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#no matter how you spin it it's still abuse and it's still trauma
inkskinned · 2 days
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it's because the bear wouldn't kill me just for being a woman. the bear doesn't kill me for fun. the bear can be shouted at, and will leave me alone. the bear won't make a tiktok complaining about how i crossed to the other side of the path when i saw him coming. if a bear kills me, it's just being a bear: it cannot understand logic. it is not acting out of malice - just fear or hunger.
bell hooks once wrote about how porches might be the only outside space left for women - it is still the domain of the house while it is also outside-but-safe. when i am in the woods, i am in the bear's home, and he has a right to defend his property. outside spaces - anywhere at night, certain parks in the day - those are often implicitly "owned" by men. i cannot explain the feeling of knowing when you have entered a man's "territory." you walk into a place and just know you are in their space. you get a sick sense - you're in danger.
the other day a group of about 8 men were fooling around in the woods while i walked my dog. i had to go around, take the extra 3 miles just to avoid them. it's okay, i like walking. this wasn't even a #feminism moment. it was just a tuesday.
what a plain and easy question. only one of the situations is seen as a tragic accident. i would rather die and have a park bench erected in my honor rather than have my family questioned about why they let me, an adult, walk in the woods in the first place when i should really be at home in the kitchen.
i worked in retail and food service. i have had women say and do absolutely heinous and abusive things to me - not because i was a woman, but because i was there, and they were angry. the way men treated me when angry was different - it was because i was a woman. you can always feel the difference, how there's an undertone of i'd hurt you worse if i could get away with it. i keep seeing people try to cite stupid statistics. why is there always a strange rage whenever women agree on things? like men can argue their way out of our lived experiences? it isn't a buzzfeed quiz - which of these traumas are you? 10 super cute ways not to fear strange men.
i have actually (thrice!) seen a bear in the wild, by the way. i died each time, obviously, and am a ghost writing to you. (it was scary but completely and utterly fine). the second encounter was a black bear with her cub. she looked at me like - do we have to do this or are we good? my dog was busy sniffing a bush, completely nonreactive. i felt like i was in a sitcom: feminist poet reacts - does she actually mean she'd choose the bear? my only thought was - she's so beautiful. her paws are massive.
and there's a part of me that feels the rage spinning out in a corner. why do we have to come up with quippy little comments in order to teach men empathy. would you rather die in a car accident or due to a mugging? and would you rather your house burn down due to an electrical fire or due to arson? gee willikers - it's almost like we're human people, and want to risk the accident versus the intention.
i would rather my last thought be oh shit, a bear rather than i'm a person too. why doesn't that matter? why don't you care?
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jessamine-rose · 1 day
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⋆˚♱ଘ Red Sky at Night, Shepherd’s Delight ଓ♱˚⋆
*slides in with more Church AU ideas* May I interest y’all in Priest! Arlecchino x Devotee! Darling?? Do enjoy this sweet story ໒꒰ྀི´ ˘ ` ꒱ྀིა
Tw:: yandere, manipulation, psychological trauma, stalking, blood, violence, death, religious abuse, self-flagellation, harassment, MDNI, pls take note of these warnings
Note:: FICTIONAL depictions of religion
♡ 3.8k words under the cut ♡
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♡ As with most nations, the Church is the highest authority in Fontaine. This is especially true for the Court of Fontaine, a city that boasts a strong faith in God. However, it is this same faith which has been corrupted by the Church to spin a web of lies, prejudices, and hypocrisies. Still, there is hope for that city, as provided by its head priest Arlecchino.
♡ Not much can be said about her previous life. In the past, she was known as Peruere, a quiet orphan from the House of the Hearth. Raised by her predecessor Crucabena, Peruere followed in her footsteps and claimed to have felt a calling to priesthood. There was a beauty to it, the idea of a child giving back to the Church by bringing its followers closer to salvation. At least, that is how the public perceived her vocation.
♡ In truth, Peruere’s motivations were different. Shortly after her ordination, Crucabena disappeared under mysterious circumstances and her authority was passed on to Arlecchino. Immediately afterwards, she began to reform the Church and the House of the Hearth. She challenged the Church’s falsehoods, eliminated the other corrupt priests, and preached a more compassionate form of worship.
♡ Despite her efforts, however, scars run deep within the city. The children weren’t the only ones harmed by Crucabena; her influence spanned the entire Court of Fontaine, from religious schools to devout families. In the latter’s case, it can be difficult for Arlecchino to reach out to individuals and correct their beliefs. But some have taken to her like a moth to flame, actively seeking out her enlightenment. One such moth is you.
☾⋆。 ๋
“Excuse me, Father!”
The Church is silent in the wake of mass. Footsteps and voices echo as believers depart to go on with their daily lives. The children are walking through the exit connected to the House of the Hearth, their solemn demeanors giving way to laughter. Only two people remain.
As always, you linger behind Arlecchino, head bowed.
“Ah, ______.” She turns around to face you. “Is something the matter?”
You look the same—shy expression, modest clothing, rosary in hand.
In a quiet voice, you tell her, “I am in need of your guidance. Yesterday, I…can we discuss this in your office? I’ll try to keep it short this time.”
“Ah, of course. Follow me.”
By now, it has become routine for you to approach Arlecchino after weekly mass. She leads you down a hallway and into her private office, her confident gait juxtaposed by your meek footsteps. A few words are whispered to a passing nun—orders to prepare your favorite tea and desserts.
In the meantime, she takes a seat on the sofa and gives you a polite smile.
“Go on. You have my undivided attention.”
☾⋆。 ๋
♡ If Arlecchino’s trauma led to her disillusionment with the Church, then yours brought you “closer” to God. Technically, there is nothing wrong with your devotion—you pray everyday, treat people with compassion, and derive a sense of solace from your religion. The harm lies in your blind faith, your total dependence on Arlecchino’s spiritual guidance.
♡ While you’ve accepted Arlecchino’s stance on religion, you still abide by Crucabena’s doctrine when it comes to your own religious life. You abstain from all vices. You repent for actions which barely count as sins. You are in a constant state of shame, guilt, paranoia, confusion. She can only imagine just how traumatic your meetings with Crucabena were.
♡ Still, you make for enjoyable company. It is common for Arlecchino to see you in the House of the Hearth bearing gifts for the children—and she can tell the difference between performances and your genuine acts of charity. When you aren’t confiding in her, you inquire about her hobbies, her favorite things, her life before priesthood. There is something so pitiful, so precious about your trust in her.
♡ Which is why Arlecchino is quick to notice a shift in your attitude. It begins with you sitting in the middle pews during mass, rather than your usual spot in the front row. During communion, you avoid eye contact and accept the wafer from her with trembling hands. There is a decrease in your private meetings. Fortunately, there is no need for her to investigate; rather, you provide the answer on a silver platter.
♡ Confessions are a wellspring of valuable information. Be it a direct admission or small details, such encounters have aided Arlecchino in punishing those who commit evil under the guise of virtue. Neither is it difficult for her to deduce one’s identity through their voice and mannerisms. So when she recognizes you beyond the screen, she wonders why you opted for the confessional rather than your usual face-to-face confessions with her.
☾⋆。 ๋
“Bless me, father, for I have sinned. My last confession was one week ago.”
That is the first thing you tell her. From the center compartment, Arlecchino can imagine you doing the sign of the cross. The ritualistic gesture lends a short-lived grace to your movements, your hands honed by years of practice.
A pause. “Pardon my insolence but I must know: I am not speaking to Father Arlecchino, am I?”
Oh?
“You are not,” is her swift response, spoken in an altered voice. “And why do you ask? Does your confession concern the head priest?”
What secrets could you possibly be hiding from her?
She hears a hitched breath. “No! I just don’t want her to know. So please, what I’m about to tell you…don’t breathe a word of it to anyone else.”
“But of course. And what do you have to confess, my child?”
There is the sound of beads clicking together—your rosary, an old violet-and-black set designed by Crucabena. Arlecchino owned an identical one up until her death.
“These past years,” you whisper, “I have been consumed with carnal desires.”
She sits up straighter. “Desires?”
“It’s complicated,” you mutter. “There’s this person I’ve known for years, and I’ve always looked up to them as a fellow believer. Yet over time, I’ve been plagued with…impure thoughts of them. They captivate me. Their attention brings me joy and anxiety in equal parts. They haunt my thoughts in debauched fantasies. Yet we aren’t even married, much less lovers.”
Who are they?
A spider has taken up residence in a corner of the ceiling. It sits in the center of a silvery web, waiting for its prey.
She clears her throat. “And what is the matter with that? It is true that many view lust as a sin. But carnal desires are natural and not evil as to warrant eternal damnation.”
Silence. Most likely, you are mulling over what she just said; discernment isn’t your strong suit.
It’s just like you to fret over an ordinary crush. But who is this person that ensnared your heart? Do they know you as well as her?
Arlecchino continues speaking. “Moreover, no human is immune to temptation. From what you told me, it is clear that you have made active efforts to suppress your lust. So is it not possible for you to resist this so-called temptation, if not distance yourself from the object of your desire?”
“But how can I resist temptation when its very source lies in the Church?!”
Even Arlecchino is caught off-guard by your outburst. It is followed by your horrified gasp.
“What do you mean?” she asks.
Your next words are spoken in an even softer voice. “It’s Father Arlecchino. She is the one I desire.”
A fly buzzes through the latticed screen of the confessional. It briefly hovers around Arlecchino before she swats it away.
“Ah, I see. Now I understand.”
“She hasn’t done anything to me!” you add quickly. “I swear, it’s purely one-sided. And that is what distresses me most of all. She is a woman of God, dedicated to the salvation of His flock, yet here I am making a mockery of her righteousness.”
“And what do you see in her?”
“Where do I even begin? She’s kind. I know there are people who speak ill of her, claiming she preaches falsehoods, but I’ve witnessed her compassion with my own eyes. The orphans love her. The Church is warmer, more welcoming under her authority. And…”
The fly has taken a liking to the spiderweb. Spying its prospective prey, the spider begins its crawl towards the edge of the web.
You take a deep breath. “She knows of my religious struggles yet has never given me reason to fear her judgment. She is the one who helped me discern my vocation. She is the one who put a stop to my self-flagellation, even though that penance was assigned by Mother Crucabena. She is the one who has reassured me, time and time again, that I am worthy of God’s love. She…”
That is when you burst into tears.
For the next few minutes, the only sounds in the confessional are your choked sobs and rosary beads. Arlecchino herself remains silent but her thoughts are just as discordant.
Her gaze drifts to her necklace. It is a far cry from Crucabena’s rosary, a long chain from which hangs a silver cross adorned with ornate engravings and crimson jewels. When she presses down on a specific jewel, the pendant separates to reveal a hidden blade.
How long has it been since she struck Crucabena with that false symbol?
“I’ve tried so hard to be good,” you continue between sobs. “All my life, I’ve done my best to resist temptation and abide by the Church’s teachings. So why…? What I feel for Father Arlecchino—it’s disgusting, it’s not normal, it cannot be called love. But I…”
Your voice trails off. In her mind’s eye, Arlecchino sees you kneeling with your head bowed and your rosary looped around your clasped hands. If only she could wipe your tears.
“And I am truly sorry for all my sins,” you sniffle. “Now please, Father, what is my penance? If you tell me to distance myself from Father Arlecchino, then I will do so at once. If anything, I think she’d prefer it; I’ve wasted enough of her time.”
“Hush, my child,” she says sharply. Then, in a gentler tone, she adds, “Give me time to think.”
The fly is caught in the spider’s web. From her seat, Arlecchino watches as the spider bites down on the struggling insect and wraps it in silk, sealing its unfortunate fate.
Well, this was an unexpected answer, but not an unfortunate one.
In truth, she cares little about her vow of chastity. It is but a minor offense compared to those of her fellow priests. As for your attraction towards her, it doesn’t bother her at all. Her own sentiments require further reflection but for now…
“Why not put your desires to the test?”
There is the sound of beads hitting the floor. “Excuse me?”
In a calm voice, she explains, “There is nothing inherently sinful about falling in love with a priest. Rather, the fault should lie in the priest who cannot commit to their vow of chastity. But that, too, can be put into question—after all, nowhere in the religious texts is it explicitly stated that God demanded celibacy from His shepherds. It is for this reason that other denominations allow their priests to marry and procreate.”
“I see,” you mutter. “Though I doubt our Church would permit that anytime soon.”
“Who knows? As for the matter of your penance…like you said, it is impossible to escape the object of your desire. So why don’t you continue your usual interactions with Father Arlecchino? It will enable you to discern whether what you feel for her is truly lust or love. And should you ever confess your feelings to her, she will be the one to instruct you on what to do.”
“Is that all? Surely, there must be another—”
She cuts you off. “That is the only way. It is my belief that you need only desire something with sufficient intensity and God will answer. Or are you doubting my words as a priest?”
Your fearful “no!” puts an end to your confession. Thus, you recite your prayers and leave the confessional. After a while, Arlecchino makes a stealthy exit.
Just as she expected, you are still praying inside the Church. With your dried tears and tightly clasped hands, you make a perfect image of repentance.
Shaking her head, she walks down the hallway and into her office.
The tea table is empty. That will change tomorrow; she already has the perfect choice of desserts in mind. Cakes, tarts, macarons, all of your favorite treats.
The next day, an invitation is delivered to your doorstep. The envelope bears the official seal of the Church of Fontaine.
☾⋆。 ๋
♡ Since then, Arlecchino has treated you differently. In the past, her religious counsel took the form of reassurances, open-ended questions, and reminders that only you can discern your own fate. But now she finds herself giving you more specific lessons and instructions. She invites you to more tea parties and private events in the House of the Hearth. 
♡ She is also more…physical these days. During mass, she puts the communion wafer in your mouth, a gloved thumb brushing against your lip. On your walks to her office, she places her hand on your back, forcing you to match her pace. At one point, she even pulls you aside and tells you to disrobe so she can see if you are wearing your scapular properly. There is a moment of silence when your scars are exposed, followed by the warm sensation of her fingertips tracing your skin.
♡ However, it doesn’t take long for another issue to arise. One mass, Arlecchino notices that a certain individual has moved to the front pews to sit next to you. This continues for weeks, with him speaking to you before and after the service. You’re clearly uncomfortable around him, and it reaches the point that you mention it to Arlecchino during a tea party.
♡ Quietly, you explain that you are being harassed by one of your coworkers. For weeks, he has been bothering you at work, walking you home from mass, showing no signs of accepting your blatant rejections. Even worse, no one is taking your distress seriously due to his popularity within the Court of Fontaine. Normally, Arlecchino would be quick to eliminate him but she decides on another solution which would kill two birds with one stone.
♡ Her suggestion is that you stay in the Church for a few weeks. It is a convenient arrangement on both sides—the children are already familiar with you; the House of the Hearth has no shortage of rooms; and in the worst-case scenario, it can serve as a trial period for nunhood. In the past, Arlecchino did deem your personality fitting for a life of religious service, though you disagreed on the basis that you weren’t “worthy” of such an important role.
♡ It doesn’t take long for you to adjust. The House of the Hearth is quiet, secure, shielded from outside disturbances. The children are friendly to you, and they all agree that you’d fare well as their caretaker. Best of all, Arlecchino has more excuses to spend time with you—barbeque parties, walks along the sea, meetings with the other priests and nuns, nightly conversations in your room. It feels like home.
♡ One day, you are fitted into a nun’s habit. It looks perfect on you, with a few embellishments to suit your style preferences. Arlecchino personally helps you into the outfit, fixing the buttons and smoothing out imaginary creases. The final piece is a cross necklace identical to her own; she casually reveals the hidden blade and claims it is a self-defense mechanism. When you cast your gaze upon your shared reflection in the mirror, a flustered smile adorns your face.
♡ Still, you are undecided on your “true” vocation. Eventually, you decide to return to your job and think it over. Arlecchino personally escorts you to your house and insists that you keep your cross necklace, if only to replace your “missing” rosary. Once the front door is shut, she casts a harsh glare upon the figure across the street. Later, her children are assigned to keep watch over you and your stalker.
♡ For the next few days, all is well. Your daily life resumes. Arlecchino keeps a close eye on you through her children’s reports and her own inspections. After mass, the two of you enjoy another tea party, and you make no mention of your stalker. When the news reaches the city of an upcoming celestial phenomenon, you eagerly accept Arlecchino’s invitation for a viewing party.
♡ The crimson moon rises, bathing the world in a blood-red glow. While the children gaze at the moon, Arlecchino waits for you in front of the orphanage. Strange, punctuality is one of your virtues yet you’re late. Just as she is about to leave for your house, Freminet frantically approaches her and leads her to the Church.
♡ Red. It’s all over you, and not from the moonlight. The first thing Arlecchino sees is you curled up on the floor in a state of shock. In the heart of the Church lies a familiar figure—your stalker, writhing on the floor as blood pools from his chest. Lynette stands over him, ensuring that he won’t escape, while Lyney tries and fails to console you.
♡ All three of her children are wearing their crosses. Yours is on the floor, its blade exposed and tainted with blood. Lyney is the one who explains the situation to Arlecchino: They heard a commotion in the Church and by the time they arrived, you had driven your cross into your stalker’s heart. He had attacked you and paid the price.
♡ Calmly, Arlecchino tells Freminet to bring you to the orphanage. Once you are gone, she walks up to your stalker and stomps on his head, piercing his skull with her stiletto. Lyney and Lynette are told to dispose of the body, clean up the church, then return to the party. The crimson moon serves as a silent witness all throughout.
☾⋆。 ๋
“Father, your face…”
As soon as he sees her, Freminet leaves your room and closes the door behind him.
“Freminet.” Arlecchino wipes the blood off her cheek. “That sinner has been dealt with. You may return to the party.”
“Oh? Okay.” He nods, casting a worried look at your door. As he walks down the hallway, one of his hands comes up to touch his cross pendant.
With that, Arlecchino enters your room.
Even in your change of clothes, your visage is painted crimson by the moonlight. Your body is slumped against the bed, knees on the floor. No sounds leave your lips save for short breaths. Tiny crescents mar your arms—a coping mechanism or an attempt at penance?
Wordlessly, she sits next to you and pats your head with a gloved hand.
“Father.” You are the one to break the silence. “What just…”
“That man is dead.” She says it plainly, her tone void of judgment. “He won’t be able to torment you any longer.”
You immediately look up, eyes glossy. “Are you sure?! Did I…?”
In the blood-red moonlight, your anguish is clear as day. Your hands tremble, nails digging into the mattress, before clasping together in a graceless effort to steel yourself. But the familiar gesture does little to calm you, all prayers futile in the wake of your sin.
“This is it. I’m really going to burn in Hell,” you sob. “I didn’t mean to—what should I do, Father?”
This time, Arlecchino spares no warmth in consoling you. She adjusts your body so that your head rests on her lap, letting your tears drip onto her cassock. Her hand remains on the back of your head, stroking your hair.
“There is no need to fret,” she says gently. “Before the moon sets, the Church will be purged of that man’s filth and it will be as though he never appeared tonight.”
You shake your head. “Even then, you…God knows what I have done.”
“Listen to me.” She tilts your face upwards, her expression firm. “All you did was use your cross necklace for its intended purpose—to save yourself from harm. And yet even in the face of evil, you claim to be the one who sinned. None of this is your fault, ______.”
Her other hand caresses your cheek, wiping away your tears.
“Perhaps it is all part of God’s plan,” she muses. As she speaks, she kneels to your level and holds your hands, intertwining your fingers. “We live in a cruel world and it is only in places such as my Church that safety can be promised. Should you take the veil, no other sinners would dare to violate your virtue.”
Your next words are soft, hesitant, filled with disbelief. “Are you saying that I can still become a nun?! That you…you don’t mind keeping me around?”
“And for what reason would I deny you sanctuary?” she asks, her expression shifting to a frown. “As a priest, it is my duty to shepherd God’s flock. And as a person, it is my desire to protect those I cherish. Everything I do is for your own good.”
For once, you are rendered speechless. All you can do is stare at your lap, at your hands clasped together.
When Arlecchino leans towards you, her grip prevents you from drawing back.
“All you must do is listen to me,” she whispers. “Until our mortal deaths, I will be the one to lead you away from true temptation and deliver you from evil. Does it seem agreeable to you?”
“I…I guess so,” you whimper. Nervously, you meet her gaze, your eyes alight with a glimmer of hope. “If it’s you, I can believe it.”
“Good. And remember this always, ______.”
The crimson moon shines brightly, casting a blood-red halo around your savior. And as Arlecchino pulls you closer, your lips a breath away from a kiss, a secret is divulged with the fervence of a sacred prayer.
“God still loves you. As do I.”
Note:: Church AU is still on my “will not write” list with the exception of Dottore, Capitano, and Arlecchino. Please do not send me any Church AU asks/ requests involving other characters or dynamics.
…Don’t ask me how many times I broke down over Priest! Arlecchino. Just don’t. To all of the Arle simps out there, I hope I did your wife justice. And may you all suffer from brainrot bc I refuse to be the only one in pain (⸝⸝ᵕᴗᵕ⸝⸝)
Lastly, lots of love to @diodellet for beta-reading this fic and my mutuals for indulging my brainrot. I hope this was worth the wait <3
Tag an Arlecchino enjoyer!! @navxry @leftdestiny-posts @beloved-blaiddyd @ainescribe @vennnnn-diagram @stickyspeckledlight @harmonysanreads @ddarker-dreams
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dengswei · 2 years
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don’t like how they pretty much said the child abuse that daeryuk suffered from was his own fault due to the consequences of his own actions (as in being a child left alone in a house with no supervision) and turned the mum into the victim
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furiousgoldfish · 1 year
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When you’re raised in an abusive family, it doesn’t feel like you’re a victim of something, not while it’s happening. Instead, you feel like you’re not doing a good enough job dealing with what’s presented to you as ‘normal’. It feels like you’re overly sensitive and need to learn how to be more tough, like you’re whiny and spoiled and deserve to feel bad about yourself. Like ‘tough love’ and constant criticism, threats and put downs is what is needed to fix you, like only thing that can make you better is more pain and more hatred.
Abusive parents work very hard so you wouldn’t be able to recognize abuse; they will make sure you believe that what they’re giving you is love. They’ll even make you feel like they believe it’s love, like they are so sure they’re helping you with all of the hatred and neglect and violence, like they’re worried about you when they’re forbidding you any privacy, freedom or skills, like they’re simply not able to do any better, when they make you suicidal.
And they don’t stop there; they convince you that everyone else has it worse, that you’re ‘lucky’ to have them, that other children are beaten worse, starved out, abandoned, homeless. They tell you horror stories about how you’d be dying on the street without them, how grateful you need to be. They threaten you with how bad you’d have it in an orphanage or a home. They give you anecdotes of children being treated worse, in order to terrify you.
So you don’t know that you have it bad. You don’t know that you have human rights that far precede being fed and sheltered. You look around convinced, that everyone’s home life as as bad as yours, they’re just somehow taking it better. They’re somehow still grinning and acting normal and keeping it together, they’re less anxious, less scared, less inclined to sink into darkness. You don’t know how they do it, and you feel inferior, stuck, left behind. You don’t know what’s wrong with you, why can’t you just be like everyone else, and deal with ‘normal home life’ as well as they do. Why can’t you talk to your parents like you love them, like everyone else does. How is everyone else so much better at being tough, brave, enduring, strong, and hopeful.
And abusive parents will dismiss your every thought and feeling that recognizes the reality of what you’re living in. It doesn’t matter if you’re having anxiety and trauma symptoms so bad you’re barely able to function, they’ll call it whining. It doesn’t matter if you secretly self harm only to ease the amount of inner pain and shame you’re feeling, they’ll call it ‘attention seeking’. It can be panic attacks, eating disorders, ocd, dissociative disorders, flashbacks, nightmares, fight-or-flight reactions, it will all be dismissed as you being ‘dramatic’, ‘playing the victim’ or ‘making a drama for nothing’. You could be close to death and your abusive parents would dismiss it as your own fault.
Because nothing is more important to them than covering up their abuse and making you feel insane for trying to point it out. Nothing stops them in forcing their own hateful perspective on a child they abused. There is no compassion or decency to acknowledge that they hurt you, you could be dying and they would accuse you of doing it on purpose to spite them. There is no place in their hearts for you. There is nothing they couldn’t spin to depict you as a spoiled, selfish, vengeful monster, in order to spin the reality of what happened in their own favour.
They’re waging a war against a child they had out of their own volition, and were responsible to take care of. They declare the war on your sanity the second they hurt you and tell you that it’s fine, that you’re okay, that you need to shut up so nobody else can hear and get ‘the wrong idea’. They taught you that abuse is love from the start, and seeing the consequences of abuse on you, they double down and insist it’s still love, it’s still normal, it’s still good, it’s just you who is the problem. They didn’t do anything wrong. You who is taking ‘love’ the wrong way. You who doesn’t understand that they’re ‘human’ and ‘did their best’. As if they acknowledged you as a human being even once during your entire life.
Much of your childhood consisted of your parents lying to you in order to avoid you realizing you’re being abused. It makes you spend decades thinking that you’re crazy, delusional, oversensitive, imagining things, acting whiny or dramatic for no good reason, experiencing symptoms for no reason, no events that caused it, all while being completely alone in your pain, unable to ask for support, because ‘nothing bad happened’. It can bring shame to your every feeling, make you feel like you’re not allowed to even experience your own feelings. It makes you doubt your memories, your senses, your own instincts, because you’re shamed and punished for believing yourself, for imagining that you were right to express any of it.
That’s why it’s so hard to get out of it. It’s hard to even dare to believe yourself, with how high the stakes are for you parents, and by extension, for your own life. You’re not dumb or gullible for struggling to acknowledge this, nobody wants to believe this could be going on in their life. Nobody wants to see their parents as villains, if there’s any other option available. And nobody wants to believe their parents capable of this level of cruelty. Nobody wants to know that they were raised by people who felt nothing while psychologically torturing a child.
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glassartpeasants · 1 year
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A Burning Heart
Shigaraki Tomura x F!Reader x Dabi
Warnings: Angst, abusive relationship, cheating, burn trauma, burn scars, toxic people, reader beats a bitch up
A/N: i tried
~~~
"It's not fair, is it? Watching him love another? Knowing that it's not you? That it'll never be you?"
Your toxic thoughts ate away at your heart as you saw him sitting at the bar with a girl sitting next to him, holding his hand.
Jealousy was a common occurrence whenever she came around. She got him to love her so quickly while you'd been trying for months for him to notice you in any romantic way.
Maybe you were too shy. Maybe you didn't have the confidence she did. Her confidence was admirable to you. Hopefully, one day, you'd have the same confidence as her. But for now, you'll watch from the shadows.
~~~
The sound of footsteps coming up from behind you made you spin your head around as you saw her entering the kitchen. 
"Hey!"
"Hi…?" Her chipper attitude was a change in pace. Toga had one, but it didn't feel the same as hers did.
"Do we have any ingredients to make anything? I don't think I can stomach any more McDonald's or ramen anymore." She laughed as she smiled at you. You couldn't help but laugh in return.
"I don't think so, unfortunately. Food is hard to come by when you're a villain." You weren't lying. Times with food have been much tougher ever since the heroes have been cracking down. 
"Hmm. That's a shame. Maybe we could disguise ourselves to get food!"
“We don’t have any money.”
“You guys are villains! Since when was money a problem?” Oh yeah. She wasn’t a villain. How could you have forgotten? She loved to talk about what she did that day when she wasn’t hanging out with Shigaraki. It's not like you were jealous or anything. You chose this lifestyle, so it’s your fault. Right?
Your reason for being a villain wasn’t that bad. At least that's what a few people have told you. 
~~~
You can remember the cheers people gave your boyfriend when he walked out coughing with the child in his arms. Remembering your own voice as you gave him a big kiss, calling him a hero. You remember the spark in his eyes when you said that. At first, you thought it was just something small, but you’d soon learn that wasn’t the case.
He tried desperately to get his hero license. No matter what, if there was a way to prove himself, he’d do it. He’d cancel out on date nights, started being suspicious of everything, using his quirk on things around the shared house. 
“What are you doing?!” You remember when you caught him using his quirk in the house. It was only made worse since it was fire based.
“Oh, calm down! Nothings gonna happen!” As soon as he said that, he let out a sneeze which caused him to lose concentration, and a small flame of his quirk hit the curtains, setting them a blaze not even seconds later. 
You both tried putting it out but when you realized it wasn’t going to happen, you called the fire station as you desperately tried to grab anything sentimental. Even if it meant getting burned in the process. 
The fire raged, and soon the house was engulfed in flames as you stood outside with what things you could carry as you started crying. Not a single peep from teh man who caused it.
You were taken to the hospital as you had gained some burns. Both of your arms, some on your left calf and a small patch on your face.The scars still with you today. 
You can't remember if he visited you in the hospital.
After the day he saved that child, he wasn't yours anymore. Now, he was theirs. If only you would have saw it sooner. 
When you were okay to go home after the fire, he looked at you differently. Not the same look he use to give you. Not a loving one, but a disappointed one. 
He spent more and more time away from home and began working even harder to become a pro hero, and finally, after so long, he got his provisional hero license. One step away to becoming a pro hero he said.
He wasn't a hero to you.
His license gave him the ego to think he could act however he wanted to you whether it be cruel words or dismissing concerns. He was ignoring your calls and texts. 
Or even cheating and getting rough with you.
You remember your heart breaking and tears pouring down your face as you heard the sounds of sex coming from your shared bedroom. You heard the words that slipped from your lover and his mistress's mouth.
"When are you gonna end it with that scarred freak?"
"I've been trying, but I've been busy with hero work. Trust me; I haven't loved that thing in a long time."
In a moment of rage and heartbreak, you took to whatever platform you could and told your story to anyone that would listen. 
It instantly got attention. With him being an upcoming hero, all spotlight was on him for a minute, so hearing any slight drama was like bees to honey.
To prove you were a thing with the upcoming hero, you took a video going throw a photo book you made with him and you. 
People sent you pics of him being seen with a different upcoming female hero. Kissing her and touching her that only lovers were supposed to touch.
Not even five minutes later, the sound of your boyfriend yelling out a loud 'FUCK' echoed throughout your shared house. 
All you could do was turn on the TV and watch the news. Knowing that any moment he'd come down and see you. With black tears rolling down your face as your mascara was ruined. 
You couldn't believe you dressed up for a cheater.
His footsteps echoed through the hall as he ran down the steps before stopping and seeing you sitting on the couch. 
Out of the corner of your eye, you could see him wearing only boxers and saw the girl behind him hiding her body with what used to be the comforter you shared.
"What have you done?!" His angered voice rang through your ears as you slowly turned to look at him. A look of shock passed his eyes before turning back to rage.
"Why? What have I done to deserve this betrayal? I've done nothing but love you and support you. And yet, I get called a scarred freak, a thing, and who knows what else you've said about me behind my back." You also look at the girl who tries to escape your gaze and hide behind your supposed lover.
"You owe me no loyalty. Therefore, it was probably easier for you to sleep with a taken man. If he'll cheat on me, he'll cheat on you. But, you can have him. I don't want him anymore. He's all yours." The girl said nothing but looked at you with a smug yet annoyed look.
"Do you know what you've done?! My hero career could be finished!" He stomped towards you before grabbing the remote and turning off the TV. You can see heat slowly rise through his hands.
"Cheaters never prosper. You shouldn't be a hero if you can hurt someone so casually and not think twice." The sound of flames rang through your ears as you saw his hand covered in it. Fear coursed through you, but you didn't dare let it show.
You didn't get time to react before a burning pain hit your already scarred cheek. A hit so strong it forced your head around. Another searing pain happened not long after when you felt his hand wrap around your throat before lifting you up in the air. The familiar burning pain from before started, and it only made it harder to breathe.
"You've cost me EVERYTHING!"
"Hey, hey! Let her go!" Through your newly shredded tears, you could see the mistress trying to pry his arms away from you, but nothing worked. 
You desperately tried kicking your feet at him and managed to kick him in his lower jaw causing him to drop you. 
"Fucking bitch!" A bright flame was tossed at you, and the familiar pain of being burned all those months before was brought back as the fire attacked healthy skin.
The flames caught onto the carpet, which quickly spread to the walls. You sat on the floor, too weak to get up, and you tried putting out the fire that had started on you.
Once your ex had seen the damage, he looked at you before grabbing his mistress and running out, leaving you to defend yourself. 
Looking back at it now. He probably intended for you to die. 
You did all the steps to try and put out yourself before trying all the windows since the door was now blocked by the flames that burned higher and higher.
Smoke entered your lungs as you tried to escape. The house was older than the old one you had, so the flames grew faster, and the windows were stuck shut. 
All except the 2nd-floor window. So, it was either death or suffering broken bones. 
And that's where you blacked out.
You woke up in the LOV infirmary. Toga had spotted you collapsing to the ground by the bar. At first, she was going to kill you but was then too curious about the burn scars that seemingly covered your body and the newly burnt wounds that you sustained.
You were afraid at first. Your quirk wouldn’t have done anything to protect you if they were to try anything, but seeing that they addressed your wounds gave you a sense of slight safety. Why would they kill you if they treated you?
It was only seconds after waking up is when you saw him.
~~~
Looking in the mirror was always the worst. Seeing how horrible you were scarred with there being nothing you could do about it made you feel like shit. It didn’t help when people would shoot comments your way and say horrible things to you. Even before you were a villain, people were so cruel.
“God! How can she go out in public like that?”
“Mommy, is that a monster?”
“With a face like that, I’d kill myself.”
Tears brimmed your eyes as you remembered how cruel people were to you and still are. They didn’t even know you and yet still said so harsh words. They claim to want a loving and peaecful society but go behind the scenes and treat people who did no wrong like this? The world will never be peaceful and loving as long as those scum exist.
You could feel your anger boiling over as you stared into the mirror, wishing it would break in fron tof you. But of course, it didn’t.
Stomping out of the bathroom, you go into the main area before laying on the couch farest away from the bar.
“Oof, what’s got Mrs. Flammable all upset?”
“Fuck off Dabi.”
“Ouch, such painful words.” The sound of female giggling echoed into the bar as you heard the voice of Shigaraki and his girlfriend sitting down on the bar top. Seeing them together is not what you needed right now. 
“(Y/N)?” Your eyebrows raise when you hear shigaraki’s girlfriends voice call out to you. Remembering her name wasn’t really on your priority list as you and her have never talked to one another outside of a few times.
“Yeah?”
“Can you make dinner tonight? I’m really tired.” You could have sworn that you told her yesterday that there wasn’t anything to eat.
“We don’t have anything to eat.”
“Well. Can you go get SOMETHING?” You could hear the annoyance in her voice. Unfortunately for her, the burns on your body has been flaring up recently and has been hurting a lot more than usual. So going to a store or stealing something would have been unbearable. Plus, why did you specifically have to go?
“I can’t. I’ve been in a lot of pain recently and no amount of healing ointment has been able to calm down the flare ups.” You always make sure you have ointment stocked but this was just oen of the times where it was useless.
“You don’t look that bad.”
“Oh sorry, would you like me to cry on the floor in pain? Scream in agony perhaps?” The sound of Dabi’s snickering filled the room as what sounded like other league members entering the bar lounge.
“Ask someone else to do it. I’m not going.” Putting your foot down was always a little hard for you, its even worse when your arguing with the boss’s girlfriend. You’d been there longer than her so you don’t know why she has to have superiority over you. Thinking about it harder, soon connected a lot of dots for you.
Toga and Magne told you one time on a mission on how shigaraki’s girlfriend was super passive aggressive and rude towards them. Telling you how she’ll act all nice in front of the rest of the boys but when it’s just all the her with Toga and Magne, she turns super mean.
It confused you a little thinking about it now. You were in a room alone with her once and she didn’t seem to be mean. Maybe it just went over your head as you were super sleepy when she approached you.
“Baby, im hungry. Tell her to go get me food please?” You could barely see the little glare she gave you before attaching herself to shigaraki’s arm and pouting. 
“(Y/N). Just listen to her and got get something alright?” You could see a small smirk ride up on her face.
“I’m not her fucking slave to do whatever she wants. I’m literally in excuritacting pain right now. I respect you as my boss in the highest degree but there is no way I’m going to put myself through horrible pain and the risk of getting caught. She has legs, she’s not a villain, she can get her ass up and do it herself.” All eyes seemed to be on you. The one that scared you the most were the ruby ones that dug into yoru soul.
“Guy guess what i got!” Spinners voice filled the room as everyone turns to look at him. In his hands, held bags of what were all different types of nonperishable foods.
“Ah! Look! Our knight in shinning armor has saved the day.” Letting out a laugh, you look at her with a glare before walking towards your room. Trying not to limp in pain the entire time.
~~~
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
“Fucking ughhh….who is it?” The pounding at your door woke you up with a headache as your eyes try to adjust.
“I need to talk to you.” The voice sounded familiar but you couldn’t put a face to it.
“It’s 8 in the morning. Whoever you are I’ll talk to you later.” Silence before the door opened up and light beamed into you room.
“Hey what the hell? You can’t just open my door like that!” Through the brightness, you can see the familiar figure of shigaraki’s girlfriend standing in your door frame.
“I said I needed to talk to you.”
“Just cause your the boss’s girlfriend doesn’t mean you get to go into peoples rooms without permission!”
“I can do whatever i want. Who’s going to stop me?” You furrow your brows as you get out of bed and stand up. You were only wearing a tank top and shorts so more of your scars were available to see. You could see her look at you up and down with a grossed out look on her face.
“Jesus. Your more fucked up that I though.” 
“You bang on my door, burst into my room withou tmy permission, then tell me how you think I look? Are you fuckign serious?”
“Yeah I am. Maybe it will give you a sign to fuck off my boyfriend.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I see the way you look at Shigaraki. It’d take a fool to not notice it.”
“Okay? I zone out and stare at people what do you want me to do?”
“No, it’s more than just zoning out. I know you like him.” Venom seemed to be building up inside her as she looked at you with hatred.
“Yeah. I find him attractive but im not a homewrecker.” You rolled your eyes as you glare at he woman in front of you.
“Like he’d give you the time of day anyways ha!” rage soon started to boil inside you. You clench your fists together until they were white as you grit your teeth.
“What the fuck is that suppose to mean?” 
“It means he’d never like a disfigured freak like you-” 
CRACK
The sound on her body hitting the floor with a loud thud seemed to echo inside your room as you look down at her. She clutched her nose with her hand and you could see blood dripping out of the cracks of her fingers as she looks at you with wide eyes.
Before you knew it, you winded your fist back before throwing another punch towards her. Then another, then another, until all you could see is your fist flying down and punching her anywhere that you could.
The sound of her cries must have been loud enough to echo as everyone soon started running towards her cries, only to see you on top of her, beating her senseless. 
“(Y/N)! What the fuck are you doing?!” You couldn’t even hear them. All you could hear were her words repeating in your mind over ,and over, and over again. Each time it made you grow more angry.
Just then, you felt arms wrap themselves around you before picking you up and moving you away from teh cowering woman. You struggled to get out of whoever’s grip by kicking your legs and thrashing around.
“(Y/N)! What is going on?!” Dabi’s voice finally cuts through your rage and brings you back.
“I…punched her.” 
“Punched? More like beat the shit outta her! You almost turned her into a bloody mess! Your lucky I grabbed you before Shigaraki did!” His hands grab your arms as he looks at you. Looking back at him, you could feel tears brim your eyes as you bit your lips to try to keep from crying.
“She…she called me a disfigured freak! I-I couldn’t let her say that! I already h-hear it enough from people outside the league! I don’t need to hear it from people who’s s-suppose to be on the same side!” Hiccups and sobs erupted out of yoru throat as you cried to Dabi. You probably sounded like a blubbering mess. You probably looked horrible to. God you haven’t cried this hard in forever.
“I-I didn’t ask to look like this! I didn’t ask to be in pain almost every day! She doesn’t k-know what it’s like!” You could feel Dabi’s hold on your arms soften as your tears blurred your vision. You could feel your tears fall off your face and onto your shirt.
“You’re the only one that understand Dabi. Your the only one that knows what its like to hurt like this.” Dabi said nothing as just continued to listen to you speak. 
You didn’t know what you were thinking, but he was right there and at that moment, you just needed to feel someone next to you. 
Wrapping your arms around his body you hugged him gently. Crying harder in the process. You stammered out nonsense as you felt Dabi tense up before calming down. You thought he was gonna push you away but instead, you felt him wrap his arms around you too.
“Yeah. I do understand.” A hand slowly started petting your hair as you just listened to the sound of his heart while crying. 
“But you know what?” You look up at him through tearful eyes as he sends you a small smile.
“You may be a freak to them, but your beautiful to me.”
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bots-and-cons · 7 months
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Tfp Predaking with a human S/O who is depressed (gender and character traits don't matter they are just depressed) i would like comfort and the S/O had depression for awhile due to abuse they faced in the past and today they had a very bad day which triggers feeling of hopelessness and overwhelming sadness in them and know i want to see how would Predaking comfort his S/O in that state i hope that this is ok this time let me know if i did something wrong
A/N: As usual, I ended up venting my own current frustrations with this, since this is depression themed and I’m kinda drifting back into that currently. And as a request, this is just fine, there’s enough information and it’s not too detailed. Also just a side note, if you use a default icon, people will think you're a bot and block you
It’s not like you hadn’t noticed you were spiraling. Everything about your past, all your trauma, it was like it was all spinning into a ball inside your head, and now it was swinging around your head like a wrecking ball. You felt like you couldn’t keep your thoughts together at all. It was like they just kept scattering around.
You were just laying around at home, wondering if you should reach out to Predaking. He was the only one who could make you feel even a little bit better. Of course you would have to go to him, since he couldn’t exactly just land in the middle of town. You decided to call Knockout to come pick you up so you could go to the Nemesis.
When you got there, you started looking for Predaking. It didn’t take long, since he was at his usual spot, just inside the doors to the deck of the Nemesis. He seemed to be recharging, so you had to wake him up to gain his attention.
“Who dares to-” he started as you stirred him from his slumber.
“Hi” you greeted with a small wave.
“Oh, hello my love” his expression softened immediately as he noticed you.
“Do you think we could talk? I kinda want to vent to someone” you asked, rubbing the back of your neck awkwardly.
“Of course, is there something that’s upsetting you?”
“Life in general I guess” you joked halfheartedly. “And I’m just having a particularly bad trauma day today”
“That does not sound pleasant” Predaking noted.
“It’s not. It just makes me feel so hopeless and shitty, because sometimes I feel like I should be over these things already, but I’m not. I also feel like there’s this deep sadness in me, that I just can’t get rid off. I can’t organize my thoughts either, so it’s hard to make sense of any of this” you ranted as you paced back and forth in front of him.
“My love, come here” Predaking requested, offering you his hand.
You stepped onto it and he raised you to his shoulder, where you sat down and started fiddling with your thumbs.
“So, would you like advice or do you want me to just listen?” Predaking asked.
“I guess I just want you to listen. I don’t know if you can even give me advice I wouldn’t have heard before” you sighed.
“Then I shall listen, so speak your mind”
“Depression is one hell of a thing to be honest. Like, I get why I have it. With the amount of shit I’ve been through, it would be a miracle if i wasn’t depressed. All the abuse and crap I’ve endured, and I feel like it’s all just led to more suffering. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of balance? With all the bad I’ve gone through, shouldn’t there be some good coming my way too?” you rambled.
“I don’t think it works that way, my love” Predaking looked at you sadly.
He didn’t really understand your suffering, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t support you and help you through it. He was still very new to life, and he sometimes felt like he was naive when it came to you. He always wanted the best for you. He wanted to give you everything you desired, and even though he knew that wasn’t realistic he still couldn’t help but hope. Hope that someday you could find some sort of peace in your life.
“It should though. Good deeds should get rewarded and bad deeds should be punished. No one should have to suffer constantly. I don’t know how many “It’ll be better tomorrow”s I have in me anymore” you shook your head.
“I might not understand all that you are going through, but just know that I am here for you, always” Predaking said with a serious look in his optics.
You stood up on his shoulder and pressed a kiss on the side of his helm.
“Thank you” you smiled tiredly, leaning your head against the side of Predaking’s helm like a cat would do to a human.
“I will be here, whatever you need” he said softly.
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sophieinwonderland · 12 days
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Additional points that we...KIND OF made in two different posts yesterday (not even having to do with the current debacle, just...in general) that we feel is very important, and are just going to re-post in here:
You should believe endogenics exist first and foremost because they tell you they exist.
It's nice that science is starting to support us and the DSM and ICD are doing great at getting better for that, but it's still the weapon of our oppressors.
Just a few decades ago, you'd be anti-science for saying transgender people AREN'T a mental illness.
It is very, very easy to see how that can change back once you realize progress is not linear. "Progress is not linear" is the part individuals seem to forget (and we're not gonna lie, we sometimes do too, because that's terrifying to think about).
We feel like discourse wouldn't be discourse anymore if people acknowledged that because a lot of them would be forced to, we guess, question the acceptability of targeting X over Y and Z, and why they give A and B more authority over how X experiences their lives than even over X — if we can use letters in placement of actual groups of people here for a sec.
<Context note for people who do not know us, Rusanya: we agree with Sophie on a ton of points and enjoy her blog. We have an anti-psychiatry [institution, not the science itself, although we feel only bad-faith readers would see that?] and pro-mad-pride spin on our world view though, compared to Sophie. So sometimes we like throwing random things in her inbox because she's like the One Person who can pick our brain and it feels like she is not being an asshole.>
I do think in an ideal world, people would be respected for their identities regardless of opinions of authority figures.
But at the same time, I think the best path to acceptance is to direct arguments to the world you live in, not the one you want. And that means taking things that have historically been weapons of oppression and turning them against the oppressors.
Because the fact is that psychologists and psychiatrists are seen as a valid authority on matters of psychology.
Is there a possibility that the pendulum could swing the other way, that hard anti-endo sentiment could somehow take root in the psychiatric community? Sure. And if that happens, we'll have to adapt and figure out how to deal with that to the best of our ability.
But... I don't think it will happen. I mean, we already know the Stanford tulpa study is going to show neurological differences in tulpamancers. Whatever those differences may be, I think endogenic plurality being accepted as a real psychological phenomenon is inevitable.
On the other hand, we do have to acknowledge that we've seen backslides before. The False Memory Syndrome Foundation in the 90s successfully managed to turn an entire generation against trauma survivors and their therapists, and made diagnosing DID toxic to the point that therapists completely refused to diagnose it. So we can't say what the future will hold for certain.
To me though, I think this just means it's important to be vigilant, and try to foster positive relationships with the psychiatric community.
Because I also think most people who go into psychiatry do so because they genuinely want to help people. Yes, there are bad psychiatrists and there are abusive ones. And there are well-meaning ones who end up causing more harm than good because they think they know better. There are a lot of problems in psychiatry that need to be addressed. But I don't feel that fostering an adversarial relationship is a productive way to accomplish our community's goals.
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foxdev1l · 2 months
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you need to share more of your thoughts because i know they are good tell me tell me tell me teeeell meeeee
thank you so much for this sweet message. since it's kept vague, i wasn't sure what kind of thoughts you wanted to hear, but i've recently spent a lot of time thinking about and writing down notes about a/b/o headcanons for the rg characters which you might be interested in. i've got notes for basically all of them, but Six's headcanon kind of grew a mind of its own. if anyone's interested in more, feel free to let me know
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◇Sierra Six – Shed Skin◇
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ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/54652036
Wordcount: 2.507
Summary: Six does not feel comfortable in his own skin
A/N: much love to @hollandstrophyhusband for helping me brainstorm and beta reading this for me. i hope you guys enjoy my little spin on Six and the omegaverse. might write a second part one day, who knows. there was some talk about six/colt...
Content warnings: nsfw, canon typical violence, self-destructive behavior, rough sex, dub con, identity issues
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He presents unusually late, at the age of fifteen, and without any prior warning. It's almost like he's grown a second skin, one that is simultaneously too large and too tight on his scrawny body.
Courtland expects to feel relief. He's an Alpha, after all, the only child to follow in his father's footsteps.
His mother is born an Omega, awfully timid and quiet, and too afraid to raise her voice. His brother has presented as a Beta young, too gentle and too defiant at the same time. His father has always resented them both for different reasons.
So Court should be relieved, to have dodged a bullet, to escape his father's cutting disappointment.
But then his father takes one look at him, his ragged features contorted into a strange expression, something almost akin to pride. He sweeps his gaze over Court's haggard form, breathes in the heavy stench of a newly presented Alpha, and smiles. The smile is twisted, foreign, wrong; like the newly grown skin pulled taut over his frail bones.
Court feels nothing but repulsion.
“I don't think it fits,” he tells his father.
“It doesn't need to fit,” his father says, the contentment on his face turning sharper, more dangerous. “Just wear it like you own it.”
And so he does.
He tells himself things can be different. That it is still about choice. That his second skin does not come sodden in blood. He can learn to be comfortable wearing it, can accept his status, and still reject society's expectations. He can grow up to be a better Alpha than his old man ever was.
It's only when he's standing above the dying body of his father – the powder burns from his gun tainting his fingers black – that he's struck with the sudden realization that he's always been destined to inherit the violence of his father; that this blood-lusting rage is so deeply carved into his DNA, he cannot have one without the other.
He hardly gets any time to think the first few years locked behind bars. He's too busy avoiding becoming a target. He makes himself bigger than he's ever been, plays his part as the aggressive and strong Alpha, and it feels wrong, sickening, but it doesn't matter because this is not about his comfort but the mere act of survival.
He doesn't experience a proper rut until the CIA has him catching the chain. The abuse and trauma he physically and mentally had to endure over his lifetime have taken a toll on his system and fucked with his hormones enough to suppress any prior ruts.
Though he's never experienced one, he's heard of it. How it takes over one's body and mind, burning up the insides with a maddening fever of raw lust.
Court mainly feels pain.
The CIA pairs him up with an Omega. Court is far too gone to protest at that point, but he doubts it would've mattered anyway. The CIA doesn't seem to care much about his autonomy.
He doesn't know the Omega's name, can barely make out their face past his blurred vision. But he knows what's expected of him.
The Omega is nothing more than a piece of meat for the CIA to dangle in front of him, not much unlike a gnarled bone thrown in front of a starving dog. He's supposed to claim them, feast on them, gorge himself on their willingness to submit.
The Omega tells him it's alright, that they don't mind his roughness, the bruises he leaves behind no matter how much he tries to hold back. Court almost wishes they wouldn't have said anything at all.
His rut ends eventually, the fever subsiding without him ever finding relief. The Omega is taken away quickly afterward. Court never sees them again.
The CIA has provided him with a soulless room in a depressing, gray building, and he's allowed a break, an undisturbed couple of days to gather himself back up.
He takes a shower to try and wash away the last traces of his rut, turns the heat all the way up. It burns him worse than the rut but he doesn't step away from the water. Instead, he uses his hands and nails to scrub, scrub, scrub his skin raw, till it's red, red, red, but still there. Despite everything, it's still a part of him no matter how hard he tries to get rid of it.
He wants nothing more than to shed his own skin, peel it away until it detaches from his flesh, tear it apart, so all that remains is a bloody and shredded framework of bones.
What he once reluctantly accepted and exploited for the sake of safety and survival, he's now grown to outright despise, to reject.
He showers multiple times a day over the next week, rubbing and clawing at his skin until it's stung and irritated. It doesn't make him feel better, only leaves him aching and longing for a different life.
Once his break is up, the CIA gets his training underway. It's brutal and laborious and keeps him busy once more, but it also makes everything worse. The once scrawny, lanky boy has grown into a strong, deadly man who seems to fit every stereotype he's sworn to dismantle.
His hands seem to be constantly coated in blood nowadays. He has to stop looking into the mirror when his reflection keeps twisting into the wilted image of his father.
At least he gets put on heavy military-grade suppressants. It berefts him of his ruts and fucks with his pheromones enough to dampen the aggressive smell of his Alpha; but above else, it mainly makes him numb. Court doesn't complain. It's better than the alternative.
He tries to keep to himself, avoid other Alphas at all costs though that's not always possible. He hates it, feels so out of place, uncomfortable, and strangely alien when he's around others.
Rumors begin to spread like wildfire, and as much as he tries to stay unbothered, it makes his hackles rise. They assume he's an omega because why else would he be so tight-lipped, act so odd and deflective whenever the topic gets brought up.
He doesn't know what to think of that. The word Omega doesn't feel as scalding as its counterpart, but it still doesn't fully seem to fit.
It's a bitterly cold winter night when Six makes the decision to hook up with an Alpha for the first time. He finds him in a seedy bar, his cheeks flushed and lashes wet from the snow.
He's freshly off a mission. The gun has left indents in the palm of his hand and he believes he can still feel the sticky, crawling sensation of blood despite the hour-long shower he took.
The alpha is leaning against the beer-sodden bar when Six spots him, nursing a cheap whiskey with one big, calloused hand. He's tall, taller than the Sierra agent, a burly, broad frame with a handsome, aged face.
The stranger turns, then, meeting his gaze dead-on. Six's pulse ticks up, his insides twisting. He isn’t quite sure whether it's from arousal or repulsion.
His instincts are reeling deep below his sternum but he's feeling daring, still drunk on the adrenaline-fueled high of his most recent kill and desperately chasing for more, to break through the heavy, numbing haze of the suppressants.
He ends up with his face shoved against the rough wall behind the bar. The stranger doesn't grant him the comfort of a bed, merely tugs down both of their pants as far as necessary and kicks Six's feet apart. Six thinks he prefers it this way.
The man's merciful enough to work Six open, though it still hurts when he pushes inside. They have nothing but a condom, and Six has never done this before, is hardly prepared to take a single finger, much less the thick cock of another fucking Alpha.
The Alpha's obnoxious scent is filling up the entire alleyway. It's thicker than the smoke of cigars, impenetrable like the billowing fumes of the streets. It clogs up Six's nose, lays heavy on his tongue, sharp and bitter all at once.
Everything about the experience is uncomfortable; the fingers in his hair, tugging and pulling and pressing his cheek into the sharp bricks; the hand on his hip, digging into his bones, squeezing bruises into his flesh; the mouth on him, panting against the shell of his ear, licking and biting up the side of his throat.
Six flinches away when teeth scrape over the skin just below his scent gland but he doesn't get far. The Alpha crowds him further against the wall, keeping an unbreakable hold on him as he relentlessly thrusts into him from behind.
A grunt escapes Six's bloody lips, gut twisting in fear but when the stranger reaches out and grabs his cock, it's already painfully hard and it doesn't take long for him to spill all over the Alpha's sweaty hand.
The Alpha doesn't stop, taking more pleasure than he draws from him, and Six is left to moan against the cold brick wall. He's cold and his legs are trembling by the time the Alpha finishes and pulls away.
“You're not an Omega,” the stranger acknowledges and Six just shrugs because his lungs have yet to fill up with oxygen again.
“And neither are you a Beta.”
Six shakes his head.
The man regards him with a flat, unreadable expression, “I didn't peg you as an Alpha.”
Six simply spits a glob of blood onto the dirt-stained pavement, the inside of his cheek sore where he's bitten through it. Then he shrugs once more and stumbles away, out of the alleyway and back into the shadows.
It becomes a common occurrence after that. The CIA keeps him on a short leash but Six still finds time to slip away every few weeks. He goes looking for meaningless fucks with willing Alphas every chance he gets, in the dark corners of whatever shabby bar is closest to him. He keeps seeking them out no matter how uncomfortable they make him feel.
It's painful, shameful, to be reduced to nothing but a whimpering mess under the aggressive grasp of another Alpha, but he cannot help himself. There is a certain thrill at being forced to give up control. It's strangely alluring, addicting.
He doesn't get off on the pain. In fact, he deeply despises it. But there is a certain sense of detachment that comes with it. It's still not enough to chip away his second skin, but it makes it less restricting, more bearable, gives him something else to focus on.
And then Lloyd comes along and ruins everything.
Lloyd manages to do something no one else has ever done before – he takes one look at Six, gasping and writhering where he's pushed into the wall, chin forcefully tilted back with the muzzle of a gun, and sees right through him.
“Ohh,” he croons, “What a little, pathetic Alpha you are.” He leans in, nuzzles at the column of Six's throat, digs the gun deeper to expose more of the heated flesh.
Gritting his teeth, Six keeps himself deathly still. He swallows down a rising growl, not willing to give Lloyd the satisfaction of a reaction.
“Or,” Lloyd continues, “Is it Omega?” His smile is full of teeth, his leer predatory, and Six does the only thing he can think of.
He fishes for the grenade safely tucked in the pocket of his pants, and pulls the safety pin.
In hindsight, he should've killed Lloyd then and there.
What follows isn't Six's fault. He is aware of that even though it doesn't stop the guilt from eating away at him. His handler is dead, his protégé traumatized, and Six just yearns for a fucking nap.
He's never felt such deep-rooted anger like he does for Lloyd. The Alpha is loud and arrogant and violent, and Six would've torn his fucking face off if Suzanne hadn't stopped him in form of a bullet to his thigh.
The next few weeks are a blur of heavy sedatives and strong pain medication. He's used to feeling trapped but the cuffs binding him to the hospital bed make him sick to his stomach. He finds great satisfaction in ripping them apart.
Tracing Claire's whereabouts is easier than expected and it pisses him off because the CIA obviously doesn't care enough to provide a proper safe house.
He steps onto the property, the smell of blood of his guards at the hospital still sticking to his clothes. The violence of his actions, though necessary, has torn something open deep inside him, a festering wound he fears will never heal again.
Perhaps he is his father's son, after all. Perhaps he's never been anything else.
He feels like a stranger, not only in his skin but his very own bones as he gets closer to the safe house.
His body aches, most of his injuries still not fully healed but he sets his jaw and pushes forward. Breaking open a window at the back of the building, he heaves himself up onto the ledge.
As soon as both his feet are flat on the ground, he goes to work, not daring to waste time. The suppressants have dulled his scent enough to stay hidden as he puts down the vinyl cover and a sloppily written note.
Incapacitating the guards hardly takes any effort. It doesn't bring him any satisfaction, only further rips and gashes at the wound inside. But it's worth it in the end, when all is done, and the blood has begun to dry, and Six pushes open the door separating him from Claire.
Being reunited after being forcefully pried apart feels a bit surreal. Claire looks tired, worn, but her smile is sincere as she clings to him, her nails sharp as claws where they dig into Six's shoulders but he doesn't have the heart to step away.
Instead, he buries his face into her hair, catching the subdued but familiar scent of a young Alpha; intense but gentler somehow, softened by the sweet and mellow taste of wild flowers dried by the sun.
Claire.
The scent slips below his skin easily, effortlessly, soothing the ragged edges of the wound beneath.
Claire is still so awfully young. Too young to be burdened by bearing the weight of her status. And yet, she does not seem to let it drag her down. Despite being impressionable and at the mercy of her biology, through all the illness and grief and trauma, the brutality of the last few weeks – she's remained unchanged.
Her eyes are still kind, her touch still gentle, and her heart untinged.
Six presses her tighter against his chest, his grip white-knuckled where it's clutching the back of Claire's shirt. He takes a moment, then, allows himself to linger, to breathe in the soft, calming scent of his protégé. For once, it does not feel like he's suffocating in the confinement of his own skin.
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jasntodds · 1 year
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Caving In [4]
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Pairing: Gar Logan x Fem!Powered!Reader, Jason Todd x Fem!Powered!Reader
Words: 7,625
Chapter Warnings: Swearing, a nightmare, fluff, hurt/comfort, some paranoia, mention of torture, mention of abuse, Dick tries to kind of have “the talk”, Jason and reader argue (we all know sometimes Jason is an asshole, this is the only time this kind of argument happens btw), mentions of bruising and swelling, a mention of drug addiction, mentions of death
Summary: ❝Tell me Atlas: What is heavier, The world or its people’s hearts?❞ You never expected your life to end up this way, turned upside down by an infamous Gotham villain. It’s been a living hell, every single day, until Dick Grayson brings you to Titans tower where you meet Gar Logan and Jason Todd.
A/N: I’m really excited to post chapter 7 just so you guys know lol This feels kind of like a filler but this is the only one that feels like it I think?? I might try to post chapter 5 this weekend because of that lol I am easily motivated to post more often when I get feedback 😂 The first few chapters take place between season 2 episode 1 and season 2 episode 2. You can add yourself the tag list below, ask me to be tagged, or you can follow my library blog @jasntoddslibrary​ and turn on notifications if you prefer that!!
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Nightmares are a funny thing. They’re rarely anything realistic once you’re able to be calm enough to think about them. But they always contain some type of fear or traumatic event someone has experienced. Sometimes, it’s not rational or there is some deep hidden meaning behind the nightmare but other times, it’s just from trauma left unhandled. Those nightmares are the worst.
They make you revise the worst times of your life over and over and over like a broken record. No matter what you do, you lose in the nightmare. Years later, you might be happy and healthy but the nightmare comes back and you feel like you’re right back where you were. Trapped in the never-ending agony. Trapped inside a tilt-a-whirl made of panic attacks and broken hearts. And every single night, it’s a living hell.
And that’s where you are now, living your own personal hell with screaming so loud your throat is raw and ragged breaths beg your chest to finally cave in. The flashes of your “foster dad” scar the back of your eyes with every blink, like Freddy Krueger clawing his way to the surface. You might have escaped him physically, but mentally you’re trapped like a bear at a circus. Your hands shake as tears well behind your eyes and as the panic rages through your veins, the anger sets in. And you’re so mad that you’re allowing this piece of shit to haunt you even in your sleep, somewhere you might just feel safe. How are you ever supposed to be safe from him if you can’t even sleep? What if he finds you? What if, somehow, your nightmares are just a sign he’s coming after you? What are you supposed to do then? What if he has powers and that’s why he’s coming to finish you off?
A million what-ifs scramble through your brain as you sit in your bed, the bedside lamp still on. You get out of bed and it’s not even like you’re walking. With every worst-case scenario running through your head at once, you’re just moving through motions to exit your room. You need to make sure he isn’t here, need to make sure everyone here is safe from him, that you’re safe from him.
Your hands go up, right in front of you, slightly outstretched as if waiting for you to run into him. The palms of your hands glow green, ready for any type of attack you might come across in the secure tower while you tiptoe your way out of your room.
“Y/n?” A groggy voice from the right pulls your attention as you were just about to walk down the hallways. You jump and spin quickly, the glow of your hands intensifying in the dim light of the hallway. “It’s me.” Gar defends quickly, putting his hands up. “Gar?” His voice is still groggy but full of fear as he glances between your hands and your face.
You could see him with the dim lights of the hallway and the green glow of your hands but it still didn’t click, not until he said his name. You aren’t sure where your head was but a part of you is scared because of it. You were so lost in a state of fear and urgency to make sure everything was safe, you were blinded. It’s a bit terrifying. 
You lets out a breath you didn’t realize you were holding, dropping your hands as the green fades. “Fuck, what’re you doing?” You whisper-yell at him.
Gar takes a few steps towards you. “You were screaming.” He whispers back to you. “I heard you so I came to see if you were okay.”
The walls aren’t thin but Gar is pretty sure your scream could have woken up anyone. It was loud and pained, etched in terror. But, that’s a thing that happens here from time-to-time. Everyone has a habit of occasionally waking up screaming. It’s either childhood trauma haunting them or new trauma from Trigon. Gar figures that’s why no one else got up. They’re conditioned to be used to it.
You watch him carefully as the panic starts to cloud with feelings of regret and guilt. You didn’t realize you had screamed loud enough to wake anyone up. That’s not fair to anyone, to be woken by someone who can’t handle their own shit. And then to be standing out in the middle of a hallway at the crack of dawn with sleep still in their eyes talking about it. You look to the floor, shifting your weight on your feet and chewing on the inside of your cheek.
“Are you….okay?” Gar asks, coming a little closer.
When you fell asleep on him earlier, you looked peaceful. Normally, you kind of always have this look of fear. Your eyes always seem a little distant and you look behind whoever you’re talking to a lot. You don’t make eye contact for longer than a few seconds. But while you slept, you looked at ease and peaceful and calm, like you didn’t need to look over your shoulder anymore but then you shot up out of nowhere. Gar knew it had to have been a nightmare. He reacts the same way when he has one, maybe everyone does but he knows the signs. Wide eyes, ragged breathing, distant but sleep-filled eyes. And now, you’re awake again from a nightmare and it doesn’t sit right with the kind boy with green hair.
You nod. “Y-yeah.” You offer a fake smile. “You, uh, you can go back to bed.”
“Are you going to go back to bed?” Gar asks with a pointed look and he doesn’t want you to be alone. The shadows are a bit more haunting when you’re alone.
“Uh….I mean….eventually.” You answer softly, dropping your head slightly.
“I can stay with you until you fall asleep if you want.” Gar shrugs his shoulders, putting his hands in the pockets of his pajama pants.
You raise a brow at him, not looking pleased with the idea. You don’t want to inconvenience him or seem weak. You’re in a tower full of heroes and you can’t even sleep through the night. The last thing you want is for any of them to see you as the weak link. What happens if you can’t pull it together? Will they just drop you because you’re not strong enough?
“It-it’s okay.” You  don’t smile this time, you just keep chewing your lip, pulling your sleeves over your hands, something Gar has been noticing you do.
“What were you doing out here?” Gar asks, his voice kind and not accusing but you shake your head, knowing it sounds ridiculous. “I won’t tell anyone.” He offers and there’s this sweet but subtle smile pulling at his lips.
Jason, a few hours ago, told you to talk to him. He said maybe it would help and the only way he’d know that, is if Gar knows Jason’s baggage, too. Jason doesn’t seem the type to wave the white flag and spill all of his secrets. Maybe Gar just cares about everyone and maybe it will help.
You sigh and cave. “I-I-I was….was just making sure….uh….he wasn’t….here.” You stutter but eventually get everything out and a part of Gar’s heart breaks at hearing it. 
You aren’t looking at him, a sense of shame consuming you and Gar is not about to have you feeling bad for worrying that the person who tortured you is seeking you out in the one place you feel safe. It’s not fair and it’s not right. Gar knows whatever you went through was horrible but the fact you’re so worried that the person is in the tower? It’s unfathomable.
Gar starts walking past you, stopping a few steps ahead of you and offering you his hand. “We’ll look together.”
You look at his hand and then up at him with his words and you can feel your nose getting warm while your eyes burn. Your entire face softens and there’s something about the offer that makes you feel like everything in you is being warmed by a fireplace, warmed by a place one can only describe as home. He didn’t think you were crazy or that it was ridiculous or stupid. He just…offered to help.
So, you put your hand in his, following him through the tower.
As you walk, you hold his hand tightly noticing the soft callouses. His grip is tight but in a comforting type of way and he glances at you every few seconds as if making sure you’re okay. You walk from room to room, turning on the lights and verifying there isn’t anyone around before you end up in the comms room with the supercomputer. Gar takes a seat and shows you that everything is still secure and there hasn’t been a break-in. Everyone still needs their fingerprints to get in and the front door is done by facial recognition. According to the logs, no one has been in or out of the tower since nine the night before.
“I’m sorry.” You say quietly, standing to the side of Gar with arms crossed and eyes on the large screen in front of you. “I know this was stupid.”
Gar spins in the chair to face you but your eyes don’t move. “It’s okay, ya know? You’re scared and this is a new place. It’s not stupid.”
“It feels like it though, I-i-i….I see him anytime I close my eyes.” Your voice is so small.
You think maybe you should take Jason’s advice fully. Gar is awake with you anyway and you woke him up. He could have gone back to bed but he walked with you instead, knowing full well there wasn’t an intruder in the tower. It’s like you owe him some type of explanation.
“Foster dad.” You clarify. “He’s originally from Gotham, too, ya know? So him being a complete psychopath kind of tracks.” There’s a sharp bitterness in your voice but you keep your stare off of Gar, afraid that if you can see the look on his face you know he’s giving you, you’ll just shut down and go to bed.
“He just…did that to you?” Gar asks with furrowed brows and pain in his voice.
“Yep, he wanted powers. Some weird thing against Batman and Robin so he used me because ya know, the system doesn’t actually give a fuck about most foster kids.” You grit your teeth, your fists balling in your arms. “Then thought I was concealing my powers from him because he was certain his experiments were working so he’d try to literally beat them out of me.” You shrug a shoulder. “Guess he was right.”
Gar pauses, piecing it together. He was sure you would have tried to use your powers, but you didn’t? “Wait so….you never used your powers around him and—“
“Let him beat me until he thought I was dead?” You ask, just glancing at Gar long enough to see him nod. “Yep. If he knew it worked, he’d have killed me anyway. Letting him think he failed was…” You tilt your head side to side slightly. “Vindicating in a way. I, uh, I know it sounds so stupid but I was desperate to try and get out. Desperate people do stupid things."
“I’m so sorry that happened.” Gar’s eyes are glued to you, hating the idea of living through that.
He was tortured before and it haunts him every single day. He wasn’t even tortured for very long and it’s still hell. You were tortured for a lot longer. He gets your hesitance and your paranoia. He’d be paranoid, too if he were you.
“Yeah….” You sigh. “So, I might have escaped physically but the piece of shit really isn’t leaving my dreams alone, I guess.”
Gar sits on it for a few seconds. While he was kind of this weird experiment in a way, Dr. Caulder knew it would work and it would save him. He never had to fear for his life around him. He feared speaking up and being himself because sometimes the doctor wasn’t very nice. He didn’t really like other people being their own people, not if it contradicted what he believed or wanted. So, he can’t even fathom want horrors haunt your mind even in safety.
“I can check the tower for you every night if you want.” Gar offers. You jerk your head in his direction, surprise etched across every crease of your face. “And uh, if you have a nightmare, you can wake me up. I leave my door unlocked anyway…if it’ll make you feel better.”
“Y-y-you’d do that?”
Gar gains a sheepish smile as he shrugs. “Yeah, of course.”
You will never tell Jason, but maybe he was right about telling Gar. You feel a little better about it and he’s so nice. He’s offering to lose sleep when you have a nightmare which could be every night. You wonder how he’s chosen to be so kind despite whatever he’s been through.
“Thank you.” You look to the ground and then finally look at Gar. “Can you not tell anyone? Please?”
He chuckles softly. “Your secret is safe with me.”
“Thanks, it means a lot.” You suck in a breath. “Well, now that I know my delusions are just delusions, I’m gonna try and get some more sleep.” You give him a genuine smile this time.
“I’ll be up if you need anything.” Gar says, turning back to the computer to exit out of the security system.
“I’m so sorry.” You apologize again. “I didn’t mean to keep you from sleeping or anything.”
“It’s okay.” Gar assures you. “I should be getting up early anyway.”
“Okay.” You nod, offering him a closed and small smile.
It’s six now so Gar’s alarm would be going off in an hour anyway. But, you’re still going to go to bed. He didn’t hear you go to bed the night before and it was pretty late when you woke up from the first nightmare.
“What, uh what time did you go to bed anyway?”
“Uh….” You squint an eye, trying to remember the last time you looked at your phone. “Four? I think?”
“Wow, okay.” Gar’s brows raise quickly as he chuckles softly.
“I-I got talking with Jason last night so…” Your words fall off. “Couldn’t sleep and I ran into him.”
Gar nods slowly, ignoring the tint of a burn in his chest. You talked to Jason but not him? He’s been so nice to you and he feels like you trust him. All you do with Jason is this weird banter thing that Gar is slowly realizing maybe it’s flirting. Not that he’s actively trying to pursue anything because that doesn’t feel right either. But something about you talking to Jason, hurts. He’s always deemed himself a trustworthy person who’s a pretty good listener but you went to probably the worst listener on the face of the planet. He doesn’t really get it and he knows he has not right to assume you would tell him anything. Above everything else, he’s just surprised you got talking to Jason.
“What’d ya talk about?” Gar plays it cool, not digging but just asking.
“Uh….nothing really, I guess.” You lie and it’s at that moment you realize you lie a lot. Not that you intend to, it just feels like an instinct now either to protect yourself or other people. “I mean…not nothing.” You correct yourself. “Some of what happened in a very unserious manner.”
Gar nods his head again and you might be a little dense but you’re not so dense that you missed the way he stiffed in his chair. “Did it help?” He asked.
“Well, I, uh, I felt better after but then I had a nightmare so….not sure how much talking about it really helped.” You scoff as you roll your shoulders.
“Is it because it was unserious?” Gar asks, quoting your direct word.
You shake your head. “Nah, always been better with unserious ways of talking about trauma. When it gets too….emotional I don’t….” You look to the floor, tugging your sleeves over your hands. “I don’t like it very much, like it less than I usually do, I suppose.”
“You can talk to me.” Gar offers, looking back over to you.
“I know.” You smile at him softly, it’s almost a smirk that forms. “Can you get a little snarky and nasty about it?”
“Would it help?” Gar chuckles, his position loosening with the question and the burning sensation in his chest starting to dissipate.
“Yeah, you can’t give that look you do. With the big eyes and sad expression, makes me feel weird.” You scrunch the left side of your mouth upwards.
Gar laughs softly, putting his hands up. “Okay, I’ll try my best.”
“Thanks.” You look around the room and then back to him. “I do like talking to you and hanging around you. You make me feel comfortable here.” You admit and then realize you’re saying way too much. “Okay well, that’s enough for today. I’m actually going to bed.” You smile at him and it almost feels like you should hug him or something but that also feels like it might just get awkward so you opt for a small wave as if that wasn’t just as awkward.
“Sleep well.” Gar laughs softly, matching the wave with burning cheeks.
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You finally get some much-needed rest, without a nightmare. It wasn't a lot of sleep by any means but it was a lot more than you’ve gotten in a long time and for the first time, you actually feel well-rested. You aren't sure if it's because you talked with Gar about what happened a little bit or if it's because you knew he was awake and wouldn't let anyone in your room if they tried. Or that he helped you look around the tower for Jerry like two crazy people. Maybe it's a combination of everything but you feel a lot better.
You find yourself walking into the kitchen once you’re fully awake, still dressed in pajamas. Your thing has always been you shouldn't need to get properly dressed if you aren't actively doing something or going somewhere. Why bother dirtying clothes?
When you walk into the kitchen, Gar and Jason are sat on the barstools while Dick is making some type of shake, Rachel is just coming in from the opposite hall. The boys look a little sweaty, devouring their food like they haven’t eaten in days. You assume they’d just gotten done with a training session and, apparently, were too hungry to shower first.
"Good morning." Dick chimes, bits of sarcasm in his words given it just being past noon.
You pause, glaring at him. "You're one of those aren't you?"
"What?" Dick chuckles, confusion in his face.
"Thinking the early bird gets the worm or whatever." Your voice is flat and you might be well-rested and it might be the afternoon, but you’re not a morning person.
Dick shrugs. "It's true."
"But the mouse gets the cheese, my guy." You give him a thumbs up, moving to the seat between Jason and Gar and sitting down. Gar gives you this gentle smile while Jason has this proud smirk pulling at his lips. "What?" You look at Dick who looks somewhere between amused and contentment.
Dick is looking at you with a sense of ease and accomplishment. He thought you’d be more...closed off longer. This is a new place, you’re traumatized and hurt. But, you seem comfortable, using sarcasm with him that isn’t hurtful and plopping down right between the boys whose expressions did not go unnoticed by Dick. Dick feels like he might be doing something really good here.
"Nothing." Dick's face settles with amusement. "Settling okay?"
"Mhm." You hum.
"Since she doesn't shut the fuck up, I'm sure she's fine." Jason states, his voice trying to sound menacing.
Gar and you look to Jason with annoyance. "You have not shut up for a single second I have been here and this is day three. You had no complaints last night." You look away, Dick looking between the two of you with his cup held to his mouth. He doesn’t even wanna know.
"You were whining, I wanted you to shut up and it worked." Jason mumbles and  you let out a laugh. What is his issue?
"I don't whine, I complain. There's a difference." You hold your pointer finger up to correct him and Jason cracks a smile, Gar chuckles into his water bottle.
"Same shit." Jason fires back. "You could stop."
You roll your eyes and that's when the idea sparks. Jason isn’t winning this, this is your game to win. "Hey, Dick, question: What's your rule on dating? Ya know in the tower?"
Jason and Gar both stiffen in their seats, you catching it out of the corner of your eyes and it takes everything in you not to burst out laughing or break the stare you have with Dick. Gar is choking on his water and Jason's cheeks are turning red while Dick is stuck looking at all three of you wondering how the hell he got here. The last thing Dick wants to do is discuss this. Of course, he knew there was a chance of something going on, but he kind of assumed it would just happen. He didn’t think he’d get dragged into it, not like this at least.
"She's screwing with you." Rachel says from the other side of Gar. You give Dick a wide smirk, Gar and Jason looking a little displeased, Jason more than Gar who almost looks disappointed.
"Of course she is." Dick lets out a breath, his expression unamused. 
"Sorry, you were a necessary casualty in getting Jason to shut up for a few seconds." You hold an apologetic smile.
Jason flirts a lot and in your experience, if you bring up dating out of the blue, it’ll shut someone like Jason up faster than anything because it’s out of left field. He’s caught off guard and it gets his brain going on if there’s something going on. You think it’s funny, you’ve won this bit.
"Well, since you wanted to bring it up..." Dick starts and all four of you suddenly look like you need seatbelts.
"No, not the talk, please." Gar begs with a groan.
Dick grimaces. "No, of course not. I trust you all know about that." Even if you didn’t, Dick isn’t sure he’d be able to give the talk. He’d call Donna and Dawn. They’re the responsible ones.
"Some of us more than others." Jason quips with a smirk.
"Gross." Rachel mutters.
"Dude." Gar looks past you and at Jason, shaking his head at Jason.
"Anyway, uh..." Dick fumbles for words, realizing he never had any intention of this conversation which was his fault given the Titans past of relationship in the tower. "Just make sure everyone is consenting and be safe?"
"You sound so uncertain about that." You raise a brow as your words are slow.
"I don't know how to have this conversation." Dick defends.
"We don't have to." Gar is grimacing in his seat. "We know, safety and consent, got it." It’s not that Gar is a prude, it’s just awkward and he’s not much of a fan of awkward conversations. If it were just him and Dick, it wouldn’t be awkward, but it's everyone.
"Don't bring drama into the training room or while we're out."
"Obviously." Rachel says, already tired of the conversation.
"That won't be a problem." Jason mutters.
You rolls your eyes at him before looking back to Dick. "You're doing great, bud." You give Dick a thumbs up.
"That's it. I don't care, don't do anything.....graphic..."
"God." Gar groans, making you laugh. But, everyone has gathered this look of disgust on their faces with Dick’s choice of words. "Please, stop talking." Gar pleads.
"In a public area of the tower." Dick continues.
All of your faces contort into a grimace, even Jason’s. That is such an odd and specific request. You did not think this is where that joke would go. You didn’t think it’d go anywhere, let alone here.
"I feel like there's a very specific reason you said that and I don't wanna know." You laugh. "I'm sorry, I didn't think he'd decide to have this conversation." You apologize to the room.
"And what did you learn today?" Dick asks, not too happy about feeling like he had to have the talk with the new Titans.
"You want me today something like pick my words more carefully next time but...I think I just learned not bring up interpersonal relations with you in front of other people." You scrunch your nose.
Dick lets out a sigh. "Well, are we clear then?"
"YES." Gar yells, dramatically. "Can we stop now? This is awkward."
"Come on, Gar. Surely this isn't new territory for you." You kick Jason under the counter. "Ow! What the fuck?"
"Shut the fuck up." You snip at him.
"Yeah? And What are you gonna do about it?" Jason looks you up and down.
You narrow your eyes and for a second you think about what you could do. You could give him a burn, something equivalent to a rug burn. But, that’s not right and you’d never actually try to hurt him, not like this. And you can’t punch him because that also seems a bit extreme. He’d probably see it coming anyway, block you, then hit you back.
"That's what I thought." Jason scoffs with a look of pride as he’s won.
You shove him with your hand, Jason falling off of his chair. He hits the floor with a thud, looking at up at you with a twisted face filled of anger and shock. For someone who can't fight and who's injured, you’re ballsy. Jason could fight you right now and you'd basically be defenseless but Jason wouldn't do that. He knows where the lines are when it comes to physical contact and he doesn't cross them. He crosses a lot of lines, but fighting people who can't fight back isn't one of those. So, he's even more pissed about it.
Jason gets back to his feet, closing the distance between him and you. "What the fuck is your problem, huh?" Jason yells in your face, Gar adjusting in his seat, ready to get up at any point and Dick is ready to step in if he needs to.
"You are, apparently. Why do you have to be such a fucking asshole? For no reason? Aren't you friends?"
"He doesn't need you to come to his fucking defense. I was fucking joking." Jason snarls, looking just past you at Gar before looking back at you.
"Right." You mutter. "Except it's obvious the whole conversation has made him uncomfortable so why don't you go cool the fuck off. You obviously need to." You sit straight in your seat, your face close to Jason's and you’re not backing down.
"You shoved me!" Jason flings his arm out in frustration.
"You asked me what I was gonna do about it! So I showed you!" You bark at him. "What are you gonna do about it?"
A dry laugh escapes Jason's throat and he doesn't want to actually fight you, but you’re making it a little tempting right about now. "Is that all you fucking have?" He taunts you instead.
"Wanna test me?" You open your palms, holding them just in front of your shoulders as they glow. Jason looks at the green and he doesn't get how people with powers are so willing to use them. He doesn't need powers. He's got his fists and those are plenty.
"Because you're just another freak, right?"
Gar gets off his seat at that comment, pushing Jason slightly and standing in between you and Jason. "Dude, go calm down. It's not that serious." Gar keeps his voice level, trying to diffuse the situation.
"You a team now, huh?" Jason looks in between you.
"Jason, come on. Cool off for a few minutes." Dick keeps his stance, choosing not to crowd the already heated area.
"Fuck you guys!" Jason yells, pushing past Gar and heading down the right hallway.
Gar sits down again and Dick's position relaxes with Jason out of the room. Gar's just surprised it went as far as it did but it's also Jason. He has buttons and pushing them sometimes leads to blow-ups. Jason is still his friend but sometimes, he really does not make it easy and this is one of those times. He doesn't understand why Rachel and now you are freaks but somehow Gar is never a freak. He has powers, too and as far as he's concerned, turning into a tiger is far more freakish than whatever you have going on. And he always acts like it's your fault, somehow. Rachel was just born like that, no one gets to pick their biological parents. And Gar and you were injected. How is that right? It hurts a little because Gar knows that if they weren't friends, he'd be the target one of Jason's freak rants.
"Is that what everyone meant by I'd get used to Jason?" You ask the room.
"Yeah." Gar answers and Dick nods. "He does that sometimes."
"Interesting." You hum quietly, your hands shaking slightly, Gar taking notice.
"Are you okay?" He asks, looking between your hands and your eyes.
"Oh..." You quickly move your hands under the countertop and tug your sleeves down. "I'm, uh I'm fine." You fake a smile at him.
It's not that you really thought Jason might hit you, him hitting you over a shove didn’t even cross your mind. You don't really know if he's the type that gets mad and hits people, you don't really know him at all. But, you'd think that would have been a warning from someone if that were the case. It was more that you don't like getting yelled at apparently. It wasn’t an issue before Jerry but, now it seems to be another trigger.
"He wouldn't have hurt you." Dick assures you, as if reading your mind.
"Jason doesn't hit people here when he gets mad, just yells a lot." Gar assures you, following Dick's lead.
"I didn't think he'd hit me." You tell them with ease. "Got that throbbing thing in the back of my head when someone's going to." You remind them. "And I just...I'm not scared of him. Guess I just don't like being yelled at when someone is in my face." You look to the counter. "I'm fine, honest."
"Are you sure?" Gar asks.
"Yeah." You give him a soft smile. "Thanks though. I'm gonna eat." You get down and find a bowl in a cabinet, moving around Dick.
"Okay, I'm gonna go check on Jason then, make sure he's cooling down." Dick gives Gar a look and a nod toward you. Gar nods in response while Dick leaves to find Jason.
You make your cereal while Gar watches you. Your hands are still shaking and he feels bad. It's not his fault that Jason blew up because it's Jason. He blows up at everything but Gar could have defended himself. It's nice that you did. He's never had someone defend him like that but it got you yelled at by Jason and after you had, what Gar assumed to be, a pretty nice conversation the night before. He just worries about you.
"Hey," Gar starts as you take your seat back next to him. "Wanna do something today?" Gar asks.
You furrow your brows at him, before taking a bite of your cereal. "Like what?"
"What'd you wanna do?" Gar shrugs, figuring maybe you should be the one to decide. He just wants to hang out with you.
"Mmmm." You hum and think for a second. "Dye my hair." You chuckle softly.
"That's what you wanna do?" Gar asks.
"Mhm." You hums. "Always wanted to and you have green hair, Rachel's hair is purple." You shrug.
You just want a change. This is a big change, being at the tower but that doesn’t have anything to do with your appearance. You like how you look but you want something different. Your mom never let you dye your hair even though you really wanted to. This place, this place allows you to do that and to change something about yourself. It’s a way to take control of something. The way you see it, with all the bruising and swelling, you don’t look much like yourself anyway. Might as well change the hair, too.
"Okay." Gar beams at you. "We can go get whatever dye you want today and I can help. I'm not sure how much help I'll be but maybe we can get Rachel to help if you want." Gar rambles off and he seems so energetic and happy about it.
"Uh..." You stutter. "Okay, yeah that'd be fun. Thank you." The smile you give him is wide and filled of joy.
"What color?"
You tell him your favorite color, beaming at him. "Always thought that hair was cool." You smirk at him.
"We'll go when you're done eating." Gar gets up from his chair. "I'm gonna shower first."
"Have a blast." You grin to yourself, going back to your cereal. "Meet me in my room after?" You look back to him and he nods with a cheery smile before turning on his feet, and quickly heading down the hallway. "He's so cute." You say to yourself, going back to your cereal.
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After Gar's shower, he met with you in your room. You were already dressed and ready to go, you even asked Rachel for help when you got back which Rachel was more than happy to help. Once Gar was ready, he was the one that asked Dick for some money before you left and off you went with Rachel, you feeling more comfortable having both Gar and Rachel with you. You realize how great it is that Rachel was willing to help because you never would have gotten something everything you needed.
When you got back, Gar and you met with Rachel in a bathroom. Rachel got everything together and get to work with your hair. You explained to Rachel that you still wanted some of your natural hair color but the majority of it to be dyed. Rachel understood what you were explaining while Gar seemed a little confused.
As Rachel helped with your hair, the three of you got talking about past lives. You all avoided all talk about trauma and tragic backstories and instead talked about your favorite movies and shows, music. If you'd ever been to a concert, the best places you've ever eaten, random stories about family and friends you had before everything. And while these conversations are going on, there's warmth and comfort that consumes you.
This is the longest you’ve gone without thinking about how your face looks or how your body is sore or Jerry. It's just the three of you and you feel so at home because Gar and Rachel make it so easy. And you wonder if this is what real friendship feels like.
Sure, you had friends before your mom died. But that was then and this is now. You had a small circle of friends but only one that you really relied on and could tell anything to. But then your mom died and it all got so messy and heavy. You couldn't inconvenience even your best friend with your problems over it. Your best friend never really understood the person you started to become after. Vengeful and spiteful and angry. And desperate and cold and detached. It struck like a hurricane right through your friendship.
You couldn't handle anything and you were always running from CPS. What kind of friend would you be if you endangered your best friend's mom by getting in trouble with CPS? You knew it was only a matter of time before they threatened to take your best friend away if they didn't give you up. At least, that's how you always saw it. It was always such a big fear and you couldn't put them through that, on the chance it did happen so you just left one day and never came back. But you weren't a very good friend then either.
You had all these plans of hunting down the Joker and even though you'd probably die, too, hunting him down would have made it worth it to you. To look him in the eyes and just try to hit him or shoot him, if you had a gun anyway. You knew you would never make it out alive and that was something you deemed to be okay because you didn't have anything worth living for anymore. Your dad went off to choose drugs over you, your mom died, your best friend not knowing how to handle anything. A suicide mission seemed like a pretty sweet deal at the time. But, now you’re here with Gar and Rachel, in this bathroom getting the hair you’ve wanted to try and maybe you have more worth living for.
"Okay, what do you think?" Rachel asks, shutting the blow-dryer off, proud of the dye job she's done.
You look in the mirror and your face lights up. Stripes of the color consume the majority of your head and you could not be happier in this moment. "I love it!" You squeal before turning around. "Thank you!" You hug Rachel quickly before turning back around and there's a sweet and amused smile on Gar's face.
"It looks really good on you." Gar's smile turns shy as you look to him.
"Y-you think so?" You asks, your stomach swirling with his words.
Gar nods. "Yeah, I like the color." Gar’s smile is the softest thing in the world.
"How cute." Rachel giggles before cutting it short as Gar looks at her with wide eyes. "It looks good, yeah." Rachel agrees.
"Thank you." You look at yourself again and you’ve never had this hair before, but it makes you feel more like yourself. It's probably the self-expression it's allowing you to have but you really like it. "And hey, now people will have something else to look at that's not my face." You laugh softly.
"You're face looks good, too." Gar says so quickly, you and Rachel barely catch it, but you do and you both look at him with raised brows. Rachel looks in between you and Gar, waiting for something to happen. This is the most entertainment she's had since they got to San Francisco. "I mean..." Gar stutters. "The, uh, the bruises and stuff, they're healing."
"Mhm." You hum with burning cheeks. "Thank you, Gar."
Gar feels the embarrassment wanting to eat him alive. He can't believe he said that out loud. Now Rachel is looking at him with knowing eyes and he can't help it. Sometimes, things just come out and then he feels like he has to backtrack and now he's embarrassed even though you didn't seem bothered by it. Which then makes him think he didn't need to add in the last comment about the bruises. Surely, you know he didn't mean just the bruises are looking fine now and the meant your whole face but now he doesn't know and he has got to get his brain to shut up for five seconds.
"There you are." Dick says, looking into the bathroom, the door wide open.
"Yes?" Rachel asks.
"Training room." Dick says.
Gar checks the time on his phone, seeing they were in fact late for their last training session. Shopping with you took a little longer than expected since you stopped for food and were having fun together. Then dying your hair took a while but Dick doesn't seem mad about it.
The three of you follow Dick to the training room where Jason is already waiting, as if he hadn't left the room since this morning. You sit on a bench and watch as you’re not allowed to train yet. Dick mostly supervises after giving them some instructions on what to do and then gives pointers. You mostly watch Gar and Jason.
It's interesting watching them. Jason is clearly the aggressor. You can't tell if it's all his pent-up aggression or if it's just his experience as Robin that makes him the aggressor but you find it interesting nonetheless. Gar and Rachel seem to work together to go against Jason even though they're all supposed to be working against each other. Gar works more on a defensive tactic, going for Jason after Jason comes for him or while Rachel has him distracted and that's when Gar gets a hit it. They're being trained by the same person but they fight differently and it seems to match their personalities.
Dick walks over to you as the other three continue to spar. "Like the new hair." Dick compliments you.
"Thanks, Rachel did it for me." You beam up at him.
"Feeling more comfortable?"
"Yeah..." You sigh. "I give you shit 'cause it's fun but I think I'm gonna like it here. Thank you again for taking me in." You say candidly. You make a mental note to thank him regularly for it.
It warms Dick's heart to know his efforts mean something. He just wants to be the mentor he wishes Bruce was and he just wants to help. It seems to be working, with you and Rachel and Gar, jury is still out on Jason. But Dick knows Jason will not be an overnight success.
"Good, I'm glad." Dick offers you a smile before walking back to where he previously was.
The rest of the training session goes by, Gar and Rachel going to you when they had a water break and talking. Jason opted to be by himself, Gar noticing the concern on your face and assuring you that he'll be calm and be over it the next day. But it doesn't quite sit right for you. You don't want him mad at you, you do like to mess with him in a fun banter way, not him being pissed at you.
You like to push people's buttons but you’re not too fond of people being actively mad at you. If there's a line you aren't supposed to cross, all someone has to do is tell you and you'll respect the line. You aren't about making people unnecessarily uncomfortable or mad. But you nod along with Gar anyway and eventually training ends. You stay behind with Jason, Gar hovers a little more than he would given the events of the afternoon but he does eventually leave the two of you alone.
"So, you gonna stay mad at me forever?" You ask as you walk over to Jason who's seated on a bench, getting a drink and ignoring you. "Come on," You groan. "Can you not handle a shove from me?"
Jason glares up at you. "Just shut up." He groans.
"Nope." You sit next to him, your leg touching his. "I'm sorry I shoved you." Jason's brows furrow at you and he doesn't think anyone has apologized to him since he's been here, for anything. "Honest, I should have left it alone but I provoked you further than I should have." You are sorry for it. Sure, Jason owes you an apology, too but you can apologize first. 
"Sorry for what I said." Jason mumbles, swallowing his pride.
He never wants to hurt someone's feelings, not really. In the moment, absolutely but then after he feels horrible about it. He hates when other people make him feel weak. You shoving him from his seat, it made him feel weak and he hates it. It’s how he’s felt his entire life. Weak. So, when he feels weak or when someone pushes the wrong bottom, he just starts talking and going off. It just flows out of his mouth before he can even think about it. It's not an excuse, he just can't help it and he is sorry.
"To you and Gar." Jason lets out a sigh.
The corner of your smile pulls up. "I forgive you."
Jason glances at you and he can’t stay mad at you. Normally, he’s very good at holding grudges. He still has a grudge against a kid who pushed him down a slide when he was seven. He’s very good at holding grudges but you’ve got this smirk that says you’re up to no good and this look in your eyes that sends this electricity through his blood. He can’t explain it but he can’t stay mad at you.
"Did you still wanna train tonight when everyone goes to bed?" Jason turns his head towards you, twitching his brows up and the grin starts pull at his lips. 
"If you're still willing."
"Someone's gotta show you how to do more than fucking shove someone." Jason scoffs but a smile pulls at his lips as he chuckles softly.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah, got powers now and never had issues on the streets, okay? People happen to like my quick wit and quips.” You lightly nudge him with your shoulder. 
"Yeah," Jason chortles. "That's why no one fucked with you.” Jason nods his head and lightly nudges you back, not believing you.
"I'd like to think so, yes.” You hold your head up with pride and Jason has this genuinely kind smile on his face. “What time, boss?”
Jason shakes his head. “Midnight. Everyone is usually in their rooms or asleep.”
“Okay, I'll meet you here then." You smirk at him as you get up and lick your lips. He knows deep down he doesn't have a shot with you but his stomach burns with the thought of you. You get under his skin like no one else and he hates to admit it but he really likes it.
"Don't be late." Jason quips, his voice taunting.
You shake your head, turning around to face him again. “Shut the fuck up.” You laugh softly. “I’ll meet you here at midnight, on the dot.” You widen your eyes, mocking him before exiting the room.
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series masterlist | masterlist | tag list
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Tag list: @fairyofshampoo // @italiana-20 // @jasontoddsmentaldisorders // @purplerose291 // @lovelessamai  // @makaelaseresin // @lenidaslenchen // @thatfangirl42​
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audikatia · 23 days
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Chapters: 16/25 Fandom: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish Characters: Ronan Lynch, Adam Parrish Additional Tags: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Horror, Romance, Slow Burn, Catholicism, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Sexual Content, First Time, Blow Jobs, Abuse, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Minor Character Death, Dismemberment, Murder, Mutilation, Substance Abuse, Trauma, Violence, Mystery, Murder Mystery
Note: Hello, I am coming back from the dead on this St. Mark's Eve to provide you all with another chapter. Kisses. Thank you, @the-prince-of-tides, for spinning my ramblings into gold. Or at least something more readable lol
Excerpt:
“Why didn’t you call the police?” He tried to keep his tone neutral. His mother had never called the police, no matter how many dishrags and pillows Adam had bled into. He was not surprised, but still, he was curious. And more than that, he never would have kept this from his mother if he had ever gotten a threat against her so carefully delivered to him. Why did she keep this from him? “Why didn’t you tell me?”
AO3 Link
start from beginning
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yandere-chocolate · 2 years
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Yandere Collector x human Reader ~(Platonic)~
(There is absolutely 0 demand for this character as a yan & in general, but we’re still here.)
(Sorry for any grammar mistakes/misspellings)
(Btw, the Collectors age wasn’t entirely revealed yet, so they’re a teenager in this. Doesn’t make a difference, but thought you’d wanna know.)
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(Scenerio: You are a human in the Boiling Isles. The Collector has been reduced back to their shadow form after the “Day Of Unity”)
TW: yandere content, implied abandonment, kidnapping
You were walking alone in the forest. You were lost & trying to find shelter, but it was too dark & the sounds of the creatures in the dark pulsed adrenaline through your veins. You had to get out of here. Out of “the Boiling Isle”.
You have no idea how you got here, you swear that you just woke up here, but that didn’t matter right now. Surviving did.
As you found some warm shelter you fell asleep there. You didn’t even notice the two glowing eyes on you.
“Hehe…a human! A human!” The Collector laughed excitedly, “a new friend! Oh, I won’t be alone anymore!” The large, glowing shadow ran across the room, spinning themselves in circles & loops. “After heartbreak, betrayal, & abandonment once again, finally I have found a brand new friend!” The Collector spun into a shadowy version of you, laughing. The shadow began making poems & rhymes, praising you for simply…existing.
When you woke up the next day, you almost screamed when you saw a glowing, moving shadow. Somehow…it was still dark. This can’t be normal….
“Hello, new friend!~” the shadow giggled, dancing around you. “What is your name?” You didn’t want to tell the strange being your name. “Don’t be afraid!” They said, “I’ve learned my lesson! Killing people makes you lonely…” he finished, hanging their head low. “W-What do you mean…?” You asked, the shadow perked up.
“Belos promised me a land with nine bright hues! Of fun & games, where no one would lose! But alas, I was deceived! betrayed, abused & left out to bleed. Beings still live here, though they had embark, for Belos & I have turned this land completely dark.” Throughout the poem, the shadow was dramatically throwing themselves everywhere, making extreme gestures & using their inhuman body to show scenes of what had happened, with “left out to bleed” & “of fun & games where no one would lose!” being just some examples.
“Now…” they started, “why don’t you tell me your name? We can’t be best friends if I don’t even know your name!” You backed away, a little nervous. “C’mooonnn!” he whined, “I showed you my trauma through rhymes & acting, the very least you could do is tell me your name!” It seemed as though the shadow was annoyed. “O-Okay…I’m (y/n)…” you muttered out & the shadow spun around in delight, “(y/n)! A human name! A real, human name! Hehehe! Oh, I haven’t had a human friend in so long!” They continued giggling, but smiled & held out their hand once they settled down. “I’m The Collector!” He said cheerfully. You tried shaking his hand, but you just ended up touching the wall. “Hehe! You’re going to so fun to play with! What games do you like?! Hopscotch? Tag? Red Rover?! Hehehe! Human games are so fun!” The Collector laughed, twitching a little. “I won’t be alone anymore! I WON’T BE ALONE ANYMORE!” Suddenly, you felt physical hands grab you, “BECAUSE OF YOU MY FRIEND! We can play forever, & ever, & ever, & ever—it’ll be SO much FUN!” You tried to loosen his grip, but they wouldn’t budge. “Why are you….are you trying to get away…?” The Collector asked, seemingly hurt. “You…you do want to be my friend, right? I promise I’m fun! I promise to keep you happy!” The Collector’s grip tightened, feeling a swirl of extreme emotions, namely desperation. “I’ll protect you! We can play whatever games you want—talk about whatever you want! I can get you a home—a-a real one! A big one!—just-just…j-just…” The Collector was shivering, “breathing” heavily, eyes wide & on the verge of tears, “JUST DON’T LEAVE ME!! PLEASE!!” The Collector finally let go of you, backing away on the wall, hiding their head in their hands. “I-I can’t handle being alone! not anymore! NOT ANYMORE!” Vibrant stars swirled around the room, along with blue hues. “YOU’RE NOT LEAVING ME! I…I woN’T LET YOU!” The Collector screamed & you felt yourself pulled into the shadows.
…As you slowly woke up, you saw that you were in some black water, surrounded by glass-like cubes. “Ugh…” you groaned.
“Hello, friend!” You heard a familiar, cheery voice. This time, they appeared to be a more human-like entity, with just their half-yellow-half-blue skin being the only visible non-human trait. That, & their white hair.
“Who…are you?” You asked, rubbing your head. “I’m The Collector, silly! Hehe! Humans are so weird!” You froze. “WHY AM I HERE?!” You asked, upset. “Oh! Well, you can’t leave me here! Hehe! Oh, you’re cute when you’re mad, (y/n)!” The Collector then booped you, smiling.
“So…what game do you wanna play first?” Stars appeared in his eyes as he said this.
Well, there’s no going back now.
But you’re getting out.
You refuse to stay with this insane kid forever.
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just-an-enby-lemon · 2 months
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So Fantasy High is about the hardships of growing up and about friendship and the moment you start to see that your parents are not perfect and sometimes even discover that they are abusive and about figuring out who you are while everyone wants to tive you different answers and about how I'll never finish it cause I don't have money for Dropout (before anyone starts talking about it being acessible 1 dollar equals 5 reais).
Ordem Paranormal is about trauma and about found famillies and about support and how important connections are specially when you life gets to the point where it becomes hard to get out of the bed about the people we are and the people we became as the world spins far and far away from our control about being the best person we can about keeping fighting even when not enough and about how Arthur Severo never did anything wrong in his life and how everyone either loves him or has no soul.
Dungeons and Dadies is very very clearly about generational trauma about cycles of abuse and how hard it is to break them about working hard to make things right and sometimes still failling about unexpected friendships about what even means having a familly, being enthrusted to random people at birth and hoping it will all aork out and about how hard it is to raise a kid but also to be a kid how families are messy and sometimes about how Anthony has a goal and he made it, my man wrote for podcasts, videogames and porn and he is really proud of himself.
Rusty Quill Gaming is about big cities that hide poverty alway and pretend everything is okay until it isn't, about trying to do good and having to figure out what this means, about how you can have the best intencions but fail, about messy revolutions and authoritative goverments that sort of think they are actually doing the right thing, about forming bonds but not really knowing what they are about not even liking the people you hang with (except when you do) about how life is really complicated and thinking you figured it all out is not gonna help long run and also about how Albert Einstein and Oscar Wilde are in opposite sides of loved NPCs and Rome really matters because Alex focused on it during his history degree.
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ichijager13 · 1 year
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Teach me how to be loved
Chapter VII
Fuck yeah, give it to me, this is Heaven, what I truly want
Pairing : Eren Jäger x reader
Characters: Eren Jäger, Annie Leonhart, Pieck Finger.
Tags: Unhealthy coping mechanism, unhealthy relationships, childhood trauma, physical and verbal abuse, self-esteem and trust issues, domestic violence, implied/ referenced cheating, and a touch of sweet, lovable, and non fuckboy Eren Jäger
This fic is brought to you by Lana Del Rey’s songs
Masterlist, AO3,  Playlists: Reader’s POV, Eren’s POV
A/N: Heyllo, I would like to thank the sweet @bloompompom for helping with this chapter and for beta-reading. you are an angel  ❤️
I also would like to thank you for reading and interacting with my story. I hope you are enjoying it so far.
Likes and reblogs are more than welcome 
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You were so invested in the kiss you didn’t hear the door click open. Not sure how but he somehow managed to insert the key and open the door without taking his lips off yours. Fortunately, he caught you before you fall.
The yelp that escaped from you earned a short laugh from him. “Stop laughing”. you frowned turning your face away from him.
“I’m sorry”. He stifled his laughter. “You’re beautiful”. He hummed cupping your face. The sudden compliment made you feel so vulnerable. At this point, you are willing to let him do anything to you.
He hopped you on his shoulder and headed straight to his bedroom. Before even your feet touched the ground, his lips were back on top of yours. His kisses have the power to make the room spin around you and your knees feel like marshmallows, just like how you remember them. Wanting more, needing more, you tilted your head and grabbed him by his shoulder, bringing him closer to you.
Still devouring your lips like a starved man, he let his hands slip under your dress. They were everywhere, following a map only he knew existed. Altering between light touches and urgently kneading and grabbing your flesh. Craving more, he undid the zipper of your dress and helped you step out of it. during all this time, your lips didn’t separate for longer than the time needed for catching your breath.
With more of you exposed to his greedy hands, he didn’t leave one spot unexplored. Big, calloused, and warm hands were felt on every inch of your skin. Following every dip, drawing every curve, and linking all your scars and moles. His hands were strong, yet the touch was delicate in a way you never imagined a human being was capable of and it made you feel lightheaded.
With trembling hands, you unclasped the first buttons of his shirt before you decided it would be better for both of you to just pull it off his head. you both paused, short and sharp breathing and dark eyes, taking your time admiring the other’s body. No matter how many times he had you like this, Eren always finds himself out of words whenever you are standing in front of him like this.
Slowly, you guided the tip of your fingers along his sculpted body. Going down, feeling the heat radiating from him and his muscles tense under your touch, you continued your journey down his torso until you reached his belt.
But before you managed to unbuckle it, he took both your hands in his and guided you to his bed. you let him lay you down before he climbed on top of you. The first peck landed on the tip of your nose, followed by some on the apple of your cheek. He then littered soft kisses along your jawline. He kissed each corner of your mouth before finally capturing your lips. this time he didn’t wait, he immediately shoved his tongue past your plump lips. the sensations caused by the way his tongue caressed yours made you press your legs together, slowly squirming. A groan left him when you slowly rocked your core back and forth against him shortly after he place his knee between your legs.
Pulling away, you tugged on his heavy lower lip with your teeth. You then guided your lips behind his ear going down to his neck and his shoulder leaving behind you a trail of wet kisses and soft bites. And finally went back to the nape; you remained there nibbling and sucking the thin skin, producing wet sounds that riled him.
Meanwhile, one of Eren’s hands was caressing your breasts.
You dipped your teeth further when he pinched your hardened bud.
His other hand held your hip still. You were so close to your demise which made you whine at the loss of the delicious friction. “Be patient”. He rasped before dipping between your legs. He hooked a finger to the waistband of your tights and pulled them down alongside your panties. Once he got rid of the last piece keeping him from feeling your slit, he scattered some open-mouthed kisses on your inner thigh before slipping two digits inside you. “Fuck”. He mumbled, making his way back to your lips. and that’s when he did it. that’s when he started fucking your mouth with his tongue. His wet muscle moved in perfect synchronization with his fingers driving you crazy and making you see the stars in the middle of his dimly lit bedroom. The sloppiness of his moves made you arc your back and produce filthy noises. The way you were reacting to his touch was making him aching for more. The sensation of your walls squishing his fingers made his mind go blank. And he knew it, he knew it was only a matter of time before he becomes more desperate than you are. And it happened, you made him lose control of himself. You made him drag his fingers out of you, unbuckle his belt, free his swollen shaft, and slam himself inside you without a warning. Knowing what led to this, you did it again. Only this time you sucked on his tongue slowly, you swiped your tongue leisurely around his and caressed it gently, just like you did with his dick the last time you had your lips wrapped around it.
Eren wasn’t very vocal, so, hearing him growling into your mouth like a wounded animal when you rolled your tongue around his, made the thin strings of sanity you had left break. You sucked one last time on his tongue before releasing it.
“Eren”. You breathed, “Yes, there”. you rolled your hips, trying to get more friction, to get him deeper.
“Are you on birth control?” He asked minutes later. “I’m, Fuck, I’m about to cum”. He howled bucking his hips harder against your center.
“Mmh, y-yes”. after a few more thrusts you felt his body tense and a warm liquid painting your walls. He continued pounding into you before falling next to you.
“Forgot to put on a condom, sorry”. He explained out of breath. “Now it’s your turn”. He followed, voice husky and filled with need as if he hasn’t just cum.
His hand made its way between your bodies. Without pulling himself from you, he started drawing slow circles on your clit. You gasped at the contact of your heated bud with his cold pad. “Sorry”. He murmured against your lips. He picked up the pace as the kiss deepened.
Feeling your climax approaching, you hocked a leg around his waist and started rocking your hips. The bliss that washed over you was like nothing you have experienced before, not even with Eren. You continued fucking yourself through your orgasm until you started feeling sore.
“Wait”. He grabbed your hipbone holding you still when you tried to pull away. “Just a little more”. He added setting the slowest tempo he found himself capable of. Your sensitive core was spasming around him, greedily sucking him in until he came for the second time inside you. He pressed a few kisses to your lips and cheeks before he dragged himself out, careful not to hurt you. “Are you alright?” He inquired.
“Yes”. you managed to replay.
“You won’t run away tomorrow morning, will you?” He asked once the fog clouded up his mind dissipated. One of his hands was messing with your hair.
“I won’t”. you replied nuzzling his neck.
“Do you pinky promise not to?” The serious tone he used dragged a corny laugh from you.
“What are you, a four-year-old kid?” You scoffed.
“Maybe”. He grabbed your jaw, making your eyes meet. “Don’t run away again”. He repeated before closing the gap between your lips. “Please”.
Your hand slowly caressed his cheek, how did you end up here, you asked yourself.
Before you could contemplate the question further, Eren’s lips working down your throat rendered your thoughts null. Defeated, you let your head fall back giving him more access. Your eyes fluttered shut, dissolving under his divine touch.
“I won’t… Ah… I promise, I won’t”. you babbled. “Eren”. You whined in protest when he interrupted what he was doing, staring at you, puzzled. “I promise I won’t run away”. You clarified taking place between his legs. He nodded watching you with hazy eyes, taking his half-erected sex in your hand. You stroked it for a couple of minutes before pressing your lips to the tip. Your hand still moving up and down lazily, you took him in your mouth. Just like earlier with his tongue, you suckled on him, taking in one inch after the other. The faint grunt that escaped from him, let you know you were doing things right. working with both your hands and mouth, you zero your eyes on him watching him grimace as you picked up the pace.
At one point, he reached his hand, caressing your cheek where his tip pocked and smiled fondly at you. the way you looked, lips stretched around him and both hands pleasuring him made him lose any sense of reality. He started moving his hips, meeting you halfway while one hand rested at the back of your head pulling you closer. You surrendered yourself to him and let him take the lead until that one abrupt buck. You felt him twitch inside your mouth before he coated your tongue with his seed. You swallowed whatever he had to offer you before you sat near him.
You studied the man lying next to you as he rode out his euphoria. Such a gorgeous man, you thought to yourself when his eyes locked gaze with you. they were burning with lust and desire, and you loved it. you loved the way he was staring up at you. you loved how he sat straight and brought you to his lap. You loved the feeling of his warm breath against your skin. And for a moment, for a split second, you wanted for this to last forever.
Feeling his lips crashing against yours, you chased away those thoughts and focused on his tongue’s movements. The kiss was feverish, messy and you never wanted it to end. You pressed your forehead against his and one hand on the back of his neck, kissing him back with the same passion. You trail your lips from his along his jaw, down his neck, and over the bump of his Adam’s apple. Dipping your teeth above his collarbone while straddling him. your grip on his neck tightened when you grabbed his shaft and lined it with your entrance.
Mouth ajar, Eren hissed, feeling himself sinking deeper than he has ever been inside you. Overwhelmed by the delicious feeling of having him this deep, you paused, trying to adjust to his presence. Moments later, you started idly moving your hips up and down.
Head falling back, eyes squeezed shut, Eren was in trans. The bites you were leaving across his shoulders, creating red spots on his tanned skin, and your nails raking down his shoulder blade, leaving scratches behind them made holding still impossible. One of his hands reached for your hipbone while the other grabbed your jaw. He brought your face closer to his as he set a new pace, guiding your hips and thrusting up. “Eren”, you moaned into his mouth, unable to form a coherent sentence.
He continued fucking up into you, feeling your walls grow tighter, announcing the approach of your climax. You were getting closer, so close, you protested when he pulled out of you out of nowhere, with a loud grunt. “Be patient”. He groaned laying you on your back before pounding back inside you. his hips rutted at a merciless rhythm, you found yourself digging your nails into his back to keep yourself from shattering and collapsing underneath him.
Your walls tightened around him when he cupped your pussy and commenced toying with your sensitive bundle of nerves. “Fuck”. He growled feeling you tense and stutter like a broken record.
Like your bodies were synchronized, you came simultaneously. After a couple of frantic jolts, he pulled himself out of you and laid beside you.
Body still trembling, you glanced at the green-eyed man facing you. A lazy smile made its way across his face making something deep inside you click. He cupped your face gently, as if he didn’t hammer himself into you a moment ago, and kissed you. unlike earlier, he took his time to savor your lips.
“Shower?” his voice was still a bit husky making you ache for more of him. instead, you nodded slowly. He left the bed and disappeared inside the bathroom. You waited until your thoughts became clear enough to follow him without stumbling into anything.
You gasped when your eyes fell on his back. It was all red and he was bleeding in some spots. “I’m sorry”. You mumbled. Confused, he stared at you. “Your back”. You pointed, and he glanced at the mirror.
A light scoff left him, “It’s alright, don’t bother yourself”. He held his hand for you to join him under the shower.
You were drying your hair when he tossed you a t-shirt. You brushed your hair and put the shirt and your panties on before joining him in bed. He scooped you closer, leaning in to place a soft kiss on your lips. you then, rested your head on his shoulder laying next to him. He brushed the strands that fell on your face smiling. “You’re so beautiful it makes my heart skip a beat each time I look at you”. his words made, your already rosy cheeks from the events of the night and the hot shower you took, crimson. Lost for words, you buried your face in the crook of his neck, unable to fight back the ridiculous smile spreading across your lips.
His soft lips grazing your forehead was the last souvenir you registered from this night before you were down for the count.
Soon after, Eren followed.
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strawberryjamsara · 8 months
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Do you have any madoka magica hot takes/unpopular opinions?
Maybe a few
- I don’t really like Tart Magica. It’s considered one of the best spin offs and I’ll frequently reccomend it to people looking for side material because of this, but to me it felt very boring, almost shounen esque in how generic it was, did not make use of the concepts of PMMM in a historical setting in an interesting way, and none of the characters were interesting to me.
-I think that people (rightfully) defending Homura against people who wish to demonize her (get it? Demonize? Cause she’s a demon.) go into a whole other extreme of dogpiling on anyone who tries to analyze her by including her flaws. Like yeah, she’s not evil in the least. But a 14 year old girl with all the trauma she’s experienced isn’t always going to make perfect choices. Homura was literally dying when she made her choice to pull Madoka down and in doing so, revoked Madoka the choice in what would happen with her life anymore. It’s a messy complicated decision where yes, Madoka certainly wouldn’t have chosen a normal life on her own, and Homura needed to do something but it’s also not a simple black and white. Like I once made a comparison between the bad ending of p5 royal and rebellion because I love both shuake and madohomu and someone really tried to ‘well actually’ me that Homura did what she did out of good intentions so I shouldn’t act like it was wrong of her or like some bad end dude and I was like ‘so… did… the p5 protagonist?’
-I prefer Nagisas magireco backstory to the original solely based on the fact that we actually got to see it. Like, it was cool being able to put an image to the telling even if it was different.
-I don’t like how pretty much every Madoka media makes it so every girl goes after familiars despite the og series and Different Story saying otherwise. It’s oddly sanitized to have everyone in kamihama city be a familiar hunter, despite how it was a pretty significant to the world, (and more importantly to Mamis story) that fighting familiars would make you weaker when it really mattered so there were some teenage girls who came to a, frankly quite understandable decision of ‘I’m sorry, I don’t want to risk my life for this’ and it made the people who did fight familiars have something truly significant about them established when they were willing to take that much more of a risk. When Mami in the different story couldn’t have a partner because none of them fought familiars, and for a short time she had Kyoko, someone who truly understood the value of fighting them, which gets pulled out under her it hurts! And it hurts less when every Madoka media we see afterwards has the characters saying ‘there’s a familiar here, we gotta fight it!’ Maybe they were worried people would find any character who leaves familiars behind would come off as unlikeable, but people adore Kyoko so idk.
-Mami usually gets treated as the ‘cool stoic leader’ which doesn’t sit right with me. The whole point of her character is she isn’t strong as she seems. She joined a literally cult in magireco. She goes into a murder suicide breakdown in the og series. There’s a lot of emphasis placed on the fact she knows being a magical girl isn’t a good deal (she doesn’t know the full extent of how much but she still has lived it for years) and she still urges Madoka and Sayaka into the job because she doesn’t want to be alone. But the reason she goes after familiars is specifically because she doesn’t want another story like hers. It’s tragic. SHES tragic and she doesn’t deserve to be discounted because she doesn’t have a main ship.
-I like Oriko Magicas art. It’s a really cool unique style. You guys are just mean.
-Speaking of Oriko Magica- ORIKO MAGICA IS SO GOOD. I actually like it more than the different story, which is a pretty high compliment.
-One last Oriko Magica point- I need Yuma to be in the main series. I hate knowing she’s stuck with her abusive parents in every other timeline.
-I made a post about this a while ago and more people are acknowledging it, but I’ll say it again: KYOKOS RELIGIOUS TRAUMA DESERVES TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED AS MUCH AS HOMURAS.
-Alina Gray is a sympathetic character. You guys are just fucking weird about her.
-I liked season 2 of the magireco anime. Sure, some points were rushed (Mifune) and the yachi/iro stuff was. Bad. But I loved how it sort of turned it into its own story, and I’m especially glad to have Kuroe exist.
-Also I remember people getting really upset Sayaka was the one to save Mami because she idolized her more than anyone and like. Buddy. That’s the point. She’s grown to understand Mami and is now willing to take on the task of ultimate understanding.
-People who hate kyosaya are really annoying. I spent years having people come onto my posts about kyosaya to be like ‘I personally prefer kyo///mami’ ‘I don’t think they liked each other romantically’ ‘I think it was kinda forced :/‘ and once I was accused of not listening to others opinions when they did this and I told them to fuck off. I don’t really frequently check the kyosaya tag anymore but the reason I stopped was because people kept posting their inane rants about how kyosaya made no sense and kyo//Mami was much better. So now you know why I fucking hate kyo///mami. Anyways if you’re gonna harp on kyosaya for not knowing each other for that long (in the SERIES timeline one out of many) then you gotta acknowledge Kyoko said Mami was like an older sister to her. Sorry not sorry.
-homophobic Hitomi jokes will never be as funny as deeply in the closet Hitomi jokes
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bilbobagginsomebabez · 10 months
Text
the blame game
content warning for extreme multigenerational child abuse, trauma, and addiction.
the way i grew up wasn’t good. it was packed chock full of generational traumas and illnesses, all revolving around each other in this constant, hellish tornado. like cold air and hot air spinning each other faster and faster, the fronts of poverty, addiction, mental instability, and trauma moved through our family over and over and over. and it hurt us. they hurt us. our parents hurt us and our aunts and uncles hurt us and their kids and my grandmothers hurt them and they hurt each other. over and over and over. but you love them still. you love all of them. and you don’t know who to hold responsible for any of it or how to.
to give you an idea of what I’m talking about, i’m gonna talk about my dad. he and I were really close while I was growing up. he taught me to lay brick and weld and paint and place sheetrock. sometimes, we would listen to the radio and he would tell me the band, the name of the album, the name of the song, the year it came out, and what was going on in his life when it came out. he would ask me what I was reading and to explain everything I was thinking about it and saw in the book and he would tell me that I was smart and beautiful and nothing would ever be able to hold me back and he couldn’t understand how something so incredible came from him. other times, it wasn’t so good. I was an obsessive reader when I was a kid and in the summers when we were working, I was expected to keep to a specific sleep schedule. the rule was there for good reason. we had to wake up at 4 or 5 every morning to beat the heat, and if you didn’t get enough sleep, the work got dangerous. you could vomit or pass out or worse from heat stroke. well, i was 14 and caught in a book and stayed up the whole night finishing it. dad found me at 4am when his alarm went off, maybe 30 pages to go to the end. he took the book, dragged me on site, and made me work until I was crying and feeling faint and vomited. when I went to go sit in the car, I wasn’t allowed to read or sleep. if I fell asleep, he’d walk up and pound on the door frame to jerk me back awake. he was furious with me, and it was brutal. he was brutal sometimes. the thing was, I always knew why. my dad’s uncle shot him up with heroine for the first time when he was 11 years old. his childhood babysitter was a pedophile who abused him and his brothers. his sister was regularly assaulted by new stepfathers moving through the house. years after the babysitter’s abuse, my developmentally disabled uncle began regularly abusing my cousin who was only 6 years old at the time. my uncle didn’t know it was wrong and my cousin didn’t have the verbal skills to tell anyone for almost a year. my dad still blames himself for not catching on sooner. when my older sister told him that she was abused by a babysitter, he refused to believe her because he couldn’t stand the thought that he’d failed. dad ran away from home for the first time when he was 12, made money then by running parking lots and by selling LSD and bareknuckle boxing when he was older. he spent 4 terms in juvie and learned exactly how to answer psych evaluations and behave for early release on good behavior. he’d run away again as soon as he was placed in a new foster home. he wouldn’t speak about the few times he stayed in a foster home longer than a few weeks. when he was 21, he met my mother. There were a few different diagnoses offered by different doctors, but what matters is her symptoms got way worse when I was around 5. example: when she stabbed my dad a few years ago in a fight over a broken tail light, my grandmother called and told me that she just “poked him with a knife” and everyone is fine. she’s shot at him more than once (totaled a truck once) and he’s run her over with a car.
the entire family is like this. filled to the brim with pain and abuse and trauma that winds its way around to bite over and over. one of my uncles on my mother’s side accidentally murdered his best friend while drunk driving. my grandma once threw a spoon so hard at his head that it knocked him out cold. two of my uncles died by overdose. another uncle holds the all-time county record for evading the most federal marshals for the longest time. my grandfather threw my mom out of a second story window when she was 16 because he was drunk and one of his bootcamp trainees asked her out on a date. his father beat him so badly that he ran away from home and enlisted in the military at 17. mom threw me out the window of a moving car when i was 4. my mom would also take us and all of our cousins out for the best halloweens out of everyone we knew, literally we would take 2 pillow cases each out with us and fill most of them.
who do you blame? who do you hold responsible and how do you hold them responsible? what do you do when all everyone knows is pain and violence? my dad never did anything more physically extreme than bruise us, and that was very actively a vast improvement over his experience of childhood. he actually did try and he actually did protect us from so much harm. when my mom got a cattle prod and used it on us, my dad stole it from her and destroyed it with a sledgehammer. when my mom went after my sister with a knife, he took all of us and fled the state for two weeks. he also went back to her and would repeatedly clean out my bank account to disappear on a bender for as long as the money lasted. my mom couldn’t tell what was real for years. every bit of it is mangled by unbelievable cruelty, cruelty and pain that lasted for generations. there’s no one left to blame, only victims and victims and victims.
mine is an extreme example, but i see people playing this blame game online a lot lately. trying to figure out how to hold people accountable when they’re lashing out from pain, trying to negotiate oppression points and determine how culpable a group of people is for various -isms, trying to find the line between empathy for their pain and excuses for the pain they’ve caused. all of these things are what start to happen when true justice isn’t an option, and I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t work like that. none of this works like that. there is no objective answer. there’s no magic trick or grading scale. there’s no one keeping track of every trauma they’ve suffered and giving them 1 harm freebie for each. You won’t ever be able to say they’re fully evil or fully trustworthy. They’re damaged, and sometimes those who lived too long with monsters become monsters themselves. You have to decide how you can move forward and what you can live with. And you have to figure out how to stop yourself from passing the pain forward if or when justice never comes. I left. Sometimes that’s all you can do. I forgave my dad years ago. I love him and I miss him, but I still don’t talk to him.
What I can say is that our lives and the cycles we live in create us even as we create them. When I left and got therapy, I paved the way for my little sister to do the same. She felt so much better that she encouraged my mom to go. Now, my mom’s been in therapy for almost a year.
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dreamscape-popstar · 6 months
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What is it that you like about Russell and sharukuh as a ship/ pair?
That. Is a really good question actually. Lucky you, you get both admins responses!
Hunter Answer: What I like the most about ShaRuss as a romantic pairing is how. Impossible it is? Crackships are less common nowadays, and within the confines of LPS2012 proper, Russell x Shahrukh would make no damn sense, and still kinda wouldn't? They don't parallel eachother as well as Sunil/Shahrukh and I think Rusty actively hates Shahrukh. Real enemies to lovers.
But that's what makes it so enjoyable. No matter which guy falls for who, it's so interesting to think about. Shahrukh falling in love for a mere pet peasant, someone so. Average and boring and nerdy and dorky, it's unheard of, but damn does he fall hard. And now he has to cope with the fact that he's a famous celebrity in love with some fuckin. GUY. Unextraordinary average man.
And flipping that around to the hypothetical if Russell fell in love with Shahrukh, it's irony at its finest. "Ugh THAT guy? I'd rather be caught dead than be interested in him." And then like clockwork, Russell realizes "Oh Shit." and is so angry and spiteful and so damn gay for that celebrity asshole. And he can't do shit about it lmaoo. It's just really appealing. Resenting the other person so much you find what you hate about them appealing and falling in love and. Christ. It's good. Good food. I love the idiots.
Karina Answer: Kind of similar to Hunter's answer, it's the impossibility of their relationship but the ever so popular expanding upon it. Shahrukh as a character already is very. One note. Yeah he's basically a parody of a famous Indian actor, but, I wanted him to have depth. So. I traumatized him :3
I wanted to expand upon WHY he's like that. No way was some stuck up movie star a spoiled asshole for the sake of it, nah nah nah, he's gotta have a REASON for it. So, I uh. Dove into the child exploitation and abuse of child actors and how they grow up to be resentful of their position and wanting to be more than just a face on a screen. I won't go too into detail because I want the askblog to be the gateway for lore, but that's the general gist. Maybe he's a snarky asshole because he's filled with resentment for the life he was forced into, and projects onto other people, y'know, vaguely gestures towards Russell.
In Shahrukh's eyes, Russell is the epitome of "Got it good". What he doesn't know, is that, Russell parallels him quite a bit. The whole parents not accepting him for who he is and forcing him to be something he's not. Even if he's being a jerkwad to Russ, Russ offers kindness even if it bites him back.
It's really just all about connecting two "opposites attract" thing but putting a spin on it to where they both grew up with the same situation but "grew" from it in different ways. Shahrukh became bitter and hateful due to his trauma, and Russell, while not fully healed from his trauma, is open and kind and patient. I hope my answer suffices! God I can write a whole essay on these guys but I think I already did. (And if it doesn't count, it'd still be hard to write one without spoiling things-)
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