ask himself if you weren’t wearing any underwear. 
You hear him take a deep breath from behind you and it makes you smile. Finally. 
And you stay like that for a while, absentmindedly looking at the TV, not really watching it. Daryl’s watching you through half lidded eyes. Before you’d come downstairs Daryl was a good five minutes from falling asleep in that arm-chair. But now? His heart hammering in his chest, he has to control his breathing in the quiet living room, to not tip you off that you were affecting him so much. He wasn’t sure what you were doing, or if you were even doing it on purpose. But you’re 20, right? Surely… he figures you have to know. 
But if you know what you’re doing, than you’re expecting some kind of reaction, and Daryl… can’t. He can’t move. He can hardly think straight. Looking at your bare legs, the little peak of your ass just barely revealing itself from under the fabric. And then you shift your hips and the tee-shirt falls away even more. 
It takes everything in him to keep his breathing steady. 
“Are you looking?” Your voice cuts through the silent room, making no attempt to turn back and look at him. 
“No.” Daryl says, quickly. His brain scrambling over the new information that you definitely, absolutely, undeniably knew what you were doing. 
You smile to yourself, the choked sound of his voice told you everything you needed to know. You can practically feel the heat in his cheeks. The tightness in his chest.  
You never thought you’d be as into it as you were getting. Him seeing you like this was burning up your core. Slowly at first and then seemingly all at once. You put your head to the floor in a small moment of defeat over your own body, feeling yourself start to drip down your leg. You wonder if he can see it too. If the light of the TV is reflecting off the little strings of your arousal, coating the inside of your thighs, starting to drip down onto the carpet. A small groan escapes your lips as you raise your hips up off the carpet, keeping your shoulders and the rest of your body down to the ground. 
You want to show him what he’s doing to you. You want him to see the mess he’d made. So there you are, your ass now completely in the air, only a few feet from where he’s sitting behind you, “Are you looking now?” 
This time Daryl doesn’t respond. Because he can’t. His fingers are whiteknuckled on the arm-rests. And he was losing the ability to control his breathing. He was losing control of the ability to even think about breathing. To think at all. 
You don’t mind that he didn’t answer, you knew. His ragged breathing spurred you further. You reach down underneath your body, through your legs, and try to spread yourself open for him with two delicate fingers. Your middle finger slipping through your folds, too slick to hold up to friction. Your hand wipes some of it down your thigh, so you can continue what you’re trying to do. 
And you can hear his breath hitch in his throat, making a smile bloom on your face. A sick, cocky smile. 
You spread yourself for him, before taking two fingers to your clit and drawing small circles around it. You hiss, your hips spasming at the too sensitive feeling of pressure directly on your nerve bundle, but you keep going. 
Plunging two fingers deep inside of you, selfishly. This one wasn’t for Daryl, although he liked it. You needed the delicious feeling of something inside of you. Your fingers hook in you, desperately curling over and over again as you mercilessly assault your own g-spot. 
The noises coming out of you could send Daryl into a coma. Not just the half-coherent babbles and deep definitely-came-from-your-chest groans. No, the sound of your slick hand squelching against your cunt so perfectly. 
You go back and forth like this, between your clit and your walls, until you feel your orgasm start to bubble over. The dull throb of ecstasy climbing into every limb. You almost forget Daryl’s watching as you put your fingers back inside you, three this time, and ride your own hand until your body is shaking, expletives falling out of your mouth before you can catch them. 
You lay there, on the floor in a heap, teaching yourself to breathe again. Until you glance back at Daryl. With one hand covering his mouth his expression is unreadable, but his other hand gripping the arm rest tells you everything. And the hard cock pressing up against the zipper of his pants tells even more. 
You’re almost embarrassed, but not quite. Standing up from the spot you’d laid down to ‘watch TV’ you silently walk over to him and wipe your hand off on his shirt. Pressing your fingers hard against his chest through the fabric, eliciting a barely audible moan from him.
He watches you walk away, listening as your bare feet pad up the steps and into your room. It takes him all of three seconds to free his cock from his jeans. Pumping himself furiously, unceremoniously, with his face buried in the spot of his shirt where you’d wiped your juices on him. 
The smell of you, the taste of you, so fresh and right there. He laps at the spot until it’s soaked with his saliva. He comes in a strangled mess, trying to be quiet, hot white ropes painting his jeans. 
After it’s over he curses himself. He leaves before Merle and your mom get back, to go home and change. Wondering to himself what the hell just happened. 
✨🚬
For a week you avoid him. He and Merle come over twice, but you stay in your room the whole time. A little too embarrassed to face him so soon after what you’d done. You didn’t regret it, or feel bad, but your normal personality had returned. With nothing more to prove to yourself, or your stupid ex boyfriend. Not bold enough to masturbate in front of older men. Apparently not even bold enough to show your face in front of him. 
You wake up one night in a sweat, having another dream about Daryl. In this one he’d had you bent over the kitchen table. Fuck it’s hot in here, you go to open the window but what you really need is water. 
You start to make your way downstairs, only to see Daryl. In the faint glow of the television, eyes wide as he meets yours. “Oh. Hi.” You manage to say, awkwardly standing on the last step before nodding at his lack of response, looking down trying to hide your blush.
 You walk to the kitchen silently, getting some water for yourself. Feeling unbelievably uncomfortable, you wanted to be clever. To be coy and cute and everything you were the other night, but the whole thing is making you so nervous you can’t think straight. You just want to get back upstairs before you say something stupid. Before you embarrass yourself by not being that person. 
You down a cup of water quickly and toss it into the sink before heading back for your room. 
You’re passing in front of the TV when Daryl asks you, “Do you want the remote?” 
One simple question, your head spins. You knew what he meant. What he was really saying. ‘Do it again’. 
You look over at him, remote on his knee, and you nod. Walking over to him, you pick up the remote from where it sat, but you let your fingers graze all the way up his leg, over the tight bulge in his pants. “Christ.” He says, through gritted teeth. 
You smile, that same cocky smile, and take your position down on the ground in front of him. You take your time, at first you really are watching TV. Letting Daryl ache for it. Letting him question if you understood what he’d meant. 
He’d been wondering when he was going to see you next, if you’d do it again. If you’d do more. He couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was definitely the hottest thing a girl had ever done for him. Not like he had all that much experience with women, but he had some. None of it quite like that. Nothing that was so burned into his memory that if he closed his eyes he could still taste you. Still hear those explicit noises coming off your body. 
He needed more. He needed to watch you again. 
He waits, with baited breath, for you to touch yourself. It feels like it’s taking forever. There’s something about you just down there in front of him, though. It feels like he’s almost able to get off on just that. 
Eventually you spread your legs a little bit at a time. Raising your hips again, you play with yourself in front of him like you did before, taking more time. Teasing him. 
You slide the top half of your body, flush with the ground, over to the side a little so you can look back at him. Fuck. He’s just staring. Mouth open, eyes half closed, fingers holding a cigarette that he occasionally drags. Just watching. Never taking his eyes off of you. Occasionally he looks back up to your face, all contorted in pleasure, but for the most part he can’t take his eyes off of what your fingers are doing. The light shimmering over every wet part of you. 
You sit up for just a second to bring the teeshirt off your body and throwing it to the side. Resuming your position, now completely naked. Vulnerable. You look at him with another smile, his expression is pained. 
Daryl’s trying so hard to keep himself in control. To not touch himself until you’re out of the room, that would be too much, right? He’s convinced himself that there’s no way he can pull his cock out in front of you. He’s so much older, even if you’re 20. Even if you’re in front of him, doing this. Pretty, delicate, messy pussy spread out for him. Begging for him. He can’t. He’s got to control himself. Plus, it’s too embarrassing. You’re so confident and languid with your movements, he’s sure if you saw him like the strangled mess he was the other night that you’d run out of the room immediatly. 
He’s wrong, but it doesn’t matter to you. Of course you want him, and of course you’d let him slither right in behind you and claim any hole he wanted. You would love to see him lose control and touch himself, even if it was something you’d never seen a man do before. Of course you would. But the feeling of his eyes burned into you is so exquisite on its own. 
Daryl’s losing his fucking mind, though. You’re doing it all different than last time. Slower, hotter. Grabbing at your tits with your other hand. Fuck. His head is dizzy, he feels like he’s going to pass the fuck out. And then you start riding your hand again. But not like last time, last time your fingers were hooked into you so tight that Daryl silently begged for you to just fuck yoursef with your fingers instead. He wanted to watch your lips spread out and over them. Wanted to watch you fill and empty your cunt with your two fingers over and over, and now that’s exactly what you’re doing. 
Daryl’s chewing on his thumb, anything to keep his hands away from himself. Every time you pump your fingers inside he feels his hardened length spasm. So tight into his pants, the friction actually starts to feel good. 
You add another finger, and then another. It’s too much for Daryl, who was again silently begging you to do that too. To stretch that little pussy even more for him. Before he can even comprehend what’s happening, his vision goes white. Daryl’s cock spasms violently, cum coating the inside of his pants. His thumb is bleeding from where he’d bit down on it, and he’s never been more fucking embarrassed in his life. Never been more surprised, confused, turned on. 
He watches as you ride out your high, following with your own earth shattering orgasm only a few moments later. He looks down to you to see if you had any idea of what had happened, but you don’t. 
You have no idea he just came in his pants without even touching himself. Just from watching you. 
pt 2
a/n : thanks to @norman-fucking-reedus for helping me with some ideassss for this 💕🤘🏻
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ohara-n-brown · 2 months
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Hey everyone,
'The New ThoughtCrime' is an anti-trans community detransitioner essay
Just wanted to give a heads up to the FTM community on here that a user named @mewthoughtcrime is trying to repost the 'New ThoughtCrime' think piece from 2017 - tagging it with this such as 'trans man', 'nonbinary' and 'transandrophobia'.
However this blog fails to mention that the main author of said piece is a lesbian who considers herself a detransitioner. While there is nothing at all wrong with that -
the problem more comes from the fact that said author also believes the trans community is a cult.
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This quote comes from the author's interview with Genspec - an organization that pretends to be trans supportive, while also believing trans kids are a myth, trans men are just confused teen girls, and pushing the book Irreversible Damage.
The author also believe in the idea of 'cotton-cieling' - a terf dog whistle that implies trans women intend to force lesbians to sleep with 'males who identify as lesbians'.
The think piece is NOT at all about trans men or transandrophobia.
It's about detransitioning from a woman who believes the trans community engages in 'thought reform' - in a way akin to cults.
The piece reads largely inspired by 'Irreversible Damage' - an anti-FTM shred-piece. This is basically J.K Rowling ideology.
They're in their right to repost whatever they want, especially if that piece of writing specifically spoke to them and other detransitioning folk.
However I do think it's incredibly disingenuous and sneaky to not include this information - or the true nature and intention of the work - in the Tumblr post, as the original author was very clear in stating so.
To post such a piece without tagging the detrans community is a disservice to them and a deliberate choice towards us.
The piece is not at all about transandrophobia - the OP is simply mistagging it to target particular groups - mainly, actively transitioning FTM who are looking for community.
This isn't to say you can't read and enjoy the piece, or connect to it. You absolutely can, it's about someones valid personal experience (well - some parts.) that's eloquently written.
What I do not support however is posting such material, purposely and vaguely mistagging it, while not explaining the contents, the context, and the intent of the author clearly.
I believe readers should always be informed about the source and intention of the writers of the information they received.
People should be allowed to make informed choices about what they read and involve themselves in - whether that be trans politics, or reading think pieces online.
That's why I am making this post.
'The New ThoughtCrime' is an Anti-Trans Community think-piece that targets trans men and lesbians by supporting TERF ideology.
Read with that information in mind. With the situation going on now with staff, I think it's important to be on high alert for indoctrination or misleading literature like this.
By all means, read if you like. I was just not at all impressed with the lack of transparency from @mewthoughtcrime when it comes to detailing the actual contents and source of that information.
It's one thing to call the trans community a cult - before turning around and releasing anonymous faceless think-pieces that you spread around without sources or actively informing others of its contents, in order to purposely get a demographic of people who do not wish to interact with you to unwillingly engage in your rhetoric.
As a essay that calls for 'transparency in the trans community' we can first start by lending some transparency to THIS essay.
Stay safe and stay informed y'all ✌🏾
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fatesundress · 7 months
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⭑ life of the party. tom riddle x reader
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summary. when one game is ruined, another begins.
tags. explicitly fem afab reader, smut with as minimal plot as i can physically allow myself, minors SCRAMMM, loosely implied hogwarts university au as always, flirting via mutually assured jealousy, impeccable communication skills, established relationship, the guy the reader is talking to gets annoyed she doesn’t want him but he doesn’t do anything, religious undertones that might have accidentally become overtones, party setting (background drinking & general degeneracy), probably the meanest tom i’ll ever write and i still tried making him nice because lots of heavy jealousy tropes are misogynistic icks fo me, fingering, piv, a little degradation but that's life, fawwwk the weeknd but the song this is based on is so sexy, etc
note. Me writing this: nightguard: ON, religious themes: RIFE, shame: ABOUNDING. i am so embarrassed by this. have i mentioned smut doesn’t come naturally to me? i don’t even know how i got here. i’m on heelys at the proverbial skatepark and everyone else apprenticed under tony hawk. Do you understand? ok.
word count. 4.5k
request. yes!
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He is what he is. Stoic, sacred, silent and then verbose. You knew he had his fixations before you knew him at all — no one made top of every class without a shadow of obsession to contrast the glint of their excellence — but you could not anticipate how that obsession might translate when applied to a person. You’re not sure he had either.
He is what he is. The muggle world taught him religion and in it he learned only the tenor of devotion. When his fingers take your jaw, trace slow at the stripes of your thighs, steady your hips from under you and hold tight, there’s reverence in it. His kisses don’t wane with the months gone by; they soften with purpose. They rouse with hunger. His eyes don’t waver. Should a good man gaze upon his altar? Should he smile like sin when he gets on his knees? 
He does.
Tom Riddle is what he is and you solemnise in equal part.
You don’t come to these things often, taken aback by the sight of the Slytherin common room in ribbons and banners tattered within the first hour of the night. Bottles glow green in the lake-light on every available surface, scattered about the place and spilled in sticky puddles. 
You’re a wallflower tonight, though not for lack of options. You observe from a comfortable distance the drunken antics of new adults, free to carry their liquor in hand rather than hidden away in pockets and pillowcases. There’s something vaguely entertaining about it, intoxicating where someone else might mind their business and actually get intoxicated, but you see no harm done. Whispers fall on your ears before the rumours make their rounds, couples slink away in the darkness where someone in the crowd might not notice, and the night’s first instance of someone hurrying up the stairs in tears comes barrelling right past you. You invent a story for why to keep yourself busy. 
It’s all just buzz.
Now, if you don’t come often, he certainly doesn’t.
Tonight, he has, and for reasons explicable but few, you’ve found yourselves on opposite sides of the room.
It began on the green couch by the window with a chess set spilled across the velvet — a bet you made with him upon arrival; you find wizard’s chess trite, Tom finds it feckless, but it makes for a good challenge. 
What else could convince a man so perpetually controlled to pour himself a drink? And you imagine, from his perspective: what else could convince a woman so determined to outwit him?
It’s for no nefarious reason — to slight him or see him stumble — but because you love the fractions of relief that colour him, soften him, temper him. It’s because he loves you in every shade, in every pliancy, in each and every fervour. But mostly it’s because you love kindly to best him, and he loves mirthfully to best you.
So you play. The game is slow and teasing, hard to see in the ripples of the lake, and toppled over in the final moves (which you’ll insist you were winning) by the same swaying body that spills its drink down the front of your dress. And so you’re up, brushing your index finger over the corner of Tom’s sudden scowl. You whisper like a joke not to kill anyone but he’s so quick to look like he might that you consider repeating yourself with more conviction.
You poke at the spot where his jaw is tense. “I’ll be right back.”
Drying liquor from lace is a matter of precision even with magic, and this is half-gelatinous like someone raided the kitchen’s supply of jelly and steeped it in something offensively alcoholic. You utilise the clearer light of the Slytherin girl’s lavatory, wetting your dress before evaporating the water from it. There’s the matter then of transforming the stained fabric back to its original colour, and you huff in the mirror at having a game you thought you didn’t care much for ruined so close to its end.
You care about Tom, though. The omphalos of your issue resides there.
(It is fair to say most of your issues reside there.)
With only minutes gone by, the common room crowd looks doubled when you return, and though you wade through you’re pushed back like debris caught in a tide, the bodies more stubborn rubble than you. So you retreat, stand flush at the wall with your arms crossed, and wait for Tom’s eyes to land on yours. To, perhaps, open your mind and let him in, tell him exhaustedly from afar that the game is at rest and you’re ready to leave.
But even he’s hard to find in the bodies unified in breath, flux like a big set of lungs —  and nothing about Tom blurs into the background.
So you wait. You wallflower. You pour yourself a drink.
The moment stretches on longer than anticipated, and after many detached observations of the room, someone else finds you instead. He’s tall, blond to Tom's inkwell black, kissed by summer sun even as autumn soothes its blister. Your gaze wavers back to him a few times though his own is uncertain for all its focus. He seems to be waiting for you to stop, perhaps for the silhouette of someone else to slip by and prove you were looking at them instead. When no one else comes, he traverses the crowd with a straightened inch of pride, stepping through new colours until he’s close enough to you that the light settles emerald-black and you can see the great chasm of his beauty up close. 
His freckles are carefully dusted, his structure strong, all squarish, rugged lines and shades of August.
The chasm is not a lack of allure, per se, it’s just a lack of him. One man’s August to your adherent’s December, the intention of his warmth, a thing that does not come to him like everything else but that he makes and makes and mends when it lapses because he does not want to see you cold. The singular reward of a rarity like that.
“Hi," you say, glancing over a broad shoulder.
“Evening," he responds. He takes you in with a look of (unappreciated) appreciation. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”
“No, we haven’t.”
He extends a hand. “Oliver Belby.”
“Pleasure.”
You don't offer much in the way of conversation. He’ll vie for your attention regardless of how much of it you offer. So you lean against the wall where the buzz of sound prickles your hair, let him talk, let his hand come up to rest beside your head, and you find Tom.
He’s right where you left him, a new clearing in the crowd making space for your eyes to meet.
His are ice even at a distance. As if you proselytise — as if you could — kneel for another man or let one kneel before you, all of your trysts together faithless.
They aren’t. He must know they aren’t.
But you put yourself here and standing at the target of his gaze has never been marred by the severity of it.
You decide then; when one game is ruined, another begins.
In truth, you can’t deny the element of theatrics in the way Tom denies everyone but you: his soft, penitent smile, the apologetic cant of his head, how his eyes can find you in any crowd and whoever is clinging onto his every word that night will follow his gaze and deflate when they discover you at the end of it. Sometimes it’s harsh. Final. He lacks the patience of pretence. 
Sometimes, the week is dull. Sometimes, the whoever is undeterred. Sometimes you’ve pushed him here. 
No — You’ve never done that before. This is new.
So it’s one of those weeks, and one of those whoevers, on an anomaly you may as well have directed the encounter yourself, and Tom is half-indulgent as he forces his eyes away and you force yours to stay. 
You watch him from across the room as the woman drapes herself across the arm of his chair. There's a furious blush on her cheeks even in the dark, a pretty disarray to her shoulder-length hair, skirts pleated over knees she faces toward him. She smiles and offers him a glass of something, and you know for certain Tom understands this game because he accepts it, eyes flicking back to you as he swirls the glass in contest. 
To that you take an inappreciable sip of your own.
“ — Which is why no one has even attempted to kill one in decades. And capturing one is another thing entirely. My mother works with the Greeks on occasion, and the nearest she came to a den was in the twenties. If she had gone any nearer I wouldn’t be here.”
“Hm?” You look back at the man in front of you. His lips glisten with having licked them between every phrase.
“The manticores,” he says, undeterred.
“Right. Five-X beasts, aren’t they?”
“That’s what I said. I heard from one of my mother’s colleagues that — ”
The woman is whispering something in Tom’s ear, her hair on his cheek. He’s looking at you as if you had said the words. You don't shy away when Oliver leans in to whisper too. It's a strange, fractured language. Too intimate while too detached. Whispers from across the room, desire from another in the place of desire for each other. But the strangeness should not surprise you anymore. This is Tom: beautiful and wicked and the one you chose.
“ — And Nundus are worse. Deadliest creature there is — ”
She’s laughing about something, the woman. Half-reserved, she’s angled toward the party despite her leaning on his shoulder and the dissipating inches of distance.
“ — They stalk in silence. Think of the size of one, right? They’re apex predators… so commanding and still they could be in front of you one instant and gone the next.”
You engage with detached interest. “Really?”
And now Oliver barricades your view, his other hand coming to rest on your other shoulder.
“Do we have any classes together?”
You blink up at him. “No.”
“No, right,” he says, eyes darting to your lips. “I’d remember you.” 
His hand comes up to cup your cheek, and you wonder if for some men one-sided discussions of class five beasts qualify as foreplay.
You place a hand on his chest, eyebrows raised and half a startled smile curled. 
“You’re not going to kiss me," you inform him.
His face falls, but with it, at least, does his hand.
“Did you hear me?"
“It’s loud,” he decides suddenly. “Can we go somewhere else?”
You’re not sure you believe that. 
You duck under an arm and search the crowd again. The woman is on the arm of the chair looking thoroughly dismayed, and for good reason —
Tom is gone. 
Your breath is caught.
“This isn’t… You’re not going to…?”
You flash Oliver with a glare. “So you did hear me.”
He makes a pathetically sad face, and you think: it’s a wonder he made it this far when his courtship evidently hinges on the subject of his affection not listening to a word out of his mouth.
“Goodnight, Oliver,” you say tersely.
“What was that for, then?” he asks, and it comes out practically whined.
“That was talking.”
“But you’re —”
“Belby.”
He is what he is. It shouldn’t surprise you when he appears beside you all fatal rage on a quiet lead, narrowly fixed to you. 
Tom’s cold is his median temperature, yes, but in moments like this it’s as much for you as his handmade warmth. He’d pluck the fingers off a boy like Oliver. The digits would string eaves like icicles.
Oliver is looking between you and Tom like something terrible has dawned on him, hands urged to his pockets to soothe the flames your unveiled ties to a man seemingly singed him with.
“Riddle — Mate, I didn’t… I didn’t know she was…”
Tom’s voice is flat, edged with something that makes his monotony sound merciful. “Pity. If only you knew as much as you talked.”
Oliver’s mouth opens and closes and opens again, but wisely he settles on silence instead of excuses, and wastes no time fleeing slowly into the crowd. 
The instant he's stolen by the wave Tom's eyes are on yours and they’re molten. You move to say something but his patience was for show — he’s dragging you by the arm out of the common room and into one of the dungeon's empty classrooms without giving you the chance.
“Tom —" You start to protest, mouth twisted in a scowl. “Tom, you're being —"
He shuts the door behind you and locks it with such delicacy your breath catches at the question of how badly he's holding himself back right now.
“I'm being what?"
“You're…" It's hard to formulate an answer when he's like this. “It was a game. Don’t pretend you weren’t playing too."
Tom inches in, chest rising with angry breaths. “A game, was it? Did he know that?"
“Did she?” you hiss.
“It certainly became apparent when she was discarded so that I might retrieve you.”
“It was as apparent to Belby, judging by the way he was left gawking.”
“And with great restraint I let him. A mercy I didn’t take his eyes so he was left without the ability.”
You roll your eyes. “Oh, now I understand; the problem wasn’t the game, it’s that I played it better than you.”
He looks at you for a long time before casting a silencing charm on the room.
Oh.
Oh — your heart barrels off somewhere. You’re without it for a moment, breathless in the wake of the implication of a spell like that.
“Tom," you say politically, “It was hardly a matter of rescuing.”
He nods imperceptibly. “No, it wasn’t.”
“So we’re in agreement.”
He hums a non-answer.
Each step he takes forward, you take back. It's a peculiar way to have a conversation, but part of the game, you suppose.
Interesting he’s still playing.
You still gasp when you inevitably hit the wall, hands going to the carved edge of a windowsill.
“You’re terrible when you win,” he whispers. His lips brush your ear.
You shudder, mouth dry as you press against his shoulder. “You’re worse when you lose.”
His mouth drags down your jaw but he refuses to kiss you, still withholding something, still holding back in some terrible, electrifying way. Instead one of his hands starts to dip down your side. You shiver as he grazes the skin of your breast, exposed by the cut of your dress, and continues down your waist. His mouth traces your bare shoulder as his tongue makes a slow pass, skin beneath leaping at his careful ministrations.
With long, slender fingers he's pulling your dress off button by button, torturously slow, and you feel mocked to have cleaned it earlier. You feel foolish to have left knowing the night would have ended like this regardless.
“Tom,” you say. His name is followed by staggered breaths. Your fingers are clutching the windowsill.
The air is thick as he watches you, flesh exposed by each undone catch. And still he will not kiss you, even as his lips trail along your collarbone and you start to tug instinctively at his belt. He makes the barest sound of disapproval and spins you to face the window, your hands urged on instinct to press against the glass.
“Tom...”
He hikes your dress up your thighs. It clings to your hips, a meagre two buttons left attached to keep it from falling.
Your wand clatters as his fingers work the clasp of your bra and his teeth skim your shoulder, leaving little bites he laves at softly with his tongue. You shudder, arching into him, searching for friction. His touch traverses the shape of you and stops feather-light between your legs.
“Tom —”
“Quiet," he admonishes, a little tut.
Your skin jumps at the caress of his fingers tracing deceptively timid up your thighs, like he hasn’t done this before, like it’s care and not punishment. His favourite oxymoron: the gentlest torture, the cruelest succour.
His index draws upon the lace of your underwear and tugs it aside with a tenderness that makes you gasp. Is there a way to press harder to the glass without breaking it? Is there ever enough to grab onto when he gets like this — so singularly focused on ruining you? 
One of your hands latches onto the arm half-disappeared in your skirts instead, clinging steadfast to the white of its sleeve, your body swaying as if at sea. He keeps you steady, but this is his crown achievement: that he is all there is that can do it when you’re so singularly focused on being ruined by him.
The sinews of his forearm work imperceptibly under your fingers as he appreciates the newly unfettered flesh, two digits sliding between your legs, and he makes a satisfied sound against your shoulder at the wetness he finds there. 
You’re swallowing air with a moan stuck in your throat; too dry, you realise, and feel like you’re choking when he starts to move, gripping his arm somehow tighter.
As a rule, you know how much he loves this, but it’s tenfold under his jealousy and you think deliriously, probably wrongly, that for how much he enjoys pushing you you enjoy pushing him to get here. You’re his and he’s yours, there’s no doubt in it — but what he can reduce you to — this desperate creature, writhing and panting, trying in vain to satiate herself with a simple finger — this is the translation; the fruition of his fixations put to a person rather than a subject. This is what it is to be his.
Tom’s mouth opens in a smile at your throat, and there it feels more like bared teeth, a smile that is as animal as it is pretty. 
And still he whispers with all the affection of a lover, your name peppered between kisses.
His fingers inch inside you and curl. You’re wedged in the perfect balance of his discrepancy; your disciple and your devil. He worships you in white. He ruins you in it too.
Now his name comes out in a babble, wet, half-drooled. A nip pinches the little space beneath your ear and you clutch impossibly harder to his wrist, your free hand squeaking down the window pane as you grind on his palm. He crooks his fingers against a spot that has you seeing stars, thumb pressed to your clit in a subtle motion, and you feel yourself tip off into an unknown he aquaints you with often. In a blurry, flickering moment, the light gleams somewhere beyond the stained hues of the window. And that should be it. The edge is at your heels and you should be falling. But the sinful press of him at your back commands you to lurch against him, and when you moan for more he pulls his fingers free.
You stumble weakly into his chest, startled.
“What… What?”
“Ask me for it,” he says, his voice hoarse, markedly wanton in spite of himself. But there is hunger and there is greed. There’s a sacrificial lamb and there’s a hunted one— there’s religion and there’s Tom. He invents something that demands greater devotion.
And the sound of leather rasping serge and metal clinking metal reels your conscience in. There are no stars. There’s just him. His belt is coming undone.
“Tom.” You swallow. “I told you —”
“And I want you to ask.” He cups your jaw in his hand, thumb tracing your lower lip. “Nicely.”
Your mouth opens for him and you shiver, pressing further back for contact he doesn’t allow. Instead another small tut is whispered at your neck, relinquished to a kiss.
His finger brushes your teeth when you speak. “I want you.”
You feel him shake his head and you all but whine.
“I want you inside, Tom — need you — please.”
“Please?” he echoes mockingly.
“Please,” you say in an uneven voice, and when your tongue grazes his thumb he eases it further into your mouth with an appeased hum.
And so his zipper comes down and you hold your breath with the weight of your dress at your hips.
He pushes inside you with minimal pause, slow still, to relish the way your little pants hitch, stop, and shudder out in a broken moan; the way your breath is guided by his rhythm, how you’re shaped by him, fitted around him. You careen forward and your palms flatten on the window, trembling at the first thrust. Your fingers quiver down the glass.
Tom pulls you into him on the second, patience abandoned. His lips chase your pulse. His grip on your jaw tightens as his thumb pops free with a string of spit. He nudges deeper at a new angle, your body forced as far as it can lean back, gasping heavenward when your head falls helplessly onto his shoulder.
It’s profane. Your ears almost dull to the sound of his hips snapping against yours, the obscenity of your skin on what he offers of his, but you waver between earth and something else, brought back to him by the torturous sight of the edge he stole you from. Always brought back to him. 
He’s gripping your jaw in one hand as he pushes deeper, and your fingers are lost for purchase on his forearms, trembling to hold onto something.
When he pulls out of you at your brink again, you practically cry out. But you understand when he spins you around again, hiking you up against the windowsill, your shoulders hitting the cool glass with a gasp you barely register in the fog of your desperation. His eyes are dilated to midnight rings. The weight of his desire is frightening. The insistence to claim you better yet.
He wastes no time before slamming into you again, pausing at the hilt to watch your eyebrows wrench together before resuming his pace. When your mouth falls open, he swallows the noise that tries to come out of it.
It doesn’t feel like a kiss. It feels like the prolusion to a bite.
His fervour is all the reminder of how you got here in the first place; the teeth, the force, the grip on your waist. There’s a rough sound he makes in your mouth that you taste more than you hear. The vibration of him is everywhere. You’re too hot and it only occurs to you because your fingers are clawing at fabric instead of skin that he’s fully dressed and your last button has finally snapped, lace pooled on the classroom floor as he fucks you. The thought is consigned to oblivion as quickly as it came. It doesn't matter.
You're clutching at his shoulders, the nape of his neck — trying to kiss him back, but you feel torn in two by the intensity of his ministrations, a low, immolating pressure building in your abdomen. He’s proving something with you, and his is a relentless, unending appetite. You don't really stand a chance. You think you've known that from the start.
Tom is all-consuming. Tom is a force of nature, a whirlwind that sweeps over you. He leaves you breathless and somehow needing more as he wraps his hand around the small of your back and seizes you in place.
Still you find yourself wanting to be held tighter.
“T-Tom —" you sob through the kiss but he doesn't give you enough air to do it. He pushes harder, a rasp at the back of his throat, some carnal thing. He’s not withholding your release now; he’s spurring you towards it.
When he withdraws his lips from yours, his brows are furrowed in concentration. There’s a fine lustre of sweat on his forehead, stray curls pulled across dark, wicked eyes. The sight of him alone is condemnable, but it isn’t for you.
He likes to watch you like this. When your moans dissolve to the torn syllable of his name, again and again. The veneration. Your choked litanies.
You give them to him.
Sleeves drawn up by your body’s baser instinct for skin, you’ve carved a canvas of praise into his arms, marked up to his elbows where your fingers had jerked upward to rake at his back. This time, when you find the cliffside, nothing stops you from teetering off its edge. Flames dance across your skin in an explosion, your collar damp and bitten, your waist in Tom’s vice-like grip. One hard thrust and you’re falling.
The stars are blinding. You decide then they were made by him.
Your head lulls back as shocks of pleasure course through your body, the coil snapped, the hard shape of him inside you demanding impossibly for more. You stumble through the light, vision blurred, praying and praying and praying. His grip comes to find your jaw again.
You keen, addled through the ecstasy, barely conscious of the way his panted breaths hitch at the sight of you in his hands, soft-eyed and puddy.
He always comes apart soon after you, but it happens rarely that your body is so taut on the wire of rapture that his twitching inside you takes you with him. 
This time it does.
You sink against him, thighs numb and wet, one hand slipping dumbly from his figure and swiping across condensation-foggy glass. The second orgasm is an aftershock of the first. It’s slow. It feels like being caught from the last fall. You land in Tom’s arms and they’re holding you through whitened knuckles. His eyelashes flutter, ink-dipped twines of quills, and he steals the shaky sigh from your mouth by pressing it to his.
You kiss lazily and softly. The room feels sheeted in static. The electricity lingers on both of you.
It’s hard not to fall against the window when he slides out of you. You slump on quivering legs into his chest instead, heaving, spend trickling down your legs.
Tom holds you close, adjusting his trousers before sinking down to settle you on his lap. He wipes the sweat from your face and presses his lips to the feverish skin it plastered. Forehead, cheeks, nose, chin, whispers of your name down your jaw like a prayer answered. Your eyelids flutter shut and he kisses you there, too. His lashes tickle.
You love him more than you worship him. You think he likes that more.
He grabs your forsaken dress from the floor and slips it over your bare shoulders, summoning the snapped button back in place before he begins to meticulously clasp the rest together again. His mouth leaves a path at the skin under each one before it closes, and you hum in dizzy gratitude.
“That was,” you say in a very worn voice, “a terrible way to reinforce not making you jealous.”
He glares at you from one of the lowermost buttons and you giggle sleepily, curling a hand into his hair. “Don’t look at me like that. You liked it too.”
He leans back up at that, tipping your chin with his fingers, gaze darting over the wrecked state of you with a pleased gleam in his eyes. “You liked it? What a modest interpretation.”
Now it’s your turn to glare.
He is what he is — pursuit of buttons forgotten as you’re laid down on the moonlit floor to be reminded just how much you liked it.
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taglist. @lyis @indimoss @poddzi @esolean @d1anna @maripositanoctruna @mentally-in-northern-italy @ronniemaximoff1234 @moobell55 @jaerang @ramayantika @saltwaterbythesea @acube07 @togenabi @adazito @kitcat334 @blaurghhh @shutupfinn @jaymeeshayden @lilu842 @leaosee @garfunkelworld @definitely-not-captain-america @multiplefandomstan @mangoesareorange [ note: inexplicably, a bunch of my tags aren't working. i tried to fix it but if you didn’t get a notif i’m sorry! ]
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pavosnoctua · 10 days
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cw: yandere, dark themes, obsessive behaviors, forced marriage, possessive behaviors, controlling behaviors, implied isolation, implied non-con touching, implied forced starvation. afab reader. mdni, minors dni! i do not condone the behaviors in this fic.
my first time writing a yandere fic. please lmk if i am missing a tag or warning!
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You don't know why but Diluc one day tells you that he is giving a few more freedoms - slightly begrudgingly but you won't be alone outside. The winery is well staffed, Adelinde will be nearby so be good.
(Maybe Adelinde felt a twinge of sympathy for you, hearing you cry every night when Diluc would get too rough with you. You delude yourself into thinking this)
Be good is what you repeat to yourself as you step outside into the sunlight since he brought you here - it feels like ages ago, unreal to you, with the way the warmth of the sun hits your skin and you have to initially squint at the brightness. The Manor is so dark in comparison - it's windows always covered and the lighting so dim.
Adelinde watches you with the same hawkish look Diluc does, and you're not sure who you'd rather have following you like an unwanted storm cloud.
So, you meander around the property within the limits given to you. You soak up the sun, take in all the smells - everything you've missed for the last six months. All that can be taken away on a whim.
You're smart - you like to believe you're smart but you find a path that hasn't been used and Adelinde is currently distracted because of Hillie and Moco, you consider. One foot in front of the other.
Liyue is only a half a days walk from here.
Just follow this path while everyone is distracted - your heart hammers in your chest as you stand, frozen.
"Is everything okay?" Diluc startles you, you quickly turn to face him and look down, hoping that act appeases him. "Are you ill? Let's get you back inside-"
"No!" You shout, jerking away. He looks unimpressed and you clear your throat. "I mean, no, I'm fine. Just...spaced out."
Diluc makes a noise and you wish he'd go away so you could plan your path of escape.
"Come. Let's eat outside today for lunch." It's an order. You obey, glancing back at the path longingly - hoping it'll still be there in a few days if you are allowed back outside again.
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Mercy comes through the sake of the woman who serves as Diluc's eyes. You are allowed outside on a weekly basis, you've been good and sweet and obedient. You sleep with Diluc, kiss him without crying - go along with his whims and delusions.
And one day, when the staff is too busy to watch you, you slip away. The path is overgrown and unseen. You step forward.
And again.
Further into the forgotten bushes and trees until you come to a clearing. The Winery is still in view and the path is vaguely there.
Liyue is a half a days walk, you tell yourself - looking at the shitty shoes you're wearing. The delicate clothes.
And as you turn and walk, vaguely remembering the map - a hand grabs you and jerks you back. Red, hot. You scream.
You swear at him, tell him how much you hate him as he looks at you with hurt and betrayal. He yells orders for that area to be blocked off, says doors are to be locked down as he drags you back because you won't walk for him. You claw at him and more words tumble out. Adelinde simply watches.
"You got greedy." Diluc snaps as he shoves you into your shared room. You cannot cause a scene anymore - watching his Vision glow with his growing emotions. You do not wish to deal with burns on top of the scrapes and bruises you just got. And whatever punishment he'll inflict on you now. "I never should have agreed to let you go outside. I could have lost you!"
"That's the point." you mutter. His eyes burn.
"What?"
You cross your arms over your chest and look at him in the eyes. "I said what I said."
Diluc is quiet for a moment - as if thinking. Finally, he turns to Adelinde, who only looks at you with pity and disappointment.
"They are to not receive a meal for the next two days. No one but me is to see them."
"Yes, sir."
"I'm doing this because I care about you." Diluc tells you but you only just stare at him. He considers many things in that moment but chooses to leave instead, door half slamming behind him.
You don't wince anymore.
"You should have been grateful for what you were given," Adelinde tells you as she goes to work to make your bed, pick out different clothes. "Do you understand that I had to convince him to allow you such a freedom?"
"I'm sorry." you say, automatically. She does not answer, opting to leave you alone with nothing more to say.
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hockey-fics · 8 months
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A Love Worth Changing For ~ Nico Hischier
Summary: Your commitment to yourself to stay out of a relationship becomes harder to keep when you meet someone who just might be worth breaking your promises for.
Word count: ~8,900
Warnings: Drinking (quite a bit), implied/vaguely mentioned smut, throwing up, toxic behaviours.
A/N: I kind of hate how this turned out, to be honest. It's not super well edited because I didn't want to read through it yet another time.
You didn’t want to be in a relationship. It was a promise you made to yourself. You wouldn’t get into a relationship until you were done with school. You had high expectations for yourself in your years at university. You wanted to do well, that was a given. Staying out of a relationship would only leave you with more time to study. But you also wanted these years to explore who you were as a person, casually date, figure out what you wanted in a partner and what kind of partner you wanted to be. 
It wasn’t hard, at least not for the first few years. Until you decided to go to grad school and decided to keep your commitment to not having any romantic commitment. And then came your second hurdle, when you met Nico.  
October 2021
Standing at the kitchen counter you fill a bowl with a bag of chips that you know will go mostly untouched in favour of drinks, but it was the thought that mattered, right? Your phone vibrates on the counter and your eyes fall to your bright screen. A text from Jack. Unlocking your phone you read the message, asking if he could bring a couple friends. Sighing to yourself you reply that it was fine, though you were a little nervous about who Jack was going to be bringing to a party you were already worried might be getting too large. 
Before long your apartment is full of people, half of which you didn’t know, tagging along with the half that you did. You’re in the kitchen mixing yourself an unnecessarily strong drink of tequila and orange juice when you feel someone tap you on the shoulder. Turning around your eyes focus on Jack. 
“Hey,” you greet, pulling him into a quick, friendly hug. Jack. You met him when you both arrived in New Jersey, him to play for the Devils and you to start your undergrad degree. It was an instant connection, but not the kind your friends had speculated. You understood that he was attractive, you knew that almost everyone seemed to fall for him. But your connection with him felt more like a brother than anything more. “How was your game?”
“It was good…It would be really cool if you would like watch a game once in awhile,” Jack jokes. 
“I was busy,” you whine, taking a large sip of your drink. 
“Busy with what?”
“Preparing this place to sustain the damage of another party,” you inform him. “And pre-gaming.”
“I see how it is, rather get drunk than come see me play.”
Rolling your eyes you lean back against the counter. “Honestly, yeah,” you joke. Your eyes travel over Jack’s shoulder, to the man standing behind him, hands shoved in his pockets, glancing around uncertainly. “Hi,” you call to him, catching his attention. “I’m Y/N.”
“Hey, uh, I’m Nico,” he tells you, shuffling his way between Jack and some other guy you had yet to meet. “Is this your place?”
“Yeah,” you tell him, hearing a shattering of glass from the other side of the kitchen. “Unfortunately,” you add with a breath of laughter. “I should go deal with that, I’ll talk to you later, Nico,” you tell him, placing your hand on his arm as you slip by him in the direction of the shattering sound. 
After helping clean up the mess of broken glass and spilled beer you head back into the kitchen, needing another drink. You find Jack and Nico nearly exactly where you had left them, discussing something with an intensity that piques your interest. 
“Am I missing something?” you ask Jack, pouring yourself another drink. 
“He thinks you’re hot,” Jack states boldly. 
You’re caught off guard by how easily he offers the information, especially when you see Nico elbow him in the side, clearly not wanting him to have said that. “Oh?” you say, turning to face Nico, a playful smile on your lips. 
“I, uh,” Nico begins, eyes falling to the ground. “Yeah,” he finally mutters. 
Giggling you take a sip of your drink, stepping a little closer to him. “Well, I think you’re pretty hot as well,” you tell him, hoping it would ease some of the awkward tension that had fallen on the conversation. 
“This is gross,” Jack mutters, gulping back half of his beer in one go. 
“You’re the one who brought it up, dumbass,” you remind him, spinning to lean against the counter beside Nico. “Tell me more about yourself,” you say to Nico. 
“What do you want to know?”
Shrugging you glance down to his empty hands. “Do you not drink?”
“I offered to drive him home,” Nico tells you, nodding towards Jack. 
“Drive Jack home?” you mutter, eyebrows furrowed. “Jack never goes home after he gets drunk here.”
“Oh, I, uh, didn’t know you two were-,” Nico stammers, shaking his head as he glances over to Jack with an incredulous look. 
“That’s not what I meant,” you exclaim with wide eyes. “He sleeps on the couch.”
“Oh,” Nico chuckles. 
“So, does that mean you’re going to have a drink?”
Nico shrugs, looking over at Jack, who was already on his third beer. “I still need to drive myself home.”
“I’m sure we can find you somewhere to sleep,” you tell him. 
And find him somewhere to sleep was exactly what you did, in your bed right next to you. 
When you wake up the next morning your arm is slung over Nico’s chest, your head on his shoulder. Slowly you pull your body away from him, tugging the sheets up over your naked body as you reach for your phone on the nightstand. 9:35 AM. 
“Morning,” Nico mumbles tiredly.
“Morning,” you reply, glancing down at him with a soft smile. “How are you feeling?”
“Alright,” Nico shrugs. “Tired.”
“Me too,” you laugh. “Do you want some coffee or something?”
“If you’re going to make some for yourself I’ll have some.”
Climbing out of bed you pull some clothes on, shuffling out of your room to take in the damage from the night before. The kitchen counters are littered with cans and bottles, sticky with spilled drinks. Sighing to yourself you grab a bag, beginning the long process of post-party clean up. Nico is at your side a second later, tossing cans into the bag you were holding. 
“You don’t need to clean up, it’s okay,” you assure him, not wanting him to feel obligated to help clean your apartment after a party you decided to throw. 
“I don’t mind,” Nico shrugs. “I’m sure some of it is my mess.”
His justification makes you giggle, knowing that he had been one of the only people the night before to ask you where you wanted him to put his empty cans. You finish clearing off the counter together, wiping it down before making a pot of coffee. While it was brewing you stand at the counter, Nico in front of you, his hands on your hips as he looks down at you. 
“So do you think I can get your number?” Nico asks. 
Running your hands up his arms you rest them on his shoulders, smiling playfully up at him. “Yeah, I think maybe I could give you my number.”
Leaning down Nico presses his lips to yours again, gently and slowly, tugging your hips closer to his body.
“Get a room.”
Pulling back from Nico you look across the kitchen to where Jack was now standing. “You know this is my apartment, right?” you joke, pulling your arms back from Nico. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Sure,” Jack mumbles, leaning tiredly into the counter. “Do you have that girl’s number?”
“Who?” you ask, pressing your palms into the counter, hopping up onto it. 
“You know, the one I was talking to.”
“Do you even remember her name?”
“Yeah,” Jack mutters dismissively. 
“What is it then?”
“Do you have her number or not?” Jack exclaims, rubbing his fingers over his temples. 
“Yes,” you tell him with a sigh. “I’m not giving you her number if you can’t even remember her name.”
Jack lets out a loud groan, shaking his head. “Fine, whatever,” he grumbles. 
Nico glances up at you with a look that told you he agreed with your decision. “You remember my name, right?” you joke. 
Nico chuckles, leaning up to press his lips to your again. “Of course,” he tells you. 
After the coffee is done brewing you pour a few mugs, adding some cream to your coffee. Heading into the living room you curl up on the couch, leaning into Nico when he sits down beside you. The three of you sit in the living room, talking about the night before while finishing your coffee. 
Shortly after finishing his coffee Jack decides to get an Uber home, leaving you and Nico alone again. You spend the majority of the day cuddled up with Nico on the couch, watching movie after movie as the hangover slowly begins to leave your body. 
“When are you free for me to take you on a date?” Nico asks after the end of yet another movie. 
Sitting up you pull your body away from Nico, turning to look over at him. “Nico, I do like you but I feel like I should tell you that I’m not really looking for anything serious right now.”
“Does that mean I don’t get to see you again?”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” you giggle, shaking your head. “I just wanted you to know that.”
“Okay,” Nico says with a shrug. “How about Wednesday night?”
“Wednesday night sounds good to me,” you reply, leaning over and kissing him gently. 
Wednesday night comes around quickly and your date goes incredibly well. As does the next date, and all the ones after that. It wasn’t long till you were spending almost all your spare time together. 
There was a connection you had with Nico that was undeniable. But you were holding onto your promise to yourself that you weren’t going to get into a relationship. 
December 2021
You’re finally packing clothes for your trip home, having just finished your exams a few days earlier. Going home for the holidays was always one of the highlights of your year, when you could finally relax without worrying about assignments or classes or exams. Folding a few sweaters you set them into the suitcase on your bed, a sudden knock on your door startling you. 
Heading through your apartment you hesitantly pull the door open, relaxing when you see Nico standing in front of you. “What are you doing here?” 
“I wanted to see you before you left,” Nico explains, stepping inside. “And I wanted to bring you this.”
Your eyes fall to the wrapped box in his hand. “A Christmas present?”
“Yeah,” Nico chuckles, setting it into your hands. 
“Why?” you whisper, looking up into his eyes. “You didn’t have to get me anything, we’re not-.”
“We’re not together, I know,” Nico interrupts, having heard the line from you over and over again at various times throughout the last few months. Not together, just friends with benefits...who also happened to be going on frequent dates.
Sighing you set the present down onto the table by the door, reaching over to take his hands. “Well, thank you,” you whisper, leaning up and pressing your lips to his. “But you really didn’t have to.”
“You’re welcome,” Nico says, pulling you into a hug. “When do you have to be at the airport?”
“Tomorrow morning at eight.”
“I can drive you…if you want,” Nico offers. 
Pulling back you smile up at him, fingers running down his arms. “That would be great, thank you. Do you have plans tonight?”
“No.”
“Do you want to stay here tonight?” 
A smirk forms on Nico’s lips, his hands finding their way to your hips. “Yes.”
Giggling you lean up, kissing him again. This time you don’t pull back immediately, your arms finding their way over his shoulders. His tongue brushes against yours and you push yourself closer to him, fingers curling into the fabric of his sweater. 
“Let’s go to my room,” you mumble against his lips before taking his hand and pulling him through your apartment to your bedroom. 
“Do you need to finish packing?” Nico asks, his eyes falling to the suitcase on your bed, piles of clothes laying around your room. 
“It can wait,” you assure him, setting your suitcase onto the ground. You’re on the bed a second later, letting Nico pull your clothes off. Hands grasping at each other, both knowing that you’d have to go a few weeks without getting to see each other, without getting to touch each other. 
Nico makes you finish more times than you ever had in one night, till you’re a shaky, flushed mess. Maybe it was because you would be apart from each other for awhile, maybe he was trying to leave a lasting impression, keep you from wanting to be with anyone else. Whatever the reason, you were more than okay with it. 
“I should probably finish packing,” you whisper, head laying on Nico’s shoulder, fingers grazing over his chest. 
“Do you need help or anything?” Nico offers.
“No, there’s not that much left to do,” you tell him as you pull some clothes back on. 
Nico spends the rest of the evening keeping you company while you finish packing and doing last minute preparation around your apartment. By the time you get to bed that night you know that neither of you was going to end up with an adequate amount of sleep that night. But you didn’t mind if it meant spending more time with Nico. 
June 2022
You were prepared to spend the summer away from Nico. You didn’t want to, that much you needed to admit. But you weren’t his girlfriend, he wasn’t your boyfriend. There was no reason for any variation to Nico’s normal summer plans. 
So you had said goodbye to him the night before he flew back to Switzerland to spend time with his friends and family. You managed to hold back your emotions till he left and you couldn’t hold the tears back any longer. 
You kept yourself busy, picking up extra shifts when you could to keep your mind off of missing him. You knew it wasn’t normal, to have these feelings for someone who you were refusing to be more than just friends with benefits with. 
Of course the two of you continued talking, text messages being exchanged when the time difference would allow for it. But it wasn’t until he called you one evening that you were really reminded that whatever was going on between you two was a lot more than what you were willing to say out loud. 
“Hey,” you greet as you answer the phone, sitting in your living room, watching re-runs of your favourite TV show. 
“Hi,” Nico replies, his voice was quiet but you could hear a slight slur in his words. “What are you doing?”
“Uh, not a lot, watching TV,” you tell him, sitting up straighter on the couch, eyes narrowing as you stare at the other end of the couch. “What are-,” you can’t even finish asking what he was doing before he cuts you off. 
“With who?” Nico asks and there’s something in his tone that makes you feel like it’s more of an accusation than a genuine question. 
“Nobody…why?”
“You’re watching TV by yourself on a Friday night?”
“Well it’s 6PM here,” you remind him. “But yes, I’m watching TV alone, why?”
“Right,” Nico mutters. “I miss you.”
“Are you drunk?”
“No,” Nico replies quickly. “Yes,” he admits just as quickly, without you even needing to question him on it. “We went out for drinks, I had too many.”
“Well did you at least have fun?” you ask, holding back a laugh. 
“Yeah…I wish you were here though.”
Your silent for a little too long, wracking your brain for what to say. ‘Me too’ didn’t feel right, even if it was the truth. “You’ll be back in a couple months,” you finally whisper. 
“I don’t want to wait that long,” Nico mumbles. “I want you to come here.”
Laughing softly you roll your eyes to yourself, leaning back into the couch. 
“I’m not joking,” Nico states, clearly taking offence to your laughter. 
“I can’t,” you tell him, nervously fiddling with a loose thread on your shorts. 
“Why not? I’ll buy you a flight, you can stay with me or I can get you a hotel or whatever, it doesn't matter.”
“That’s not the problem, Nico,” you tell him, though if you were seriously considering his suggestion it probably would have been a problem.
“Then what is?”
“We-,” you begin, pausing to take a deep breath. “We’re not together…I’m not your girlfriend, Nico. I’m not going to fly halfway across the world and meet your friends and family when we’re not even together,” you explain. 
The silence that follows is so long that you begin to wonder if he was even still there. But you sit in the silence, with each second growing more and more uncomfortable.
“I love you.”
“Nico,” you whisper, eyes welling with tears. You weren’t even sure where your emotions were coming from, but they were beyond overwhelming. “You don’t…you don’t mean that. You’re drunk-.”
“I do,” Nico insists, knowing where you were about to go with your sentence. Maybe he wasn’t as drunk as you thought, but you didn’t want to truly admit that. 
“Can we talk tomorrow?”
“Yeah,” Nico mumbles. 
“Get some sleep, okay?” 
“Okay,” Nico whispers. “Have a good night.”
The two of you did talk the next day. But at no point did either of you bring up the night before. Maybe he didn’t remember it. Maybe he no longer wanted to discuss it now that his mind was no longer clouded by alcohol. Either way you were pretty sure it was the best outcome for both you and him. 
October 2022
“I like this one,” you say, pointing out a small pumpkin sitting on the edge of a pallet in the pumpkin patch. 
“It’s so small,” Nico comments, chuckling as he stands next to you, staring down at the little pumpkin. 
Shrugging you lean down, picking it up. “It’s cute.”
“Like you,” Nico says with a smirk, already anticipating your response. 
Rolling your eyes you jokingly take a step away from him. “Gross.”
Reaching over Nico takes your hand, tugging you back towards him. “I know you like it.”
Shaking your head you let go of his hand, running it up his arm to wrap around his shoulders. Pushing yourself onto your tip toes you press your lips to his. “I do,” you admit, stepping back from him. “Now pick your pumpkin so we can go home and carve them.”
After Nico picks out and pays for the pumpkins you head back to your apartment, stopping on your way there to pick up dinner and a couple bottles of wine. 
“Do you want the shiraz or the zinfandel?” you call to Nico, pulling a couple glasses of wine out from the cupboard. 
Glancing over your shoulder you watch Nico set the pumpkins down on the table, a smile on his face. “You know that I don’t know the difference.”
Giggling you open the drawer in the kitchen, rifling through it for your wine opener. “I want to try the zinfandel,” you tell him, jumping as you feel his hands on your hips, tugging your back into his chest. 
“Sounds great to me,” Nico whispers, leaning down and kissing your neck gently. 
With a quiet, pleasure filled sigh you let yourself melt into him, the warmth of his body radiating into you. “Thanks for doing this with me.”
“Doing what?” Nico asks, letting you turn around in his arms to face him. 
“This whole pumpkin thing, I know it’s kind of stupid as adults,” you explain. 
Nico shakes his head, wrapping his arms around you, pulling you into his arms. “It’s not stupid and you don’t need to thank me, I wanted to do this,” Nico assures you. 
“I l-,” you begin, stopping yourself short as you realize what you were about to say. I love you. Swallowing heavily you pull yourself back from him, quickly turning around, fumbling with the wine opener. 
“What were you going to say?”
Shaking your head you twist the screw into the cork, fingers shaking nervously. “Nothing, it doesn’t matter.”
“It does,” Nico insists, reaching over and placing his hand on your lower back, trying to get your attention again. “Just talk to me.”
“I said it doesn’t matter,” you snap, struggling to wiggle the cork out of the bottle. As the cork pops out of the top of the bottle the sudden change in force sends the bottle slipping across the counter, red wine sloshing out all over the counter as the bottle clatters onto the counter. “Fuck,” you mutter, eyes welling with tears as you reach for the bottle, quickly standing it back up. 
As you reach for the towel hanging on the handle of the oven Nico catches your hands, pulling you to face him. “Slow down,” he says gently. “What’s going on?”
The tears that had welled up in your eyes were slipping down your cheeks now, your hands stilled by Nico’s hands stopping you from wiping them away. “I love you,” you exclaim. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Nico is quiet for a few seconds before wrapping his arms around you, rubbing your back gently. “I only want to hear it if you mean it.”
You don’t answer him. You knew you should answer him. But you couldn’t. You couldn’t bring yourself to say it again, you could barely say it once. “I need to clean up the wine,” you whisper, wiggling out of Nico’s arms. 
“You should use the paper towel, you’ll stain that one,” Nico tells you, gesturing to the towel you had originally reached for. 
“Right,” you whisper, nodding slowly as you stare up at him. You didn’t know what you had expected out of him after that, but it sure wasn’t cleaning tips. After cleaning up the wine from the counter you excuse yourself to the bathroom, looking at yourself in the mirror. Wiping away the remnant of your tears you take a few deep breaths, eventually managing to calm yourself enough to venture back to the kitchen. 
When you step into the room your eyes find Nico at the table, two glasses of wine and the pumpkins in front of him. “What-?”
“You don’t want to carve them anymore?” Nico asks. 
“I-,” you begin, walking through the room to sit down at the table with him. “Yeah, I do.”
For awhile the two of you sit in relative silence, the energy in the room feeling tense. But by the time your glass of wine was empty the tension had dissipated. 
You knew you loved him. You knew you meant it when you said it. You knew it before but something in that evening only made you love him even more. He didn’t push you. He didn’t make you feel bad. He was there for you, with you, in whatever way you wanted in that moment. 
November 2022
“Jack, I don’t feel good,” you whisper, glancing around the packed night club. 
Jack turns his attention away from the group of your friends that he was in the midst of a conversation with. His eyes land on you, nodding slowly as he reaches out, placing his hand on your side to steady your swaying body. “Come on,” he mumbles, guiding you through the building and into one of the single stall bathrooms. 
You’re only in the bathroom for a second before you’re hovering over the toilet, the plethora of drinks you had consumed that night coming right back up. 
“I’m going to get you some water,” Jack tells you, turning to open the door. “Stay here, okay?”
Nodding you flush the toilet, standing up and placing your hands on the edge of the counter, a steady surface to steady your not so steady self against. You turn the lock on the door, leaning into the counter again, taking deep breath to try to keep 
Jack returns a few moments later with a glass of water which you gratefully take. After downing half the glass you feel your eyes fill with tears, drunk mind racing with emotions. “Does he hate me?” you mutter, looking over at Jack. 
“What?” Jack asks, eyebrows furrowed. 
“Nico,” you whisper. “Does he hate me? He asked me to take things further again yesterday and I said no.”
“I don’t know, I haven’t talked to him in a few days,” Jack tells you. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Refusing to be his girlfriend and now you’re crying about him.”
Your eyes fall to the ground, trying to find some sort of valid explanation for him. “I don’t want to be in a relationship right now,” you finally whisper. 
“Why? You’re obviously into him,” Jack retorts quickly. 
“Because, I’m supposed to figure out who I am in university, Jack. I’m supposed to have crazy, fun experiences with new people and I’m not supposed to find the person I’m going to be with for the rest of my life right now and-.”
“He’s not asking you to marry him,” Jack interrupts. “Why are you worried about spending the rest of your life with him right now?”
“Because I don’t want to get my heart broken, I don’t want to get hurt,” you mutter. 
“You’re crying about him in a bathroom,” Jack exclaims, shaking his head. “You’re already hurt.”
“No,” you whisper, sniffling softly, tears rolling down your cheeks again. You didn’t want to admit Jack was right, you didn’t want to admit that everything you had done in the last year to keep Nico at a distance had been for nothing. “I want to go home.”
“You can come back to my place,” Jack offers with a sigh, clearly not wanting his night to be over but also not about to leave you alone. 
“I’ll just get an Uber,” you tell him, pulling your phone from your pocket. 
“I’m not letting you Uber home alone right now.”
You knew it was coming from a place of concern, but you really didn’t want to be the one to wreck his plans for the night. Whatever those plans were. “Fine,” you mutter. “But I don’t want to force you to go home.”
“Well all your friends are here and they’re also drunk so what do you want me to do?”
“I don’t know,” you whine, tipping your head back to look at the ceiling. The tiles are spinning in your mind and your head feels heavy, but you manage to lift it again before the spinning brings on another round of nausea. Your eyes land on Jack, watching him typing something quickly into his phone. You manage to restrain your drunken nosiness from asking who he was talking to, staying silent. 
“Nico is going to pick you up,” Jack tells you a few minutes later, making your heart race. 
“No,” you exclaim, shaking your head. You couldn’t let him see you like this. 
“He’s already on his way,” Jack tells you definitively. “Come on, I’ll walk outside with you and wait for him.”
“Jack,” you whine, following him out of the bathroom anyway. “This is mean.”
“I offered to take you home,” Jack snaps, clearly annoyed with you for making any attempts to help much harder than necessary. 
Sighing you follow him outside, the cold night air feeling refreshing to your nightclub-induced clammy skin. “I’m scared, Jack,” you whisper, standing next to him on the sidewalk. 
“Why?”
“He hates me-.”
“He’s picking you up drunk at two in the morning, he doesn’t hate you.”
“Yes, he does,” you repeat. “He hates me but he’s nice a good guy and he’s just coming to pick me up because he’s not a shitty person and I-.”
“Shut up,” Jack groans. “Yeah, he’s a nice guy or whatever but he’s not nice enough to get out of bed and come here to take care of you if he doesn’t still like you.”
Just as Jack finished his sentence a familiar car pulls up along the side of the road. Quickly Jack yanks the passenger’s side door open. “Good luck,” he tells Nico as he guides you into the car. 
“You okay?” Nico asks as you pull your seatbelt on, refusing to look across the car at him. 
“Yeah, I’m fine,” you mutter, eyes focusing out the side window, small raindrops beginning to splatter onto the clear glass. “You didn’t have to do this.”
“Of course I did,” Nico states and you can tell he’s glancing at you when he says it. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t want to either though,” he clarifies. 
"I'm sorry," you whisper, finally glancing over at him. "I'm sorry for making this so hard, I'm sorry I can't be who you want me to be right now, I like you so much Nico but I just can't be with you right now."
"It's okay," Nico tells you, his own voice greatly contrasting your unsteady, high-pitched tone. "I'm not going to push anything, if you want me around I'll be here. I'll wait for you."
January 2023
New Year's Eve. It was the one holiday that you seemed to never have a single tradition for. You had spent your New Year's Eve in a new location every year, from your bedroom to house parties to bars. This year though it was going to spent at a nightclub. A nightclub with as many friends as you could possibly wrangle into spending their night’s in a sweaty, loud, sticky nightclub downtown…including Nico.
You had gotten to Jack’s place just after eight, having spent the better part of three hours getting ready with your best friends at your apartment. You had to admit though, the time paid off, your outfit giving you an almost dangerous amount of confidence. 
“Where’s Nico?” you ask Jack, watching him pour another round of shots. 
You watch Jack’s lips curl into a teasing smirk, glancing at you for a second before returning to his bartending role. “Very interested in him for not being with him.”
“Shut up,” you mutter, taking a sip of your vodka soda. “I’m just curious, it doesn’t mean anything.”
“Here,” Jack states, handing you a shot glass, filled to the brim with tequila. As you reach to take the shot glass he pulls it away, holding it out of your reach. “You have to promise that you’re not going to end up puking and crying about him tonight.”
“Fuck off,” you mutter, reaching over and taking the shot glass from his hand, quickly dumping it into your mouth. You force the liquid down your throat with a wince, shuddering as you set the empty glass down onto the counter. 
“If I hear you say you’re not feeling good I will be finding someone else to take care of you.”
“I’ve never been that drunk in my life before, Jack. Stop acting like it happens frequently,” you whine. 
Jack chuckles, opening another beer. “You’re still that embarrassed about it, hey?”
“It was embarrassing,” you exclaim, glancing around the apartment, your interest piquing as your eyes sweep by the front door. Looking back you see Nico, struggling to yank his jacket off while holding a case of beer in one hand. “I’ll be right back,” you mutter to Jack, hurrying over to the door. “Need some help?” you ask Nico, taking the beer from his hand to let him take his jacket off. 
“Thanks,” he says with a chuckle, balancing his coat on a stack over a hook on the wall. He turns his attention back you, his eyes gazing up and down your body. “You look hot,” he comments. 
You can’t help but giggle at his comment, your cheeks reddening. “Well it took me long enough to get ready so I’m glad I got something out of it.” Turning around you head towards the kitchen with Nico’s beer. 
Nico has his hands on your hips, stopping you in your tracks a moment later. “You can get anything you want looking like that,” Nico whispers. 
Your breath catches in your throat, your back hitting Nico’s chest as you come to a stop. “It’s nine, Nico. We’ve got at least three more hours to go.”
“And?” Nico mumbles. 
Giggling you lean back into him, tipping your head back to look up at him. “And if you keep this up I won’t be able to make it till midnight without trying to get you back to my place.”
Nico chuckles, his hand slipping around to your ass as he moves to walk towards the kitchen. Your cheeks warm even further at the contact, watching him take the beer from you, unloading a few of them into Jack’s fridge. 
By the time you get to the club that night you’re a little more than tipsy, knowing you wouldn’t need to spend much money at the bar that night. The night had started with a lot of flirting between you and Nico, but once you arrived at the club you found yourself swept away with a few of your other friends. 
Before you knew it you were standing in a group with just a couple of your friends and quite a few men you had never met before. There’s a man standing next to you who had his hands on you more than was accidental. A hand on your back as he squeezed by to order another drink, fingers brushing against yours, body pressing to yours while he leaned in to try to hear something someone said. You didn’t dislike it, you knew he was flirting with you and part of you was enthralled by that, by the attention. But every time it happened your mind would find its way back to Nico. 
“Let’s get you another drink,” Peter, who you had just discovered the name of, says. 
Your eyes glance down at your empty drink before letting him guide you to the bar with his hand on your waist. You order your drink and Peter pulls out his wallet. The two of you make small talk while you sip on your new drink. He was attractive, you had to admit that. But that’s about where it stopped. There was nothing about his personality that enticed you, but selfishly you did like the attention. 
But you’re not able to see where things would go with him because the next thing you know Nico is pushing his way through the crowd to be at your side. 
“What are you doing?” Nico asks you, not even acknowledging the man you were talking to. 
Shrugging your shoulders your eyes flick back and forth from Nico to Peter and back to Nico. “What do you mean?”
Nico shakes his head with a cold chuckle, reaching down and taking your hand. “Come on, you’re done here.”
“Nico,” you whisper, eyes drilling into his. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t,” Nico mutters, shaking his head. “You know what I’m talking about, let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you state definitively, staring into his eyes as you match his intensity. 
“What’s going on?” Peter interjects, catching both you and Nico’s attention. 
“I think you should go,” Nico tells him before you have a chance to get a single word in. 
“Why?” Peter asks with a cold chuckle. “She clearly isn’t interested in you, why would I go anywhere?”
You don’t even process what’s happening till Peter is stumbling backwards, hand on his jaw where Nico’s fist had just met with it. Thankfully a bouncer pulls Peter back before he can retaliate, Nico frozen in place, just as stunned by his actions as everyone else in that club. 
You weren’t happy with Nico’s actions but you turn towards him anyway, grasping his arms a second later. “What the hell?” you exclaim, frantic eyes searching his for any type of answer. 
Before Nico has a chance to say anything a bouncer is at his side, nodding towards the door. “You gotta go.”
“I-,” Nico begins before turning in the direction of the door, knowing he wasn’t going to argue his way out of this one. 
You watch the bouncer guiding Nico towards the door, realizing you weren’t also being kicked out. You didn’t need to go. You could stay, you could keep drinking, celebrate New Years in this club. But the further and further Nico got with the bouncer the more uneasy you felt. So you let your legs carry you through the club and out the front door, into the freezing night air with Nico. 
“Nico,” you call as you watch him walking away from the club, clearly with no real destination in mind. 
“What?” Nico snaps, turning back around to look at you. “What do you want?”
“You’re really mad at me right now?” you yell, crossing your arms over your chest, trying to keep yourself warm. 
“Yes,” Nico exclaims. “Are you serious right now?”
“I’m not your girlfriend, Nico.”
Nico shakes his head, laughing coldly. “I guess not,” Nico yells. “But whatever, it doesn’t matter anymore, I’m fucking done with this, I’m done with you.”
“Nico,” you mumble, walking closer to him, hoping something, anything you would say could convince him that it wasn’t that serious. “Please don’t say that.”
“No, I’m over this, I’m not going to keep fighting for you if you don’t give a fuck about me.”
“I do care about you,” you yell back at him, your voice hoarse and shaky. “I care about you so much, Nico, you don’t even know.”
“If you cared about me you wouldn’t be trying to fuck other guys right in front of me.”
“I-,” you begin, realizing you didn’t even know what your justification was about to be. Because, to be honest, you didn’t have one. “I’m sorry,” you finally croak. 
“Just go back inside, I don’t fucking care,” Nico mutters, slurred words finally giving away his drunken state. 
“I do,” you yell, walking closer to him. “I don’t want to go back inside, Nico. I don’t want to leave you…I do care.”
“Why?” Nico snaps, staring down at you intently now that you were standing just a foot in front of him. 
“Because I love you,” you exclaim, the words leaving your mouth before you even had a chance to process them. 
“Then don’t try to fuck other people,” Nico mutters, sliding his jacket off his arms now that you were close enough for him to realize you were shaking, gently placing it over your shoulders. 
“I’m sorry,” you whisper again, tears welling in your eyes. You slip your arms into his jacket, tugging it tight around your body. “Please, I can’t lose you. I don’t want to be with him, I don’t want to be with anyone else. I want you.”
Nico steps back, taking a deep breath as he looks around the night sky for a minute. “Okay,” Nico mutters and you’re sure it’s more to himself than to you. “Do you want to go back in?”
“I’m not leaving you,” you tell him. 
“It’s New Years, go be with your friends, I’m the one who fucked up.”
“No, you didn’t,” you whisper. “I mean, I don’t think you should have punched him but I’m not letting you take all the blame for this...Do you want to come over to my place?”
“Okay…sure, yeah, if that’s what you want to do,” Nico says, reaching over and pulling you into him, rubbing his hand along your arm, trying to warm you up. 
So the two of you head back to your apartment, spending the rest of New Year's Eve together, just the two of you and a bottle of champagne.
It wasn’t the New Year's Eve you were expecting. It wasn’t necessarily the New Year's Eve you wanted, but maybe it was the New Year's Eve you needed. The wake up call that you had gone far beyond just friends with benefits. Even if you weren’t ready to accept it. 
February 2023
Things had changed after the New Year's Eve incident. Neither of you had verbally talked about what had changed but you both knew it had. It was the second time you told him you loved him. The second time neither of you acknowledged it after it happened. I don’t want to be with anyone else. Your words had continued echoing in your mind and you knew you should deal with those thoughts, those feelings. 
But you didn’t.
Maybe you really wanted to keep your commitment to yourself, to not get into a relationship till you had graduated. Maybe you were scared to take that step. Maybe you were embarrassed to ask for that after pushing it away for so long. 
So you fell back into the routine you had before. Frequent dates and spending most of your time together in between. It was different, yet the routines remained the same for months.
June 2023
“I need a date to the awards ceremony,” Nico says, referring to the NHL Awards that were approaching quickly.
“I don’t think you need a date,” you reply, looking up over the top of your phone to the other end of the couch, where Nico was sitting. 
“Okay…I want a date for the awards,” Nico tells you, reframing his statement.
“Okay,” you mutter, accepting his rephrased sentence. 
“Are you going to come with me?”
“No,” you mumble, sitting up straighter on the couch. 
“Why not?”
Rolling your eyes you lock your phone, tossing it down next to you. “Nico, you know why. I’m not your girlfriend.”
“This is a big deal for me,” Nico exclaims, clearly already knowing you were going to put up a fight about this. “Just come with me as a friend then.”
“You don’t bring just a friend to that kind of event. I know that much,” you tell him. 
Suddenly Nico is on his feet, pacing the length of your living room, making it halfway back before throwing his hands up in defeat. “You can’t just be there for me, support me, even once. I’m getting tired of this…whatever this is.”
“I’m sorry,” you tell him, his words hitting you hard. “I do, I do want to support, I promise.”
Just three days later you’re standing in a fitting room, pulling a dress onto your body. Stepping out of the room your eyes land on Nico, waiting for his reaction to this one. It was the fifth dress you had tried on, Nico telling you he liked all of them. 
“I like it,” Nico says, his eyes roaming over your body. 
Groaning loudly you turn towards the mirror, adjusting the dress slightly. “Why’d you even insist on coming if you’re not going to give me any input?”
“Because I’m buying it for you,” Nico tells you in a matter-of-fact tone. 
“No, you’re not,” you tell him, though it would be pretty helpful for your grad student budget. 
“I’m not arguing with you about this.”
“Me neither,” you reply, stepping back into the fitting room to try on another one. 
Eventually you narrow it down enough that Nico finally gives his input, once he was simply picking between two dresses. At the till you try to pull your wallet out, Nico’s hand landing on your hands. 
“I’m not letting you pay for it, Nico,” you whisper, trying to keep your disagreement out of ear shot of the sales attendant. 
“Yes, you are. It doesn’t have to mean whatever you’re thinking, just let me buy the fucking dress,” Nico mutters, his voice carrying an unusually stern tone. 
“Okay,” you whisper, eyes widening, stepping back as you watch Nico pull his wallet out and pay for the dress. He carries the bag for you, silence falling between you until you were outside, away from the sanctity of the boutique. 
“What’s your problem?” you snap, standing next to Nico’s car, watching him set the bag down into the backseat. 
“What?” Nico asks with a loud sigh, slamming the car door a little harder than necessary. 
“I don’t know...you’re mad at me for not dating you and-.”
“I’m not mad at you for not dating me,” Nico interrupts. “I’m mad that we are dating and you refuse to admit it.”
“We’re not together,” you state definitively, arms crossed over your chest. 
“Okay, whatever, then this is done,” Nico mutters, shaking his head. “Get in the car.”
“I want to go home,” you tell him, yanking the car door open. 
“Well that’s where I’m taking you,” Nico grumbles, sliding into the driver’s seat of the car. 
The drive back to your apartment is silent, your eyes focused directly ahead of you, the drive seeming longer than you had remembered. Nico pulls into the parking lot, turning the car around so that your side of the car was facing the door, something he had done since the first time he dropped you off at home. Opening the door you slip out, glancing back to find Nico handing you the bag with the dress. 
“I don’t want the fucking dress, Nico. I’m not doing this anymore.”
He nods slowly, your words sinking in. “Well what am I going to do with it? Just take it.”
Sighing you reach over, taking the bag from him, knowing it would be easier than continuing to argue about it. “Alright, well,” you mutter, glancing around. “Goodbye…I guess.”
“Bye,” Nico replies, voice strained, eyes barely meeting yours. 
You shut the door slowly, walk into your apartment even slower, knowing that if you really did leave it like that it was a big statement. A big statement you weren’t even sure you wanted to be making. But you keep going, till you’re up in your apartment and your eyes are filling with tears. 
Your best friend Liv is at your apartment shortly after you tell her what had happened, with a couple bottles of wine and take-out.
“I just don’t get it,” Liv says, sitting on the couch with half a glass of red wine in her hand. “You like him, you two are always together, going on dates. Why won’t you just let him in? Make it official?”
Shrugging you swirl the wine around in your glass, swallowing heavily as another round of tears form in your eyes. “Because I said I wouldn’t, Liv. I promised myself, I would experience things, I would figure myself out before getting into a real relationship.”
“But you’re not doing that,” Liv points out. “You keep saying you don’t want anything serious but you’ve been, what, casually dating this guy for like a year and a half? When’s the last time you went on a date with anyone else?”
Shrugging you try to think back, try to remember the last time you actually even seriously entertained the idea of a date with another man. “I don’t know, last year, I guess.”
“When’s the last time you hooked up with anyone other than him?”
“Liv, I don’t know. It’s been awhile, I get it,” you exclaim, sighing loudly. “I’m scared.”
“Scared of what?” Liv asks, voice gentle and reassuring despite your outburst. “You’ve always been scared of getting hurt. But if you don’t let yourself be with someone you’re never going to even have the opportunity for what else could happen.”
“No,” you whisper, wiping away a few tears that had pooled under your eyes. “I’m scared that I pushed him away…for good this time.”
Liv reaches over, placing her hand on your leg. “You’ve been doing this for a year, I don’t think this has to be the last time…if you’re actually going to let him in this time. But if you’re not, if you’re still not ready, maybe it should be for good.”
Liv stays with you for most of the night, watching reality tv and finishing off the wine she had brought over. You didn’t talk much more about Nico, wanting to get your mind off of the situation for awhile, to let yourself calm down. 
You contemplated reaching out to Nico. From hours after to days after. But you didn’t know what to say and he wasn’t saying anything either. So you didn’t say anything at all, till you were only a couple days away from the NHL Awards and all you could think about was Nico telling you that he wanted you to be there to support him. 
Pulling your phone out you scroll through your contacts, finding the one you were looking for and pressing the call button. 
“Hey, what’s up?”
“Hey, um, if I book a flight to Nashville and a hotel and everything can you bring me with you on Monday?” 
“To the awards?”
“Yeah.”
“No. What the hell? You’ve been fucking with Nico’s feelings for so long and now you’re going to try to come with me instead?”
“No, that’s not what I mean, Jack,” you mumble, tears welling in your eyes. “I just…I want to be there for him, I can’t miss it, Jack, I can’t. I fucked up, I know I’ve been a shitty person to him and I don’t know how I can change that but I need to see him and I need him to know that I care and I don’t want to lose him and-.”
“Okay,” Jack exclaims, cutting you off. “Holy shit, yeah, okay, you can come. Are you okay?”
“I don’t know,” you admit, pulling your knees to your chest, staring across the living room at the dark TV, your reflection looking back at you. “I love him, Jack.”
“But you don’t want to be with him.”
“I do.”
“You need to tell him that then. I’ll text you later, okay?”
“Thank you, Jack.”
“Of course. But you really need to figure this out with him because I can’t handle being in the middle of you two fighting.”
“I will.”
You woke up extra early the morning of the awards. Not on purpose, you had an entire day to get ready. But you were too anxious to stay asleep. So you pulled yourself out of bed and tried to spread out the process of getting ready through the day so you wouldn’t have much time to ruminate on everything alone in the quiet hotel room. 
Finally you’re heading down the elevator after what felt like the longest day of your life to meet Jack out front on the way to the arena. 
“You look good,” Jack tells you as you pull your seatbelt on, adjusting your dress. 
“Thanks,” you whisper, your mind so preoccupied with Nico that you were barely registering anything that was happening around you. 
When you get to the venue your stomach is churning with so much anxiety you begin to worry you might throw up. “I don’t know what to say to him,” you admit as you walk next to him. 
“Sorry might be a good start.”
“Yeah,” you whisper, more to yourself than to anyone else. You force a few deep breaths into your lungs as you follow Jack, till you’re standing just a few feet away from Nico. When your eyes meet you can visibly see the confusion flash across his face, eyes darting between you and Jack. 
“What?” Nico begins, Jack stepping back as he says it. 
“I’m not getting in the middle of this,” Jack says, hurrying off in the other direction to leave you alone with Nico. 
“I’m sorry,” you say, voice shaky. “I’m so sorry, Nico. I shouldn’t have pushed you away so much. And maybe this is too little, too late, I don’t know, but I want to be here for you. You can tell me to go, I understand if you don’t want me here.”
“Of course I want you here,” Nico tells you, reaching over and taking your hand, tugging you closer. “I just can’t keep doing this. I want to be with you, I want this to be real and if not-.”
“I want that too,” you whisper, shaky fingers clutching at Nico’s arms. 
“What? Why? Why now?” Nico asks, shaking his head in disbelief. 
“Because I realized how stupid I’ve been. I was scared, I was holding onto this idea that I needed to figure something out before I let myself get into a relationship,” you tell him, trying so hard to come up with words that would explain everything, make everything okay. “I was waiting for something, some revelation or something, but I don’t even know what I was waiting for because I don’t want anything else, I just want to be with you and I’m sorry that I didn’t just accept that earlier. I shouldn’t have made you wait like this.”
Nico nods as he listens to your rambling explanation, watching your eyes welling with tears. When you finish talking Nico pulls you into him, pressing his lips to the top of your head. “I would have waited as long as you needed.”
Sniffling you pull back, wiping away the tears from your eyes before they could roll onto your cheeks. “Sorry, I shouldn’t be crying like this,” you say with nervous laugh. “I, um, I don’t know what to do now…we’re here to celebrate you, how…where…what happens now?”
Nico chuckles quietly, leaning down and pressing his lips to yours gently. “Just stay with me, you don’t need to worry about anything else.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” you say, taking Nico’s hand in yours, moving to his side. “I love you,” you whisper. 
Nico glances down at you, his lips curling into a smile. “I love you too.”
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romana-after-dark · 10 months
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Finish the Job
Yandere!Jake Lockley x GN!reader
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Summary: After months living in a room with only Jake, Steven and Marc as company, you can't say you aren't content most of the time. Sometimes, however you make a little trouble and Jake reminds you that he is the only one who can keep you safe.
CONTENT WARNINGS: Yandere!Jake. Reader is kidnapped. Implied/referenced rape (reader 'never said no' according to jake, but rather just gave in after an unclosed amount of time bc they were lonely/manipulated. The circumstances of this are v vague but remember, if you feel like you have to, its not consent.) Jake Lockley typical violence. Referenced past abuse.
A/N: I began writing this fem reader, as most of my fics are since I am fem, but I realized there was no reason this couldn't be gender neutral. So, that's what it is. If I missed changing anything that makes it seem like reader is fem presenting, lmk and I'll edit it but I looked through this several times.
*************************
You couldn’t say the bed was uncomfortable. You couldn’t say the room was bland or boring. You couldn’t say you had nothing to do. It was a great room, actually. If you were being honest, you loved it here…
The problem was you couldn’t leave. When the man had taken you, it took a while to figure out what was going on with him; it was Steven that explained it, the DID. Honestly, maybe the mental disorder should have scared you more, but you were well versed in different disorders so it wasn’t something that phased you, rather than just made it a challenge to navigate your situation. You were given book after book after book to read, to entertain you when outside of Marc Steven and Jake’s company; it didn't matter how many you went through, you just had them. If you were feeling brave, you made requests but honestly after the boredom of the first month while you were still fighting it, you took what you could get. You were even given a laptop, although it couldn’t possibly connect to the internet, but you were writing. They didn’t even make you show them what you wrote, but Steven would often sit on the bed while you read to him your poems or short stories. You were saving your novel for when it’s finished.
Some days were better than others. 
Some days you and Steven talked for hours.
Some days you and Marc marathonned Star Wars.
Some days Jake held you so warm and so tightly you forgot they kidnapped you.
Today was not one of those days.
You were angry, you were upset, you missed your friends and you missed the outside, you wanted fresh air and you didn’t want to spread your legs for a man that took you away from everything you knew and wanted. 
“Why are you giving me so much fucking attitude today?!” Jake shouts at you, pacing the floor of your room so aggressively he had your throw rug all twisted up.
You were sat up on your bed, shouting back. “You KIDNAPPED ME, you HURT ME you RAPE ME-”
“CALLATE!” He screamed, storming towards you so fast you flinch and scramble back to the wall. “You know I don’t like when you call it that!”
A sardonic laugh. “What? Rape?”
“I never forced you! I never held you down! I never got you too drunk or high to resist-”
“YOU TOOK ME AWAY FROM EVERYTHING AND EVERYONE, WHAT OTHER OPTION DID I HAVE!”
His face is suddenly right up to yours, so close your nose brushed his briefly as he speaks in a dark, quiet voice. “I never heard you say no, mi vida”
He was right. You hadn’t. But they had worn you down, twisted your mind so much that eventually you just began… giving in.
He continued talking, his voice rumbling with the low octive “I only hurt you in the beginning, carino. Just until you began to listen. You needed it, didn’t you? Someone to take you away from everything, take care of you, feed you. Baby, we adore you, and it hurts us when you fight like this.”
Your eyes wheeled up with tears at his words. It’s true, you had become so dependent on them… you weren’t sure you could even shower alone anymore. You’d be lucky if you remembered how to toast bread. Sickeningly, a part of you liked it. You liked he cared for, pampered, adored, and fuck, worshiped. You had time to write, time to listen to music and podcasts. If you need to look up something for a book or research something from a podcast that interested you, you just asked, and the boys would monitor you. You didn’t really need anything except some goddamn freedom. What was that they said in The Handmaid’s Tale? There’s freedom too, and freedom from… They offered you freedom from, and made that clear.
“The world is dangerous, precioso. You know that as well as I do… perhaps better.” With a cocked eyebrow, Jake referenced your past trauma’s, forcing the tears to spill over. “You are too precious, too perfect to be put at risk again. Your family didn’t protect you, but I will.”
Still, you are ever-defiant, shaking your head. “N-no… you aren’t protecting me. You’re hurting me…” but even then, you couldn’t manage much conviction. You hadn’t so much as burned your tongue since Steven, Marc, and Jake took you, and he was right… the rest was just discipline. 
Jake frowned, but simple stood up. He went over to your desk, taking out a Glee notepad he’d found on ebay for you and a pen, tossing them in your direction.
“Write them down, all the names.”
You look at him confused. “W-what names?”
He stalked forward, once again close to you.
“Give me the full name of anyone who has ever hurt you or touched you without your consent.” His gaze was focused, intense. You knew he was on a mission when he looked at you like that.
“I don’t… I don’t know all their full names…”
“If you have workplace addresses, any identifying information that’s helpful. I promise you, I’ll take whatever you give me and I will find them. Every single person who has ever caused you pain.”
“What are you going to do?” You didn’t really need to ask, but you did anyway.
“You and I both know. Now write.”
The list was long, longer than any one person’s list should be. A few, you only remembered their first name so you wrote down what you knew… Jake had his ways. Still, you had some cheek in you, and when Jake looked at the paper, he frowned.
“What the fuck is this.” He smacked the paper with his hand. After the list of people who had violated or harmed you before you came here, were three names Jake recognized right away.
Jake Lockley
Steven Grant
Marc Spector
“You told me to write the names of anyone who hurt me or touched me without-” SMACK! Your head flung to the side from the backhand, and when your turned back to face him, his hand gripped your throat.
“You think this is funny, carino?” His face pressed against yours. “How do you think Marc would feel if he saw his name on that list?”
Your lip quivered at that… you didn’t want Marc to see. Marc was special to you, and Jake knew it; he often exploited your relationship with his alter for his own benefit.
“I’m sorry” You cried, apologetic.
His grip on you loosened, and he looked back at you with sympathetic eyes. Letting go, he tore the bottom three names off the paper and tucked the offenders into his pocket. “I know you are, amor. Now, you sit here pretty, and don’t worry about a damn thing for the rest of your life, si?”
It took about a month. He never left you for more than one day at a time, but he always made sure you had food and were provided for, even giving you access to the bathroom. You didn’t dare even look for an exit; they wouldn’t have left anything vulnerable, and you were on camera, you knew. It would just cause trouble.
It was after one of those such nights where you were alone that he came back to you, still somehow looking put together after being out all night. You knew he hadn’t slept. You awake to his footsteps, heavy boots on your polished hard wood floor. As you stir, a piece of paper is placed on your pillow.
Sitting up you rub your eyes. “Jake, what’s- ” But you are stopped in the middle of your sentence. Every single name is crossed out on the list you had given him. “Does… does what mean they are dead?”
He steps forward, slipping to stand between your knees and bedding over, placing his hands on your thighs. His face was intensely close to yours, dark eyes piercing yours. You lean forward, accepting him in, existing in his precise. Jake did this for you. You were safe here, none of these people could hurt you… but because they had, whether months ago or decades, it didn’t matter. They were dead because they had crossed you, because they had dared to touch what Jake Lockley laid claim to. Jake, Marc and Steven… they were where you belonged.
 “Jake Lockley finishes the job.”
**************
@my-secret-shame-but-fanfiction @howaboutcastiel @the-fox-den @fandxmslxt69
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woah-uhuh-uhuh-uhuh · 6 months
Text
haptic nerve blocking easter eggs
idk if these are obvious or not but I want to point them out so here you go!!! dont mind the self indulgence djsflkds
(also to everyone who rbed and or left nice tags. I love you. ;_; im going to happiness cry im in genuine SHOCK from the attention that it got in 1 night what the fuck literally what the absolute FUCK im going to explode. aaawuwuhfhfdh /pos ;____; )
SQUIP speech bubbles are based on 「Japanese quotation marks」 when I could finagle it
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2. Michael's glasses, eyebrow, and pupil hidden in the girl sitting at the front! As well as his hair and headphones in the border.
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On his left headphone, I used R instead of L because A) I flipped the panel after drawing it [as you can see from the alphabet lol] and B) I didn't want to use L and risk it looking like a speech bubble that says "L" lmao.. Later on page 5, I labeled Michael's headphones again hoping to prompt you to go back to this part in page 3 and look for his face OTL
Also as someone pointed out, Jenna and Brooke are in the left part of this panel, plus Rich in front of the alphabet (and in my mind, Jake partially covered by the speech bubble lol). And as many pointed out, you can see Michael's dialogue in the bottom of this panel too.
3. Vague silhouette of Michael's face in the border of page 3
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4. In PE, the biggest yell in the background is "Get him!" implying they're telling Michael to get Jeremy or vice versa (because of course, everyone else can still see Michael).
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(Also: the Michael progression of page 3 is kind of "oh, maybe he's ignoring me because the teacher's teaching?" to "come on dude this isn't funny... but I guess we're opponents and he's trying to score this goal...?" to "okay, everyone's slacking off right now including Jeremy so why isn't he responding, is he dead? Am *I* dead?!"
I imagine the final page is when Jeremy's walking out of school; Michael kind of realizes what's happening and tries to hold Jeremy still so he can't walk away again and so he has to acknowledge him. And throughout, the touches get progressively more personal from a tap on the shoulder, the back, grabbing arms, touching hair, and then a full body hug.)
5. Finally, as a stretch: in the last page, I omitted Jeremy's mouth partly because I couldn't draw a mouth that conveyed this emotion strongly enough (lol), but also as a bit of a reversal of Michael being "muted" by the squip - Jeremy is visually "muted" upon finally being forced to acknowledge him. It's a stretch because Jeremy literally talks in this panel lol (unless he's just thinking, I guess).
OK thats pretty much it bye sdlkfjdsfkdjsf
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Text
A Little Unwell | Jerome Valeska x SA survivor!Fem!Reader
A/N: Another request from @hhh—www, I hope I actually did okay and that you like it! Also I’m sorry for some reason tumblr won’t let me tag you 😭 I, myself, have never been a victim of SA, so I apologize if this is campy or just not great. 😓
Warnings: Mention of past abuse, mention of strongly implied past s*xual assault (not by Jerome), trauma, angst, fluff
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Enough time has passed, or at least you feel it’s enough, for you to not have these moments. These little episodes. You’re still not sure what to call them, you’d probably know if you were still in therapy. When you told your parents what happened, they were quick to ask all the backwards questions you had heard only on television: “What were you wearing?” “Did you fight back?” “Were you drinking?” The police asked the very same questions and you just…couldn’t wrap your head around why this was happening. They were asking the wrong. Fucking. Questions. After the ninth… no, tenth time they asked you to repeat your story, some kind of switch flipped. You suddenly just started sobbing and screaming. You tried to leave the interrogation room and when they tried to calm you down you fought them. You fought them so hard, almost as if they were your assailants.
After that, it was off to Arkham, your parents certainly couldn’t keep you, you were obviously a danger to yourself and others! What if you tried to kill your father in his sleep in some fit of psychotic rage or attacked your mother like you did those poor policemen who were just doing their jobs?! You’re honestly still not sure why they did it, if anything you thought they would keep you around since you’re their maid and personal punching bag, but you supposed they had their own bullshit reasons. Either way, you were just happy to be away from them.
Yet…sometimes you almost missed the familiarity of what was your home, late at night when it was lights out and everyone was asleep. Or supposed to be. A week or two after your arrival, the voice of a boy would speak to you from the rusty vent in the corner of the room; Always after midnight, after the halls were silent, and the footsteps of guards patrolling the floors were long gone. At first you were angry. Why did it have to be a boy?! It scared you and annoyed you at the same time. Like those stupid dreams where all you saw were hands, desperately grasping at you. However as you eventually started to talk back to it, to him, you became more comfortable. He even made you laugh a few times, it was almost enough to make you actually want to go to the recreation room during the day. And so one day, you actually did.
You had told your therapist and they were very proud of the progress you had made, but they would be making sure a guard kept an eye on you just in case. Upon walking in, there was a moment where you felt like you couldn’t do it, you were sure everyone could smell your fear as soon as you stepped through the gate and warm tears began to prick at your eyes. Then, who should you lock eyes with but a boy with coppery red hair and piercing hazel eyes. Somehow you immediately knew that was the voice that kept you company all those nights. That was Jerome. He smiled at you and you did the same as you walked to where he was sitting, seemingly on cue. The exchange vaguely reminded you of the scene in Cinderella where Prince Charming saw the titular princess across the ballroom and was suddenly unaware of all the other women at the ball. Just as he stood to properly introduce himself to you, another voice, not nearly as nice as his, bellowed from across the room.
“GREETINGS, I AM ZAARDON, THE SOUL REAPER!”
A man, short and a bit overweight, announced himself before continuing on a rant that you have trouble recalling now, not that it mattered; He dropped dead mere moments into his rant and, as if the situation couldn’t get any more bizarre, a blue fog emitted from his mouth.
Next thing you know, you’re in a mansion and apparently apart of a gang. Which has lead you to this predicament.
Taking a shower at Arkham was easy: a female guard was always there to watch you while you bathed and occasionally made small talk with you to ease the awkwardness of the situation. Some would have thought it creepy but you found it comforting. Now, however, there are no female guards. Sure, there’s Tabitha and Barbara who have been nothing but kind to you but you weren’t about to ask them to monitor you while you bathed as if you were a child in a pool.
You briefly wondered if you could just go one more night without a shower or just take one in the morning. However, as you ran your hands through your (unfortunately oily) hair, it became very clear that you couldn’t wait another night.
You turned on the water faucet and gathered your toiletries from the counter when you noticed that you forgot the body wash you had previously purchased with Theo’s money in your room. With an internal groan, you begin to trudge back to your room, and there’s Jerome walking down the hall in his pajamas. Gosh, he must’ve thought you looked terrible.
“Hey, Gorgeous, whatcha doin’ up so late?” You blushed just slightly as he stopped to talk to you.
“Would you believe I’ve been trying to get a shower?” A tired chuckle escaped your lips.
Jerome furrowed his brows.
“What do you mean trying, is the faucet broken or something?”
“No”, you swallowed a lump in your throat,” I’m just nervous to use it…is all.” You felt embarrassed all of the sudden, he knew everything about the reason you had come to Arkham, but you hadn’t really told him about how badly the ordeal had affected you.
“Oh c’mon there’s nothing to worry about, I’ll sit on the floor and talk to you if it’ll make ya feel better!”
You were about to tell him that wasn’t funny when you saw that he had pulled a small sleep mask from his pocket. Hm. Okay…you could maybe work with that.
“Swear on my life I won’t peek!” He held up his hand as if swearing in court. You smiled.
“Okay…but ”, you said wearily,”…your…”
Jerome waited a few seconds before piping up.
“What is it?”
“Well what if you’re pajamas get wet?” Jerome laughed before wrapping an arm around you.
“I’ll go grab a raincoat, in the meantime, why don’t you go ahead and get in so that you don’t have to feel weird about getting undressed with me in the room.”
And so, you did. Just as you finished conditioning your hair, you reached for your body wash and realized you had somehow managed to again forget the very thing you left the bathroom for.
A knock at the door made you jump, which led to you almost slipping and falling on your ass.
“J-Jerome?”
“Is it okay if I come in?”
You paused for a moment before replying.
“Yeah…go ahead.”
The click of the door opening and closing told you Jerome was now in the bathroom with you. You looked down at your hands absentmindedly. They were trembling, you were trembling. You took a deep breath in and exhaled slowly.
“Oh, hey!”
You gasped, and then mentally chastised yourself.
“What..?”
You turned and saw that your body wash was being held out to you by Jerome, who was in fact wearing a rain coat judging by the yellow vinyl surrounding his wrist.
“This was on the floor in the hallway, I had a hunch it might be yours,” said Jerome in an uncharacteristically quiet voice.
You smiled softly.
“Yeah, it is, thanks…”
You went back to the task at hand while Jerome chatted with you about whatever came to mind. At one point it was what colors the two of you liked best. Then it was favorite foods and animals. Then finally you were done. Jerome was kind enough to hand you your towels and was holding your pajamas when you stepped out.
True to his word, he was wearing the sleep mask and a yellow raincoat. It made you laugh as you got dressed.
“Okay, you can take the mask off!”
Jerome eagerly did so, rubbing his eyes as he stood.
“See, told ya it would be fine!” He said with a grin.
“Okay, yes, you did…” you said grinning back and laughing a bit, “thank you, by the way.”
“Hey, don’t mention it! Now come on let’s get you to bed.”
As Jerome walked you down the hall to your room, you smiled.
You both stopped at the door to your room. He shuffled almost nervously before clearing his throat.
“Well, Sweetdreams!” Jerome said hastily. Before he could get too far away though, you hugged him.
For a second, you thought you had made him uncomfortable but then he gently wrapped his arms around you. It was the first time you had hugged someone since it happened. And the fact that you had said hug with Jerome couldn’t have made you any happier.
That night, there were no desperate hands grasping and lunging at you in your dreams. There was no flashback to the event that made you feel so broken and damaged. There was just the feeling of the hug, keeping you safe, and reminding you that your going to be okay.
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antiendovents · 16 days
Note
hey! so tumblr eated the last one so i hope this one works (hopefully i got everything, memory is hard) also for some context: the only people fronting at this time was a persecutor (me) and a social protector, both of us don't have empathy and don't stand for the system being pushed around
anyways i posted about how weird it is whenever endos say traumatized people hold privilege over them and an endo came into my replies saying that i'm the reason their friend tried to kill themselves and people like ME is the reason people have issues.
mind you i am nothing but respectful in online discussions (and keep interacting with endos to a fucking MINIMUM!!) unless someone shows me disrespect first, then i am done with them (but never am toxic yk?) so i haven't done jack shit to make their friend wanna kts
but they came into my reply section all talking about how people who are anti endo are so evil and toxic and cause people to end themselves (mind you i mentioned how endos send me gore rape threats and etc and they did not reply to that)
then when i didn't bite and kept pointing out how A. no one was talking about that B. They are trauma dumping and C. they can't guilt trip me they started calling me a kid and an edgelord and calling me names and implying i was just to stupid to see that "[im] the problem". and that they weren't trauma dumping they were explaining nuance (which they lacked so badly. doubt they know the definition of the word.)
they then compared me to ben shapiro and told us they weren't there to have a normal conversation and atp i was done with them.
went to their page to block them and they had posts about hating how people block tags/other people cuz it makes 'people not receptive to other viewpoints' and shit and then they vague posted us. like its not lacking nuance or not liking other viewpoints, its the fact that you're a dick. you don't understand how to properly have a conversation with other people, respect THEIR viewpoints or understand nuance that doesn't fit your beliefs and think everyone should just bend to your will. not wanting people to block people isn't being smart its being chronically online and assuming superiority over everyone who disagrees with you. i have never seen someone so dense ironically talking about other people who disagree being dense. like maybe people just don't fucking agree with you and don't wanna hear your bs.
sorry if none of this made sense!
oh, jeez that's.. I hate how endos try guilt trip us, like no I'm not going to be pro endos just because your friend was bullied or harassed ((obviously I don't think they deserved that, but I'm not going to give up my beliefs and start feeding into misinformation just because that happened)). It's good that you blocked them, because they sound like a fucking dickhead tbh. You are not the problem, they are, and it's so frustrating that they can't see that. Like fuck off with your BS, no one cares about you or your endos shit (not directed at you anon)
Also don't worry, this makes sense ^^
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fanby-fckry · 28 days
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It’s not Wednesday, but UH3 brainrot has once again consumed me.
I’m supposed to be catching up on Ace Alastor Week, and instead I’m writing ahead in the Season 1 fic.
Sneak peek below, heed the tags.
Content Warning: self harm*, blood, references to canon-typical violence, implied/referenced child abuse, inconsistent terminology regarding sex and gender**
*Whether or not this is self harm could probably be up for debate, but I, personally, consider it to be a form of self harm. Please put your own health and safety first; read with caution of feel free to keep scrolling. Stay safe, readers.
**Alastor sometimes conflates sex and gender because he just doesn’t think about or care what people have in their pants. He grew up in a time where the two were considered interchangeable; while he knows neither sex nor gender are static/that not everyone matches up with the gender they were assigned and will call a trans person by their chosen name/pronouns, gender them correctly, and treat them exactly like he’d treat anyone else, he still gets the terms a little mixed up from time to time. He wouldn’t gatekeep someone based on their transition status, because the physical state of someone else’s body isn’t his concern unless he’s actively in the process of killing them. And even then, he’s not focused on sex characteristics of any kind.
“And all this time, I thought it was mere population control!” Alastor ranted ino the private connection. He was pacing across his meticulously sound-proofed hotel room while his shadow flew from wall to wall.
“Well,” Lucifer began, but Alastor wasn’t done speaking and didn’t care for being interrupted.
“Ha!” Alastor laughed, threading a hand through his own hair. “Can you blame me?” he asked.
A rhetorical question, but Lucifer gave his best attempt at answering. “It is p-”
“They’ve got no style, no finesse! And barely any skill!” Alastor’s shadow curled its claws into fists, and Alastor removed his hand from his hair to keep himself from pulling it or digging his claws into his scalp as he felt the urge to do the same.
“Year after year, decade after decade, it’s nothing but artless, soulless slaughter!” Alastor laughed again, manic, hysterical, and lacking any and all joy. “Is it any wonder I assumed it was simply a mindless masacre?”
“Alastor-”
“Entertainment…” Alastor dug his claws into the inside of his palm, attempting to ground himself with the pain.
“If killing Sinners for one’s own entertainment is so damned Holy, then why is he in Heaven while I’m down here?” Alastor demanded, static rising in his voice. “Why, one could argue that he’s worse than I am!”
“He’s certainly killed more Sinners than I have by now, considering how long the Exterminations have been in effect.” Hell’s history books were patchy at best, and Lucifer only talked about his – and by extension, Hell’s – past in vague, non-specific terms, often while drunk or sentimental. Or both.
Alastor’s claws began to draw blood. “And from the combination of what Charlie and Lilith and you have all told me, he’s a vulgar, disrespectful chauvinist!”
The pain no longer felt like an anchor. It was fuel on the fire that was the rage burning within him, the wrath he felt at the injustice of it all.
“My mother raised me to be a gentleman,” Alastor said. “Any disrespect I show is based on a woman's actions, not her sex. But Adam expected Lilith to bend to his whims simply on the basis of her gender! He talked down to Charlie, likely on the same logic!”
“And yes, I kill because I enjoy it, but I’m selective with my victims! I enact vengeance on behalf of the weak and vulnerable! In life, I corrected the injustices of a corrupt system, and in death I punish those already Damned by their sins!”
Blood was seeping through Alastor’s knuckles. He pushed his claws deeper, sinking them into the meat of his palms.
“So why…?” There were bloodstains on the carpet. Niffty would be quite upset if she learned that the blood was Alastor’s rather than one of his meals’.
“Why?” Alastor repeated, barely audible above his own feedback. His cheeks were wet. He must have gotten blood on them at some point.
Everything was silent for a moment, save for the static Alastor couldn’t reign in.
Then, Lucifer spoke. “It’s complicated,” he said, quietly.
Alastor made an animalistic sound deep in the back of his throat, something between a growl and a whimper. But he let the Devil speak.
“I don’t know the particulars, but murder and vengeance are both Damnable sins.”
“Then why isn’t he Damned,” Alastor said through gritted teeth. “Why hasn’t Adam Fallen?”
Lucifer sighed. “Nepotism?”
Alastor laughed. “Oh, that’s rich coming from you!”
“What the fuck do you mean by that?” Lucifer asked, his volume increasing. “My Father kicked me out of Heaven for falling in love with Lilith and for daring to dream of a world where humanity wasn’t bound by eternal ignorance.”
“And he gave you a kingdom!” Alastor swung his arms, flinging blood across the room with the sheer force of the movement. “He let you and Lilith elope when he could’ve smited you both! Do you think he’d give the same courtesy to his other angelic children, or do the rumors of you being his favorite son hold true, hm, Lightbringer?”
The radio began to smoke and glow with a faint golden light.
“Get that name out of your fucking mouth, Alastor.”
Alastor ignored him, ignored the projections of his power.
“My father never would’ve shown me such benevolence if I’d disobeyed him the way you did yours.” Alastor moved to inspect the bloodstains on the walls. “And the best thing he ever gave me was a lesson in the inherent cruelty of man.”
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stardancerluv · 3 months
Text
The Past Follows Like Your Shadow
Part 3
Summary: The pain still lingers.
Notes/Warning: Implied dom!Gator, dated/sexist views of marriage…sex.
Bullying behavior, hitting someone…
Coming soon…Gator Tillman smut
❤️s, reblogs, feedback are all welcome! Wanna be tagged please ask!
Kurrrrplop!
You distantly saw something fall onto your friend’s plate before a scream ripped from him.
Ahhhhh!!!
“Gator? What’s the…?“ Your voice trailed off as you watched him fall and scramble from the picnic bench you both shared.
Moving quickly he was getting up and dusting himself.
“Are you ok?” You whispered.
Nodding he dusted himself off. You quickly noticed him rub the tears that had flooded his eyes when he fell with the back of his hand, luckily before the three goons that always gave the two of you trouble ambled over. Inwardly, you groaned.
“You are such a wuss Gator, they seriously should have scaredy-cat;” The other two chuckled. “You are no gator if a frog scares you.” Said the one who always did the talking.
Gator stepped forward. “I am not wus.”
“You are and you know it.” The older practically brushed against him as he also stepped closer.
Gator you noticed didn’t move away.
You blinked and the taller kid’s yelp startled you. That’s when you realized Gator had punched him in the nose.
“Hey now what’s going on here?” The much larger figured cast a shadow over all of you. It was Roy, Gator’s father.
“Nothing.” You managed to get out.
“Oh really?” His eyes darted to you.
You nodded and swallowed, the man terrified you. You saw one of his hands formed a fist.
The bully spoke up. “Yes, we were just horsing around Mr. Tillman.”
His eyes narrowed on him as he took a hand away from his nose that had become bloodier. The boy looked as if he shrank.
Never had you been relieved that everyone feared Gator’s father.
Then he turned to his son. “Gator?”
Startled awake you fell off your sofa with a thud.
Blinking, you looked around confused. The lights were on. Even the ac gently blew. Seeing Gator, had derailed you. Coming home, you tore through the boxes. You organized things in a blur to distract yourself. Before you knew it, it had been too late to get on the phone to settle anything with your Great Aunt’s bill.
Tiring yourself out, you had thought a short nap would help. You felt like you were all over the place, you couldn’t ground yourself with one emotion. You had not expected seeing gator would do that.
There was another knock at the door. This one vaguely sounded more urgent. It was that, that had woke you up from your dream of the past. But who could it be. Her neighbor had already brought over far too much food.
You looked down at yourself and straightened your shorts and tank top. Mabel, would just have to deal with your attire. You swore these old women, your aunt included had an endless array of moomoos to wear. She most likely going to invite you over for dinner like she had last night.
It had grown stuffy while going through her belongings before you had decided to take a nap. You had not intended to take such a long one. It was now dark out.
Fixing your messy ponytail you reached for the knob on heavy door. It barely budged. Sighing, you ended up needing both hands, it finally creaked open.
You gasped. “Gator?” You looked around then him up and down. “What are you doing here?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “I had to make sure they put on your electricity. Are you going to let me in?”
You gestured around you. “You, you?”
He nodded. “Who else?”
“Well, I was going to get it taken care of but, got distracted.” Inwardly you sighed. Grimacing, you nodded. “Sure but the place is a mess but sure.”
You didn’t know what to say, as he walked past you. The whiff from his cologne was distinctly stronger, you wondered idly if he had applied more before dropping by.
“How did you know?”
He turned on his heel to face you with lopsided smile you’d never forget as much as you tried to forget him. “Had my suspicions, decided to follow my hunch.”
You glanced down before looking back at him. “Well, thank you.”
He nodded. “Like I said Tulip let me help you.”
“That was for my car.” Your tone had an edge.
You had not meant to be mean, well actually you don’t know how you felt. You still had not been prepared to see him. You had hoped to avoid him all together.
“Is there any heavy lifting that needs to be done?”
He broke the silence, shedding his sheriff’s jacket. You bit your bottom lip as you watched his trim body move under his thin t-shirt. It looked even better under the leather harness.
Turning, he ran a hand over the boxes. “What can I help you with first?”
“What about Mary Sue?”
All you could see was that little pixie, Mary Sue the good little girl at all the Sunday church picnics. Who everyone loved.
He shrugged. “She’s a good wifey. She knows I work hard.”
You don’t know why, you honestly thought you were strong enough for all this. But his words cut across you like a slap across your face.
Over the last six years bitterness replaced the pain since leaving all of this behind.
“Any kids?”
You didn’t want to get surprised if you ran into them at the market.
“She won’t take my seed.”
He coughed. You watched as the vape once again appeared from out of no where. He had always promised he would be different then his father. He would not be cold and cruel.
But right then, his father could have easily said the same sentence. If there was any liquor in the house you would have made yourself a drink.
“I mean we are having problems. Father, brings us to church to pray on it.” He chewed his bottom lip. “He refuses to let us adopt. We wants to see he if her sister can be of any help.”
“Ah, right. He would do that.”
You nodded, quickly replying. Nothing had changed, you pressed your lips together.
He stepped closer to you. His body heat came off him in waves. You shivered.
You barely caught him sliding his vape away into one of his several pockets but you did feel as one of his hands wrapped around your arm. His thumb idly caressed you. “Relax. Its just me.”
His touch scattered your thoughts. Then you remembered the pain. “I left to get away from you.” Fire grew in the pit of your stomach.
He squeezed your arm. “What happened wasn’t my choice. You never let me explain.”
“Would it have changed anything?”
“I don’t know. I was a kid. We both were.”
“Yeah, but I was the one humiliated. Painted as the town harlot trying to seduce the sheriff’s only son.”
“We both know the truth.”
“Nobody else did. Not even my family.”
He pulled you closer. You didn’t know why you let him. His cologne tickled your nose. Bringing more memories to the surface.
“I never stopped thinking of you.”
It was all you had ever wanted to hear. You melted momentarily at the words. But them it hurt.
He was married and had become the sheriff. While you, you only had your dead great aunt’s house and the childrens’ books you wrote and got published.
You wrenched your arm free.
“I doubt that.” You spat out. His face contorted before it smoothed once again. You couldn’t read his eyes. “Are you upset that she hasn’t been able to carry on the Tillman name by giving you a son?“
He reached out and wrapping an arm around your waist and brought you against him. You struggled.
“Let me go.”
“No, stop. I don’t want to tame you like I would a stallion.”
@delikaitxx
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tbh you are so real for talking about the misogyny targeted to mei & other women in the lmk fandom. in general its like people only value mei as: a: the wingman to some basic mlm ship or b: macaque 2.0. its honestly crazy how so many male side characters overshadow her in the fanbase despite not even having a FRACTION of her screen time. idk chat i feel like the reason people dont care about mei but care about some random male side/background character is less because they're inherently more likeable but because some of you view women as inherently less likable. and everyone is always like "mei is so girlboss pussy cunt slay shes the only reason theyre still alive because she keeps them safe from their silly boy shennanigans shes their ultimate wingman shes so badass shes their lesbian best friend i totally paid attention to her when i watched this show LOL" and even ignoring the obvious misogyny here (ie. how people reduce her to being the male characters babysitter) its like... okay... i know mei is cool & badass already... could you name literally ANY other character trait she has. like people just value her as being "the braincell" who can get red son and mk together or something stupid and its like are we having fun still is this still fun. literally every day i go into the mei tag its like "look at mei shes red sons wifey and shes vaguely in the background of this drawing of red son and mk staring into each others eyes #trafficlighttrio am i right oh look shes macaques niece now this post is about ao lie why is it in the mei tag"
and thats literally JUST talking about mei and it doesnt even begin to cover the other female characters. chang'e constantly gets reduced to being red sons aunt/mom/big sister despite them like. not having any actual interactions in the show. lady bone demon constantly gets overshadowed by her minion who has like 2 seconds of screen time, or she gets made into a cartoonishly abusive madwoman who people call lady bitch demon. just in general people act like shes a horrible person for like. being a villain. liks yeah the trying to destroy everything was bad but also she was an antagonist and thats what antagonists do LOL. spider queen gets completely ignored. princess iron fan gets made into a cartoonishly abusive mother so that way red son can have a poor angsty backstory and some male character (usually nezha, macaque, swk) can take care of him.
(also theres just a great deal of ethnocentrism in the lmk fanbase? like im white so take what İ say here with a grain of salt but so many people will misconstrue aspects of chinese culture for their own personal hcs. people will say male characters are transfem or nonbinary while completely ignoring the time period/culture their from where thats the norm. like yippee youve implied that an east asian man is feminine/emasculine because he has long hair. how do you not see the negative connotations with this. people also turn pif (& lbd to an extent) into a dragon lady which obviously has negative racial connotations lol.)
anyway this is where my unhinged rambling ends have a good day have a good night İ had more to say here but İ reached the text limit. İ dont see a lot of people talk about the misogyny thats prevalent in the lmk fanbase so İm glad youre pointing it out lol.
Yeah, I totally hear you. The lmk fandom has plenty of issues with misogyny and, like you said, ethnocentrism. It's definitely something worth having a discussion about, along with these issues in fandom as a whole.
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yin-shimo · 4 months
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Collective (and final) Post
- because I'll be deleting the previous posts and hoping this singular one is good enough for everyone.
Let's get the biggest issue out of the way,
Yes, I am a proshipper and no i don't care how you feel about it. As always, please feel free to block me now and not bother to read the rest, its the reason i was open about being one in the first place.
I never cared i was banned from yoonie's server. i never talked in it and i wasn't there to make friends. I was in there solely to see if they said anything about me and yeah they did. You can go crazy and call me a stalker for that too, I get it. What they said is irrelevant (such as my cc, i don't know why its made out to seem like im upset abt that..) to why im upset, i just disliked them viewing my account like stalkers even tho none followed or liked me. Thats it. I would have never called out names etc if yoonnie hadnt vague posted me.
secondly, for all the csa and sa mentions and me supposedly posting weird ships or whatever. Please, please actually scroll through my account and show me where i have EVER talked about any ships (aside from wx), posted images abt the topic, or anything similar.
while youre at it, please show me where it was that i failed to tag such 'problematic' nsfw posts. you do know i only tag them with #xian: spice, my oc tags and occasionally #simspice, right? My pinned says im an 18+ blog, my description says 18+ only, how many warnings are expected of me?
next, where and when did i ever interact with anyone, especially from that clique, that made them so uncomfortable? it couldnt be in yoonie's server. i didnt talk about my self or interests and no one ever posted in the nsfw channel of my own server when it existed. so again, it couldnt be there either. I dont even interact with minors on discord or tumblr!
please, please understand that i KNOW there are many many topics people arent comfortable with (i have some too) and theyre 100% valid! especially to block/unfollow me for! Aside from one recent render, I have never posted anything worth a CW (and the render is properly tagged with #cw: implied abuse) and if i do again, it will always have the proper CW. I am not trying to trigger anyone.
If somehow, my pfp, description, etc, is enough to trigger you, please please just stay away from my account for your own sake. and the yarichin argument is weak and only proves the people so uncomfortable and 'triggered' by me apparently still look at my page and saw my current pfp lol
the only post that will be left is the ask i answered showing how harmful corona 'jokes' are towards all asians whether theyre chinese or not
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