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sukunas-wife · 3 months

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Sealed Pt. 5

first try 😎 (5th really)

1 / 2 / 3 / 4

It didn’t take long to buy what you needed, but your funds were running low. Which led you to believe it was a good time to return to the temple you had opened, immediately after opening the doors there was a line of women and children. It didn’t take long as you started to go through them all, “blessing” pregnant women and healing sick children. Grateful women who couldn’t bear children or didn’t want to lose their children were more than willing to pay any price for healing. You’d been there almost all night when you felt an all too familiar presence. Your back was to the door but you turned looking over your shoulder. There he stood, tall, pale, long black hair and black robes. You turned completely to face him, “You must be Lady Y/n of the Shrine, I’ve heard so many stories of how you… help people, I’m curious of how you do it.”

Kenjaku, those stitches on his forehead would give him away easily to anyone who had common sense. “Sorry men aren’t allowed in the Shrine, with the exception of my husband and son.”

“You have a husband and son?” His face was smiling in disbelief, you didn't trust him even if he and Sukuna had chatted more than a few times he always left an uneasy feeling in your stomach. “Yes but that’s not important , so tell me why you’re really here. I get the feeling you're not leaving so easy.” He hummed, shrugging his shoulders, “I came looking for something. You have it and I might need it. So one sorcerer to another we both know what you have that’s helping you so much, it was awakened when Ryomen Sukuna was reincarnated. Do you know who that is or did you stumble across this little artefact and decide to keep it for yourself.” You watched his hand move from his sleeve holding up one of Sukuna’s fingers. Unamused, you looked away, “Sorry to tell you the only thing I see is a rotting dismembered finger, if you're not here to benefit both of us please leave.” You tried to wave him off but persisted in following you, Morí put himself between the both of you so you didn’t bother to look back at him. “I’ll give you one warning, you give me whatever you took and I’ll leave. But if I have to take it myself-“

He was cut off feeling hot liquid run down his face, your hand held up over your shoulder, “This is your warning, there won’t be a next one.” The sound of his skull cap hitting the floor was disturbing, Morí wanted to gag at the sight of the brain exposed. “That was a mistake.” You turned around your robes ruffled noisily “No! You turning your back when RYOMEN WAS BETRAYED WAS A MISTAKE KENJAKU, your damn lucky you have that binding vow and that he never found out the truth you two faced coward, I used to think you changed bodies so frequently because you actually had a plan. It turns out you're just lowly scum and your intentions were never clear, you’re a coward and when things become difficult in one life you’d just pop someone’s else’s skull open and go for a joy ride until it’s all used up.”

You saw those Fox like eyes light up followed by that unhinged smile, “Well if it isn’t Mrs.Ryomen Sukuna, I heard the rumours you escaped the prison realm, I just couldn’t believe it.” You felt your lip twitch like you were going to bare your teeth, “Believe it, I’m free and don’t think I’m here to support your silly little flip flop grill cheese bullshit plan. I’m also not going to join your little club of misfit cursed wombs and deranged psychopaths. I’m here for Ryomen and my son, if you do anything to hurt either of them I swear on your life Kenjaku I’ll be the one pulling you out of that man’s skull and making sure you never find another life. I have my plans already and I don’t need you.” He seemed displeased, “That’s the problem here Y/n, your wedding vows can’t do a thing to break a binding vow.”

You laughed “That’s the thing Kenny, you two made a binding vow, Tyler’s say there’s this cute little red string tying to Ryomen, you can both push and pull in the same direction as long as the rope never breaks. But, what happens if a third party comes in and manages to cut that string.” Your head tilted with a passive smile, “Get out.”

————-

“Alright Mama-dori, it's time for little Itadori to go out on his own on a mission!” Gojo seemed excited about breaking this news to you. You couldn’t have given him a more bewildered look. “What do you mean on a mission?” Mori was by your side taking the cracking tea cup from your hand before it shattered over the tea table. “Think of it as a field mission … erm Lady Y/n.” Your face didn’t change much while you were staring him down, he could swear he’s seen that look before. “Where’s it going to happen…?”

He gave you a mischievous smile, “Well if I told you how do I know you wouldn’t interfere.” “If you didn't, what makes you think I wouldn’t find Yuji on my own.” Your smug smile didn’t go unnoticed. “Good luck finding us then.”

———

It didn’t take long of you spending your day at home lazing about waiting for Yuji to come back, you weren’t held captive in this dingy little house but you started to wonder if this is what Sukuna felt like now that you understood he was trapped inside of Yuji

“Mooriiiiii”….. “hm.” “MoorIIIIIIII” “I’m sorry?” “MORI.” You finally lifted your head from being laid out on the cushions on the floor, Mori sighed with a sympathetic smile, closing the book he constantly kept your records and plans in. “Yes Lady Y/n?” You rolled over laying your head on the pillow not looking at him anymore, “I miss- Yuji? Or is it your husband this time?” You fell silent huffing and burying your face into the pillow “bof” Mori shook his head with a small smile at your muffled speech. “We’ve talked about this Lady Y/n, if you do want both of them back they really do need to know the truth.” You moved around so the side of your face was on the pillow and you could just barely see Mori looking at you from the tea table, “Do you know how difficult it’s going to be to explain to Sukuna he was reincarnated into his son that he now sees he’s being held hostage in?” Mori’s eyes didn’t leave your face as you watched a ladybug crawl past you, “But he recognizes you even without your cursed presence Lady Y/n…”

Finally you sat up looking at him, “Do you wanna know a secret Morinozuka? Something almost no one else knows?” He seemed uneasy at the thought, hesitating as you continued, “I’ll have to kill you if you ever tell anyone else but do you know why I lived so long? Why don't I age? Look at us Morino, you were a child when I found you all those years ago. You’ve grown, look at me, I have the same face and appearance as the day we met.” You held your hand out to him, he took it in his looking over the back of it, he remembered your hands well. When he was a child you gave him that motherly love of wiping away his tears, he’d take your hand whenever he’d get scared walking in public. He watched you fill out every paper, he admired the way you would heal people, but he always noticed how people’s hands changed with their age, but your hands were the same as the day he met you. “You haven’t aged Lady Y/n but I can’t tell why.”

“I’m a curse Mori, there’s a beautiful story behind how I became a curse” he watched how you smiled looking at your hand, he watched a mark form over your finger, “But that’s a story for another time!” You were quick to get up, “Let’s make something to eat. I doubt Gojo’s not going to feed them so we can eat at least.”

It didn’t take long for You and Mori to throw together a hot pot with meatballs. You were serving Mori who insisted he should be serving you, “oh be quiet Mori I didn’t take care of you for years for you to take care of every little thing I do now, now eat.” He huffed and started to eat watching as you started to serve yourself, it was when you were about to eat your own meal Yuji busted into your new home excited to tell you about everything. Mori caught your food as Yuji tackled you in a hug “Mom you should’ve seen us it was so cool we…” he paused looking at the table where you had set up the pot of broth. “Oh you were eating, sorry.” You watched as he smiled sitting back on his heels rubbing the back of his head with a big shy smile. You couldn’t help but smile at him, “cmon sit I’ll serve you some if you want and you can tell us how your… field test went.” He sat cross legged beside you leaning against your shoulder rambling and stuffing his face telling you about the revolving sushi and this Girl Kugisaki he and Fushiguro met. You laughed hearing how he whined that she sighed after just looking at them. You leaned your head on his and he kept talking, you listened to every word until he eventually fell asleep in your lap.

You looked down at him, your sweet boy, until you saw that eye open up, and a mouth form, it was a soft call and out of character, “Y/n.” You looked at him, Ryomen, “Ryo…” you saw the malicious smile on his face “If this brat trusts you so much I think you could do a little talking and get me out of here don’t you?” He watched and you smiled, shaking your head, crinkling your nose, “Reincarnated not too long ago and you're already making bigger plans…” your smile fell “what the hell was that where are the women and children moving about anyways hm?”

He looked away making a “face” “I don’t know what you're talking about woman, must’ve misheard….” “Mhm.” He looked back at you before looking away, “It’s been lonely you know…” you leaned down pressing a kiss to Sukuna’s “cheek”, he didn’t bother trying to fight you, “I know it’s been lonely you’ve been locked up for centuries Ryo.” He hummed, before looking at you upset “What are you doing HERE Y/n! Why would you surround yourself with these sorcerers and this brat? Who is this brat? WHYS HES SLEEPING ON YOUR LAP!?” Yuji stirred and you rubbed his head, you should send him to sleep in his dorm, “Ryomen-“ you gave him a look, he rolled his eye, “as much as you’d hate to hear this, Yuji Itadori is our so- mm, hmm?” Yuji sat up rubbing his eyes, “What time is it?” He yawned and all you saw was Sukuna squinting at Yuji before disappearing.

“It’s 10:40 Yu,” you started to stand up, “You should go sleep in your dorm so Gojo to Fushigumi don’t freak out if you're missing.”

He laughed, “Fushigumi.” He’s gonna love that one.” He stood up from the ground stretching and yawning before he squeezed you in a hug, “Gnight mom I’ll see you tomorrow.”

————-

“Hm, it’s July… I wonder if Yuji will want to go watch the fireworks later this month…” you yawned leaning against the post on the porch of the little home. The afternoon sun shining on your face, eyes closed, head resting back against the post. Ungratefully one leg was propped up the other was swinging off the porch just barely grazing the grass, the vibrant red of your robes shining bright. The shoji doors were open wide with fly nets set up, futons were airing out for when you wanted to laze about on the porch or in the living room on the floor, Morí had gotten tired of watching you throw all the cushions in a pile just to complain when you were on the floor and the cushions wouldn’t stay still. You heard him hum still scribbling away, you looked over picking up the hand fan laying at your side, “This was my wedding fan, did you bring it?” Morí hummed again “you said bring ALL your precious belongings when we first left the temple I assumed since it was wrapped in fine linen and in a red wooden box it was preserved for a reason. Then I saw a painting in your temple and it all made sense, Lady Y/n.” You waved it around unceremoniously watching the little charms sway around, “Lady Y/n… was Ryomen Sukuna really your husband?”

“Is he really my husband" is what you mean, he still is my husband even after all these years being forced apart…” you paused looking down on the school, “…he’s my husband…surprisingly he was different then to now. I still love him regardless, he gave me his heart and I gave him mine, sure the wedding vows today would probably sound occult but I was his he was mine, it took years to be comfortable by his side and then we he’s our first child, Yuj-” Morí watched the panicked look on your face, when you pulled your sleeve up grabbing your arm where your binding vow has marked you. He watched you squeeze the muscle hissing through gritted teeth, “Yuji.” It sounded like a forced grunt. He watched you cough from trying to bear the pain, it stopped and you let go, you were visibly confused “Lady Y/n what- I don’t know” you cut him off, “that’s never happened before.” You watched as the mark became a lighter colour almost blending into your skin then you understood, “I NEED TO FIND YUJI.”

———

“….s..Go..” You couldn’t get the words out, you wanted to scream at Satoru, you wanted everyone to die and it filled the room the moment he didn’t let you enter and you forced your way in to see your son laying on the cold metal bed. He was stripped bare with a gaping hole in his chest, the woman in a lab coat and Gojo watched you walk right past them. You could still feel a faint lingering of Sukuna’s cursed energy. Your hand moved up slowly taking Yuji's. He was so cold. The hand you squeezed as a child, the tiny chubby hands that wiped your tears “It’s okay mommy!” The hands you held onto walking him to school, you shook your head, tears in your eyes, it’s always these damn sorcerers who are so prideful in what they do they try to play heroes and fix the world. Putting the lives of others at expense even if it means they’ll only save one or two people. Your hand trailed up his arm fingertips brushing over where your binding vow was disappearing. “Some proud jujutsu sorcerer you must be.” You could feel Gojo’s stare, having ignored all his rambling but knowing he was upset.

“My son is dead at the expense of what Satoru Gojo?”

Your hair fell over your face when your tears started to fall, ducking your head down feeling like your chest and shoulders were curling in on you. You placed your hand on his chest and it felt like everything changed. You weren’t in that room, you were standing in an all too familiar place.

“Oh,” you felt the heat in your cheeks rising when you heard Ryomen’s voice, “Well if it isn’t my pretty little wife finally coming to visit me hm?” He was behind you, his left arm lazily wrapped around your waist the right around your shoulder so his hand could hold your jaw, he turned your face to look back and up at him. His eyes were lidded and smiled down at you, “Ryomen…” he moved in closer, his lips ghosting over yours, “y/n.” He closed the gap kissing you, he could feel the way you broke out and smiled against his lips, it made him crack his own smile when you tried to hold back your giggles. You were so happy to be able to see him after so long, “Ryo.” You pulled away and he frowned slightly looking at you, “what- LET GO OF HER-“

All you saw was Sukuna grabbing Yuji’s fist and throwing him and sending him flying into the liquid a distance away. “Oh Yuji..”

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snakeautistic · 4 months

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One of the reasons I believed I couldn’t be autistic for so long was due to a fundamental misunderstanding of my social struggles. This being that I am not by any means incapable of memorizing social rules. Through observation and direction I can construct a broad framework of ‘socially acceptable or not.’ For example, I’m well aware that making physical contact with someone without consent isn’t acceptable. Or that stating blunt facts in a way that implicates someone negatively isn’t allowed. I know to avoid interrupting others if they’re already talking, to not walk away when I’m in the middle of a conversation. Crying, being unusually quiet and frowning indicates sadness. Someone smiling at laughing at what you’re saying means they probably are enjoying their time with you. An increase in speaking volume indicates excitement- either positive or negative. Sarcasm is often indicated by someone saying something absurd that you know they would never say, or you know to be factually wrong.

The fact that I had learned these broad rules made me think autism wasn’t a possibility for me. But being autistic doesn’t stop you from obtaining and applying information. (I mean that’s why so many interventions that ‘treat’ autism do result in the autistic person being able to pass as neurotypical.)

The difference comes from lacking the subconscious nuances and exceptions that come with those broader rules. For example- when is it okay to actually be honest? Some people will not be bothered by physical intimacy- but how would I know this? How can you tell if a group wants you to join in with their conversation? How to tell if this person is smiling and laughing politely or genuinely? How to tell if someone who you know very little about is being sarcastic?

There are not direct, easy to apply ‘rules’ for this, and yet clearly there are ‘right’ options. When the appropriate reaction must be determined by subtle body language or small shifts in tone of voice, ones that are near impossible to teach- I become completely lost.

That’s something I always find lacking with the general social skills advice given. It’s helpful to a point, but the truth is everyone is an individual. People express themselves differently, and react to your same actions differently due to past circumstances or temperaments. There is no one set of rules you can use for everyone, unfortunately. The majority of neurotypicals, while of course having miscommunications and the like, can rely on their subconscious to parse out any subtle changes they might need to make to their demeanor for a particular situation. My brain is much less adept at focusing down broader experience/rules into unique circumstances. (This is actually something that extends past social cues for me and I might make another post talking about it because I think it’s interesting)

Anyway rant over but yeah this was a huge mental barrier to seeking out a diagnosis for a while because at some level I ( ironically enough) took struggling to understand social cues too literally…

#actually autistic #autism #neurodivergent #neurodiversity #autistic #autistic things #autistic traits #autistic thoughts #low support needs #LSN autistic #social cues #socializing #social skills #asd #neurodivergence #autistic experiences #autism spectrum

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cevansbrat0007 · 4 days

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Hello, Duchess

Summary: Your first encounter with Bounty Hunter, Ari Levinson, goes worse than you ever could've imagined. Takes place directly after the events in New in Town.

Warnings: Mature Themes, Ari Being A Menace, Bickering, Implied Jealousy, Threats of Violence, Cursing, Minors DNI

A/N: Special thanks to my creative consultant, @curls-and-eyeliner. Part my Sweet Renegade Series. Semi-proofread, not beta'd. All mistakes are my own. Likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated. Thanks for reading!

Ari’s P.O.V.

“Can’t believe this town actually has a real live bookstore.” Ari muses as he pulls up in front of the tiny, quaint-looking bookstore. “Fuckin’ wild.” Throwing his truck in park he takes a moment to survey the area, making note of the empty lot.

‘Must not do much business.’ He thinks before climbing out of his vehicle and confidently striding toward the door. Hopefully, the lack of an audience would make things flow a hell of a lot faster. Hell, if you were anything like some of the other women in this town, he’d probably just have to smile and flash his baby blues to convince you to spill your guts.

In fact, he was practically banking on it. Because this wasn’t Ari’s first rodeo – not by a long shot. He’d spent a lot of his life in and out of small towns like Bell’s Creek, which was part of the reason he couldn’t wait to bag his latest bounty and put this place, and its people, in his rearview mirror. Ari reaches for the handle on the door, only to frown when he gets a look at the sign hanging in the window that reads: “sorry, we’re closed”.

Well, that couldn’t be right.

He could’ve sworn that when he’d pressed Mrs. Turner, the First Lady of Calvary Baptist Church, about your whereabouts she’d said he’d be able to find you at your shop. Something about your preferring to work instead of resting and rejoicing on the Lord’s day.

While the bounty hunter supposed he could always try back tomorrow, he was keen to check you off his list. Refusing to admit defeat, he decides to try his luck anyway, only to be surprised when the door opens with a tinkling chime of a bail.

Confused but also now on high alert, Ari takes a tentative step inside as he looks for any sign of life. “Hello?” He calls out, finally allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Instinct has him reaching for his back pocket, checking to make sure he had brought along his firearm.

Just in case.

“Is anybody here?” He tries again, moving further into the shop. The place is clean and well lit, and boasts rack after rack of books. But what’s most impressive is that there doesn’t appear to be a speck of dust anywhere. “Look, I just came by to–”

“We’re closed!” A disembodied voice sounds from the back of the store.

“Yeah, I saw the sign, ma’am…” He clears his throat. “But I think you forgot to lock the door, so I –”

“That means get out!”

“So much for southern hospitality.” Ari grumbles under his breath as he continues on his mission to track down the owner of the voice. “Ma’am, I just wanna talk. And maybe–ahh shit!” He curses when his hip accidentally connects with a half-full rolling cart, sending several of the heavier books crashing to the ground. “Sorry!”

“Did you just break something?!” The voice suddenly screeches. “Don’t make me get my taser.”

“There’s no need for that.” Instead of picking them up, the bounty hunter hastily nudges them aside with his foot. “My name is Ari Levinson, and I’m just here to ask you a couple of questions.”

While this isn’t how the man had expected any of this to go, he’s relieved when he sees a familiar face peek at him from around the corner. A face that happened to be even more beautiful than he initially remembered. Even though it had only been a couple of hours since he’d seen you last.

Damn! It was as if the image of you in that dress taking up space at the other end of the pew was now permanently imprinted into his brain. He'd have to tread lightly here.

Otherwise things could get complicated. Fast.

Your P.O.V

“Pretty sure this is what law enforcement calls trespassing.” You sniff, craning your head around the corner to stare at the man who was taking up entirely too much space in the narrow hallway. Sure said man was easy on the eyes, but you’d be lying if you said you weren’t at least a little concerned about his apparent inability to read.

“I can assure you that’s not what this is.” The lawman holds up his palms in an effort to placate you.

And although you try not to stare, it’s impossible to miss just how big they are – how rough they seemed – with just the right amount of callus. You can’t help but wonder what those hands would feel like on your bare flesh.

“Then what is it?” You ask, struggling to keep your tone short and clipped as you emerge from your hiding place. The last thing you needed was to have this man thinking you were actually attracted to him.

If anything, you considered yourself to be curious. No harm there, right?

“As I said, my name is Ari Levinson. I’m a bounty hunter from just outside Rosewell, New Mexico who also occasionally moonlights as a private investigator.” He tells you, jamming his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I just stopped by to ask you a couple of questions. And while I didn’t necessarily mean to intrude, I figured you might appreciate me taking a more delicate approach on account of your relationship with my person of interest.”

Fucking Martin Westbrook. He’d been the bane of your existence ever since you’d first crossed paths back in high school.

“I know you’re looking for Martin.” Annoyed by the very nature of the conversation, you pick up a box, hefting it onto your hip so that you can carry it out to the sales floor. “But I’m not quite sure how much help I can be.”

You brush past him, inwardly smiling when he scrambles to get out of your way. It was a subtle reminder that this was your shop. And you absolutely refused to be intimidated by him or anyone else.

“I’m sure whatever you have to say will be plenty helpful.” He’s quick to reassure you as he turns to follow the path you set. “Provided you’re honest, that is.”

“Did you really just waltz into my shop and call me a liar, Mr. Levinson?”

“I meant no offense.” Ari coughs, scrubbing a weary hand over his bearded jaw. If you were the overly presumptuous type, you might think you’d just managed to fluster the poor man.

Now feeling extra prickly, you drop the box onto the far counter of your cashwrap before turning to face your unwelcome guest. “As you can see, I have a busy day’s work ahead of me. And I was really keen on doing it by myself.” You gesture at the array of other boxes and racks placed around the store. “So if we could get a move on, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Gladly.” He gives a brief look around. “Is there some place maybe where you and I can sit and chat?”

“I’d say here is about as good a place as any.” You tell him as you step behind the counter. Bending down, you snag a bottle of cleaner, along with a couple of rags. If this man insisted on being here, then he would just have to deal with you taking care of your business. “I’m pretty confident in my ability to multitask.”

Nodding along, Ari pulls out a small notepad and pen from his back pocket. “When was the last time you saw Mr. Westbrook?”

You let out a sigh as you begin to spray down your countertops with your all-purpose cleaner. While you supposed you could’ve gone with something a little more industrial, you were partial to the way this particular brand’s products always smelled.

“I don’t know.” You shrug as you bask in the scent of rose and cedar. “Maybe three, four weeks ago.”

“Do you happen to recall the day and time?”

“No. Not really. If I had to ballpark it, I’d guess sometime around the 5th of last month.” You move to the next flat surface, spraying it down just like the last.

“You sure about that?” You try not to let it irk you when you see him take a seat on a nearby step stool out of the corner of your eye.

“As much as I can be.”

“And did Mr. Westbrook happen to give you any indication of where he might be headed?”

“Nope.”

He’d been nervous though. That much you did recall. By the time he’d come to you that night, your old friend had been well beyond spooked.

“Did he give you his reason for leaving?”

“We didn’t…” You trail off, taking a moment to scrub at a particularly stubborn sticky spot that’s marring the wood. “There wasn’t really much time for talking.” You’re so concerned with scrubbing that you miss the way the county hunter’s eyes narrow as he studies you. “He just stopped over to say goodbye.”

And to borrow all the cash you happened to have on hand – to the tune of $500. Enough for a bus ticket and a couple nights in a dirt cheap motel.

“Right.” Ari scoffs, admittedly with a bit more heat than he intends. “Not a lot of time for talking.” He pauses briefly to drag a hand through his shaggy brown locks. “Not sure why I didn’t wanna believe them.”

“Am I sensing a problem, Mr. Levinson?” You hum, tossing your rag to the side in favor of focusing on the rugs.

“I guess I’m just having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that he kept you in the dark about his plans.” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “In my experience, most men like Martin tend to have loose lips around the women they’re fuckin’.”

In that moment, it’s almost as if you can feel the air go out of the room. Just who the fuck did this knuckle-dragging, mouth-breather think he was?

“Excuse me?” Those two little words are spoken through clenched teeth. You’re so taken aback by his brazen accusation that you can scarcely breathe, let alone think.

Ari simply quirks a tawny brow at you, seemingly unaware of the danger he’s just placed himself in. Did he not see how close your hand was to that damned stapler? While it was clear that folks in this town had been running their mouths, they’d apparently neglected to mention that you’d also been the star pitcher for your high school softball team.

“Apologies if I offended your delicate sensibilities, Duchess. But I’ve never been the type to beat around the bush. Besides…” The smug bastard tucks his pen behind his ear. “You have to know that people in this town like to talk.”

Fire simmers hot in your belly, as you come out from behind the register. It takes less than ten seconds for you to bridge the distance between yourself and the cocky lawman. While you might’ve been taught never to raise a hand against anyone, this man was sorely testing every last bit of your patience.

“I want to make one thing very, very clear.” You hiss once you’re finally standing toe-to-toe with the handsome interloper who, of course, makes no room to get up himself. “I have never – not even once – slept with Martin Westbrook. He’s a friend, you backwoods jackass. Something you clearly know nothing about.”

“I get the feeling I struck a nerve.”

And, judging by the newfound tick in his jaw, so had you. Except you had no way of knowing it was because he’d lost a buddy of his own a little while back.

“And I think it’s about time you got the hell out of my shop.” His piercing blue eyes fly to yours, letting you know that you’d managed to surprise him with your heated dismissal.

Good. Because this Ari Levinson fella had officially overstayed his welcome.

“Look, Duchess. I apolo –”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me out of my name, Mr. Levinson. And I’m not sure I appreciate it.” You spit as you take a step backwards with the intention of giving him enough space to stand. “Now, I’ve been nothing but amenable to your rather…invasive questions. But we’re done. So, I’m gonna have to insist that you leave.”

Before you decided he’d make a deserving candidate for death by a thousand paper cuts.

Your pulse continues to thrum in your ears as you watch him rise to his full height – an impressive 6’4 – so that he now towers over you. Perhaps if you weren’t so angry you’d be a little more tempted to allow your mind to wander a little farther into the realm of fantasy.

But not now.

Right now, in this moment, all you wanted was to watch Ari Levinson’s sculpted ass walk right out your front door.

Nodding, the now quiet bounty hunter begins moving in the direction of the entrance. Neither of you say a word as you make that quick walk. In fact, you don’t speak again until Ari’s hand is on the handle.

“For what it's worth…” He blows out a weary breath. “This wasn’t how I meant for this to go.” His eyes find yours, as if imploring you to see the truth in them.

However, instead of responding all you can do is offer up a shrug. Which he, of course, takes as an opportunity to keep going.

“It’s just…the idea of someone like you getting caught up with a piece of slime like Westbrook…” He pauses long enough to open the door and take a tentative step outside. “I guess it bothered me more than I realized.”

His reluctant admission has your stomach tied up in knots, which prompts you to ask the one question you were almost certain you’d regret later:

“And just what do you mean by that?” You do your best to seem unruffled as you awkwardly brace yourself against the doorframe.

“All I’m saying is that you’re out of his league.” Feeling even more confused, you watch as Ari’s lips curve in a faint smile. “And if you didn’t know that before, well, now you do.” His head dips politely as he turns to head towards his truck.

“Guess I’ll see you around, Duchess.” You don’t have to see his face to know that he’s grinning. “Oh, and don’t forget to lock up. Might help with all those unwanted visitors you’ve been havin.”

Ari doesn't need to turn his head to know that you're currently giving him the finger. He can feel it. And all it does it make him smile harder.

END

Sweet Renegade Series Tag List

@katymae12344

@identity2212

@hisredheadedgoddess28

@blackhawkfanatic

@jamneuromain

@queerqueenlynn

@pono-pura-vida

@daykrisr999

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@emerald-writes

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steddiealltheway · 2 years

Text

My steddie brain rot is going crazy today.

But the trope of Steve going on so many failed dates at the same place. But Eddie is the waiter every time.

He makes snarky remarks, always is quick to supply a lie for Steve to get away from the ones with too many red flags (Eddie slips him a napkin explaining them every time on his way out, and Steve always trusts him), picks Steve’s spirits up when he strikes out yet again, and always slips him free dessert.

After a particularly horrible date - in which the girl shows up an hour late and thirty minutes before they close and proceeds to only talk about her ex the whole time, running out when he sees him pass by - Eddie allows Steve to stay after closing and gives him extra fries and a slice of chocolate cake.

When Steve’s head thuds against the counter, Eddie comments, “Maybe you’re cursed.”

Steve shoots back, “Maybe this place is cursed.”

Eddie is silent for a few moments and leans over the counter he’s cleaning to whisper, “Maybe I’m cursing you.”

Steve laughs and throws a fry at Eddie who yelps and demands he pays for his cake this time. When the laughter dies down, Steve finds himself actually considering a new location for his dates.

“Hey, Eddie, where do you take all your dates?”

Eddie freezes and looks at Steve. He shakes his head and continues wiping off the counter. “All my dates,” he mutters in what sounds like disbelief. Steve can hardly believe it.

“You… you don’t go on dates?” Steve questions.

Eddie shoots him a look and says, “Steve, I don’t know where you got that impression, but I certainly do notttt.” He circles around the counter and begins putting chairs on top of the tables.

“Why not? You’re funny, kind, really creative with your lies, have a steady supply of free cake…” Steve trails off as Eddie laughs. He blurts out, “And you’re not so bad on the eyes either.”

Eddie’s laughter abruptly stops. He slowly approaches Steve and asks, “Steve Harrington, are you saying you find me attractive?”

Steve easily flirts back, “Maybe I am.” And what the hell was that? This isn’t one of his dates.

Eddie’s cheeks turns red and he looks down shaking his head. He replies, “Well, if you’re looking for a new place for a date, I would suggest the diner across the street. So you can come crawling back to me when it fails.”

Steve throws yet another fry at him and exclaims, “Another failed one!”

“You’re right! I won’t be close enough to curse you!”

Steve remains in the diner until Eddie closes up. His stomach hurts from laughing so hard, and he entirely forgets about the failed date. But he comes up with a plan for the next one.

-:-:-:-:-:-

Steve shows up at the diner across the street with low hopes for this date.

Surprisingly enough, she shows up on time and is really funny and beautiful and…

Steve looks out the window trying to catch a flash of big curly hair in the diner across the street.

“Steve?” The girl, Jessie, asks. “You okay? You seem… distracted.”

“Yeah, of course,” he replies shaking the feeling that something is off.

The date goes… really well. And Steve isn’t happy about it. And he doesn’t know why he’s not happy until he finishes his meal and gets the check… with no free dessert.

Eddie is what’s off. The thought hits him suddenly, and Steve doesn’t know what to do. The perfect girl is literally right in front of him, but more than anything he wants to run across the street and see Eddie.

Eddie had cursed him.

“Steve, are you okay?” Jessie asks so kindly, and really she’s perfect. But she’s not Eddie.

“I’m so sorry…” Steve begins.

Jessie cuts him off, “Someone else, right? It’s okay really. I’ve been there, too. Just… go after her.” She smiles sweetly at Steve and squeezes his hand.

Who the fuck is she, and please be attracted to girls so Steve can set her up with Robin.

“Thank you,” Steve says leaving money on the table, he kisses her on the forehead and thanks her again. Then he’s racing out the doors, darting across the street, apologizing to a car that has to slam on the breaks and swerve to not hit him.

He races into the diner, and the bell obnoxiously rings as the door slams open. Luckily, there’s only one couple in the place, and they’re in the process of leaving. Or they were. Eddie dropped their change all over the ground when Steve startled everyone.

Steve helps to scoop up the money, apologizing and awkwardly waving as the couple leaves. When the door closes, Eddie slightly smiles asking, “Another failed date, huh?”

“No actually,” Steve replies.

Eddie’s face drops and his knuckles turn white around the money he’s gripping. “Oh. Well, congratulations,” Eddie says monotonously, shoving the money into the register and slamming it shut. “Unfortunately, we’re closing soon, so I’ll have to usher you out.”

“Eddie-”

“Leave,” Eddie says, not looking up.

“It didn’t work out!” Steve yells. “It didn’t work out. And it should’ve. Because she was everything. She was perfect. She was everything I wanted.”

“Glad to hear that-”

Steve interrupts, “But it didn’t matter because she wasn’t you!”

Eddie finally looks up at him. “What?”

“The whole time, I was expecting to look up and see you. And when I didn’t I was looking out the window trying to see you across the street and the damn glare wouldn’t let me. And then I was expecting free dessert subconsciously, and it never came!” Steve rambles out running his hands through his hair.

Eddie’s eyebrows furrow as he tilts his head. “You wanted me to be there for… my free dessert?”

Steve groans, “No, Eddie. I wanted you to be there on the other side of the table. I wanted Jessie to be you.”

Eddie stares at him for a few moments and then slowly breaks out into a grin. “So I really did curse you?”

“You did, you asshole,” Steve bites back laughing.

Eddie leans across the counter and says, “So, what if I told you that if I were to go on a date, I would go to Enzo’s? And that I’m free tomorrow night.”

“I would say it’s a date,” Steve says leaning in.

Eddie hesitates and says, “Woah now. A gentleman doesn’t kiss before the first date.”

Steve replies, “Apparently I’m not a gentleman then.”

Eddie meets him in the middle and gently kisses him, breaking it only when he can’t help but smile widely. “You’re going to get me fired.”

“Definitely now that I have an unlimited supply of free cake.”

Eddie rolls his eyes and says, “Which comes directly out of my paycheck.”

“Eddie! You didn’t tell me you were paying for it!”

Eddie smiles. “Sounds like you’re paying for a lot of our dates then.”

Steve comes around the counter and hooks his arms around Eddie’s neck. “Someone’s presumptuous.”

“And that someone needs to close the diner,” Eddie shoots back quickly giving Steve a peck on the cheek.

Steve helps him close up, wondering how it took him so long to see what was right in front of him.

#steddie #steddie fanfic #steddie ficlet #eddie munson #steve harrington #every time I think I’m going to write two sentences #two sentences turn into a ficlet #every. time.

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amber-sekio · 2 months

Text

Relationship Headcanons

Fandom: BSD -Bungo Stray Dogs

TW: none? I think?

DAZAI

I said it in my Soukoku fic, Dazai wouldn’t know affection if it slapped him in the face ten times

Like he might realize when someone is showing interest in a sexual kind

And he would probably notice if someone is crushing on him

But like, if he likes them back?

Man is blind

He’s too busy panicking over read denying his own thoughts and feelings over you to analyze your actions

He’s busy trying to think of anything but how pretty you are when he sees you -thank you very much

No joke though, this can be applied to pretty much anyone he cares about

I mean he practically had a heart attack when Atsushi gave him flowers

Anyways if he finally admits to himself that he likes you then I could see him trying to push you away if I’m being brutally honest

He doesn’t want to lose you and he believes that anything he wants that he obtains, will be striped from him sooner or later

But…, in a perfect world he would eventually work up the courage to ask you out

He would probably avoid directly asking you but this is Dazai so he could defiantly figure out some round-about way to ask

As for the relationship?

He would still be his teasing self

But he would tone it down

Not because he doesn’t want to annoy you but more so because he actually lets some of his masks down when alone with you

He defiantly is very clingy to you

Man has been touch starved for a long time and he fears attachment too much to be touchy with the ADA members

But now he has you, who not only tolerates him but has decided to stay with him?

Of course he’s not going to let this chance slip from his grasp before all this inevitably ends (he’s still in denial)

He never cared much for holidays like Christmas or Valentines

But now he wants to experience them, with you

He’s always thinking, plans and outcomes racing through his mind, what ifs and regrets

But like, if you ruffle his hair, his brain just stops.

Like no thoughts, he short circuits

When his brain returned to him the first time it happened he panicked

Like, who gave you that amount of control?

After that first time he continued to try and get you to do it without asking

He needed his brain to shut up every now and then, and now he has a reliable source

Anyways, he likes to be a spoiled princess

No one can change my mind

For all his predictions he will never be able to predict your love and kindness for him

CHUUYA

Someone give this poor man a hug

Ugh, my heart

I can‘t imagine him wanting to date a normal citizen, too much of a risk

So you’d probably have to work in the Mafia

Even then, dating you would still be placing a huge target on you

He would actually take you out on dates before asking you out

Dates with him would be romantic

Like dinner by candle light vibes

He’d be strategic on where you guys sit

No need to be precarious on what you order, it’s all on him

When he does ask you out he would be slightly flustered but it just makes him adorable

Say yes, he doesn’t deserve to be hurt any more

He would spoil you to no end

If you want it, you can have it

You’re the only one allowed to call him short

He might get flustered from PDA in the start but will gradually warm up to it

Nothing clingy, just hand holding, a hand around your waist, a quick kiss here or there

But if he sees some guy hitting on you?

Down right possessive, arm snug around your waist, shoulder to shoulder

And if he’s drunk? Even worse

Like he’s pulling you onto his lap just to make sure that asshole knows your taken

If you do work in the mafia with him, he likes going on easier missions with you

And while he knows that you can handle yourself just fine, he can’t help but imagine something bad happening to you when he isn’t there to save you

He’s lost too many people in his life, please, don’t leave him as well

He loves when you rest your head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat

And while you do that he’ll run his fingers through your hair

Chuuya loves to spoil you rotten as I stated, it’s his love language

So sometimes he’ll just hand you his black card and let you go shopping with friends or something

In fact, he encourages you to buy what you want

FYODOR

Honestly? Where do I start with him?

Like congratulations if you meet him and make it out alive

I don’t know if I should congratulate him taking an interest in you though

I feel like he believe that the interest he had in you was purely innocent curiosity

But I also don’t think he would try to delude himself for as long as Dazai does

Eventually he would notice that something was different about his interest for you than usual

And while he would hesitate to put a name to it so quickly he would eventually give in after realizing there was no stoping this feeling from festering in him

After coming to terms with his romantic? Feelings and interest in you he would definitely begin to manipulate you into feeling the same way for him

If you don’t already that is

If you don’t confess then he’ll definitely do the same thing Dazai did

And when you agree, he of course knew you would, he makes you move in with him

He can’t let his dearest other slip from his finger now can he?

I feel like before ever getting into a relationship, you would have been made aware of his ‘work’

Please, make sure the man eats

And takes his iron pill

Nikolai is getting a little tired of that daily routine despite how much he loves to be around Fyodor

Anyways, dates aren’t a very common thing in fact, very, very rare

I mean… what did you expect?

Man’s a literal terrorist

That being said, from time to time he’ll leave his ‘lair’ to spend time with you

If you ask, he’ll gladly play the cello for you

If he snaps at you for ‘bothering him with pointless things’ when you bring him his iron pill or food just listen

Don’t bother him with such things

And then same thing the next day

And after some 4 or 5 days he’ll stumble from his room

Staggering as he tries not to collapse or faint from both his lack of energy and his iron deficiency

And when he walks into the kitchen trying to get the iron pill bottle open?

Let him stumble his way over to you and ask for help before you finally do as such

And he realizes just how dependent on you he’s become

It’ll happen again eventually

But as of that moment, it’ll at least be awhile before the cycle repeats

(That last part of Fyodor’s was based upon some fanfic I read for him. I'm not sure who it was by, but I’ll tag it if and when I do find it.)

A/N: anyways, believe it or not, I love Chuuya just as much as I do Fyodor and Dazai

I’m just not as confident in his character. Since I’m a lot like Dazai, he comes easy to me and by substitute, Fyodor does as well

But Chuuya? Despite him being one of my 5 favorites along with Dazai and Fyodor, I just don’t resonate personally enough with him to write him really well

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bobbile-blog · 4 months

Text

Not sure if anyone’s said this yet but now that we have Laterano events plural I’m fascinated by their (imo) very deliberate choice of protagonists, and there are almost a couple of layers of narrative going on there. I struggle a little figuring out how to get this into words but specifically I think they’re chosen to be people who can carry a narrative without contradicting the orthodox morals of the church. There’s a LOT of vaguely anti-authoritarian rambling below the cut so please kindly bear with me and my English major brain.

I can’t really start there though. One of the reasons this is so brain hurty is how deeply it’s woven into the storyline, so to start, I have to verbalize how Laterano and Arknights writing more generally is different from other, similar settings. Because like, I hear the words “morally negative church in a grimdark setting” and my brain immediately shuts off. Come on, that’s so far beyond low-hanging fruit, if you’ve seen any grimdark setting ever you know exactly what that looks like. And sure, it was fine the first two or three times you saw it, depending on your tolerance for that kinda thing, but it gets boring quick and even when it was new it was kinda uninteresting story-wise. “Religion is always fake because it inspires hope which means everyone who takes meaning from it is either a corrupt grifter or naive and misled” isn’t just edgy nonsense, it’s also basically useless as an actual critique. It tells you absolutely nothing except how to tune out a particular kind of story, and a story that tries to get you to hear less is doing its job wrong.

So, Arknights does something different. Instead of denying the premise of the church entirely, it actually takes it at its word. Laterano is, in almost every definition of the word, a paradise. It is basically unmatched in terms of actual quality of life, with its only competitors being the Durin cities and maybe Aegir, and is worlds apart from now much the rest of Terra sucks. More than that, though, the paradise is specifically tailored to the worldview of a religion with a strong central authority - when I say it takes it at its word, I mean the authoritarian bits too. Laterano is a city that lives in perfect order and peace because everyone follows the law perfectly and they all understand each other and never fight. Empathy is really important for this, as it allows for a believable amount of superhuman societal order. Laterano has very little crime, political drama, or quarrels in general. It’s the promises of a strict higher authority actually taken at face value: everyone follows the rules and that means they have effectively unfettered freedom, because they don’t want to break the rules and therefore they can do anything they want.

Laterano is specifically written to be a believable paradise in a setting that has none, so that when the story then turns around and criticizes that setting, it has significantly more weight. Even when the promises of paradise are taken at face value, there are still issues that cannot be addressed because the system is inherently flawed even in the imaginary scenario where it works. Even worse, the problems that poke holes in the imaginary perfect scenario are the same problems that they face in the real world, like “how do you deal with the interpretation of scriptures” and “hey there’s this racism thing I keep hearing about should we be worried about that or what”. Because of the way this imaginary perfect system works, we then look back on our real world in a new light and understand it a little better. It’s good critique.

Okay so how did we get here and what does this have to do with the protagonists? Well, this starts with Fiametta in Guide Ahead, because she’s a really weird protagonist. This is a cold take at this point but despite being the character on the front of the box, she has very little to actually do with the central conflict of the event. Most of the conflict is handled by Ezell first and Andoain second, and Fiametta mostly putters around putting holes in people until the finale where Andoain receives the answer he’s been looking for, he turns to explain it to the world, and he runs into the only person in the whole of Laterano who does not care about his motivations or his revelation. Her role, in other words, is to replace the climax of Andoain’s story with her own, and in doing so she makes it much harder to actually get a resolution and a meaning out of the story (this should not be taken as a criticism of her character, let me cook). Guide Ahead’s ending is hazy, with only small piecemeal resolutions to its conflicts, and for the longest time that was just the way the event was written and it stood on its own.

But now, Hortus de Escapismo is out and the monkey brain see patterns. Specifically, with the choice of protagonists. Because Executor is definitely different from Fiametta as a protagonist, but there’s one particularly important connection between the two, and that’s that as I mentioned in the beginning, they allow for stories don’t contradict orthodox morality. Fiametta we went over, as she’s uninterested in any of Andoain’s morality and just wants him dead. Executor, though, is purely focused on his mission and views the world through that lens. He only wants to achieve his objective, and while helping the needy is in line with the stated objectives of the church and he does do so when able, it’s secondary to his assigned task. He does change as he gets further into the story, and we’re not gonna ignore that, but we’ll be back to it later. What I mean is more that he is designed as a person who is able to lead a story that doesn’t contradict with the morals of Laterano. He sees the injustice and suffering around him, but that’s not his job, so he doesn’t need to solve it to have a complete story with a happy ending.

This is where it really gets complicated, so I apologize if I don’t explain this very well. I see this as us dealing with multiple layers of fiction: the events of the story, the perspective of the church, and our perspective as readers. Back to the first point - authoritarian institutions almost always use stories to sell people on their brand of order. Simple stories, simple enough that even calling them myths seems like overselling it a little, your “Saint George slays a dragon” kinda thing. This is the point of the second layer, the perspective of the church. I don’t really have an in-world justification for this layer - maybe you could make the argument that it has to do with Law’s perspective on things, but I don’t totally buy that - I think it’s more in a weird narrative transition space for people who don’t read very carefully. Regardless, Fiametta and Executor’s shared indifference to the questionable circumstances surrounding them is designed to let them tell a story to prop up the existing order. Their protagonist status and their missions are specifically constructed to allow them to ignore the suffering around them, and as such ignore the larger questions that might poke holes in the larger order. They’re both playing out the story of Saint George, where they go and find a bad guy and kill them and that’s all there is to it. The story is designed and told specifically for that “that’s all there is to it”.

But, as we said earlier, this is a good critique, and as such it intentionally undercuts this story with the third layer: what we actually see as readers. We are shown the suffering and the injustice, and then get to see our protagonists ignoring that to pursue their goals. This is what gives Guide Ahead’s ending its unique texture, which sets it apart from every other event with a vaguely unresolved ending. We have seen the actual issues with Laterano, and also watched our protagonist explicitly ignore them in favor of her own story. It’s unsatisfying in a way that only really makes sense to me if we as the readers have an understanding of intentional authorship. Whether it be Yvangelista XI or Law or The Actual Real Life Pope, there are issues here that we want to see a resolution to but people are choosing not to address them. Again, it’s good critique. Not only does it push the reader to unpack and understand the actual real-world technique, but it also helps blunt it. You have just seen a plot and protagonist ring uncharacteristically hollow. You then look around to see why that is, and you realize there are many things that should have been resolved that weren’t. The next time you see a story resolve with that same hollow-ness, you know where to look. Surprise! Harry Potter was propaganda the whole time. It’s okay, it was never good, you were just twelve.

I guess the last thing is where we go from here, because Executor’s story breaks this mold somewhat. In Hortus de Escapismo, he has to deal with a mission that isn’t actually bounded by his normal rules, and because of that he actually does have leeway to help the people around him. He starts as someone who is totally mission-focused, but by the end of the event he’s done a total 180 and is blocking Oren’s attack, which makes the mission harder but helps the non-mission-critical civilians of the monastery. He breaks from the rigid thinking of “kill the bad guy and that’s all there is do it”, and gives his attention to the people he isn’t supposed to see. I think this is an indication of the direction we’re going to be headed in the future with Laterano events. The events aren’t going to get better - they’re going to keep being just as morally murky and complicated as in the past - but the characters are going to get better at handling it, and when they do, they’re going to actually start to change things for the better.

Goddamn that was a lot of writing for 1 AM. I still have a. Lot of thoughts on this event with stuff like empathy and Lemuen and Federico being an autistic icon(my beloved) but I’m going to leave things there, I think, because if I write for any longer my phone is going to crash when I try to post this. Anyway if you actually made it to the end thanks for listening to me rambling and I hope that made sense. Cheers.

#arknights #arknights thoughts #hortus de escapismo #laterano #fiametta #executor arknights #I deadass had to ask folks to proofread this one #to make sure I didn’t sound like I didn’t sound off my rocker #also don’t mind my random Harry Potter slander that’s an entirely different rant

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pupcuck · 4 months

Text

tw - sa mention, noncon mention, dark content discussed briefly but not explicitly

hi okay sorry for the unfathomable amount of bullshit clogging the tags the past few days. i keep seeing it labelled as gilfhub drama which is pissing me off as i haven’t said anything at all, i’ve stayed quiet throughout unless you follow me and read my posts. while i haven’t outwardly inserted myself into the situation im the one being witch hunted ig, i’m making one last statement which sounds way too serious for this corny and unserious situation.

anyway, i'm mostly making this for my own benefit, because i would feel more at peace after posting this lmfao. first of all, I’m being called a pedophile which is a fucking insanely serious claim to make with no concrete evidence! i’ve never written underage characters. if you’ve mistaken my ddlg content as pedophillia i beg you to get your brain checked! your skull must be so thick it couldn’t be caved in with a baseball bat. other than that i mainly write about LEGAL age gaps bc I am 19 and leon is fucking 47 as of now he is the creep actually.

i’m being called a rapist and a paedophile and all sorts of shit. im a victim of sa, it’s happened both at the hands of someone i trusted and at the hands of those i didn’t know well. some of my writing is to cope with this, none of my fics have ever romanticised rape and made it seem like something flowery and cute and fun? i don’t know who pulled that out of their ass but my fics that involve this sort of content are usually about toxic codependent relationships, it’s quite literally about trauma bonding.

this moves me onto my next point - people say this content belongs on ao3 and ao3 only. i don’t know if you’re 11 and new to the internet, to re fandom in fact, as dead dove has been a consistent theme within re fics since forever. since i was a kid i saw fics like that and even as a fucking 10 year old i managed to scroll and mind my business. tumblr has always had dead dove, when it rebranded and the guidelines changed they messed up their tagging system. this means that even if you tag tw incest it’ll remove your fic from the TAGS not from tumblr itself but from the tags as a whole. however, if you tag tw noncon your fic will stay up, it’s glitchy and dumb and shouldn’t be seen as a reliable source on why dead dove isn’t allowed on tumblr. that’s never been the case ever.

people who write dead dove don’t have to be victims and they don’t have to be mentally ill, they are also normal people with jobs who pay taxes and have normal fucking lives. because it’s simply fiction. people who read/watch american psycho are not murderers or rapists. people who watch any form slasher horror are not murderers. people who enjoy resident fucking evil and like wesker don’t fucking believe in eugenics. i could go on and on and on and on about so many different examples in extremely popular franchises.

as aforementioned, tumblr’s tagging system fucking sucks, so to combat this i give a warning even AFTER i explicitly tag my fics correctly that says ‘tumblr has started to remove fics that use tw non-con, tw incest and any nsfw tags in general. for this reason, as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags so i can have the same reach as other authors, please understand that this fic contains dark content under the cut. reading this comes at your own risk.’ for some reason I didn’t specify remove from the TAGS not from TUMBLR because tumblr doesn’t care 😭 that was totally my mistake for not checking if that disclaimer made sense but i guess i hoped the following sentence (‘as i’d like my fic to appear in the tags’) made it clear that i was simply speaking about tags. not tumblr removing my content.

if you are genuinely adults on this app, you should know that on the internet sometimes you will see things you don’t like! because it’s the internet and everyone is on here with their own opinions and their own tastes. it is YOUR responsibility to cater to your own needs by blocking content you don’t enjoy. so what another dark content blog pops up? as soon as you see a content warning you don’t like, BLOCK THE AUTHOR? or ignore it! scrolling is very simple. it’s insanely easy to mind your fucking business.

i'm kind of tired of the endless harassment both in the tags and in my inbox! if you are genuinely doing this in the name of victims and in their best interest just know you’re harming other victims in the process 😭 i am not easily triggered but the shit in my inbox is really gross and i got called a racial slur like… is fictional content that’s easy to block so deep to the point where you have to stoop that low? everyone copes how they cope, it’s not wrong and it never will be, psychologists recommend dark content as an outlet, you can literally google this. therapy is not a fix, it can’t fix mental illness. sometimes it doesn’t help. in my case counselling made everything worse. the ‘get help, get therapy’ comment comes from a place of privilege, not all of us have the money, the support system it takes to get therapy. some of us have had experiences where therapists discriminate against us. in my case that has happened, im a woc in britain they don’t care about us not about our psychical or mental health LMFAO.

im sure im missing a lot of what i originally wanted to say here, but overall i honestly wanted to clear my name of the pedo allegations lmfao because i’ve never written anything like that about underage characters or readers. anyway if any of you have a brain you can block dark content creators in a few easy steps! sorry again for yapping in such a formless, inarticulate way but i'm kind of exhausted by all the stupidity 😭

overall, dark content creators shouldn’t be allocated a little hovel in the corner of the internet in which they should privately discuss matters. we’re allowed to post it freely because CONTENT WARNINGS EXIST. dead dove will always be a thing and always has been. just because i post my content doesn’t mean it’s open for harassment and death threats and rape threats or anything? you can be an adult and get on with your day! and if you really need an outlet go talk to friends with the same opinions as you! i see ooc leon fluff all the time everyday and i don’t give a shit, i move on because leon isn’t real.

i pride myself on characterisation and if you have so obsessively read my fics to point out and circle random words in red that don’t correlate like we’re in a fucking crime show, then you would know that half the time i actually flesh out his character, i hate posting smut alone. i simply like exploring topics that are dark both to cope with my own problems and because i think they’re interesting to write about. however, as soon as something is mildly dark and sexual you guys cry mischaracterisation. leon also isn’t lighting candles and throwing rose petals but I don’t fucking judge what people write because if I don’t like I don’t read!

i promise, posting screenshots of my fics untagged with no warning is more harmful as you’re showing it to people who didn’t ask to fucking see it. i promise that harassing me will do nothing for you, you’re literally just sending vile shit to a real person who has struggled with the things she writes about LMFAO sorry again for yapping. i genuinely want to move on and post my regular shit but this has consumed the entire leon tag and i feel like im partly responsible. if you did get through this thank you! it’s mainly just ramblings and not read over so excuse me once again

#leon kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x you #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy imagine #leon s kennedy smut #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy smut #resident evil x reader #resident evil smut #tw sa mention #tw discourse

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filmofhybe · 5 months

Text

The perfect blend - YJW

part 1 of “IN EVERY MULTIVERSE”

In which..

can you ever imagine in this multiverse, you having the biggest fattest crush on your best friend - Yang jungwon, however knowing he already has a “girlfriend” hurts more than just a sting from a bee.

💌 PAIRING : yjw x reader

GENRE : friends to lovers , fluff

WARNING : angst , fluff , kissing

🗯️ FEATURING : huh yunjin - LE SSERAFIM

word count : 2,501

MASTERLIST to “IN EVERY MULTIVERSE”.

“Are you serious? Do you believe you can travel to different multiverse?” Yunjin looks at me as if she just heard the most ridiculous thing that has ever come out of a human’s mouth.

“Well, you never know. There’s always a chance we actually can..” I replied as I shoved another spoonful of rice into my mouth.

“Oh my gosh y/n, I’ve known you for years and this is probably the most idiotic thing that has come out of your smart-ass mouth.” She threw her hands in the air before turning her vision back to the TV screen in front of us.

“What if I actually get there though?” Now the room has turned absolutely silent. Even the TV at the background has sound coming out of it. “Well then tell me everything when I get my normal y/n back.” Sighing, as I watch her placing our bowl into the sink.

“Right, we have school tomorrow, I'll make you breakfast. And you can do whatever. Sweet Dreams y/n. And I want the normal y/n back ASAP.” We chuckled, as I watched her till her silhouette disappears into the end of the dark hallway. Pushing myself off the floor as I turned the tv off and walking to my bedroom to start washing up.

After a warm bath, I sat in my bed as soft music plays, the light in the room is dim, creating a cozy atmosphere. Cuddling into the soft duvet, my mind was full of thoughts on what would actually happen if I traveled to all my multiverse. Would something bad happen? How would I get back? Would I get stuck in one of them and never return? Pushing all those negative thoughts away as weight falls upon my eyes, closing them as sleep finally takes over me. Sending me to dream land…

“y/nnie~~ wake up!!” I jumped at the sudden stranger voice. Dizziness taking over me as I scratch my eyes, trying to adjust the brightness, I looked around realizing I’m in a classroom, wait wasn’t I-

“Are you ok? You’ve been sleeping for ages..” I look up, seeing a boy with define features, cat looking eyes with sweet soft pink lips, wait isn’t that jungwon? THE JUNGWON IM LITERALLY BEST FRIENDS WITH?

“Oh uh yeah I’m alright thank you..” I replied to him, not knowing how and why I’m suddenly in a classroom. “Y/n you seem confused? Come on let’s go get some food to get your energy up!” Man if only if he weren’t so damn cheerful.. Before I could react, jungwon takes my hand as he drags me through the hallway of the unfamiliar surrounding around me. We stop as we arrive at the cafeteria before getting our food.

“y/n I think we should totally hang out this week!” He said, as a big smile spread across his face. My brain still processing on how this is actually happening. How Im I going to hanging out with Jungwon, and why does this feel so real. “oh yeah of course we can!” I cheerfully said, cringing at how I replied to him.

“That’s great! I’ll pick you up from yours around 11 on Saturday!” Turning around as he throws away his rubbish. Grabbing my arm once again as I allowed him to drag me anywhere. His hands was soft like a baby’s cheek, his cheeks as pink as a baby girl’s pajamas. He is a real life softie. Running around the school before arriving to his destined spot. “Have you ever been here before?” Examining around, Sakura tress around us, pedals falling from the spring breeze, realizing it was the back of the school that no one goes to. I shook my head as I saw him take a camera out of his bag.

“Y/n look over here! You look extremely pretty right now, say cheese!!” Turning the camera towards me as I awkwardly poses in front of him. Click before he takes the film out, waiting for it to appear. “Film camera is our thing now okay?” Watching him lay below the tree as the sun shines on his face , making his defined features more visible.

Copying his move as I lay next to him as I treasure this sweet moment with the guy I have never thought would appear in my multiverse. Smiling as I turn to him grabbing his attention. “So 11am Saturday right…?” “Yeah don’t be late ok?” “I won’t-“ “pinky promise me! I’ll be waiting for you okay?” He extended his hand as we pinky promised each other.

Before we can kiss our pinky and seal the promise, I was waken by my alarm. Fuck.. did you really had to ruin my god damn dream.. I sat up realizing that wouldn’t be a dream right? It felt so real, I could move everything and control what I’m doing. What is this? Did I just traveled to another universe. Or I’m just tricking myself.

Throwing my shoes on before locking the apartment doors. Walking towards my 11am class which was absolutely a joke, I rather stay in my cozy bed, dreaming or even traveling back to last night’s dream. I was so deep in my thoughts I didn’t even realize I bumped into someone, dropping all my notes on the floor. Wow could my day be any better.. I quickly started picking up the stuff without trying ti embarrass myself more, too annoyed to even realize someone was helping me as well. Accidentally bumping into each others head as we stand up.

I heard him let out a little groan as I rub my head, looking up realizing it was Jungwon. “Hey y/n! I didn’t mean to bump into you here’s your notes.” Handing me it as I’m still processing what’s going on last night. His hands accidentally touched mines, the same exact soft delicate hands that held my wrist.. His features exactly identical from the dream, hair styled the same, confusing me even more. So your telling me your the same person as the guy that was in my dream..or multiverse or whatever I was in last night. Can’t be bother to deal with more crazy hallucinations. I thanked him as I take my notes back and walked towards my class, leaving a confused jungwon, wondering what he did. I hear him calling out for me but soon stops as he seems like he had given up to continue. Heart heavy, knowing the fact he doesn’t even know he was calling me pretty in my other universe, hanging out with each other when we rarely do it now.

“What do you mean Yang jungwon was in your dream, but in that dream you can move like physically.” Yunjin’s face displays a confused look. Not believing a single word that just came out of my mouth.

“Yunjin, I can literally feel his hand in my, quote on quote, so-called dream. The exact ones that touched mines today.” The more I talk about it the more, I just want to absolutely bury myself 6ft under. I just don’t believe that “dream” wasn’t real. It definitely have to do with something in my next life or whatever.

“We really need to get you some help because your telling me this is your dream, but you can feel all these little things isn’t making sense.” By now Yunjin particularly tired of my ranting, but I know she’s silently enjoying all of this. Watching her continue to type on her computer as i return my focus towards the opened Chemistry book in front of me.

Silently getting along with our work, the only slightest sound heard was Yunjin’s typing. Nothing could be more peaceful than this. I stopped reading the paragraph I’m currently on as i heard a familiar voice coming beside me.

“I got the coffee for you and y/n, you both better pay me back.”

“Fine! Your acting like we are using you or something..”

“Because maybe you are..” It was Jungwon’s voice.

“I’ll pay you back on Saturday-”

“Wait Saturday? How do you know I was about to ask you to hang out on Saturday-”

“it’s nothing I don’t know why I said that.” I awkwardly chuckled as i return my vision towards my notes.

“Your just as weird as the first time i met you, right 11am Saturday I’ll pick you up.” He said before throwing his bag behind his back, walking out of the common room.

“What the actual shit was that. How the hell is everything in your dream just implied to what happened…” Shock laid across both me and Yunjin’s face as we realize, my so called dream isn’t really just a dream. Is something more than just a dream. Maybe even related to the MULTIVERSE .

SERIES TAGLIST : @enhaz1 @dubuii @in-somnias-world @ultimatestayandminoronce @yenqa @euncsace @hoondiors @yannew @mrchweeee @ariadores @oldjws @frukkoneeeeg @dimplewonie @seobstarr @asteria-wood (white = i cant tag) / comment to be added to the series taglist.

; AUTHORS NOTE : Hope you guys enjoy the first chapter / prologue! Please reblog or comment to boost my story! Same time next week see you than!! Have a nice week :)

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wordsarelife · 3 months

Text

pretty isn't pretty

pairing: anthony lockwood x fem!reader

summary: he was showering you in compliments all while you felt like you weren’t pretty enough

warnings: low self esteem, mentions of grief, bad thoughts

a/n: this is actually bad. i really feel that i am not really able to write for lockwood anymore, but i’m trying to write these last few fics to the best of my abilities, promise :)

you were looking through the magazine, comparing everything about you to these gorgeous women, plastered over the pages. always beautiful, always perfect.

you sighed, knowing that you would never come even close to that.

anthony lockwood was the kind of boyfriend who showered you in complements from morning to night and still you wondered if he meant what he said.

you hated yourself for thinking that. but there was a small part in your brain that loved to question anything and everything. the clothes you were wearing, the make up, how you looked and how you didn't look and of course your relationship.

it wasn't like you wanted to question everything anthony said to you, but you felt like you had to. he told you you were beautiful three times a day and sometimes you wondered if he meant it or just needed to persuade himself of that.

the relationship with anthony was the first real long and healthy relationship you had. the boys that had come before him were never a mere possibility, and it seemed the reason for that had always been you.

never giving enough, never wanting enough and most importantly, never being enough.

it felt like there was always someone better. someone more loving, someone more needing and someone prettier.

the relationship with anthony was so good, you almost couldn't believe it. probably why your head always tried to convince you it was too good to be true. as if everything you had could suddenly slip away if you stopped working on yourself.

you didn't want him to slip away. but you also didn't want him to be in a relationship with someone who he felt wasn't enough for him.

it was a constant balance between happiness and self doubt and you were so tired of it. it was like a constant companion, turning every good moment into a situation for you to analyze.

it was exhausting to say the least and without you noticing, anthony became aware of something going on with you too.

"what are you doing?" you looked up at the voice and noticed anthony leaning over the couch behind you

"reading a magazine" you raised the magazine in your hands

anthony sighed, knowing which thoughts were running through your head. “i know what you’re thinking” he said softly, nudging your shoulder in a comforting way

“you do?” you asked surprised. you had thought that you had been subtle, successfully keeping the doubts in your head unnoticeable for him.

he nodded his head, rounding the couch and sinking into the fabric next to you. he took the magazine and closed it, throwing it on the table. “of course i know” he muttered and you saw the hurt in his eyes.

you weren’t sure if he was hurt because you were thinking what you were or because you had been keeping it from you.

“you know that you can tell me anything, right?” his brown eyes almost made you cry

“i know” you sighed, ashamed at the conversation you were having right now, ashamed her that you even though what you were thinking “i’m sorry for keeping it from you”

“i know you don’t do it to hurt me” anthony said “but it still hurts. as if there was a part of you, not even i am allowed to see”

“it’s shameful”

“no it isn’t” he shook his head “i love everything about you, even the hard things, especially the hard things”

your lip shivered. “sometimes i don’t think i deserve you”

“that’s rubbish” anthony took your hand in his “do you remember my parents death anniversary? i was ugly crying the entire day and you never left my side. i was ashamed of that for a long time”

“you were?” you asked surprised, never really getting the thought that he might have similar insecurities plaguing his mind

“of course”

“well i never even thought it was weird or wrong. i know how much you love your parents, i could never make you feel ashamed for how you feel about them”

“exactly” anthony said “and with you it’s the same way. anything we think is shameful makes the other love us even more, don’t you understand? you don’t have to be perfect for me to love you.. i love you even more because you aren’t” he assured “that doesn’t mean your feelings are not valid! it’s okay to not always feel good about things, but it’s important that you tell me about it, alright? how should i be able to help you when you don’t tell me what’s wrong?”

you smiled at him and squeezed his hand. “i love you” you kissed his cheek “and you really don’t mind to speak about it?”

he shook his head “never” he assured “i love you”

#pretty isnt pretty #anthony lockwood x reader #anthony lockwood #lockwood and co #george karim #ali hadji heshmati #lucy carlyle #cameron chapman #ghost hunting #ruby stokes #netflix #lockwood and co imagines #lockwood x reader #lockwoodandco #lockwood #guts album #guts olivia rodrigo #lizzysgutsspecial

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sev-on-kamino · 10 months

Text

Y’all thirsty? No? Let’s change that! We’re talking ✨Commander Fox✨ today.

I’ve got Fox on the brain, and you know me: I’ve gotta make that everyone’s problem. (MINORS DNI)

Fox’s priorities: his job, his brothers, making sure the caf machine is always in working order, and making sure no one ever finds out he’s been sneaking Grizzer treats for months (notice that his own well-being isn’t on that list😒)

He hasn’t finished a hot cup of caf in months.

He and Wolffe have a call once every couple of weeks, as time allows, to catch up. Wolffe fusses at Fox for taking crap care of himself, and Fox pretends to be annoyed, but he loves it.

They text in between calls, and it’s mostly just roasting the shit out of each other

Big “I wasn’t sleeping I was resting my eyes” energy

He has a weakness for sweets, like “ooh a piece a candy” right into a trap kinda weakness. Thorn has been known to include sweets with his reports when he knows there’s some shit in there that’s gonna get Fox’s blood pressure up.

Stomach sleeper with one leg out from under the blanket

Amazing card player, like take him to the casino today (Only Cross and Tech are better than Fox imo)

Lowkey loves fucking with people. Wolffe and Thorn the most of course.

He’s a hardass but he will do the sweetest shit for people he loves. Just don’t call too much attention to it because he’s got a reputation to maintain 😒

It ventures into NSFW territory past this point, Minors DNI 🔞

Fox x Reader HCs

some of these are mad specific because of my in progress series 😅

He’s awkward in the transition from friends w/ benefits to an actual relationship

He’s very much the “you? in love with me? sounds fake but ok” type

Even if he’s in love with you, he won’t believe it. You have to show him all the time. He needs hard evidence 🧐

He’s a “let’s be alone together” partner. You’re doing your thing, he’s doing his thing. He likes that he can see you, and that he can reach out and touch you whenever he likes

When he cares for someone, they’re getting all the sweet pillow talk, take notes while he’s in a sharing mood

The post-nut clarity can either take him to a really great place (ah, this person I’m with does care for me and want me for me), or a horrible place (oh, I’m just another notch in their bedpost and why are they still here???)

He enjoys orgasm control/denial

He defaults to positions where he can see your face the whole time because you look pretty while he’s ruining you

Once things are established, and he’s grudgingly accepted that you truly care for him, and he’s done resisting feelings for you, you’ve unlocked soft!Fox

Soft!Fox only exists behind closed doors but he’ll make you fall in love with Fox all over again

More on soft!Fox in a future post 😌

tagging: @secondaryrealm @dystopicjumpsuit @iamburdened @sunshinesdaydream

#tcw commander fox #tcw fox #commander fox x reader #fox hcs #commander fox headcanons #fox headcanons #reader insert #star wars the clone wars #seven writes

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swordcreature · 5 months

Note

Hellooo! I want to ask you to help me get rid of the thoughts, please. Angsty thoughts. Tieflings reaction to kidnapping of their loved one. Or a situation where they were both taken hostage, possibly to put pressure on the council. I can't sleep.

oh man anon i love thinkin' about sad men in love. hoooooo boy.

this was just something small for each tiefling becuse i wanted to keep things vague, and just talk about how they feel in that moment kind of thing. hopefully that comes across idek.

it's a lil different than my normal HCs

anywho. hope you enjoy and ty ty ty for the request! sorry it took so long!!!

Dammon, Rolan, & Zevlor - Kidnapped Love One

just the teeniest tiniest inference of self-harm/suicidal ideation (like you kinda got squint to see it) but wanted to say something just in case.

How the tiefling boys feel when their loved one's kidnapped

Dammon:

For the first time in Dammon’s life that he can recall, smithing isn’t doing anything to keep his mind clear or calm. In fact, it’s making things worse. Every hit of his hammer, normally soothing and repetitive enough to lull his worries away, makes him recoil. The sound thrums through his head like a bad headache. It’s the only thing he’s ever known to help steady his thoughts, but with his loved one taken from him it’s not enough. The terror rattles around ceaselessly inside his head. They’re probably dead. You can’t save them – you barely know how to fight. What good are the weapons you make if you can’t protect them? There’s nothing you can do. When that voice in his head whispering all his faults and failures and fears gets too loud, he snaps, throwing the hammer across the room with as much force as his wiry arms will allow. He’s angry at the world, at the gods, but mostly at himself. Because he knows the little voice inside is right. There’s nothing he can do.

Rolan:

Rolan is furious. He’s fucking fuming. He paces around with his hands pulling at his hair because how in the world could something like this happen? After all this time? After everything he’s gained, all the power he has? It’s like the universe is mocking him and his hubris, shoving his face in the dirt to snivel at him for thinking he would ever have any control over it. What a pathetic fool he has been, he realizes now. The tower, Sorcerous Sundries, the hundreds of tomes he’s read, the magical knowledge he’s pursued – none of it was worth anything if he couldn't even do the simple job of protecting his family. The anger fades and in its place sits self-loathing and despair: two of Rolan’s oldest friends. He sinks to the cold floor as reality creeps in. As long as he has people to care for, he will never be powerful enough; the universe will always find a way to take them from him. And he fucking hates it.

Zevlor:

He should have seen it coming. He’s trained endlessly for situations just like this. But when it happens to someone Zevlor cares for, someone he loves? Everything he has ever learned goes down the drain. It’s his fault then that they were taken, he thinks. He failed, yet again. Like he failed in Elturel. And the Grove. Then the Shadow Cursed Lands. When was the last time he succeeded – the last time he was able to actually fulfill his duty to protect that he had taken on so many years ago? He can’t remember. Some part of his brain wants to give up, to dig a hole and sit there until the world crumbles around him. But if there is one thing Zevlor does well, it’s persisting. Because he owes it to them and to all the people he has failed to get up and move. So, even though he wants to let fear drag him down to the pits of Hell where he thinks he belongs, he tries to hope. To see the sunrise on the horizon after a long night. To believe they’ll be returned to him safe. He’ll take penance for his failure some other way.

#bg3 #bg3 dammon #bg3 rolan #bg3 zevlor #rolan #dammon #zevlor #baldur's gate 3 #my writing #requests/suggestions #anon #rolan x tav #dammon x tav #zevlor x tav

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carriesthewind · 2 years

Text

Hello tumblr! I am here to discuss some drama today! (Oh dear god I can't believe that this is what got me to finally join tumblr.)

As you may know, AO3 recently suspended a writer’s account, and the writer isn’t happy about it. They have made several public posts about it, including a very long post responding to the letter they received from AO3 in response to their appeal to lift the suspension. Now, I’m not particularly familiar with this writer. I’ve heard their name enough to recognize it, I know I have heard some rumors about them – some good, some bad. But I have never read their writing or their tumblr before, and I didn’t have any preconceived opinions about them.

But since this drama has entered my orbit from multiple sources, I decided to do a close read of their post responding to AO3. I do this fairly regularly, as a mental exercise to practice making myself a more careful consumer of media in general, social media in particular. But close-reading this particular post made me angry enough that felt the need to write up my analysis and share it.

A few disclaimers and notes before we begin:

First, I am just going to refer to the person under discussion as the “writer” – I include this person’s user name in a screenshot, so am not hiding their identity, but I’m not doing this to target them. This is an analysis of two of their posts, not of their life or online activity outside of the post.

Second, I am going to be giving the writer every benefit of the doubt I can, and am starting my reading by assuming they are acting in good faith.

Third, I am going to take the text under discussion under its own terms as much as possible, without referring to outside content. I am going to be analyzing two posts by the writer; the long post they made in response to AO3’s reply, and a shorter post that they made that long post in reply to. The exceptions to this will be the TOS of AO3, since they are central to the dispute, and a few other posts by the writer on the same subject. I will be using those other posts only when I need them to understand the writer’s argument in the main post we are looking at.

Let’s begin.

There’s two things that jump out at me from this paragraph right away. First, if we look at AO3’s TOS, there is a clear path for filing an appeal, and there is no right to a response from being pinged on Tumblr or responding to messages through other venues. There is also no deadline for the team to respond to an appeal. In fact, the TOS repeatedly note that they cannot guarantee a speedy response. Given the size of the archive, five days seems far from unreasonable.

However, this waiting period would absolutely be frustrating, and it is entirely understandable that the writer would be frustrated and angry. Speaking personally, I know that I have angrily tried to contact a company via non-official means when I felt they had wronged me and were refusing to respond to my official messages. The writer isn’t doing anything wrong here by reaching out this way and being upset at the delay – but AO3 isn’t doing anything wrong by not replying to these messages, either.

Second, this sentence, “My legally copyrighted property under the terms of Fair Use is still in kidnapped status, which is not actually legal”? This sentence is nonsense. It is so nonsense that whenever I look away my brain rewrites it. It is so nonsense I am not going to even try to break down the very many ways it is wrong, because that would double the length of this monster of a post. I will instead just state: by agreeing to AO3's TOS, the writer has agreed to allow their account to be suspended under the TOS, and the writer’s work still belongs to the writer and can be removed (more on that later) and reposted (or not removed and reposted) anywhere else.

The important things about this sentence for our close reading are as follows: 1) the writer is using a bunch of legal jargon in a way that is irrelevant and inaccurate (the alternative, which is worse, is they are lying and they know it); 2) as a corollary, the writer is talking confidently and forcefully about the situation in ways that do not accurately describe the situation (either out of ignorance, confusion, or a deliberate desire to mislead); and 3) the writer is using charged and exaggerating language to describe the situation.

Number 1 will be important shortly; for now, just keep it in mind.

Number 2 doesn’t necessarily imply bad faith; as noted, they could be talking out of ignorance or misspeaking, or some combination of both, due to the emotionally charged situation. Even though they haven’t lost their content (because they haven’t), people’s writing is very important to them; it is understandable that someone who has lost some control over the distribution of their writing would feel upset! (Please note that this is true regardless of whether the suspension was appropriate, justified, or correct - punishments hurt, by definition!) Rather, it is important because it makes clear that even if the writer has best of intentions, the way they are writing about this situation is not entirely accurate. It is entirely possible that this is the only thing about their situation that they will be wrong about - especially since legal rights and issues are extremely complicated and most people struggle to fully understand them. However, it is still an early indication to keep our eye on, moving forward. (It is also worth noting that this kind of legal misrepresentation is extremely commonly used by people who are NOT acting in good faith. This alone is not enough to assume bad faith - again, legal issues are complicated - but it is something to keep an eye on when reading posts like this.)

Number 3 is referring mostly to the use of “kidnapped” to describe the status of their works. This is not remotely accurate, for reasons which I will dive into more later. It is, however, highly emotionally charged language that indicates a couple of possibilities, any or all of which may be present. First, it could indicate, like the last point, a writer who is (again, understandably!) upset and is expressing how the situation FEELS to them, even if that feeling doesn’t match reality. Secondly, it could be the writer trying to using metaphorical language to get the reader to understand how serious the situation feels to them. Third, it could indicate a desire (conscious or unconscious) to appeal to the reader’s emotions over their logic, so they will be more likely to go along with the writer’s characterization of the situation.

The overall impression from where we are starting is this: we have a writer who is (again, understandably) extremely upset at a suspension that may or may not be justified and appropriate - so far we have no evidence either way. We have likewise no evidence that either party is acting inappropriately. However, we do have indications that the writer appears to either not correctly understand, or is (accidentally or on purpose), mischaracterizing at least some elements of the situation.

So, let’s move on to the long post.

We start with the knowledge that we do not have AO3’s whole response; there are sections that are left out that may or may not be relevant. This isn’t necessarily bad or wrong - there may be lots of good reasons not to include the full text. However, it is worth keeping in mind when we are assessing the situation.

More important is the description of AO3’s letter as, “full of fun jargon.” We will review the provided text ourselves, but AO3 generally does an admirable job trying to use as little jargon and legalese as reasonable possible, and I would include the provided text of the response in that assessment. Still, given that is a formal response to a TOS violation appeal, it does use a lot of formal language and some legal language.

However, this is an interesting complaint for the writer to make, given Number 1 above (I promised we would come back to that!). It’s a sharp contrast for the writer to use lot of legal jargon to complain about AO3 and then turn around and promptly complain about AO3 using jargon. Again, this isn’t necessarily a sign of bad faith. It is entirely possible that the writer, as described above, is confused and upset and using language they think they understand (but don’t) to express their feelings, and since they don’t understand legal language, they see the AO3 response as including a lot of jargon. However, using charged legalistic language themselves while characterizing their opponent as using “jargon” is another flag to keep an eye on. Again, in the best case scenario, this is someone who is clearly quite (reasonably!) emotional and whose characterization of at least some aspects of the situation is questionable.

This response by the writer is….confusing?

The writer seems to be arguing that punishing them for failing to comply with the TOS makes them unable to comply with the TOS right away so therefore…people shouldn’t ever be suspended for commercial content violations? I don’t think this is what the writer is arguing, because it’s not reasonable (and in some of their posts, they make it clear that they don’t believe that), but I can’t make any other sense of this paragraph.

According to their TOS, if AO3 finds a sufficiently serious violation, it can hide or delete violating content. But based on the previous “kidnapped” comments, the writer would presumable be upset (is upset?) if the works were altered or removed from public view by AO3 unless they specifically asked them to. So I’m not sure what the writer would want AO3 to do in response to a commercial content-based TOS violation.

This first quoted paragraph is being positioned by the writer as indicating some problem with AO3’s process, either in general or in this specific case, but so far, there is no actual evidence of that.

I also want to note here – this paragraph seems to be confirming that the TOS violations were valid, and the writer is just disputing their seriousness, not their existence. But to be fair, I checked some of their other posts on the topic to confirm this reading. Although they dispute the interpretations of some of the reported violations as incorrect, they do admit that at least one of the reported violations was accurate.

We are not provided this mitigating information, but the writer will include some arguments later that would seem to be the mitigating evidence, and I will address it then. I will note here - it is very common for an aggrieved party to say that a system that punished them ignored evidence they presented. While sometimes this is true, often the system reviews the evidence they present, and decides not to rule in their favor anyway. Here, for example, we see that AO3’s response notes that the suspension will not be lifted unless the writer furnishes mitigating information “that would have changed our initial determination.” So AO3 might have ignored the mitigating information, or they might have reviewed it and determined it would not have changed their decision (e.g.: they already knew about it, it wasn’t determined credible, it wasn’t determined relevant, etc.). Also note that we, seeing the mitigating information, could think that AO3 was incorrect if they reviewed the proffered mitigating info and did not rescind the suspension, but that is not the same as AO3 ignoring it. We, as readers of the post, don’t know which of these options occurred - and neither does the writer. While it is understandable that the poster is not giving AO3 the same kind of good faith that we are trying to give them (aggrieved parties don’t have to assign good faith to people they believe have wronged them!), it once again colors our understanding of how the writer is characterizing AO3’s response.

This starts with an interesting claim! That is, that AO3 acknowledged in the letter that the writer has “a history of immediately complying.” This isn’t in the excerpt of the letter that we have. Because this claim is immediately below the above excerpt from AO3's letter, it appears that the writer is misconstruing the statement, “While we appreciate your willingness to remove the violating content immediately, you must first serve your suspension to its completion before you are able to edit your works.” This sentence isn’t claiming the writer has a history of complying, it is clearly responding to the writer’s stated willingness *in this case* to edit their content to comply. If the writer is deliberately misconstruing the letter this way, that’s deeply troubling, because it shows they are both trying to make AO3 look bad (see the rest of the paragraph) and twisting their own bad behavior (note that they here acknowledge past instances of breaking the TOS) in a way that makes them look good, actually (“assist[ing] the Archive in keeping things to their TOS standard”). This is really, really, bad behavior if it is deliberate. It would be a deliberate lie to preempt their audience’s recognition of their misdeeds and frame themself as a victim of a malicious actor.

HOWEVER. That is not the only interpretation of this claim. The writer is not necessarily deliberately misconstruing the letter - again, they are reasonably upset at the situation, they’ve stated they have found the letter to be full of jargon (and thus potentially may be struggling to parse some of it), and it is possible they are responding quickly without carefully reading the letter. Alternatively, they have stated that they are only posting certain sections of the letter - it is entirely possible that AO3 acknowledges “a history of immediately complying” somewhere else in the letter. Now, even in that case, the writer is clearly attempting to reframe evidence of their past violations as evidence of their victimhood (promptly removing TOS violating content is the bare minimum of what should be expected by an AO3 user). Again, that may be a genuine (and natural!) emotional reaction, but we continue to see the thread that the writer’s characterization of (now multiple) aspects of the situation are both inaccurate and biased to see themselves as victimized.

Which leads us to the poster’s response to the next excerpt.

Here the writer acknowledges again that they have at least one previous TOS violation. They include an except from AO3’s letter that clearly shows that they were explicitly told that failing to remove commercial promotion material from their account might result in a temporary suspension. Noticeably, although they have and will continue to frame themselves as the victim of an unfair process: 1) they do not dispute they were previously in violation of the policy, and were let off with just a warning. 2) They do not dispute that since that warning, they continued to have commercial promotion material on their account. 3) They do not dispute the content of the warning. 4) They do not dispute that they received or understood this warning.

Instead, the poster disputes that the warning…wasn’t official enough? They do not indicate how or what AO3 should have done to make it “official” - likely because it is extremely clear that this was a previous warning, and spelling out an alternative would make the absurdity of this complaint clear. It is at this point that we can no longer proceed assuming that the poster is writing solely in good faith. While we cannot assume they are deliberately trying to mislead their audience or that they do not have legitimate complaints, they are at least deeply in denial and stuck in a victimization perspective and that must inform our reading of their post.

Their second complaint with this section is just as ridiculous and telling as their first. AO3’s abuse policy is NOT a 3 strikes policy, as it is explicitly designed for flexibility, so that an account may be let off with multiple warnings, or may be suspended at the first violation, depending on the assessed severity of the violation. Nothing in the quoted section of the letter contradicts this flexibility. In fact, it directly supports the existence of this flexibility, by writing that further TOS violations “might,” not “will,” trigger a suspension. The writer is just wrong, and we can see they are wrong by simply reading the text they are replying to. This can only be read as either a deliberate mischaracterization of both the letter and the TOS, or as someone so far in denial that their characterization of the situation cannot be relied upon and no information they give can be fully trusted without external supporting evidence.

(As a note on my own biases in writing this analysis: this is where I personally ran out of patience with the writer, although I have tried to maintain a more even tone in this analysis.)

The writer may still have legitimate critiques of AO3’s actions and response (for example, they can still argue that such a flexible system is bad in general, or that there were mitigating circumstances that should have caused the suspension to be lifted/not imposed in their particular case), but they are not, in this section at least, making such a legitimate argument.

Their critique of the non time-limited nature of AO3’s response to TOS violations also indicates a fundamental misunderstanding (whether genuine or deliberate) of the *problem* of a TOS violation, especially of a commercial promotion TOS violation. AO3 is an *archive* - it explicitly exists to preserve fan works and provide access to them. It doesn’t matter, from AO3’s perspective, when a commercial promotion is first posted - it matters that it is currently accessible. A commercial promotion violation does not occur solely when a user posts it - it is an ongoing violation that continues to occur for as long as the promotion remains accessible. Furthermore, the structure of AO3 is such that it relies on individual users to maintain their works in compliance with the TOS. We can imagine an archive that works differently. This hypothetical archive could have works reviewed by archive staff before being accepted into entry in the archive, would not allow works to be modified except with the approval of staff, and would allow works to be modified by staff without the users’ knowledge or consent. However, 1) this is not the TOS the writer agreed to when they posted their works on AO3 and 2) given this writer’s expressed desire for control over their own work in this very post, this would not be an archive the writer would want to use.

People can still have legitimate disagreements about whether and how the date that a violation was originally posted on should affect sanctions for that violation, and disagreements over whether the sanctions were appropriately applied in any particular case. It isn't a problem for the author to assert that they think AO3's policy should be different. It is a problem for them to mischaracterize what the policy is and mislead their audience about why a policy exists.

Once again, AO3 is describing a policy that is entirely reasonable. However, in this section the writer finally moves on to the potentially legitimate claim that the policy is being enforced in a draconian way. They advance two arguments to support this claim.

This is actually one of their better responses, because their arguments, while very hostile, are potentially legitimate complaints that support their claim of draconian enforcement in their case! (Please note I am not asserting their complaints are accurate, however - more on that in a moment.)

The first claim is that an official AO3 staff member previously checked every one of their existing fics to try to ensure that they did not violate AO3’s TOS. The writer relied on this assurance going forward, so should not be sanctioned with a suspension. This is a part of the post that, in the interests of good faith, I will discuss with the added context of another post by this writer, since the claim isn't fully or clearly expressed in the above post, and it is their best argument in favor of their mistreatment. I am also going to assume that this was the mitigation that they referred to submitting to AO3 and claim was ignored.

If the poster is characterizing this previous interaction correctly, they have legitimate reasons to be upset, and I would agree with them that this is the sort of mitigating evidence I would expect would cause a suspension to be lifted if I was the person making decisions.

…here’s the problem, though. While I would agree with them that this would be a draconian application of AO3’s polices…it wouldn’t be a violation of AO3’s stated policies in any way. If the AO3 abuse staff member made assurances that to the writer that all their posted content was clear of TOS violations, that would be counter to AO3's TOS, which makes it clear that it does not do pre-emptive reviews. It would be legitimately frustrating for this writer to find out that the promise it relied on was incorrect and be punished after relying on it. However, it is impossible for me not to see that from AO3’s perspective, if this staff member really did give this assurance, it means that the writer was given an assurance of preferential treatment over other users. There is a good argument that to continue to give them preferential treatment (that is, to rescind the suspension based on the preferential treatment) would only compound the harm. It’s a legitimately tough situation for both parties to be in. I ultimately continue to see no misconduct on the part of AO3, except potentially in allowing an official staff member to give misleading preferential treatment (I say potentially because we have no further information about what actions AO3 took to correct this harm/punish the staff member), and also understand why the writer is reasonably furious at the archive.

…or rather, that would be the problem, if we could continue to read this post solely in good faith. Unfortunately, by the time we reach this explanation, as stated above, we know that the writer is either deliberately lying in this post, or deeply in denial leading to them mischaracterization the situation. Because of what we have already seen, we cannot take their description of the alleged staff member or their actions as accurate without at least some external supporting evidence.

We are given no such evidence, either in this post or in any of the others I have reviewed. Rather, the provided evidence contradicts it, albeit subtly. Remember that we noted how the poster did not dispute the content of the August 2019 warning AO3 sent them? That warning clearly stated that failing to remove all commercial promotion from their account might result in a suspension. That warning, from AO3 (not a single independent staff member), along with the clear TOS statement that it does not do preemptive reviews, puts the responsibility for removing the violating content squarely on the writer. If that warning wasn’t “official” enough for them to take it seriously…why were they willing to rely on the word of a single person who was breaking AO3 official policy by purporting to prescreen content?

While I lost my patience at the previous paragraph, as noted above, this response is why I actually decided to write and post this analysis. Casually reading this post, the writer’s description of events here sound deeply sympathetic and would lead a casual reader to see them a victim and AO3 as a villain. It is natural (and a good instinct!) to trust people when they tell you they are being mistreated. Unfortunately, sometimes people who feel that they have been mistreated are just seeing the consequences of their own actions catch up to them.

The second potential legitimate complaint is the implied assertion that their violation was not really serious, and should not really be considered a TOS violation (“figurative, imaginative caffeine.”) Unfortunately, the writer has already admitted repeatedly, both in this post and outside of it, that they were in violation of the TOS. Thus, instead of this being a legitimate complaint, it is another indication that the poster is inappropriately mischaracterizing themself to their audience as a maligned victim and AO3 as a villain.

Oh hey, AO3’s letter is reiterating everything I just explained about prescreening! I wonder how the poster will respond.

I’m trying not to be too snarky here, but that is a really damming failure to respond.

So instead of talking about the substantive issue at hand, let’s address this wild change of subject, I guess.

This is again an instance of the writer portraying themselves as a victim, either because they are deliberately trying to maliciously mislead their audience or because they truly believe it. Just to be clear - they are claiming that they are being targeted because someone noticed and reported admitted TOS violations on their “two…most well-know fics in two major fandoms.” If they are claiming they are being targeted by someone acting in bad faith, and therefore the (again, admittedly legitimate!) violation reports are a form of targeted harassment, wouldn’t they have a much better claim if the violations were reported on fics with very low hit counts (so that someone would be less likely to randomly find them)?

And a side note - if these TOS violations were on the poster’s “most well-known fics” in “major fandoms,” that goes directly to the relevance of their ‘the violations were posted a long time ago’ mitigation claim. A well-known fic is more likely to be currently receiving continuing views (remember, the harm the violations are causing is based on people seeing them), and an author who is continuing to get hits/kudos/comments on that work would presumably be aware of its continued popularity, and thus should be aware of the need, after receiving a warning, to make sure to personally review it for violations.

Again, we’ve already addressed this issue repeatedly. So I will just note here that the writer is claiming that it is “actually fucking ridiculous” not to grandfather in active TOS violations. Imagine making this argument in any other context. Imagine an author has a book that they wrote 14 years ago but is still selling. Imagine someone notices this year, for the first time, that the author has extensively plagiarized copyrighted material. They alert the victim, who brings a suit, and the publisher stops publishing the author’s book and refuses to publish any of their other book as well. Does the writer think it is “actually fucking ridiculous” for the publisher to cease publishing the author, simply because the author was able to avoid detection for so long?

(Since I’m not doing much analysis here, let’s talk instead about what the purpose of this portion of the poster’s response might be. I’m putting this as an aside, because this isn’t strictly part of the close reading, and it is absolutely not it the spirit of good faith I am still trying to use. We’re going to look at the effect of this section in context. Let’s start by analyzing the use of the term “you” in this post. When the post began, the writer used “you” to refer to themself (“no matter how willing you are to fix it…etc.”). In the same section, the writer switches to using “you” to refer to AO3 (“if you have fans…”). In the third section, they start by using “you” to refer to AO3 (“You guys are the ones…”) and then switches in the next sentence to directly address the readers (“if any of you following me”). This switch isn’t a casual fluid switch like it was previously - instead, it is positioned in a sentence directly warning the readers that AO3 might come after them next. In the following section, they don’t use the second person, but they do imply (nonsensically) that someone is targeting them with these TOS violation reports. We then catch up with the above section - “they can and will go after you.” Note that the post starts directly addressing the reader at the same time that it builds up an escalating threat. This creates a sense of fear and camaraderie with the writer, positioning reader and writer as “us” against a malicious “them” who is not just targeting the writer, but the readers as well. This makes the reader more sympathetic to the writer, and more likely to believe their claims; after all, “you” know you’re not breaking AO3's TOS, and if “you” did, it would be an accident. How ridiculous for AO3 come after someone like “you” - someone who has broken the TOS multiple times in the past in the same way and has explicitly…been…warned…hmmm…how much like “you” is the poster, actually?)

Anyway,

I’m going to reiterate what I said after the writer’s response to the previous warning letter: what should AO3 have written to make this a warning that the writer would accept as legitimate? This is a bit longer and more detailed, but substantially the same as what was reportedly written in the previous letter. In that context, the poster said it didn’t look like an official warning, it wasn’t clear or serious enough. In this context, substantially the same content in substantially the same tone is recontextualized as too serious, a threat that secretly means AO3 already plans on banning them permanently. To borrow a phrase…"this is actually fucking ridiculous."

Again, if we are reading the post in the best possible light, this is someone who is so emotionally distraught that they have descended into paranoia and are unable to correctly characterize the situation. Alternatively, this reads like someone who deliberately characterizing AO3’s responses to best achieve their own ends. They want this suspension to appear unjustified and unjustifiable, which means they can’t have received clear previous warnings for the same TOS violations they are suspended for - so there was only one warning that wasn’t clear or official enough to give them any real notice. Now, they want to appear as a victim who is being targeted by a system that has it out for them, no matter what they do - so substantially the same warning is a threat that indicates an intent to ban them regardless of what they do next.

And we are back to the beginning: not understanding the first thing about the law and using (at this point I feel safe in saying) deliberately charged language to describe the situation.

(And mischaracterizing the text that is LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM – AO3 isn’t saying it will take a week to respond! It is giving you a week to comply once your suspension is lifted! What do you want it to do, impose further sections if you don’t comply within 12 hours?!?! I mean, if that’s what you’re asking for...)

AO3 is not taking control of the writer’s works. It has control how it chooses to display and store works that the writer has granted it permission to display and store. This is all very clearly laid out in the TOS.

We’ve already addressed that the writer does NOT know that AO3 did not investigate their alleged mitigation evidence. The writer is once again positioning a failure to agree with their position that the suspension should be lifted as a failure by AO3 to read or consider their evidence.

I’m not going to address most of the specifics they list, because I would basically just be repeating myself over and over again with more details and this analysis is already long enough. These specifics might be important, except that the poster has already admitted that they did violate the TOS. Even assuming they are characterizing their email, AO3’s full response, and the “Not Actually Violations” correctly, it doesn’t matter for the purpose of whether they violated the TOS (again) and received a legitimate suspension.

The only specific I will address is their blatant lie at the end: the TOS specifically bans all commercial promotion, NOT just self-promotion. The writer is explicitly, obviously lying - not just misunderstanding, not just mischaracterizing, flat out lying.

We have something in common, finally - I’m really offended too.

So I looked at some other posts for more context about this comment on deleting a work, just to make sure I wasn’t mischaracterizing: the writer apparently, fed up with AO3, wants to delete their works prior to the end of their suspension. Their “inability” to do so appears to be a major basis for their “kidnapping” claims above. This, once again, might be a legitimate complaint - AO3’s TOS does confirm that a suspended user retains the rights to remove their work (subject to certain data storage exceptions to meet AO3’s obligations).

Unfortunately, the poster’s next sentence makes it clear this compliant is not legitimate. The TOS are explicit that the way a suspended user can delete their works is through contacting AO3 administrators. If the poster had requested such delegations and been refused, AO3 would have violated their own TOS. Instead, the user states they just asked AO3 to lift the suspension. There is zero evidence that they asked AO3 to delete their works, and instead are mischaracterizing AO3’s refusal to lift their suspension as a refusal to delete their works, both in this post and elsewhere. I feel like a broken record at this point, but once again, they are mischaracterizing a very clear situation to make themselves look like a victim and AO3 a villain.

An appropriate gif of a petulant, spoiled child to match this closing paragraph. I don’t think I need to say anything else.

#AO3 drama #little tin cults #edited to add a read more #apologies to everyone who reblogged it before that #edited to fix the typo in the second paragraph that I can't believe I never noticed before

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