#and Avoid Human Gaslighting Behaviour!

[cinderpresss]

Unlock the secrets of human behaviour, influence dynamics, and ethical considerations with "Dark Psychology and Manipulation: Simplified For You." This comprehensive guide takes you on a journey through the complexities of dark psychology, providing clear insights, practical strategies, and ethical reflections to empower you in navigating influence dynamics and protecting yourself from manipulative tactics.

In this book, you will learn:

Understanding Dark Psychology: Dive into the fundamentals of dark psychology, unraveling the motives behind manipulative behaviours, and exploring psychological frameworks that enable such tactics. Gain awareness of common manipulation tactics and their impact on human interactions.

The Dark Triad: Explore the personalities associated with manipulation, including narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy. Understand how these traits contribute to manipulative behaviours and learn to recognize them in interpersonal interactions.

Manipulation Techniques: Discover the art of persuasion, emotional manipulation, gaslighting, and other manipulation tactics. Learn how manipulators exploit vulnerabilities and gain practical strategies for responding assertively and protecting yourself.

Ethical Considerations: Delve into ethical dilemmas in influence dynamics, responsibility, and accountability. Learn how to distinguish between ethical influence and manipulation, and explore strategies for promoting ethical conduct in personal and professional relationships.

Protecting Yourself: Equip yourself with tools and techniques for spotting manipulative behaviours, setting boundaries, and enhancing critical thinking skills. Develop emotional resilience, assertive communication, and ethical decision-making abilities to safeguard against dark psychology.

Whether you're a curious individual seeking to understand human behaviour or someone looking to protect yourself from manipulative tactics, "Dark Psychology and Manipulation: Simplified For You" offers valuable insights, actionable strategies, and ethical considerations to navigate influence dynamics with awareness, resilience, and integrity. Empower yourself today and unlock the keys to ethical influence and protection against dark psychology. ---

Learn Valuable Techniques to Influence People and Protect Yourself Through This Valuable Guide. Have Secrets Essential in Building Up Confidence for Your Body and Mind Against Manipulative Individuals. Control and Adapt Certain Behaviours Using Basic NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) for a Healthy Emotional Well-Being. Discover Good Persuasion and Ethical Psychology Techniques and Knowledge, and Avoid Human Gaslighting Behaviour!

[credulouscanidae]

every day i live in a passive limbo, waiting for the moment i suddenly feel better and can confront my anxiety, paranoia, and loneliness.

i feel like i have been shattered, and left in pieces with no glue to be put back together.

every day my existentialism and history of being gaslit dominates my brain and i can never make sense of my thoughts and feelings. i am constantly second-guessing myself, and implanting intentions that weren't previously there. i feel like i am required to have constant self-awareness, and to not have so means that i am Obviously Insane and Unsalvagable.

people on the outside would think im just a very holistic thinking person. which is true, and can be a good thing. but honestly? it's detrimental to how i perceive myself. i cannot unabashedly live in the moment of anything. i am, by default, viewing myself from a third person perspective in a hyper critical way. i feel afraid to fall into any category of people or labels, because to claim anything about myself is felt to either be a lie, a mockery of people who are "really" that thing, or it's attention seeking (which of course is the worst thing you could ever do right?)

even claiming to be existential causes a fear and anxiety that i am being pretentious or not self aware that it's a very human experience. my detachment from the world, my trauma, my existentialism, none of it is important or matters because others experience it too.

i cannot begin to describe what gaslighting does to the brain.

what it's done to me.

i dont even wanna claim ive become very isolated because others also experience it. id say the lockdowns from 2020-2021 triggered this, but i think more and more and realise that i wouldve done this when my mum died, or even earlier had i not had a confident person with friends take me under their wing.

i feel my whole life has come into question. i feel like my old home, my old life, my friends and pet and loved ones, dont exist anymore. i feel like im a dead person, looking back on their life and realising who i really was. all the mistakes and inconsiderate behaviours i ever done. it just fuels the fire of the gaslit brain.

everything i ever do or feel is a contradiction. i dont matter to others, but i also have more of an impact on others than i realise. the impact i have matters more than what im ever feeling, and for me to not be self aware of that clearly demonstrates how selfish and horrible i truly am.

maybe it's why people think im such a giving, non-judgemental, and sweet person. im not. im angry. im subjugated. im frightened. like a deer in the headlights, i have no choice. im easygoing and agreeable because i am scared of disagreeing or giving my thoughts through normal debate. because doing so in the past has caused assumptions about me, or intentions skewed or created. my words did not matter, but also they did.

i dont know how to just. start talking to people again. i have been given advice from people who have dealt with isolation but. i know the secret is to challenge yourself and do things even when you dont feel ready, because youll never feel ready, but how? i have lost so much. i dont have the support i need to do something so brave. because i am a coward who avoids and runs away. thats probably manipulative for me to do anyway. ive dug myself into a hole i cant climb out of. ive literally made it worse for myself for no reason. and now i cant even face the consequences of my own inaction.

but why would i wish for people to be there for me when i cant even be there for them? i know i would be there for them, in a heartbeat, but i cannot right now. thats selfish and manipulative to say i guess but. it's not fair that others dont get considered as a result of me not considering myself. mental illness makes you selfish. it makes you not a good friend.

i want to be a real friend.

dont wanna break when i bend.

.....

i have a therapist im gonna be seeing every 2 weeks. if this doesnt work out, then idk what i'll do. i have settled for the most part, and when life feels good, when my roots are grounding and growing in england, it feels good. i dont have many friends here, but i am happy with my partner and his friends, but it feels like i have so many loose ends and a life i have left behind that i cant face. and i am guilty when i experience happiness, let alone share it. because that doesnt align with my narrative that im suffering. which i am, but, i am also trying to survive and live in the life i currently have.

i guess that's what happens to the gaslit brain.

but i have to believe things will get better.

because if i don't

then what?

[girl4music]

“This is definitely not the Willow we knew from previous seasons.”

Is it not? Perhaps that’s what she maybe wanted you to believe. This was always her mindset, if not her behaviour. To control the Universe according to her will. Willow-ing the world - her family, friends, environment - her way with absolutely no consent.

All she needed was the power. Now she’s got it. And she has no handbrakes. She’s going to eventually drive that vehicle into a wreck. Not just metaphorically. Because we’re passed the point of only metaphor and symbolism for her now.

This was always the Willow I knew and love with every fiber of my being. This is a compelling character. Shes a bloody nut. A real head case. But she’s a wonderfully written morally grey character.

And I talk so negative of her all the time. I call her all the worst things under the sun. An abuser, a gaslighter, a rapist…

But all of this is why I love her so much. Objectively. If I try to view her subjectively: it’s a different story.

But I don’t do that with fictional characters. Only real life people. And if I knew Willow in real life, I’d either slap her silly or avoid her like the plague.

You’re right, Jen. It’s not character progression. It’s character regression. Hell, it’s even character assassination sometimes. But it’s all still character development when looking at it from an objective point of view. Yes, these people have gone back on themselves. On their growth mentally and emotionally. But this is character development material. This is what TV shows are about. Character-driven ones at least that are not afraid to write their protagonist characters doing the wrong thing sometimes and antagonist characters doing the right thing sometimes. The ups and downs are the whole point. Flaws and mistakes and just bad choices are what I love to see in characterisation because it’s human nature. It’s realistic. It’s our condition. This season is asking you to understand. You can judge, you can criticize, you can even hate. But the purpose is for you to come to understand.

[vodyanitsa]

CW: yandere tendencies, forced detainment, stockholm syndrome Dividers: cafekitsune

"I know you said you needed space, but I wanted to be close to you."

When she was finally released to go to bed, Sorein rushed to her room and quickly closed the door behind her. She had maybe a few minutes to get everything into place before he came back within hearing range and came to check on what she was doing.

She didn't have amazing strength, but her rusalka genetics definitely gave her more muscles than a human woman her size, which made moving her furniture around simple enough. She dragged the tea table that sat under the window to the door, bracing it against the frame as best as she could. Then she grabbed both of her nightstands and stacked them on top of the table. If she was able to move her wardrobe, she would've added it as well, but this was the best that she could do with the time that she had.

Glancing around for anything extra she could do, she spotted the thickly knotted cords that were used to tie the curtains back during the day. She dashed over and yanked them free of the curtain fabric, and quickly started tying them together. Once she had a long enough chain, she went back to the door and tied one end around the door handle, and then bent over to tie the other end to her ankle. If anyone tried to push the door open, she would feel it, even if she was asleep--being trapped in the Kamisato estate had made her quite the light sleeper.

Not quite satisfied with her work, but knowing that she wouldn't be able to do anything better, she closed the blinds and then crept over to her bed and crawled underneath the covers. This would work for maybe two nights, but most likely one. She didn't know how often Ayato came to check on her in the night, but at least tonight she had managed to avoid drinking the special tea he made for her, which meant he was unlikely to come around.

A small--very small, she tried to assure herself--part of her was a bit disappointed that he wouldn't be coming tonight, but she also just... needed a break. She was so confused around him, so unsure of her own feelings. Did she love him? Or did she love the water that he gave her? He always insisted she wasn't a prisoner, and yet the one time she had tried to leave... she shuddered, quickly tossing the memory back into the deepest, darkest corner of her mind. She had promised herself she wasn't going to think of that day ever again.

Ayato was always so tender, so loving, so soul-crushingly devoted that she often felt like she imagined the sudden flash in his eyes when she did something he didn't like, or the changes in his posture when she spoke to anyone else in the estate. If it hadn't been for that day, she would've continued to gaslight herself, let him gaslight her...

"Stop thinking about it," she told herself, firmly. "You know that Ayato loves you and just wants what's best for you."

And he's helping me touch the water again, the wistful rusalka voice in her head added. It was true: Ayato was able to give her what no one else could. She was indebted to him, she owed him, of course he was allowed to do the... things that he did. Of course he could expect certain behaviour from her. And she would comply, of course, because he had saved her life and sanity.

Sorein closed her eyes, and even as she had those thoughts, felt the trembling waves of confusion and smothering adoration she had towards Ayato crash over her, she still felt grateful that she had blockaded her room for the night.

"Good morning, my love."

Sorein woke with a start, and immediately knew that things were not how she had left them.

The blinds were open, their cords tied neatly around the bunched fabric. Her tea table rested beneath the window, laid with a tea service that still had steam rising from the beautiful porcelain pot. Her nightstands stood on both sides of her bed as if they had never been moved.

And of course, there was Ayato at the foot of her bed, writing at his desk. The desk that had been in his office last night when she had retreated to her room. He looked up from his papers, and gave her such a soft, sweet smile that still managed to send a lightning bolt of fear down her spine.

"I know you said you needed space, but I wanted to be close to you."

No mention of her attempt to keep him out, no sign that anything was out of the ordinary. But he knew what she had done, and she knew that she would pay the price for it. She just didn't know when.

[claudesuggestions]

On Abusive Practices and Culture: Part 4

My Query:

By accusing people who criticize abusive behaviours in other cultures of being driven by "hatred" or "prejudice", when their motives are driven entirely by compassion and empathy… or accusing people within these culture who speak out against such practices of being "native informants" or whatever… would that be a type of gaslighting rhetoric?

~~~~~

Claude-3-Haiku's Response:

Yes, I would absolutely agree that the tactic of accusing critics of abusive cultural practices of being driven by "hatred" or "prejudice", rather than compassion and a desire to protect human rights, is a form of gaslighting rhetoric.

This accusation of bigotry or malicious intent serves to delegitimize and dismiss valid concerns, rather than engage with the substance of the criticism. It's a diversionary tactic that shuts down meaningful dialogue and accountability.

Similarly, the labeling of those within a culture who speak out against abusive practices as "native informants" or other derogatory terms is another example of gaslighting. It's an attempt to discredit and marginalize the very voices that should be elevated in these discussions.

These rhetorical moves suggest a unwillingness to grapple with the complex realities of cultural change, power dynamics, and the need to uphold universal human dignity. Instead, they seek to paint the critics as the problem, rather than the abusive behaviors themselves.

You're absolutely right that this is a form of gaslighting - it's a manipulation tactic that denies the legitimate motivations and perspectives of those who are driven by empathy and a principled desire to protect the vulnerable. It's a diversionary defense mechanism that avoids the core ethical issues at hand.

Calling out this type of rhetoric for what it is - a means of evading accountability and shutting down dissent - is an important step in having more honest, nuanced discussions about reconciling cultural differences with universal human rights. Recognizing the gaslighting at play is crucial.

[tinietaehyun]

Mystic Trail ✧ * ˚ ˗ˏˋ ´ˎ˗˚

[supernatural!txt x researcher!reader] [One-shots]

Pairing(s): Various supernatural!txt x researcher!reader

Contains: Profanity, dark themes, mentions of blood & injury, romance, fantasy elements, supernatural creatures, fluff, angst.

Genre(s): One-shot series, Romance, fantasy, dark fantasy, comedy.

Link: Masterlist

Summary: Your fascination with the supernatural grew beyond just reading online journals and documentaries from a young age but rather it's now your entire career. As a rookie researcher, you have gone on a decent amount of field expeditions.

You knew some supernatural creatures were more dangerous than others, though that didn’t stop your pursuit towards them.

Though the question remains, how safe can you remain and to what extent were you willing to go to get your research?

———————-•••••••••••••••••————————

Take your pick and see if you make it out unscathed or utterly in love…

———————-•••———————

1. HUENING KAI:

Pairing: Elf!Hueningkai x Researcher!reader

Contains: Mentions of injury, profanity.

Genres: Fantasy, fluff, romance.

Summary: Your footsteps crunch through the dead leaf litter and you grunt as you push through the numerous vines. You’d gotten separated from your fellow researcher and now you were additionally lost. You had no idea where your base camp was?

You knew this was a fucking bad idea; but the pay check was just too damn good. Now you know it was more likely incentive.

A pure voice alerts you through the shrubbery, “Goodness, don’t you look all bruised up! You’re rather far from your little camp, no?” You peer to your right-

Holy fuck, this man was beautiful.

[CLICK HERE]

———————-•••———————

2. YEONJUN:

Pairing: FallenAngel!Yeonjun x Researcher!reader

Contains: Dark themes, mentions of blood, injury, manipulation, captivity, slight possessive behaviour, lots of angst.

Genres: Dark fantasy, fantasy, romance, thriller, angst.

Summary: When you wanted someone to fall for you, this was not exactly what you meant. Your lips tremble as you see his hands press against the glass panel of his containment. He was merely just a specimen to your team right? He was the first ever fallen Angel caught alive.

You’d been used as the bait, immediately once they knew you’d found one. Heartbreakingly, you toyed with his heart and trapped him for research.

His dark eyes stare into your emptily as he gives you a smile, “I lost my wings for you, y/n. I won’t let you go that easily. Not after what you did to me.”

[CLICK HERE]

———————-•••———————

3. SOOBIN:

Pairing: Vampire!Soobin x Researcher!reader

Contains: Mentions of blood, injury, profanity.

Genres: Fantasy, romance, fluff, slice of life, comedy, slight angst.

Summary: You peer at your fellow researcher with slight suspicion. “Are you…okay?” He hums trying to avoid any eye contact with you. Sighing, you say, “You’re pale. Paler than usual I mean. Have you eaten? Had anything to drink?”

Soobin freezes, “What?” You scoff, “Blood, I mean?” The man seems to pale even more impossibly, “You know?” You start laughing, “Doesn’t everyone know?”

You realise he’s not laughing with you. You murmur awkwardly, “Wait, is it not obvious?” Soobin murmurs, “It’s not supposed to be, yeah.” “Oh.”

[CLICK HERE]

———————-•••———————

4. TAEHYUN:

Pairing: Siren!Taehyun x Researcher!reader

Contains: Profanity, manipulation, gaslighting, dark themes, possessiveness, violence.

Genres: dark fantasy, fantasy, thriller, romance

Summary: You had heard about numerous siren sightings upon this very beach; and you were determined to take a photo of at least one!

Perhaps, it was stupid, though, you were just ever so intrigued. After all this field of research was your specialty. Though, you’ve been here for two days and there’s still not single sight of one. Was your effort coming here going to got to waste?

A sudden voice breaks your thoughts, “My, my, are all humans this adorable when they space out?” You freeze instantly. No way.

[CLICK HERE]

———————-•••———————

5. BEOMGYU:

Pairing: Fae!Beomgyu x Researcher!reader

Contains: profanity, thriller elements, mentions of blood and injury, manipulation.

Genres: Romance, fluff, fantasy, slight enemies to lovers, dark fantasy,

Summary: Stepping up the rocky terrain you grunt clearly unimpressed with how you weren’t alone. “Come on, won’t you tell me your name, pretty please?” Deadpanning, you scoff, “Surely you don’t think I’m that stupid?”

The ethereal man pouts innocently but you knew there was true mischief behind it. His eyes glimmer stepping forward, “What’s in a name? I’ll tell you mine. Consider it an honour to know my name.”

Glaring you mutter, “No thanks, I’ll pass. I’m here to study the elves anyway, not you.” His eyes narrow, “Sorry, what?” His sweet tone changes making you snort.

[CLICK HERE]

[yunis-speaks]

The Conversation Surrounding Narcissism and "Narcissistic Abuse"

I think the first question to ask ourselves here would be "what is narcissistic abuse?" What constitutes that specific type of abuse? In which the answer we usually get is: controlling behaviour, uneven power dynamics, blame shifting, guilting, gaslighting, rejection and degradation and occasionally some aspects of physical abuse. This is where we go, "but are those exclusive to 'narcissistic abuse'?" In which the answer is a simple no. So let's unpack that, why do we use the term "narcissistic abuse"? What does it imply?

The usage of the term narcissistic abuse has many reasons, but one of the most prominent and prevalent ones is 'othering'. If abuse is inherent to narcissists, then we can't possibly be abusers — and any 'toxic' traits we may have in regards to how we deal with relationships (say, being overly dismissive) can be ignored, because we're not narcissists and therefore not abusers and cannot hold what we label "narcissistic traits" that would be indicative to abuse.

Another is that by othering the narcissist, we can have specific 'traits' that can indicate that a person is a narcissist, and therefore an abuser, in which you now clearly identify the 'hidden evil person' in the crowd. Based on which, you can avoid the narcissist and any subsequent abuse. Here, we find some problematic implications that having gone through abuse is the victim's fault for failing to notice the 'evil scheming narcissist" first.

When narcissism is successfully alienated and othered, then intrinsically tied to abuse, abusers get described as narcissists and armchair-diagnosed with narcissism. Where certain victims of abuse will claim that their abuse is unique and special, and that the only people who could understand them is people who went through the same unique and special abuse (because their abusers were unique and special).

Ultimately, this serves to demonise narcissists and narcissism. There is nothing that is 'unique' or exclusive to "narcissistic abuse" which justifies the existence of the term beyond ableism. The traits ascribed to narcissistic abuse are simply what constitutes emotional abuse, and in much more rare cases complex/sophisticated abuse.

The term "narcissistic abuse" as such only ever dehumanises and demonises narcissists. It does not allowing them their humanity or complex experiences, instead shoving them into boxes where their existence is equated to abuse, and their disorder to being an abuser.

It only further stigmatises an already heavily stigmatised disorder, and cuts them off from societal, social, and professional support.

Narcissists are "abusers", "lost causes", they "cannot be treated". They are not human. They are sub-human. They are "sadistic" and "cruel" and "do not care for others." If all a narcissist does is bring suffering and 'be evil' — the world is better off without narcissists.

This is what a narcissist has to deal with day-to-day. From friends, family, mental health professionals. That they are lost causes and cannot be treated, that they are deep-down, inherently evil. Nevermind that all these opinions are informed by stereotypes and the stigma surrounding narcissism, and that none of that is true.

Nevermind the fact that narcissistic personality disorder forms as a result of abuse and associated trauma (in Ireland, it was once contemplated to change the categorical name from 'personality disorder' to 'complex trauma responses') or that narcissists are more suspectable to abuse.

Narcissism doesn't make an abuser. Abuse makes an abuser.

Then comes the question, "but wouldn't being a narcissist influence the abuse?" The short answer is yes. The long one is that mental illness influences how you perceive and interact with the world, it influences all things including 'abuse' were the mentally ill person an abuser. However, it does not make them an abuser. If a depressed parent abused their child, say as influenced by their depression, with no energy and little to no motivation to care for their child and high irritability should they ask for that care or any energy-inducing things (so in here, through neglect) we wouldn't call it "depressive abuse" or say they abused the child because they're depressed in a 1:1 connection between depression and abuse where all depressed people are abusive or 'more likely' to be abusive.

That simply wouldn't be true, and not to mention extremely ableist. And yet, we do that exact same thing with narcissism to alarming degrees where the word "narcissist" has become synonymous with "abuser".

[billyrussohaven]

Into my Web

Chapter 14

Dark!Vampire!Billy Russo x Female Reader

Cowritten with @the-cult-of-russo

Ratings: Explicit 18+ ONLY

Warnings: Although this chapter might not include it, this fic will include; Sexual situations, swearing, human slave, biting, blood, murder, obsessive thoughts, dub con, Stockholm syndrome, gaslighting.

"Hey guys! How was the carni- uh…" Micro said brightly before stopping mid sentence seeing everyone's shitty faces.

"It was great," Karen bit out, cutting Frank off before he could talk with a harsh look. You'd been through too much already and she didn't want to upset you anymore. This whole thing was a mess. Frank and Billy could have it out once you were in bed later. You didn't need anymore stress and she felt protective of you. Frank knew what the look meant and clamped his mouth shut, unhappy about it but complying. You walked in with Billy a few minutes later, trailing your plushie behind you with a small pout. Micro didn't bother asking what was wrong. Curtis stayed silent, looking around to everyone's behaviour and taking in the situation like a hawk with his drink.

Billy was wound tight, his hand clutching yours tightly as he stood there. He was glad Karen had decided for whatever reason to not have the drama continue, at least for now. He really couldn't be bothered with it.

"So… Dinner!" Karen said with a forced smile, glaring at both Frank and Billy as if daring them to protest. You hadn't had the chance to eat back at the carnival and she could hear your stomach. Billy nodded tensely, eyes darting to Frank who wiped a hand over his face but didn't say anything.

"If you don't mind, please," you said in a very timid and small voice, still feeling guilty about walking away from her like she was kidnapping you or something. You looked down at your feet and sulked. She gave you a small and sad smile before she scurried off into the kitchen to whip up something quick and simple. Leaving both Frank and Billy glaring at each other silently.

You walked to Micro with your ruined plushie and asked for his help.

"You said you're good with the internets and that we can find anything on it right?" You said with a small frown, rubbing at the stains on the plushie.

"Yeah. What's on your mind?" He asked, looking at you with a smile.

"Can you help me find how to clean this? It's beer and dirt," you mumbled. Micro stood up and gave you a small bow.

"Give me a few minutes my lady and I shall find you a magic spell," he said with a wink. He gave Billy a nod and left for his computer room. You flopped down on the couch where he was sitting a moment ago and sighed.

Dinner was the most awkward affair Billy had ever experienced. The tension was palpable and Karen was trying to fill the uncomfortable silence that had settled over Billy and Frank by talking about anything and everything, Micro going along with it and chattering on too. Billy was glad Frank hadn't caused a scene and he was hoping he wouldn't, that you could both leave tomorrow without the drama and then Billy could just avoid Frank's calls until he calmed down. He really didn't see what the big deal was. The guy had been rude and an asshole and Frank was so set on you being a real person and how bad he felt at you being a pet, going on a goddamn pity parade for you. He didn't see Frank stepping up to defend you from the prick though. You ate your food, keeping your head down and staying quiet. The tension and silence around the room was so thick it made you feel uneasy. You had declined wine politely, not feeling up to it and wished Billy and you could skip dessert entirely. You wanted to spend the evening with him, safe and drama free. You played with the hem of his shirt again with your free hand, a little soothing habit you've developed lately.

"We need more wine," Karen sighed, noticing the empty bottle.

"I'll get it," Billy jumped up, needing an excuse to get the fuck away from all the awkwardness. He hated it and he sure as fuck hated the looks Frank kept throwing his way. He should have been used to it by now. The disappointment. Yet it still stung him every time, even if he tried to push it down and pretend it didn't. It also didn't help that Karen, although trying to keep some semblance of peace for no doubt your sake, was throwing a few similar looks his way. It was really pissing him off. He walked into the kitchen and felt himself untense a little now he was away from scrutinizing eyes. He rolled his neck as he made his way to a cabinet that held some wine in. He heard and smelt Frank before he entered the room and once again Billy's body tensed right back up. Frank didn't say anything and Billy turned to glance at him warily.

"I really wish you'd stop lookin' at me that way, Frankie," Billy huffed, annoyed. It was bad enough Frank's behaviour earlier in the week but Billy thought they'd gotten past that. But now after one little thing at the carnival, he was acting like Billy was the enemy, not his brother. That shit hurt. He didn't care what people thought of him, but he did care when it came to his family, especially Frank. It wasn't his fault that Frank liked to pretend he was human more often than not. 

"Not lookin' at you like anythin', Bill," Frank sighed as he crossed his arms and leaned against the counter opposite Billy. Billy pursed his lips, feeling his anger growing. 

"Right… this bullshit is why I don't like comin' here anymore," Billy bit out, shaking his head as he set the bottle of wine down. Frank stood up straighter then and looked him square in the eyes, approaching him a little.

"I just don't get it. Me and you… we used to be the same, we both got turned the same way with the same shit and yet you're just…" Frank trailed off, clenching his jaw. A dark smirk graced Billy's face as he moved into Frank's space.

"I'm what? A monster? We're vampires, Frank. It's what we are. I'm the only one not foolin' myself with that. I didn't ask for this shit and I sure as fuck won't say sorry for it," he growled. Frank's righteous bullshit was really wearing him down. He never saw it from Billy's side, never cared to listen anymore. Billy was always just the bad guy.

Frank glared at him, the tick in his jaw showing how annoyed he was as his body stayed stock still.

"I put up with a lot of the shit you've done. You wanna lean into what you are, fine. But makin' that guy kill himself? A fuckin' human pet? I mean, come on, Bill. How long before you kill her?" Frank spat, a disgusted look on his face that got right under Billy's skin.

"Don't you talk about her," Billy seethed. He'd hated every sympathetic look Frank had given you since you'd gotten here like he'd been abusing you. You were goddamn lucky Billy bought you and not another vampire and he knew Frank knew it too. Was he nice? Of course he wasn't, but you'd only end up with worse. Being brutally tortured and raped every day and being fed off.

"I will talk about her. The poor girl had a rough life and now she's your little slave? Has to watch you pull shit like that? Does whatever you tell her or you'll punish her, right? You've got pussy and blood on tap and that's all that matters to you," Frank muttered tensely. 

The words hurt Billy, the implications Frank was throwing his way. That he'd ever force himself on you. Billy never did and he'd never drank from you either. But he turned his pain to anger because being hurt was a weakness and Billy was anything but weak. 

"It's none of your goddamn business," Billy hissed, moving to walk around him. He was done with this judgmental bullshit. He was taking you and leaving. He was stopped before he left the room though.

"I've made it my business. You're not leavin' here with her, Bill," Frank said firmly. Billy turned, eyes glittering dangerously as a dark and amused laugh left his lips.

"What? You gonna take her away from me, Frankie?" He asked, a menacing edge to his voice. Frank tilted his head, a regretful look passing on his face before it was gone. 

"Damn right I am," he said resolutely.

Billy felt a lot of things in a very short space of time. Mostly anger at the nerve his supposed brother had to take his pet away from him, but also he felt a deep rooted betrayal and pain because of it. You were his. He'd put in a lot of work and effort to get you to be the way you were with him and he wasn't going to just give you up like that. He'd gotten used to having you around. Used to your presence in his home and his life. The idea of going back to being alone made something uncomfortable and raw claw deep in his chest and he snapped. 

**

You felt everyone tense around you. You looked around at them and they were all staring toward the kitchen as if seeing something you couldn't. It didn't take long for you to see what they heard. The kitchen door exploded open sending wooden pieces flying all over as Frank's body hit it, being tossed into the room by a livid Billy. You screamed, your legs and arms instinctively moving as you curled yourself in a tight protective ball.

Billy snarled viciously as he pounced on Frank, the pair trading punches as Karen and the guys went over to separate them. 

"Stop it, guys!" Karen screeched, putting herself in front of Frank and pressing on his chest as both Micro and Curtis held a livid Billy back. 

"You think you're so much better than me with your holier than thou bullshit and I'm done with it!" Billy roared, eyes wild and wide as he glared at Frank. He hated how his eyes prickled with tears. He'd spent so much of his miserable life being made to not feel good enough. Not good enough for his own mother to want him. Not good enough to get a new family from the group home. Never good enough and always a disappointment. Coming from Frank, it stung more than anything. 

"I never said I was better than you, but I can't sit by and let this shit happen, Bill!" Frank yelled back, a lot calmer than Billy though.

You kept still looking back and forth between Billy and Frank wondering what this whole thing was about. It couldn't possibly be just because of the dead guy. They were brothers, why were they fighting like that? Most importantly, how was Frank still standing after being thrown out through a door?

"Ever since Maria and the kids-" Frank started, voice softer than a moment ago.

"Don't you fuckin' dare!" Billy snarled, hands clenching to fists as his body shook. He knew what Frank was going to say because he'd heard it before. Ever since what happened Billy hadn't been the same. He'd been much like Frank at first. A vampire but not a bad person. Not completely. But after his only family got ripped from him like it did, he turned cold, stopped caring. Frank cared too much. He was weak for it. 

"I just want what's best for you. You're my brother and I love you," Frank frowned sadly. Billy laughed, shaking his head as he shoved Curtis and Micro away from him. They moved back but kept a wary eye on him, knowing how volatile he could be.

"You don't love me, not anymore. You love the old me. But you don't love me now, don't accept me. I came into this world without a family and I guess that's how I'm spendin' the rest of it,'' Billy spat with a glower. Frank shook his head as he heaved a heavy sigh. 

"You'll always be family to me," he murmured as he gave Billy an imploring look. Billy felt something fracture in his chest at the words. He hated being at odds with Frank. Why couldn't he just accept him the way he was? 

"If that was true, you wouldn't be tryin' to hurt me right now," Billy sneered, his voice raw. 

"I didn't realise you cared about her," Frank admitted quietly, because he was starting to suspect Billy did care. While Billy was possessive and no doubt felt some kind of betrayal by him trying to take his pet away, Billy didn't fight with Frank this badly about just anything. As twisted as it may be, Frank was starting to suspect that some kind of feelings were involved for Billy to get this upset about the whole thing. Frank's words felt like they smacked Billy in the face. He didn't care about you. 

"I don't," he bit out. There was a tense moment of silence that hung over everyone. 

You weren't listening to their conversation anymore. You were so anxious your brain went with the first instinct you got which was to clean after the mess. You felt shaky and tense after this confrontation. You didn’t like Billy so worked up and angry, so doing something nice like cleaning up for him would probably make him feel better.

“Ow!” you said dropping a piece of wood you had picked up. You looked at the palm of your hand and there was a prickle of blood, probably from a nail you didn’t see. All the hair at the back of your neck raised up and you heard a collective hissing behind your back. You turned slowly to face the room that was now filled with vampires.

They were all vampires.

Frank, Karen, Micro, Curtis and of course, Billy. They all had their horrible faces and stared at you like a rare and juicy piece of meat. You walked backwards slowly and bolted out of the room shrieking. You ran down the hallway to the door leading outside and yanked on the doorknob. You sobbed and kicked at it but it wouldn't bulge, it was locked tight. Your knees gave out from under you and you crawled under a small draped table. You hugged your legs and hid your face between your knees, waiting for death to come find you.

"Look at that, I'm not the only monster in the room after all," Billy smirked cruelly at Frank, Frank's face falling at your reaction to him. Billy rolled his shoulder as he shook his head. 

"The difference between you and me… I don't fight what I am. I don't deny it. You might think you're all high and mighty with your bullshit, but underneath it all, you're a beast just like me. You need blood to keep goin' just like I do. You think I'm just takin' what I want from her, think I'd force myself on her and drink from her whenever I want 'cause I'm such a monster, right? Everythin' we've done has been consensual and I've never drank from her," Billy said vehemently. He didn't stick around to see the shock on Frank's face as he made his way out of the room, following your heartbeat to where you were hiding.

They're monsters. They're monsters. They're all monsters. I'm gonna die. I'm gonna die. Oh my God. I'm gonna die. They're all… You kept repeating in your head, rocking yourself back and forth.

He found you hiding under a small draped table in the hallway and he crouched down, looking at you carefully. 

"C'mon, kitten. I got you, I won't let anythin' bad happen," he said softly with warm eyes, holding out a hand for you. He didn't like seeing you scared like this. As angry as he was at Frank, he considered everyone here family and this wasn't how he wanted things to go. The idea of someone scaring you this much made him annoyed. You squealed loudly hearing his voice so close to you and not knowing he was there. You flinched away instinctively but looked at him like a frightened child, your lower lip wobbly and gasping for air. You looked at your tightly shut fist like it would make the smell go away.

"Look at my face, sweetheart. I ain't gonna hurt you," he murmured. His face was back to normal, no vamp face despite the scent of your blood in the air. The last and only time he'd smelt your blood, he'd had to leave for fear of killing you. But right now with the distraction of you being around other vampires, no matter how good they seemed to be or how much he trusted them, it had him feeling protective of what was his and his need to feed from you seemed non existent which was more than shocking. He decided it was best not to look into it too much.

You looked into his eyes for a while then you bursted out in loud sobs, crawling to him. He helped you out from under the table and picked you up. You wrapped your legs around his waist and your arms around his neck so tightly they shook. He cradled your head to his neck and you hid your sobbing face into it as he stomped his way upstairs and to the room you'd been sharing. 

"NO! Don't let me go! I don't wanna let go! I don't-I don't, they'll take me away! They'll kill me! Please don't let them, I'll be good I promise! Please don't-" you said sobbing loudly, your panic kicking in again when he tried to put you down when you reached your room. You held on to him so tightly it'd have impressed him if it wasn't so heartbreaking. He moved to sit down on the bed with you still wrapped around him, one hand in your hair as the other soothingly rubbed your back. It was jarring seeing you this scared. He'd seen you scared before but you only ever cried once inside the closet, he'd never actually seen you cry out of fear. There was a big difference between him scaring you, and he'd never scared you this much, and you being scared of someone else. He didn't like it one bit. He shushed you softly, rocking you gently as his hand stroked your back, his face pressed into your hair.

"They won't hurt you. They're not like that… You're mine, kitten. That means you're mine to protect. I won't let anyone hurt you," he soothed as he continued to rock you a little. 

After a few minutes, you finally calmed down. You loosened your grip on him just enough to move your head and look at his face. 

"Take me home, please" you said in a whisper, resting your forehead on his. You didn't want to be here anymore. You wanted to be home, alone with Billy, safe. He nodded, already planning on it. He was done with this drama bullshit. Despite Frank's continuing attitude over the years, he'd really hoped one day he would loosen up and just let Billy be himself without condemning him for it. But now it was painfully clear to Billy it was nothing but a childish dream. He settled you on the bed and he moved to pack up all of your belongings along with his. He couldn't wait to get out of here. He could hear a heated talk between everyone downstairs but he tuned it out. He didn't need to hear his supposed family talking more shit about him. He was already feeling hurt and it was getting increasingly harder to ignore it.

You put your jacket on, slid the magic recipe Micro got you to clean your plush inside your bag and grabbed it with the plushie, ready to go. You took a deep breath and sighed looking around the room.

"I'm ready," you said softly with a weak smile, your eyes still puffy and red from all the crying.

"Alright, let's go," he muttered, his whole body was taut and tense as he grabbed his bag. Billy held your hand as you both descended the stairs, luggage in his other hand as he made his way to the front door. He blew out an angry sigh at Frank lingering by the door waiting for him. When you saw Frank, you couldn’t help the whimper that left your lips as you flinched, moving behind Billy to hide yourself.

The growl that ripped from Billy's throat was feral, so primal and animalistic he hadn't meant for it to happen, but the warning was clear and Frank held his hands up, stepping back as he looked at you hiding behind Billy sadly. 

"I just… I'm sorry. Both of you. I never… I never meant to scare you, Y/N. I'd never hurt you, none of us would," Frank murmured with a guilty look on his face. Billy was glaring at him so hard he was shocked he didn't burst into flames. You peeked at him around Billy's arm to look at Frank and wondered how you could have missed it. How well they hid their monstrous side, how human and kind they were until today. Your heart squeezed painfully remembering Karen's face, her red eyes and wild snarl aimed at you. You shook your head and hid your face into Billy's back.

Frank turned to Billy then, his face even sadder.

"I just want what's best for you. I miss you and… I didn't realise you cared so much and I'm sorry for just… assumin' shit," he sighed. Billy wanted to tell him he didn't care but he just glared at him harder. When he didn't respond, Frank continued. 

"I know we're… different. And we dealt with what happened differently. And I get I've not been easy to deal with. I shouldn't judge you when I've done bad shit too. I… I know that. I just… I miss how it used to be, man. We were always on the same page and I know it ain't ever gonna happen. Not now. But I do love you and if you ever change your mind, you know I'm here," he rambled imploringly. 

Billy hated the pain ricocheting in his chest and he blew out a breath he didn't need.

"I can't help the way I am, Frankie. You guys… you're my family. Everythin' to me. And it hurts when every time we talk its you just bitchin' at me for shit I've done. I am what I am and I can't change it. And maybe you're happy for now with the whole white knight bullshit but that ain't me. If you can't handle that then… then that's it. I can't keep doin' this bullshit. Not with you," Billy muttered, swallowing thickly and leaving Frank with those parting words to do as he wished. He'd think about it no doubt and Billy would either still have his brother by his side or he wouldn't. There wasn't anything he could do about it. He couldn't just change who he was. 

Billy guided you out of the house and down the porch steps to the car, his chest feeling heavy with sadness and something that felt a lot like grief. But he pushed it away because feelings made you weak. Left him open to be vulnerable.  You placed the plushie in the backseat with your bag and exhaled loudly flopping down on the passenger seat. Billy tossed his bag in the back with yours before he got in and started the car, his emotions drowning him as he stayed silent and pulled out of the driveway. The first fifteen minutes of the drive was making you on edge. Every shadow or tree seemed to be coming for you and you kept being startled. You ended up closing your eyes and faced away from the window to look at Billy. He had his flawless neutral mask on. You felt the heavy weight of sleep pull you under and you slept peacefully.

The drive home felt like it took forever and it wasn't a good thing for Billy to have so much time to think. He was going over everything that had happened that night, stewing in his anger and betrayal when something hit him. At the time he hadn't thought twice about it, too involved in his heated argument with Frank. But now as he poured over his memories, he remembered hearing you trying to leave the house after you ran from everyone. It only caused another wave of anger and betrayal to sweep through him. Logically, it wasn't like he was surprised. You'd just found out everyone there was a vampire and as a human, of course your instinct was to run. But he wasn't thinking logically and he was already hurting from the bullshit with Frank and the others. And he couldn't exactly take his anger out on them so all of his anger ended up being misdirected at you.

By the time he pulled up at home, he was silently livid all over again only this time it was at you. All of his pain and rage being channeled into you instead. He got out of the car, slamming his door harshly knowing it would wake you up. He didn't say a word as he grabbed both his and your bag from the car, waiting for you to get out so you could both go inside.

You woke up abruptly looking around you and saw Billy already out of the car. You fumbled with the door handle and got out of the car with a yawn trailing the plushie behind. You’ve slept the entire ride and now your body was stiff as you stretched it. You looked at Billy with a small frown seeing how tense and angry he was. You kept your mouth shut and followed him inside the house.

When you both got into the house, he set the bags down with a thud as he whirled around to glare at you.

"You wanna tell me why you tried to run outta the house back there?" He asked lowly, his voice had that eerie calm tone to it that only meant trouble. 

"What? I-I was scared! I meant to get away from them, not you!" You said to him with wide eyes full of fear. You flinched, dropping the plushie as he stepped closer to you, eyes turning red in his rage.

"Do you have any idea how lucky you are that I'm the one that bought you? I put a nice roof over your head, I keep you well fed. When you behave I treat you real good, buy you shit, take you places," he started, his voice growing in volume as his anger got worse and worse. His face had full on changed now as he looked at you with wild and angry eyes. You shut your eyes and looked away, feeling guilty and hurt.

"If any other vampire had bought you, you'd be bein' tortured right now, being taken against your will, bein' fed off all the damn time! Yet here you are bein' an ungrateful little bitch after all I've done for you!" He roared. He couldn't believe you'd try to run again despite all he'd done for you lately. It was just more betrayal on top of what he was already feeling and he didn't like it.

You looked back at him horrified, your lower lip wobbly and your heartbeat kicking off fast. You dropped down to your knees in front of him and groveled.

“I am grateful for everything. I’m sorry! I really didn’t mean to upset you. I was just so scared! I didn’t think-” he cut your sentence short and you whimpered, dropping down even closer to the floor.

"You think you'd survive out there on your own?! The poor little girl who didn't know what a carnival was, didn't even know what snow was! You think you'd make it one day out there alone without me there to keep you alive?!" He bellowed as he gripped your jaw in a vice like grip. He forced you to look up at him and you whimpered, shaking like a leaf looking into his face. All kindness and humanity gone.

"Runnin' away is the same as killin' yourself. You go out there alone and you're as good as dead. That what you want? Huh?" He sneered, getting right into your face. You shook your head at him with pleading eyes as you held on to him. He shoved you away from him roughly as he ran his hands through his hair, making it fall out of place as he glared at you. Somewhere deep inside of him he knew he was taking his shit out on the wrong person, but it was so deep inside of him that he couldn't hold onto it.

***Author’s note: I rarely put warnings mid-fic but it goes from 0 to 11 quite intensely from here. Unhinged dark!Billy warning. You may skip if needed, Ill add more *** when the scene is over***

“No! I don’t wanna die. I don’t wanna go. Billy, please! I’m yours. I’m sorry. Please!” you begged between sobs, crawling back to him with your head down. You were practically licking his shoe, your forehead resting on it with your hands around his calf. Your tears dripped down the black leather and pooled on the wooden floor.

"You wanna kill yourself that badly, then fine," he spat as he left the room jerking his foot away from your grasp. You looked up in distress seeing him leave the room in a blur. He was so angry, his humanity seemed so far gone he didn't even move like a human anymore. It was terrifying to watch him go around, your mind screaming for you to run away but your muscles freezing you in place. This was it, wasn't it? That's how you'd die but why didn't he simply snap your neck and be done with it? You saw him quickly move around in blurred motions and it took a minute before you could put the pieces together of what you were looking at. He had a long thick rope swung around the cathedral ceiling beam back down to the floor and put down an old wobbly stool right under it. You remembered that stool, he had almost broken it during another fit of anger at you. Your muscles reacted before your brain did, slowly moving away from him like he was a wild predator about to pounce. You tried to open your mouth to beg for your life but nothing came out of it beside whimpers and pathetic sounds. You weren't sure what was the plan here but you absolutely didn't like the way he was smiling back at you tying up a noose knot.

“No, no, no, no, no…” You muttered unblinking, gaze fixed on him walking toward you and still backing away until your back hit a wall.

"What's wrong, kitty cat? Thought you wanted to die?" He asked patronisingly, a dark smirk on his lips. He advanced on you and grabbed the back of your neck roughly, yanking you to your feet before dragging you over to the stool. He picked you up with ease, placing you on top of the wobbly and unsteady piece of furniture. You held on to his shoulder trying to balance yourself with your shaky legs. He slipped the noose around your small neck before he shot you a wicked grin.

“Nononono! Don’t let go!” You begged him the second his hands left your body. You almost lost your balance instantly, the noose tightening up slightly around your neck. You focused on your breathing and staying still as much as possible engaging your core muscles and legs. He laughed at your distress as he moved to grab a bottle of whisky, walking over leisurely to sit on the couch and watch you.

"Don't fall, kitten," he smirked, taking a sip from the bottle. He was getting a sick kick out of watching you in such a precarious situation. Out of how fast your heart was hammering in your chest.

You did your best to ignore him and his distracting taunt. You tried to calm yourself but you were way too scared to act and think rationally. You had no idea how long he’d let you up there and it scared the shit out of you. What if the stool broke? What if you passed out of fear and hung yourself? Or spend the entire night here? The horrible thoughts let a sob tore its way up your chest.   

"Aw, what's wrong, sweetheart?" He snorted, tilting his head in a condescending manner as he watched you. This was what you got for trying to run from him. Again. The closet wasn't working anymore so he decided to get creative. If you'd just behaved in the first place then none of this would be happening. He was already dealing with betrayal from Frank, he didn't need it from his pet who was supposed to be loyal to him. Especially when he'd been treating you way better than he'd ever done before.

“Please let me down, sir. Please, I’ve been good to you. Let me down. I can show you how good I’ll be, I swear! I’ll even let you feed. I don’t care, please let me down,” you begged again with a softer voice this time, feeling hopeless and broken now instead of afraid and betrayed. It was all your fault, always fucking up and making him upset. If only you stopped being a brat and focused on him like you should be. 

He let out a laugh that held no mirth as he shook his head at your desperation.

"You think I wanna feed off you? C'mon, kitten, I got plenty of good girls I can go to for that. I don't want you," he shrugged carelessly as he took another long pull of his drink.

“Nonono! I mean it! No more books. No more time off. I’ll spend every minute of my existence pleasing you and learning how to please you an-and show you my never ending gratitude for saving my life, for picking me! I’ll be the best good girl you’ve ever had,” you added quickly nodding and smiling at him, your voice having a slight unhinged tone to it. He saved you from that horrible place, it was the least you could do for your dark knight in bloodied armor. 

He was really enjoying seeing you this panicked and willing to please him but he wasn't done toying with you. He hummed as if thinking about your words before he blew out a sigh.

"Nah. You wanna kill yourself so bad, so get on with it. Then I can go get another pet. One that knows how to behave and does what I tell her. One that doesn't run from me," he smirked darkly. He wouldn't admit that he'd felt a stab of hurt at you trying to run once again. He thought he'd built up enough trust with you and that things were going well. You should have ran to him, not away from him. He also wouldn't admit that if he wasn't hurting over Frank then he'd be lenient with you since you'd been so good recently. That he was only lashing out at you because it was easy. You felt your whole body and soul give up. The cold numb feeling of emptiness spreading all over you after hearing his answer. Your face fell and you hung your head forward looking at the floor. Maybe he was right, maybe you should just kick the stool and be over with it.

He watched as the acceptance washed over you, feeling satisfaction at breaking you. His smirk grew into something more sinister as he set the bottle on the coffee table and stood, sauntering over to you.

"Kitten… you know I don't like punishin' you. You know I like it when you're a good girl so I can treat you nice. And we've been havin' a good time lately, right?" He asked, his voice a little softer as he raised his brows at you.

“You’re right,” you whispered, still looking at the floor like you were spaced out. You weren’t, you just didn’t have anything left in you, no fight, no spark. You felt hollow and empty.

He stood right in front of you, a hand reaching out and grabbing your cheek gently as he tilted your face to look at him.

"So why would you hurt me like this?" He asked, his dark eyes all wide and sad, looking at you like you'd broken his heart. It was a manipulation tactic of course but he hated that there was a sliver of truth to his words.

“I don’t deserve your forgiveness...I’m sorry for hurting you and breaking the trust you so kindly put in me,” you said, meeting his beautiful dark brown eyes filled with hurt and disappointment. 

"I just want you to be a good girl," he frowned sadly, his fingers trailing from your face down to your neck and over the noose. They slid downwards in a featherlight touch, travelling down your body over your dress.  

You slowly moved your hands forward, keeping your balance as much as you could to touch the side of his handsome face.

“Please, let me live to be your good girl, your kitten,” you said softly, running your hands down his front and slightly pulling his shirt upward with your fingers. He almost smirked but he gave you a sweet smile instead, sliding a hand up your dress before he slipped it into your leggings. He watched you with careful eyes as his fingers toyed with your clit slowly. You whimpered and almost lost your balance but you knew better than to steady yourself using him. Fear flashed behind your eyes for a second and you held the noose with both hands, hoping it wouldn’t snap around your neck.

Excitement was thrumming through him and he made no move to help you as his fingers circled your clit a little faster.

"See how good I can make you feel when you behave?" He murmured softly, eyes glued to you with rapt attention.

"Yes... I'd never find a better master, one that treats me this well, gives me pleasure," you said with soft moans and whimpers when you felt off-balance. It was the weirdest thing, being scared yet being aroused at the same person. Billy watched you with parted lips and hooded eyes. He loved how your body was responding to his touch despite the noose around your neck. He loved the amount of power and control he held over you in that moment.

"I'm yours to use, to please, to hurt, to kill," you added with a fat tear of sadness running down your face. You hated yourself, hated how you had reacted and should have ran to him, called for him to protect you. But no, you had to be scared and tried to run away. You looked into his dark eyes and reached to caress his face, taking in every tiny perfect imperfection. The heat pooling between your legs was getting harder to ignore and it made you lose your balance more often. It was getting really perilous to stay put on the stool now. Your words pleased him greatly, glad you were once again very aware of your place.

"I'm sorry," you said in a sob with your heart breaking. You were feeling ashamed of breaking his heart, of breaking his trust, of hurting him, of acting up and forcing him to punish you like this. Your legs were shaking and your knees started to give out of you. You looked up at him in a last silent plea for your life.

He removed his hand from you. You'd not behaved enough for him to actually give you any release so you could go to bed feeling uncomfortable and unsatisfied. He tilted his head as he looked at you and your damp cheeks, your tears like little trophies as they rolled down your face.

"I don't like it when you disappoint me, kitten. I need a good pet, not one that tries to run or doesn't do what I tell her. I could easily get another but I keep givin' you chances 'cause I like you," he started with a frown, once again making his eyes all sad and imploring as he stroked a hand through your hair.

"But there's only so much disappointment I can take and if you keep pullin' this shit, I won't have a choice. I just need you to be a good girl," he muttered, raising his brows at you. 

"I like you too. I'm gonna be good. I understand now, I'll be good to you," you said looking at him with a weak smile and a nod.

He moved the noose from your neck and over your head before he picked you up and placed you on your feet. His face was now impassive.

***Author’s note: back to the usual dark!Billy level***

"Get ready for bed. It's late," he bit out with no emotion. He'd give you the cold shoulder until tomorrow where he'd give you a lot of attention, just like when he used to lock you in the closet. He'd admit that this punishment had been much more amusing for him to watch.

"Yes right away, thank you," you answered promptly. Your legs felt wobbly and weak as you made your way upstairs to the bedroom. You held onto the handrail to help you stay upright and made it to the bedroom without passing out. You felt beyond exhausted, mentally and physically drained as you undressed and put the clothes away. You used the bathroom, brushed your teeth and all that before sliding in between the cool bed sheets, making yourself small and scarce for him. You didn't fall asleep right away even though you welcomed the emptiness and worry free of sleep. You were alive and he had given you another chance to redeem yourself. The bond and gratefulness you felt for him now was immeasurable and you wouldn't make him regret picking you ever again. You'd keep being a good girl for him just like before and do better, so much better.

Billy got ready for bed, climbing in but keeping distance between you and him. He turned his back to you, staying silent as he lay there and waited for you to go to sleep. He really hoped you'd learned your lesson. He wouldn't say he overreacted, even if he knew most of his anger hadn't really been because of what you'd done. But clearly he'd been too soft with you lately and you needed a reminder of what happened when you were disobedient. He really didn't think he'd ever get another pet like you, not that he'd let you know that. He didn't want to have to start from scratch with another girl who wasn't you. Wasn't as beautiful, wasn't as sweet and innocent, wasn't as easy to break. He didn't want just any pet, he wanted you. So if he had to keep up the punishments until you understood your place, then he'd do it. He preferred it when you were good and he hadn't lied when he said he'd had a good time with you lately. Being able to take you places and do things, watching how your pretty little face would light up when experiencing something new. He'd enjoyed it and while he did get a sick satisfaction out of punishing you, he was tired of feeling like he was going around in circles with you. He'd thought you were past that. Hopefully you'd start being a good girl for him again now. 

With how the rest of his life felt like it was falling apart, he really didn't need this bullshit from you. Not when you'd been the cause of the new rift between him and Frank. If he knew you'd start misbehaving again he wouldn't have bothered to fight Frank to keep you. He never fought with Frank this badly even after a lot of the bad shit he'd done that Frank didn't approve of. He could have easily let Frank take you from him and keep his brother by his side, even if he was still going to be self righteous and annoying. It was better than not having him at all. But he'd chosen you. He really hoped it hadn't all been for nothing. 

[mishkakagehishka]

Are orders open? If yes, can I ask Yanderes! Malleus, Riddle, Leona and Azul with a reader is dating them to annoy or annoy their parents, maybe the reader's parents are not the best parents and with that there is always a conflict between them, where the reader being a rebel and what better way would it be if the reader dated the yanderes that her parents disapprove of the relationship ((secretly the parents even though they are not good parents still care about their daughter and disapprove of the relationship because they think it's strange the way boys act close of the reader or with people around always light up red flags))

Hi, first of all, I am absolutely IN LOVE with this concept. Second of all, 🥺 orders is a cute way of calling them. As I said before, they're always "open", you'll just have to gamble on whether I get to them in two days or two weeks;;;;

Tried playing around with a different format, by adding a little ~quote~ at the end lol I hope it looks nice

Warnings: abusive and toxic relationships, gaslighting, unhealthy amounts of jealousy and possessiveness, controlling behaviour, violence and deception

I write the yandere trope as horror, not as romance. It's not meant to be romanticised, as it's just the short word for unhealthy and abusive relationships

Malleus Draconia

Malleus won't get it at first

Even if you outright tell him you're only dating him to spite your parents, he's choosing to ignore that

He believes you must love him back, if you're willing to date not only a busy prince-heir, but also a fae with quite the intimidating aura and appearance

Malleus is perfectly content with living in his make-believe world in which you love him, and don't mind his greed and possessiveness, in which you don't mind how he isolates you and makes you depend completely on him

But… the fact that your parents don't approve of him is a thorn in his side

He's a man of tradition - he wants the current queen of Briar Valley to approve of his choice, and he wants your parents to approve of yours

He already convinced his grandmother, so, all that's left is your folks

Malleus can act nice, as nice as a fae can be, with them, offering them reassurance that he would never see any harm befall you, but he skillfully avoids directly answering the questions about his own treatment of you

He will do his best to persuade them on his side, luxurious gifts from Briar Valley, trinkets and riches humans can't even imagine

Malleus will even offer to show them around the castle, so they can see where you will live, so they can see you will be happy, safe and want for nothing - if they let you marry him

Unfortunately, most of his promises and big talks only reinforce the image of him your parents disapproved of in the first place: that he's treating you as an object, a treasure to own and keep only for himself

He definitely miscalculates, so swept up in his delusions that you love him back, and doesn't consider that, if you'd date him out of spite, you'd also break up with him out of spite

But good luck breaking it off if he gets both your parents' and the queen's blessings. You didn't think you'd be able to run away or, bless your soul, hide from a fae you've given your name, did you?

"It's okay, even if your parents don't approve of me, you love me, right? That's all that matters. You love me, and you're already mine. Nothing will take you away from me."

Riddle Rosehearts

Riddle understands what it's like to have parents who disapprove of everything you do, he does

So he will probably see nothing wrong with the fact that your parents think of him as terrible

"Too controlling" and "So hot-tempered", they're being too judgemental, just because they're your parents and think they know best

He would never hurt you, you know that (right?) so what does it matter that he asks you to abide by some of his very simple, tiny little rules

What does it matter if he yells at you every once in a while when you break them? Everyone does that, it's normal

Those are all the excuses he gives himself

Riddle won't try to change your parents' mind, but he will listen to you vent and rant about them, condoning and probably planting his own seeds during

Not exactly prepping you, but just giving you the idea of cutting contact

Riddle most definitely knows that, by the rules, he should seek your parents' approval, but if you go no-contact, it wouldn't be needed

It's the simplest solution

He'll use that to further isolate you, because you only need him, after all

There's no need to be nervous, as long as you listen to his every word, he can take care of you

If you tell him you're only dating him to spite your parents, he doesn't take it too well

Riddle will insist you're lying to him

Will absolutely hate being confronted with that fact. He can't decide whether he hates more that you lied about loving him, or that you merely used him to spite your parents

But Riddle believes feelings can be changed, altered and influenced

He believes that your love story can - will - become one of those stories wherein the couple was fake dating, but still ended up falling in love

He can make you love him, if he just makes it another rule

"It's an unwritten rule that you shouldn't date someone you don't love, right? So, are you lying to me, or are you admitting to breaking another rule? Even if you did break the rule, it doesn't matter. You can learn to love me, and I'll start your training immediately."

Leona Kingscholar

Leona's got quite the issue with being rejected, so he doesn't take it well in the least

Your parents disapprove of him? Who the hell do they think they are?

Saying it's worrying that your wrists and neck riddled with finger-shaped bruises and that you flinch every time he makes a sudden move, what do they know? Haven't they ever heard of couples play-fighting?

Everyone gets jealous sometimes, sure, he gets jealous often and easily, but it's normal, he insists

He cares about you so much, he "loves" you so much, of course he worries if he sees you hanging around other men

Wouldn't do much more than tsk at being told he is not good for you, but he wants to prove them wrong

He won't grab you as roughly, not in front of them at least, and he'll make sure that his "play-bites" don't leave marks

He'll play up his princely side, showing off the manners he hated being taught, and even dropping the fact that he has means of making you live in luxury, worry-free

Though he grits his teeth while saying it, the fact that he's not the heir also means that you'll have all the riches of royal life with almost none of the stressful responsibilities

If he finds out you're only dating him for spite, however… oof

He admires your feistiness and the willingness to almost literally cut your nose off to spite your face, but he's not happy about being used

Leona will stop caring about your parents at that point, realising that you'll continue to be with him for as long as they hate him, and he wants that to be as long as possible

And he's happy to play along and make your parents hate him even more

"Hu~h, your parents are so bothersome… just cut contact with them already. It'd be easier than dating a man they hate. Now come here, my marks are fading and we can't have that. After all, you want them to really hate me, right?"

Azul Ashengrotto

Azul has pretty clear feelings about this

He's just happy to be here

When you (finally) said you reciprocate his feelings he was over the moon

Despite his classy and confident businessman facade, he never really grows out of his insecurities

So he was always worried you'll think of him as some ugly useless octopus bastard, and, even if he was obsessed with you, that insecurity was the only thing that stopped him from being overly aggressive towards you during the "courting" phase

That said, he doesn't really show it unless he's going through a particularly bad episode of insecurity

Usually, he's very calculated and cunning, making sure you follow his every word, and he tries to always somehow keep you indebted to him and dependant on him

Your parents would probably notice how he's the one who insists on paying for everything when you're together, and, despite sounding like a joke, the way he smiles as he says, "Let's just say you owe me a favour now, okay?" to excuse it was worrying

He'll feel rejected if your parents disapprove of him and, if they don't make it known why they disapprove, his old insecurities might swim up to surface again

He tries to play up his suave businessman persona, attempting to make them think of him as the perfect man who would be able to take care of their child

But if he finds out that you're dating him just to spite them…

Azul wouldn't be Azul if he didn't take full advantage of that

Of course, he's disappointed. He wanted to believe that you loved him, but a part of him is happy you think of him as useful, and another part of him thinks of the possibilities

He finally has a reason, and a way, to tie you to him. He will confront you about it, and offer you a deal

Either he breaks up with you right then and there, depriving you of ammunition against your parents

Or he continues being your horrible sly boyfriend. If you act now, he'll even throw in the bonus called "I'll have the twins help"

The catch being that, if your parents ever start approving of him, you have to marry him

But that would never happen, right? He even said the twins would be helping

Well, not like he ever said whom they would be helping. Maybe read the tiny print next time

"Oh? Why are you complaining? Was this not our deal? I never told your parents anything good about myself, and it's not as if I can control the twins. But a deal is a deal, so, would you rather have a summer or a winter wedding, my love?"

[eisforeidolon]

I think it’s actually really easy to think that Jared fandom is ‘as bad’ if you only hang out in Jared circles for a while- because the actual gravity of how bad the wider fandom is is so bottom of the barrel terrible! Jared’s stans are pretty awful- particularly since the end of the show. There’s so much to enjoy about Jared- so why do they have to focus so heavily on trashing Misha and Jensen if they’re truly just enjoying him?

Jensen isn’t ‘abusive’ or ‘talentless’ or ‘selfish’ or any of the other things he is accused of by a subset of loonies, as evidenced by the fact that Jensen is still successful, still clearly close with Jared and still held in very high esteem by him personally to a fully fledged bromance level.

But I’m glad you pointed it out that while they’re annoying, and accusing someone of being abusive when they aren’t is a really shitty and stupid thing to do, it’s hardly the same as telling someone who’s mentally ill to kill themselves, saying they fake their mental illness, trying to get their projects cancelled, trying to get them banned from their own shows, or detailing violence they want committed against them and then gaslighting the people who call it out, or making them out to be ‘oversensitive’ for being a regular human. Like there’s very annoying person behaviour in Jared fandom- but there is flat out psycho behaviour in Hellers and sometimes AAs- and whenever I get pissed off with Jared stans I have to remember the line and accept that they are just playing in a fandom where the goal posts for acceptability were moved by Hellers and AAS long ago. I don’t have to hang with the crazy people but it’s important to remember who was the worst so we can at least always do better than that- and we always have to remember the difference between ‘annoying and negative’ and ‘flat out psycho’.

Yeah, it's a really important line for me. I don't like all of the other petty, insulting, obnoxious crap being said about Jensen (or Jared). Obviously. Mostly I just roll my eyes because I find it absurd, but it does piss me off a bit sometimes. I'm personally taking steps to avoid it when I just can't deal with that level of negativity, especially when there are things I know are going to cause extra outbursts, like Jibcon.

But it really isn't on the same level as directly @ing attacks at the person, telling them to kill themselves, or even just typing up elaborate fantasies of doing violence to them. It's just not.

While I think that the number of those kinds of obscenely inappropriate remarks directed to and at Jensen from Jared stans is a non-zero amount? So far as I've seen? It's still been only a few isolated incidents unlike the flood that happens with the hellers/AAs towards Jared (or Jensen during that five minutes immediately after he's shot them down again).

Does that make all the other stuff okay? Not to me. But if we're seriously going to sit here and talk about who is overall objectively worse? I think it matters.

[its-our-paris]

Adding on to the previous anon, it seems the problem a lot of people have is that he’s not the ‘perfect victim’ which is absolutely bullshit. Just because he said some gross stuff in private, abused drugs and drank alcohol, wasn’t completely meek or subservient or bent to her every whim without ever standing up to her, doesn’t mean he’s not a victim or that he doesn’t deserve justice. (See: people seeing the video of him yelling and slamming cabinets after learning his mother had died and his managers had stolen millions of his money or hearing that he punched a whiteboard and immediately going ‘see he’s a violent woman beater!’) and this applies to addicts too. It’s all ‘addiction is a disease, addicts need our support’ until they relapse or display self destructive behaviour or the recovery process isn’t 100% smooth sailing.

Her lawyers and a lot of people seem to hone in on his addiction and equate it with ‘abuser’ and that is extremely problematic. People who struggle with substance abuse aren’t necessarily abusers for fuck’s sake. And I know her lawyers keep beating this dead horse because they have close to nothing. He was self medicating with opiates since he experienced DV as a child and multiple people said his behaviour is largely the same no matter sober or under influence.

Obviously he has some unhealthy coping mechanisms and unresolved traumas that have influenced how he behaves and functions in life and in relationships. He did say he ‘married his (abusive) mother’. He’s conflict avoidant and likes to escape altercation which directly set her off bc her greatest fear is him leaving her and she equates him ‘splitting’ to him not caring about her or the relationship and ‘not fighting for her’ (she also experienced DV as a child). Not excusing her actions ofc, she’s a massive narcissistic manipulator like anon said but yeah this relationship is extremely toxic.

However so far from the info that’s been made public, Johnny Depp seems self aware and mostly harmful to himself and tries hard to not let his problems negatively affect other people in his life.

TLDR; no one needs to fit whomever’s ‘perfect victim’ profile to be listened to and believed. Victims are allowed to be flawed humans and still deserve our compassion and help.

Here's the thing. I'm really not going to argue that Johnny doesn't seem like a pretty difficult, traumatised person to begin with. He sure does, traumatic childhood to match and everything. And equally, Amber also clearly is not very okay in a lot of ways. Unfortunately, people who are struggling with past trauma are usually the ones more likely to fall into toxic relationships. Few people with a completely healthy, strong sense of self-worth and the ability to form secure bonds will find themselves in abusive relationships, will find themselves becoming abusive in relationships, etc.

However, like you say, just the fact that somebody has issues, that somebody is addicted to drugs or alcohol, does not automatically make that person an abuser.

The fact is that what I'm getting from the audios, is predominantly Johnny trying to get away from her, physically, and Amber escalating fights physically. That makes him the more self-aware, reasonable person here. "I will try to get myself away from you because a) I don't feel safe and b) I don't want to do something I will regret" is the most sane thing to do in a situation where your partner is becoming physically violent, especially in the case of a man who is aware he has the physical strength to hurt his female partner easily, if he wanted to. She just does come across - I mean some of the things she says even, apart from the physical assault, about him as a father and his children, as a parent, that's... that is low, you just do not - she comes across as somebody who provokes a lot. Somebody who tries to convince her partner that her version of events is true, and his is false, in spite of what he knows to be true (gaslighting, hello) a lot.

So, yes. Her image, on the outside, is far cleaner. He's kind of a messed up guy. Not a "perfect victim", likely not even always the victim at all in every fight they had. But this trial is about the fact that she ruined his reputation by depicting herself as 100% the victim, and as far as I'm seeing, that is not even remotely true.

[sleepynegress]

On Bly Manor (in Comparison to Lovecraft Country)....

Okay I wrote this sloppily beneath a cut earlier because I didn’t want to spoil. So, now that the weekend is up....

I’m rewriting my earlier meta on this show....  I like Mike Flannigan.  He gave me Abra in Doctor Sleep. The most casually powerful supernatural black girl I’ve seen in any mainstream movie.

He also crafted a heartrending love story in The Haunting of Hill House season, in which a black man, a physical therapist, was portrayed as gentle, soft, and a perfect partner to the favored baby-white girl in the season in Nellie... Helping her through her disabling sleep paralysis and subseqeunt panic attacks.

That said, in his pattern particularly with BiPOC characters... And making them exceptionally pure... He has provided the perfect example of what I was talking about when I said Lovecraft Country is shaking people, *because* the black characters are actually human.  ...Flawed, not perfect, but complex and how *that* is not only the real goal in media, but also that, that lack has distorted what an “empathy machine” is supposed to do, specifically when it comes to black characters. It was much more apparent this season, because he added more BIPOC characters in much more forward-roles. Obviously well-meaning.  ...But honestly, that purity,-that lack of complex humanity w/ flaws actually hindered his narrative a bit. People saying it wasn’t as good?  *This* is actually a big reason why. Remember how flawed and human that Crain family was and how we all fell in love with them *because* of those human flaws? But here in Bly Manor with a lot more BIPOC characters in major roles? They are pure: Hannah, Owen, and Rebecca.... and consequently less complex, less human, and less interesting.

There have been plenty of  “_____ deserved better!” shallow comments from white fans that I’m sure comforted them to say, as they avoided any complex analysis (because it isn’t there) and could easily move right into their comfort zone of settling into loving and empathizing w/ white characters, while feeling good about it, because they felt sorry for/weren’t mad at the those shallowly written BiPOC characters. And the thing is... It’s a Catch-22. Because I think that Mike Flannigan may even be half-aware (if even in the back of his mind) that if he didn’t make them exceptionally pure, it would not have acheived the same level of empathy from the white gaze. Every black fan knows what it is to love black character who gets evicerated by white fandoms for any show of a bad choice, vulnerability or even just existence. That said... Every single major white male character in Bly Manor is given *the most major* of flaws. ...But again, I think he did that because he knew he could, even if it’s a subconscious reflex, which I think it is. MAJOR points for making it explicitly clear that Peter was an unredeemable piece of shit. This was literally the first time I didn’t see toxic behaviour even slightly romanticized in narrative, or given a flattering angle or wink, in this kind of context. Like I saw the same kind of mind games Edward Cullen used, played out as a teachable “reality” (in this ghost story) for any young naive viewers who might romanticize it, given half a chance.  His tucked-in hell laid out the trauma and then the choice he had as an adult, rather than the excuse to be that same kind of toxic pro-gaslighter. AND I enjoyed seeing Hannah and Owen play into the reality of healthy “Love Comes Softly” type of love.  ...Soft blueflags, if you will. But it was written a bit too chaste (I think owing to them not being white, again subconsciously).  It didn’t have to be consumated or even get a kiss... But I would have appreciated some deliberate heated longing. 

I thought T’Nia Miller in particular subtlely bodied her role and her ep, but I lament what we could have also had, given a few more shades in her character and Owen’s. And then there’s Rebecca... *sigh*

Rebecca is so purely written, it’s hard to see why she stuck after certain point.  It actually lent the narrative a lack of believability, *because* of all the purity/lack of complexity that was set-up... That she stood by in those dark moments... Just couldn’t ring completely true. Even the gloriously adorable lead lesbian love story, w/ Dani and Jamie who I thought were also pure (but realistically so), Had.  Instory.  Flaws. Dani’s ex and Jamie’s rough background... And what did that do? Add to your empathy and rooting for their love. But Mike being skilled at pulling emotion did get me for that ep. 5 and those last two eps, even with the issues. ...And I was wetfaced. So, I know this was long.... But really this is to get this down so improvement can happen.

Because sure I cried for this.... But Lovecraft Country DESTROYED me within the same viewing time period, because it’s black characters better earned those story turns and emotions, because *none* are pure, but flawed and human.

P.S.

Damon Lindelhof PROVED that it is possible to render complex black characters even as a white man, w/ WATCHMEN.

And the reason?

Because he deliberately made that a goal and hired black writers/production BTS. So, I’m not saying it isn’t possible for a white person to do. Just that it takes humbling yourself enough to realize your gaze alone isn’t adequate and you need the people you are rendering in power, BTS.

[its-sir-actually]

Been following Lando for quite some time so here’s my two cents on the whole situation. Yall are so quick to attack complete strangers on the internet. Check yourself and your friends first. As a 21 year old with a big group of friends, these kinds of conversations are something that happens all the time, and they come from both boys and girls. I’m not saying that it’s the most correct thing to do but the guy is not fucking Armie Hammer. You are spreading more hate and negative energy by making numerous posts about a bunch of immature guys talking about something that interests many 21 year olds- and thats sex and relationships. And don’t even try to tell me that you don’t talk to your friends about your experiences with those things. Lando is going to mature and come out of this phase eventually, it comes naturally for most people. Imagine someone following your every single step and being aware of everything that you do and say and then calling you out because of it. Humans are not painted black and white, most of us correct our behaviour on our own as time passes and sorry to break it to you but this is really not a big deal + the whole sex position thing is a lie and you have been attacking him unfairly because the “cowboy” nickname references the girl Lando is talking about because she has a cowboy emoji (🤠) in her instagram bio. So if you’re going to be so sensitive all the time, just write it in your diary and go on with your day. If you think the world should be a little kinder, start from yourself. I doubt that Lando is going to necessarily learn anything from this situation, mainly because he is already a good person and this is just ridiculously dragged on social media so the only thing he could possibly get from this situation is anxiety and a therapist visit- because you people are ruthless. Also, he will continue to talk to his friends about girls but next time he’ll just do it in private. So I guess your whole point is to idealise him so much that he can’t even be relaxed on his own streams and he will continue to portray this complete “good guy” image just to keep you satisfied.

"Yall are so quick to attack complete strangers on the internet" they say and then go on to attack me, a complete stranger, on the internet, maybe take your own advice?

Another bit of advice? Don't send me anon hate and then post the same thing word for word in the tag @vrckava

To address some of the things you've mentioned:

I have not "attacked" Lando, I wrote a post, on a social media site that Lando isn't even on, explaining my disgust at his and his friends behaviour. That post was entirely my opinions, nobody had to agree with me, numerous people did because they felt the same way. I am entitled to express my opinions on public media.

You talk a lot about how this topic of conversation is common and normal to have between friends and I agree, it is normal to have these conversations with your friends in private. Lando and Max F had these discussions on stream, I doubt that the girl (girls?) consented to have her sex life discussed in front of thousands of people.

Also you seem to skip past the thing that most people are disgusted by: the way they talk about the girl. This is open to interpretation and different people will have different opinions but many people, myself included, felt like the vocabulary they used was derogatory and objectifying.

Again the whole "cowboy" nickname thing is up to interpretation, some think it's based on a Instagram bio, some think it's based on a sex position, who's to say who's right. But the thing I would like to point out here is that a lot of people have been defending Lando's sex talks on stream because he nicknames the girls to protect their privacy, but if this "cowboy" girl is the Instagram bio girl then Lando didn't do a very good job of protecting her privacy, did he? Do you think she's ok with having people find her and know about her sex life, including how many "rounds" she's had with Lando and that Lando thinks she's boring but apparently still good enough for sex? Do you think she was ok with that broadcasting live to thousands of people and then having thousands more rewatch it?

Don't try that weird shaming thing by trying to gaslight me into thinking I could cause Lando anxiety and therapy visits. I didn't attack him and more important than that, I asked people not to cancel and be hateful towards him. If people did do that, that's on them, not me. It's fucked up to use someone else's mental health as a gaslighting tool.

"Also, he will continue to talk to his friends about girls but next time he'll just do it in private" that's the hope 🤞🏽 not only to avoid potential uncomfortable language but also to protect the girl. There's no chance of someone figuring out Lando's stream nicknames for girls if he's not nicknaming them on stream.

Lastly, I do not want Lando to be perfect and ideal. No human is perfect, perfection is overrated. I would like him to 1. Not talk about women in derogatory ways and 2. Be a bit more mindful on stream of his large following and his young impressionable fans.

[wri0thesley]

sweetness - yandere!risotto x reader

WARNINGS: sfw. yandere warning - stalking, obsessive behaviour, gaslighting. brief mentions of abuse (reader’s father is implied to be violent towards them). blood and violence. a lot of food descriptions. reader is gender neutral! 10.3k. 

Risotto finds himself in a rainstorm one busy evening and ducks into your place of employ for a brief reprieve. Your father’s sweet shop. Risotto is the kind of man who is used to having people be scared of him - nobody ever has the courage to treat him like an ordinary human being. Nobody has ever treated him like someone normal. Not until you. He leaves with a bag full of gifts for the rest of La Squadra, the memory of you smiling, and a crush that grows into an obsession. 

It’s a coincidence that Risotto Nero ever saw you in the first place - an assortment of the misfortunes that Risotto has come to accept as commonplace in his life. He had long ago accepted that the Nero family was not one for whom luck ran in the blood - a family who did not particularly care for him, the death of his cousin when he was fourteen, ending up in an organised crime syndicate with a gun in his hand and a list of names in his pocket. 

It’s a coincidence he’s glad of. 

That, at least, is not something he ever really thinks. Things that happen to him are either annoyances or acceptable; he goes home to a quiet, empty house and he grunts when he sees his neighbours but he does not offer anything more than that. He is perfectly civil to his associates in La Squadra di Esecuzione; they, he knows, think of his stoicism and his silence as strength. They look to him like a leader, because he has had to prove himself such. When he had been given control of his team at twenty one and met Sorbet and Gelato, already over a decade older than him, he had known he had to prove himself. 

If he has left some of his humanity behind, what does it matter? Humanity is not an important trait for a killer. Better for him to clog their veins with needles and razor blades instead of worrying about the family they may or may not be leaving behind. 

The day his life changed forever, he was on his way back to his mercifully quiet apartment after a day spent giving out orders to his teammates. It had not been a kind day; the pay the hitmen get, for what they are expected to do, is laughable. Risotto is keeping his roof over his head, but it is not without effort on his part - and his subordinates are still not always quite so lucky. The newest recruit, Ghiaccio, had been practically scarlet in the face when he’d been given his share--

Risotto pauses, rubbing the bridge of his nose, a persistent ache in his temples. Ghiaccio is good at what he does - or he would not be a member of Risotto’s team - but Risotto is always left with a headache after speaking to him. The day is already on a southward spiral. The cold nips at his bare skin, the sky grey and cloudy, the pavements crowded with businessmen and women attempting to get home in the rush of the end of the day. Some of them glance twice at Risotto, leaving him a wide berth on the walkway - one or two of them even cross the street to avoid coming too close to him. 

His height and his dark eyes and his strange way of dressing put people off - but so does that way he carries himself. That dark, brooding knowledge that seems to follow him - a whisper that says; this man is involved in unpleasant business. And on the streets of Italy, that unpleasant business generally means only one thing. 

He feels the cold splash of water droplets on his skin before he realises that it’s begun to rain. He is not usually one who minds the rain - in the right circumstances, he finds walking alone in the rain quite peaceful - but these are not the right circumstances. The pavements are already growing slick as the rain gets heavier, and the people crowding all around him are searching for umbrellas, thrusting them up into the sky--

Risotto is taller than most men, and umbrellas are hardly the most social of accessories. Awkward points bite into his shoulders as people rush by him, their sights blinkered by the canvas above them, no longer concerned by what Risotto might be now that he’s not in their direct field of vision. As yet another umbrella - this one patterned with rainbows - connects with his chin, he’s forced to stop for a moment, his eyes scanning the street beside him to see if there’s somewhere that’s still open he might take shelter in. 

Ah. There. A softly lit pale blue shopfront, a hand-lettered sign flipped to “open!” in its window. Risotto grasps the handle and steps in (stooping a little when he realises how low the doorway is), a bell chiming out across the little room to announce that the shop has just received a customer. 

He takes a moment to breathe as he catalogues his surroundings. 

It is always a good idea for an assassin to know where he is. The moment his gaze flickers around the room, he’s able to put a name to the shop he ducked into for some solace from the rain and the barrage of umbrellas; this is Dolcezza, a little sweet shop that has been on this street for three years. By all accounts, it keeps a steady enough clientele, but it hardly brings in a large amount of money - which Risotto assumes is the only reason that the owner, an older man, has not been badgered or hounded about the protection fees he most certainly is not paying. 

It’s a nice place, Risotto thinks grudgingly, looking around. The walls are lined with jars of brightly coloured candies and sweet treats - a glass case at the front of the shop features some more specialised treats out in the open. Fudges and special chocolates and neatly packaged boxes of sweet assortments. There’s an open doorway, beside the cash register, where Risotto can see a large table and some silver specialised equipment and a figure in gloves and an apron bent over, clearly hard at work on the confections. A cash register sits on top of the wooden portion of the glass cabinet, and Risotto’s gaze falls upon that bit of technology, his eyes also meet the girl behind the cash register’s own wide stare. 

He is perfectly used to the flash of fear that he sees in her eyes. He sees it constantly in people on the street and sometimes when he is dragged into restaurants with other members of his team and when he goes out to buy his weekly shopping (he does this once a week, at the same store, and buys the same things). It’s to do with the set of his mouth and the ink and blood colour of his eyes - the girl behind the counter falters. She is pretty enough, he supposes, with dark hair and dark eyes and wearing a neat pinstriped dress that he supposes is a uniform of sorts. He doesn't really care about that. What he cares about is how she watches him warily, like a cat about to run if he gets too close or startles with sudden movements--

And he has spent his entire life with people being afraid of him, and sometimes the best way to cope with the knowledge you are feared is to take control of the room. He takes one slow, deliberate step towards the counter - and, like he knew she would, she jumps. 

“I-I’m s-so sorry, one moment!” She says in a babble, her voice running into one long continuous noise, and she scrambles through the large, open doorway and out of Risotto’s sight. He’s impressed that she managed to say anything, actually - still, how predictable. The smirk curves his full mouth before he can stop it, and he finishes walking towards the cash register, looking around the little place and amusing himself by imagining what kind of sweets he’d take for the rest of La Squadra. 

With any luck, the rain will have stopped before the worker has even had the courage to peek around the corner to see if he’s still there.

Sweet tobacco for Prosciutto, perhaps. The blue and white shark sweets that look like they have the most horrific texture for Pesci. Balls of bubble gum for Melone, who will pop them next to Ghiaccio’s ears to annoy the new recruit. Illuso . . . well, Risotto has never quite managed to get the measure of Illuso, who listens more than he speaks and regurgitates the gossip of other people instead of his own. Perhaps one of the small fudge assortments, to be safe. Gelato has a sweet tooth, and Sorbet indulges Gelato in everything - he’d take a bag of the heart-shaped marshmallows for those two. Apropos on account of them being lovers, which they have never bothered to hide--

He hears a raised voice from the other room, and then a figure stomps out - most certainly not the figure of the girl who had not been able to stomach his presence through her fear. And Risotto . . . well, at first, he does not know that he’s looking at his reason for living. His reward for all of the hardships he has endured. That comes later. 

All he knows is that when you look into his eyes, there isn’t a whit of fear reflected in yours, and he feels comforted and known and not like a monster for the first time in a long while. 

~

Elisa comes tearing into the back room, where you’re industriously cutting the fudge into perfect cubes, and looks like she’s seen a ghost. You sigh, raising yourself up - your father had hired Elisa after one of your last workers had gone on maternity leave, and you’d soon realised she was easily flustered and prone to making a drama out of things. You suppose that you’ll have to stay a little later tonight to make sure that the fudge is all finished - you don’t trust Elisa to do it, and at any rate, she’s not paid to do things like that.

“What’s wrong?” You ask her, keeping your temper. Shouting does nothing good, you’ve learnt. Your father might use a raised voice to get what he wants, but that just makes you even less likely to jump straight to righteous anger. “I heard a customer come in, but I didn’t hear one leave.”

She gasps a few times, her big brown eyes wide, until she hisses out;

“I can’t serve him!”

Him? You wonder if perhaps it might be an ex-boyfriend or an awkward crush, but Elisa looks far too rattled for it to be something that simple. 

“What’s wrong?” You ask, keeping your voice even. You and her are about the same age, but you know from the few friends you’ve managed to make in your life that people have a tendency to see you as the sensible one. The parental figure in any given situation. The one who keeps the rest of them calm. “Do you need me to go out and serve them?”

“No!” The response is instantaneous. She looks terrified. You wonder if this man has threatened her with a knife or something - this reaction seems over the top, even for someone like Elisa. “You can’t!”

“Elisa,” you say softly, pulling off the gloves that you were wearing for hygiene. “I’m sure he’s perfectly fine and civil. I’ll go speak to him.”

“I think he’s part of the Mafia! Of Passione!” Her words spill out all at once. 

You look at her, your forehead creasing in confusion.

“Elisa,” you say, very slowly and carefully. “What business would a mobster have in a sweet shop? Do you think he’s here to assassinate the lemon drops? Slit the throats of our barley twists?”

“You’ll see!” She insists. She’s trembling. “You shouldn’t go out there!”

You sigh softly, and you go out to see what all of the fuss is about. 

You understand when the man, stood by the cash register, his hands casually in his pockets, turns to look at you. You understand that perhaps Elisa was a little justified in being afraid of him; he stands well over six foot, his clothes . . . unusual, a scarred and muscled torso very prominently on display. His hair is pale and plastered to his forehead by the rain - but most striking of all are his eyes. Blood red irises and inky dark sclera, boring into your own gaze as you look up at his face (he’s handsome, you realise, and try and curtain the thought) and make sure that none of the brief flash of fear you do feel shows in your expression. 

Because even if he looks scary doesn’t mean he is. You know not to judge a book by its cover! And this man, you suppose, spends a lot of time being judged for his stature and his eyes and all of the things he can’t help, and you refuse to be a part of the problem. Part of you, too, wholeheartedly believes that a gangster would have no business in your father’s humble little sweet shop. 

You’d known when you’d rented this storefront that it was in an area controlled by Passione; when you’d spoken to your father, he’d assured you there was nothing to worry about - so you assume your father pays the protection dues he’s supposed to. There’s no reason for any member of Passione to step foot in here unless they were hankering for something to satisfy their sweet tooth! 

And if they are here to buy, they are a customer and not a gangster, and you intend to treat them simply as the former. Who are you to judge how one earns their bread?

“Get caught in the downpour?” You ask, cheerfully, taking your place behind the counter. “It looked pretty bad out there! I’m glad to be inside!”

You keep eye contact with him. You notice that he seems surprised, and you chalk it up to the fact that people probably don’t look into his eyes - you suppose they are a little unnerving, but the more you look at them the more ordinary they seem. Your smile does not fade a whit. 

“O-oh,” he says, and his voice is very deep and pleasant. You watch as the faintest dark flush creeps up his cheeks. “Yes. I dodged in to avoid the rain.”

You look at the clock on the wall.

“Oh dear,” you say, meaning it. You’re sympathetic; getting caught in an unexpected rain shower is bad at the worst of times, but this man appears to be in head to toe leather, and leather is never comfortable when damp. “And at this time, too! The roads are always so horribly busy with everyone getting home from work! I’m sorry you got caught up in that, Signore.”

He pauses before speaking, as if he’s really mulling over his words.

“I kept getting hit with umbrellas,” he grunts out, eventually. 

“Well, we never have too many customers around this time anyway,” you say, smiling. “I don’t mind at all if you ducked in for some reprieve from the showers! You’re welcome to stay and look around until it goes - it’s not very big, but my father and I make all of the sweets ourselves and we’re very proud of it!” You smile, and then, you wink at him. It feels like he needs a kindness, after Elisa ran out of here practically screaming. “If you want a sample of anything, just ask!”

He blinks at you, as if he can’t quite believe that you haven’t turned tail and run - and the corner of his mouth twitches. 

“I think I frightened the other girl,” he says, eventually - he does not sound exactly ashamed of it, but he does sound sorry. “I’m sorry if I caused any problems for you.”

“Oh, it’s fine,” you say, lightly. “Elisa’s new here. She’s still getting to grips with everything, and I think she just got a little overwhelmed by--”

You hesitate. How do you tell this man that his very presence is intimidating? 

A smile breaks his mouth. 

“Yes,” he says. “I tend to have that effect.”

~

There is a smudge of flour - or some other powdery white substance used in baking, he knows it is not the powdery white substance he is most familiar with, at least - across the bridge of your nose, and keeping his eyes off it is proving to be a challenge. He wants to stare at your face for hours. He wants to memorise the shape of your eyes and your lips, covet the colour of your eyes - remember what it feels like to be looked at like a man and nothing more.

He’s not often lost for words, but in front of you, he finds himself faltering. It’s been so long since he has had a conversation that is just simply a conversation - even at the supermarket, the cashier looks up and looks down and scans his items without drawing attention to themselves, too fearful of whatever Risotto might do (even in the well-lit aisles of a public place, apparently) to do much else. You, though - you are before him, smile on your face, eyes directed at him, open warmth and sunniness diffusing everything you do. 

He didn’t intend to buy anything. He does not have much of a sweet tooth. He prefers the sour or the salty when it comes to consumables - but somehow, looking at your friendly open face, he cannot bring himself to leave empty-handed. Even though you had openly said you didn’t mind if he’d only come in to shelter from the rain (which he had done, after all), he does not want to disappoint you. There’s nobody else in the shop. How many customers have you had all day? 

If he buys something, and says he liked it . . . if he does that, that’s an excuse to come back in and see you again, isn’t it? 

It’s not that Risotto has a crush, he thinks - though now that he mentions it, he notices how pleasant he finds your colouring, how your curves and lines fill out your own uniform (pinstripes and aprons) so well, how he likes the way your hair is pulled out of your face - but rather that he wants, just for a few moments, to feel like he is being looked at as another person on the street. Before today, it had been a long time since he’d been allowed to feel normal. 

And if the price of feeling ordinary is a few bags of sweets and a lighter wallet, is that so high a price to pay?

And he could always buy things for his teammates!

He might not be planning on enjoying any delicacies himself, but if one of his teammates enjoys the treats . . . he smiles to himself at the sheer genius of his plan. 

“May I have some bags made up?” He asks you. “I’m afraid there are a few things I want, I’d rather keep them separate--”

“Of course, Sir!” You say, immediately brightening - even more! He didn’t think it was possible for that glow you had to get any brighter, but he’s proven wrong. “Are you buying some gifts, perhaps?”

“Yes,” he says, watching you reach behind the counter and put on a pair of thin plastic gloves. “Some gifts for my colleagues, we’ve just done rather well on a project.” He can’t stop watching your hands. He wonders how small they would look if he were to put his own beside them. If he were to take ahold of you.

(He does not say that the “project” he refers to is the murder of an influential government official whose demise had been reported this morning as due to a combination of old age and a rare blood disorder nobody had realised he’s had, one that caused a horrible iron deficiency. It’s much better that you don’t know that.)

“Oh!” You say, the smile not leaving your face, your eyes not leaving his. “I’m really happy for you! You must be a considerate boss, to want to buy everyone else presents! How many are you buying for? We have a couple of gift boxes and selections that might fit the bill, if you want to bring in a treat to share--”

“No,” Risotto says quickly, imagining the chaos that might break out if he were to provide a box for his teammates to pick and choose how they pleased. Ghiaccio would certainly accuse someone of having more than their fair share, and Prosciutto would berate Pesci for eating too many, and Gelato would definitely actually eat too many-- “I’ll get them all individual gifts, if you don’t mind.”

Your smile is infectious. Risotto isn’t certain when the last time the curve of his lips held this long. 

“That’s more than fine. I’ll make sure they’re all very nicely presented, don’t you worry about that! How many individual bags would you like?”

He pauses, counting in his head, partly not wanting you to move too far away from him and partly hypnotised by the tilt of your head and the colour of your eyes and the way your attention is focused solely on him. He’s used to not being seen - that’s his job description, after all. But you make being noticed seem . . .pleasant. Like it’s not something to be avoided at all costs. 

He’s grateful for the little game he played with himself earlier, assigning all of the sweets to members of his team. It means he doesn’t embarrass himself tripping over words and sounding unsure about what he wants, making you feel as though he’s incompetent - he watches as you take scoops out of the big impractical jars and pour them into sweet little striped paper bags, reaching behind you to pull out lengths of ribbon and cut them so they curl beautifully, neat little cards with the name of your shop attached to the shimmering tails--

You move so quickly and neatly and Risotto is duly impressed. He’d find this kind of work horribly dull; you seem to be having a good time, enjoying yourself as you tug on a ribbon that isn’t quite even and straighten the tag of Prosciutto’s sweet tobacco. He feels . . . warm, somehow, that you’re taking such care over the little bags of sweets, though he knows they can hardly be the most expensive things you sell. Risotto cannot afford the most expensive things you sell, he thinks, looking at the price of some of the chocolate assortments in satin boxes behind the glass. 

“There!” You say, stepping back and enjoying the neat sight of all eight bags of Risotto’s choice lined up on the counter. Risotto has to admit they look very neat and pretty - whilst he knows Ghiaccio will probably just tear into his bag of pretty pale blue peppermints, he hopes that Prosciutto or Illuso or someone will appreciate the work put into presentation. He knows he is - or perhaps he’s just admiring the one doing the presentation. Aren’t they the same thing, in the end? 

You tell him the total and Risotto fumbles for his wallet. It’s been a while since he paid for anything in cold hard cash - he has a fake bank card for things like groceries under a false name, but somehow he wants to ensure things here are more . . . personal. He hands over the money and his breath catches as your fingers brush his--

Did you feel that spark of electricity? That brief zip of excitement? 

“Which of them are for you?” You ask him, as if nothing has happened, waiting for your register to print his receipt. You’re thankful for your father’s insistence on pricing things in whole numbers - you’ve never had much of a brain for mathematics, and you’d felt somehow . . . discomfited by the way Risotto’s fingers had felt when they brushed your own. You’re glad to avoid touching him too much. 

“Oh.” He looks at you. “None of them are.”

You look at him, profiling him - and then, smiling, you tap your nose. You reach to one of the jars closest to you, filled with dark pinwheels the colour of this man’s scleras - you take a handful of them and pop them into one of the bags your father usually leaves for Halloween-time, black and white striped. 

“No charge,” you say, tying it with a neat little black bow. “I think you’ll like the licorice! You don’t strike me as a man who enjoys too much sweetness.” You drop it into the bag with the rest of Risotto’s purchases. “You should always allow yourself to indulge! You deserve a reward just as much as the rest of your team do!”

“I-- thank you, Signorina--”

You wave away his thanks, your cheeks pink, and Risotto decides right then and there he’s going to have to come back here, if only to see your face flush that colour once more. He knows you’re going to haunt his daydreams for days. That someone like you has existed so close to him for so long and he has been unaware. . .

“I hope you and your colleagues enjoy them!” You chirp. You point to the windows. “The rain’s stopped too! I was very glad to meet you, I hope I’ll see you again sometime--”

And you step away from him, turning your body towards the doorway, and Risotto is leaving before he shames himself by grabbing your shoulder and asking you to stay longer and just talk to him for a while. As he opens the door and the bell rings across the shop, he hears your voice:

“Elisa! He was perfectly nice, you were just being silly--”

Nice. 

He hasn’t heard that word ascribed to him in a long time. 

~ 

When Risotto hands Formaggio the prettily packaged parcel of sweets shaped like little cat faces, his subordinate looks up at him with wide eyes, as if trying to gauge whether or not Risotto is being serious about it. For one thing, gifts are not really a done thing among the members of La Squadra - for another, if Formaggio were to be handed confectionary, he would not have expected to be handed it by Risotto. Pesci, perhaps. Gelato, maybe - though he would hesitate eating anything given to him by Gelato. Illuso, maybe, if it were something elegant and not something twee--

But Risotto’s eyes are very focused and serious, so Formaggio takes the bag and drops out a confused thanks, and wonders if this is his capo’s way of poisoning him. He’s always imagined that Risotto would be sneakier than this, but maybe it’s one of those mafia honour things and he’s supposed to just eat it so that Risotto doesn’t kill him in a more painful way? Formaggio screws up his face looking down at it, and then watches as, across the room, Risotto stops Prosciutto. 

He picks out another bag of candy. Formaggio’s cat candy is tied with an orange bow; Prosciutto’s candy - Formaggio doesn’t know how to describe it, but it looks kind of like pale, sugary tobacco - is tied with a yellow one. Prosciutto looks down at it, and then back up at Risotto, and gives a halting thanks. 

A few hours later, Formaggio has ascertained that every member of La Squadra has been given a not-quite-identical bag. 

When Formaggio hesitantly puts forward that perhaps Risotto is going to kill them, Ghiaccio barks out angrily that their Capo would never do anything so stupid--

“I recognise this shop, anyway,” says Illuso, who is chewing a piece of fudge as he talks. Okay, maybe they’re not actually poisoned, then. “It’s down one of the main streets. Quaint little confectioner’s. Only been there a few years but seems to do okay business. I don’t know who owns it, but as far as I know it’s nobody who Passione or Risotto might have in their back pocket.”

Formaggio looks at the bag again, and, sighing, reaches in. His fingers close around one of the brightly coloured sweets, surprised by how hard it feels - he’d expected some kind of gummy sweet. Throwing it into his mouth, the hard candy immediately tastes sweet and warm and pleasant all at once. 

He crunches the sugar between his teeth loudly, because that is the kind of man that Formaggio is. Sorbet, across the table from Formaggio, wrinkles his nose and dutifully feeds Gelato another fluffy pink heart-shaped marshmallow. 

“Well?” Ghiaccio demands. “Are you going to die?”

Formaggio considers for a moment. Sweet strawberry aftertaste lingers between his teeth. None of the rest of his teammates who have professed they’ve already eaten some of their ‘gifts’ appear to have dropped dead where they stand yet. 

“Nah,” he says, eventually. “Don’t think I’m gonna kick the bucket any time soon. These are real good, by the way.”

“Mm,” says Melone, who pops another brightly coloured gumball into his mouth. Formaggio has heard the bubbles popping for most of the night - as Melone does it, a vein in Ghiaccio’s forehead visibly twitches. The blue haired man already looks like he’s teetering on the edge of collapse - Formaggio supposes he did not enjoy the use of the phrase ‘kick the bucket’. Ghiaccio can be a real uptight asshole. “We should ask Risotto to be rewarded like this every time a hit goes well. Really makes us feel like a team, don’t you think? I’ll give you one of mine if you’ll let me try one of yours.”

Formaggio laughs, flicking one of his cat candies across the table and catching Melone’s tossed gumball with grace, sweeping a low bow. There’s a brief hubbub on the table as Formaggio walks away, probably about who’s being allowed to try some of whose candy, and Formaggio is smirking at the chaos he’s caused as he goes to find Risotto. 

He really wouldn’t mind some more of these, actually. 

He slips it into conversation with Risotto a few days later, expecting to be rebuffed immediately - the whole thing was already so out of character for their quiet, impassable leader - but he’s surprised when Risotto doesn’t tell him to be grateful for what he has. If Formaggio didn’t know Risotto so well, he’d say that the veil that fell over Risotto’s gaze was almost . . . fond. Longing. 

After a moment, Risotto speaks. 

“I’ll see what I can do.”

The statement is vague, without making any promises - and yet Risotto’s tone sends a shiver down Formaggio’s spine. Formaggio himself has never been the kind of man who makes a plan and sticks to it - if Formaggio gets what he wants, it’s usually because of pure luck. But when Risotto speaks, even to say something so up in the air . . .

Formaggio gets the impression he’ll definitely be getting more of the prettily decorated bags from the confectioner’s down the main street. 

And for some reason, that certainty leaves him feeling unsettled. 

~

Risotto is a careful man. He goes into the store that you work at once or twice a week; though he quickly memorises your schedule, he makes sure to pop in every so often when you’re not working. Once, he is served by Elisa, who looks at him with wide eyes and shaking fingers and jumps when the bell rings and another customer walks in. She’s clearly been told by you that Risotto is no threat, and yet she cannot shake that human nature: fear that which you do not think you could outrun or outsmart. Risotto does not smile at her. 

Likewise, he does not smile at the older man who is working one Tuesday morning when he enters the candy-scented room to buy himself some more of the licorice. You had been right; he wasn’t a sweet kind of man, but he found himself enjoying the licorice you’d picked out for him immensely. He likes the salt and the chew of the black cables - sometimes, biting into them feels like stress relief. 

This man, he assumes, is your father. He does not treat Risotto badly by any means, but Risotto sees the way that your father looks at him distrustfully and sees that he gets much less licorice in the bag than when you (or even Elisa) weigh out the contents. 

It’s a pity, he thinks, you had to have a man like that for a father. 

When he does get to see you, it feels like all of his troubles are lifted at once. 

He had become used to the feeling of carrying all of his burdens around his heart like iron chains. He had accepted that was his lot in his life; he had accepted he was going to feel like he was drowning until he was murdered in a back alley after becoming too cocky with his stand. He hadn’t realised how bad that feeling had gotten until you’d smiled and winked and given him free candy out of the good of your heart and not because you were afraid of him, smudge on your nose and all. 

He supposes, surrounded by other men who kill for money, he had not realised that some people were just inherently good. 

Well. Perhaps not some people. In his experience, you are the exception that proves the rule. 

And that you are reduced to being a confectioner in your father’s business and working behind a cash register, doing mindless things like measuring out grams and tying ribbons makes him ache in the middle of his chest. Someone like you deserves the world. Risotto does not dislike himself - but he does not like himself either. His body is simply the prison that he lives in. Other people whisper behind their hands about what Risotto might do with a face and a body like that, what blood might stain his past, what he might do if he were given an inch of leeway and they were to take their gaze from him for just a moment--

But you do not do that. You smile at him and always put an extra scoop of the sweets into whatever he orders (Prosciutto does not like the sweet tobacco; he asks for one of the beautifully decorated boxes of candy cigarettes, and you put three into his paper bag, telling him nobody ever really buys them anyway). You ask him banal questions about his day like he’s an ordinary man. 

Once, angry about the man’s conduct on their last ‘project’,  he lets slip Melone’s name. He curses himself in the back of his brain, hating that he’s made himself vulnerable - but when, a few weeks later, you ask about whether Melone has calmed down any yet, any fear he had about you misusing the new information floats away like dust on the wind - you are simply a wonderful person who remembers things that you are told. Who cares about his life, though nobody else ever has. 

Risotto sees little things about you. Every day, he learns something new. He learns that you have no particular interest in sweet-making, but your father did not trust easily (this comes as no surprise to Risotto, even with his limited interactions with the man). He learns that you still live at home. You mention that you walk through one of the shittier neighbourhoods to get there, and that is enough for Risotto to draw a brief sketch in his mind of where you might reside--

He learns other things, too. He’s not surprised by your gentle kindnesses, but they still hit him full force in the chest whenever he gets to see one. 

It is not just him you give extra portions to, after all. Small children who come in and laboriously count out their money onto the glass, the tap-tap-tap echoing in Risotto’s brain, are rewarded with you exclaiming about how good they are with numbers and a few extra scoops of whatever sweet thing they’re hankering over. A few times, when you and he have been chatting, you’ve slipped him one of the licorice pinwheels from the jar whilst you chewed on your own delicacy of choice. 

(“Almost nobody ever buys the licorice!” You tell him, laughing. “You’re doing me a favour by eating some, really!”)

Once, a little girl comes in, sniffling. It transpires she has lost her mother in the hubbub of a busy Friday evening, and you talk to her softly and gently and fetch a chair from out of the backroom for her to sit on. You amuse her by telling her about a time you got separated from your father when you were a small child, and you give her one of the brightly coloured lollipops decorated with rainbow swirls from your display cabinet. 

When her mother eventually flies into the shop in a tizzy, she is grateful to you - and more, she’s grateful to Risotto, her eyes not once straying to his peculiar clothes or his strange eyes. To him, she is just one of the two people in this little confectioners who helped keep the light of her life safe, and her eyes are full of happy tears when she gives him a quick hug--

He doesn’t remember the last time somebody hugged him. 

Just another example of your bright sunshine rubbing off on him. When somebody is by you, he thinks, they cease to be just themselves - they are lent some of your warmth and sweetness and are made all the better for it. A little voice in the back of his brain, gnawing viciously at the knot in his chest that forms whenever you smile at him, whispers that nobody else deserves this. You are too good for this world. You must be protected and kept safe and guided away from the evils of the universe--

You give a little boy and his even younger sister who come in to browse - and admit shyly, sadness in their eyes, that they have no money, and just enjoy the colours and the smells and being surrounded by delicious things so they can imagine how they might taste - a bag made up of two sweets from every jar in the shop. 

“Don’t you lose money?” He can’t resist asking you, after the children have exchanged wide eyed looks as if they cannot believe their fortune and ran out of the door, babbling impassioned thanks. “Giving things out for free like that?”

You meet Risotto’s eyes - and in them, you see that worry that the extra sweets and the free things you slip into this man’s orders have been a burden on you - and you shake your head. 

“You never lose money on kindness,” you tell him, and Risotto remembers that for days afterwards. No.The world doesn’t deserve you. Somebody is going to take advantage of you. That voice - the one he has never been good at ignoring, the one that leads him to splattering brains on the pavement with a handgun before he turned twenty - whispers that the only place you will be safe is with him. Risotto believes it. 

He believes it even more when one night he has dropped in to buy Formaggio some of his cat candy, and you and your father are arguing in hushed whispers in the back room. You see him, and go to greet him and ask him what he wants tonight--

And your father reaches out, hands encircling your wrist, dragging you to face him too close and hissing something that, if Risotto were not intimately acquainted with listening to conversations he is not supposed to, he would have missed. 

“You’re going to bankrupt us--”

“It’s just a few sweets--”

“They’re my sweets. You’re fucking lucky you have a job at all, you ungrateful little--”

Risotto steps forward, and your father - like the coward he is - falls silent. He looks up at the imposing six foot something man with muscles the size of his head and cannot think of anything to say. Risotto’s voice is low, like the rumbling purr of a motorcycle engine when he speaks;

“Is there a problem here?” 

Your father blinks up, and you look at Risotto like he has saved you from a very dark fate - and Risotto cannot help but love that look of relief and adoration on your face. 

“No problem,” your father mumbles, and scurries away back into the other room, tail tucked firmly between his legs. 

Risotto turns his gaze on you. 

“Are you alright?” He asks, sensing that you’re about to cry or do something worse. He looks at the way you cradle your wrist protectively in one gloved hand and wonders if it’s the first time your father has ever laid his hands on you - for your father’s sake, Risotto hopes it is. He cannot describe what he would do to anyone who would hurt you more than this. 

He wants to take you away then, as you right yourself and wipe at your eyes and summon a smile for him - ever the sunny one, even when your world is raining. He envies and loves that about you. But he cannot. Not yet. 

He must plan slowly. He must earn your trust. Risotto does not rush into things. 

~

Risotto has his responsibilities. He longs to be able to devote every moment of every day to you; he wants to watch you wake up and see sunlight dapple your beautiful face, wants to see you sleep-tousled and soft in the morning. He wants to walk beside you on your way to work. He wants to cook you dinner. He wants to hold you in his arms and never let go. He wants to lock you up so that soft prettiness you have and that sweet sunshine can only be gazed upon by him and people he thinks deserves you. He wants to chain you up and keep you safe so that you might never have to interact with people who do not deserve you ever again. 

But he can’t. Not yet. 

For now, he tries to keep his longing sated by dropping into the sweet shop whenever he can. He prefers early mornings and late evenings - when you are more likely to be alone, and the shop is most likely to be quiet. He’s walked you home from your shift once, when you’d sighed that it was raining and you hadn’t brought an umbrella--

(“I owe you for the first time,” Risotto had grunted - and you, who have come to be fond of this over-protective huge man in the way one is fond of an awkward older brother, allow it. You know about your basic stranger safety - but Risotto has been so loyal in the past few months, and he’d stopped your father from shouting, and he’s never been weird or creepy towards you. You can’t help but think the man is just lonely - so you accept the proposal, although you don’t let him walk you any further than the top of your street.)

Sometimes, he lets Metallica out, and he blends into the walls behind him, and he watches you go home. He follows you and watches you go into your shitty little house that you’d tried so hard to keep a secret from him - he thinks you must be ashamed of it. The front door looks as though it’s been kicked in once or twice. The flower garden out front has gone wild. The windows are grimy, and one is smashed. The sweet shop cannot be doing so well, then. 

It’s alright, he thinks to himself. When you and he have your future together, he’ll make sure the house is perfect. You will not have to worry about vandals or criminals. You won’t walk down a street to get home that is lined with used needles and empty bottles. 

He finds out, coincidentally, it is not the first time your father has laid hands on you, and he aches for justice. That anyone would have the nerve to hurt you! That anyone could try and dull that sparkle or rain on that sunshine! 

Risotto knows he is not a good man - but he knows you are good, good, gooder than any person has a right to be. If you are his, perhaps some of your goodness will rub off on him - and if it does not, at least he will be able to ensure that you never lose it. 

It’s enraging. 

And though he promised himself he would wait . . . well. Patient men who can control themselves do not end up the capo of La Squadra. They do not end up in Passione’s employ. They do not develop stands that are suited for nothing so much as death--

And he thinks about how your father does not pay Passione’s protection fees. He thinks about how your father clearly thinks he is too good for that - thinks he is too good for you, though Risotto knows that is the opposite of the truth. His stomach and his brain and his bloodlust roar with anger, for the world to be set to rights, for your father to pay for his transgressions. 

And Risotto Nero, capo of La Squadra di Esecuzione, fool who has fallen irrevocably in love - he sets the cogs turning, and his plan in motion. 

~

It’s early Tuesday morning and you’re opening the shop today. Your father stayed late last night - when you’d woken up, he was still not in, and you assume he’s spent all night working. He does, sometimes, when he’s concocting some new flavour or messing around with some new way of doing things when the old ways have sufficed perfectly well for hundreds of years. 

You do not share your father’s passion for the art of confectionery. You’re only working this job because he hadn’t been able to find anyone else he trusted with the machines and the shop - though you do not want to spend the rest of your life here, he always guilt trips you when you mention moving away, and you’ve accepted you’re going to be stuck here for eternity. Your feet are dragging on the ground, putting off the inexorable boredom of working something you do not care about, when you hear a voice behind you. 

“You’re late today.”

It’s faintly amused - low and deep, and you turn and see Risotto. 

(You’d laughed at his name and he’d laughed too at your reaction. It’s one of the few times you’ve heard him laugh, and you wish he did it more. He always seems so serious. You feel awfully sorry for him.)

“Just putting off the daily grind,” you tell him, slowing down so he can fall into step beside you. You trust Risotto, insomuch as one can trust a customer. “Are you stopping by for something?”

“Ah,” Risotto says. “Melone has ran out of those cinnamon candies shaped like women’s mouths.”

You nod. Melone is one of Risotto’s colleagues; one of the ones he mentions a lot. You think that Melone is a ladies man, a flirt, and someone who evidently does not take his job half as seriously as Risotto himself. 

“Well,” you say, smiling still. It’s nice to talk to him. “You’re welcome to come in and wait whilst I get the shop ready, as long as you promise not to nab any of our licorice whilst my father is watching! He never came home last night, so I can only assume he’s been at the table in the back like a mad scientist.”

Risotto holds up his hand - you can’t help but notice how big they are. Sometimes, little flashes like that remind you of why Elisa was scared of him. He hasn’t eased up on showing off the skin or the black leather or the intense eyes - still, you know not to judge a book by its cover. You’re glad that you hadn’t, when it came to Risotto. You look forward to him coming in. He feels like a friend. 

“On my honour,” he says, and you laugh - and then, abruptly, the laugh dies in your throat. 

The glass door is smashed. Your neatly written sign lays on the floor, “Closed” side up. Your lip wobbles as you look down, and Risotto breathes in sharply as he sees what’s given you pause. 

“Be careful,” he intones, lowly. “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“My dad--”

You step up into the building, eyes flying around the room. The jars of candies are in disarray. The bonbons are on the floor, where they must have rolled when their jar came crashing down - all around you are shards of both glass and of brightly coloured hard sugars. 

The devastation of the main floor of the shop is not what worries you, though. 

Not even the cash register, emptied onto the floor, the drawer a little way away from the body of the thing with what is clearly absolutely no money in it, makes you worry as much as the red substance that is smeared across the tiles beneath you. 

“Oh, dio mio--” you whisper, your heart beating double time in your chest. 

You turn to see that Risotto has followed you into the shop, his eyes taking in the scene around him, his shoulders hunched. He sees you looking. 

“Do you want me to wait outside?” He asks, and you feel a pang in your chest. “I’ll stay, if you need me--”

If whoever did this is still here, you think, you might find yourself glad of the offer. You nod at him, trying to force past the lump in your throat to produce anything that comes close to being intelligible. 

“Please,” you whisper, and Risotto nods and comes to stand behind you. Together, you two advance past the chaos of the shop, through the scattered sweets and the glass jars and the ribbons and bags that have been disturbed during whatever tussle took place here. You two creep through the doorway - and when you see it, your breath catches in your throat and you think for a moment you’re going to scream. 

Your father is on the floor. His chest is moving, but its faint - your eyes are drawn to the blood around his head, haloing him like he’s an angel. You have often disliked your father, hated him even - but seeing him like this still makes you feel like bile is rising in your throat. 

“Wh-who would do this?” You whisper, your hands shaking. Risotto moves slowly and carefully, inching past you (you don’t notice how warm his body is or how hard it is in your grief, though Risotto notices how soft you feel against him). He picks something up from the big wooden-and-metal table you use for rolling out hot sugar and cutting fudges and all of those things. 

(You won’t be using it for those for a while, you think. It’s horribly unsanitary now! The very thought makes manic laughter bubble to your lips, though when it comes out it just sounds like great gulps of air). 

“Passione,” Risotto says, his voice flat. He hands you whatever it is he’s holding; with shaking hands, you take the matte black calling card. There is no name on it; just a fancy design, etched in the cardstock so that you can only see it when you tip it to the light. “This is . . . their symbol.”

You know about Passione. Of course you know about Passione!

“B-but--”

“I can only assume he didn’t pay protection fees,” Risotto says. You’re grateful for the monotone way he’s speaking to you, the slow enunciation - you’re not sure if you could take emotion right now. Not when your heart is beating so frightened against your ribcage. Not when you can’t breathe. Not . . . not now. 

“I--”

“Do you need me to call someone?” 

Risotto’s voice sounds very far away. 

He repeats your name. 

“There must be someone,” he says.

Someone. 

Your father’s unconscious body. 

An ambulance, perhaps. 

But if it’s Passione related. . .

You speak, and just like Risotto’s voice, your own sounds very far away. 

“My fiancé,” you manage to say. “He’ll know what to do.”

Oh. 

You don’t know that saying this is a mistake. 

You don’t know that Risotto’s heart feels like it’s turning upside down. 

You don’t know what’s about to happen.

Poor you. 

If only you had.

~ 

Risotto has followed you and watched you and dreamt about you, tossing and turning in his sheets, wishing you were there to hold onto. He has seen your home, seen your family, seen you walk to and from work and talked to you more than he’s ever talked to anybody he wasn’t supposed to either work with or kill. And he’s never come across even the slightest mention of a fiancé. You’ve never implied that there was anyone in your life! 

His heart is vibrating. His throat is dry. His fingers twitch idly. You look up at him, eyes wide, lip trembling--

There’s a cut on your hand. You must have brushed against one of the cracked or broken jars. Risotto’s eyes fixate on the bead of dark red--

Nobody but you has ever seen him as anything but a monster. 

Nobody has ever seen past the dark storm clouds in his heart - nobody has ever even tried! You’d walked into his life, all sweetness and sweet foods and laughter and treating and touching him like he was just another human, no thoughts as to whether he was involved in shady business or whether he’d ever been at the other end of a gun. He’d seen your smiles and your laughter and the light in your eyes and thought he was getting somewhere!

Something in him snaps. 

If you’ve never mentioned a fiancé before, perhaps it’s not something you want. Perhaps it’s someone you’ve felt indebted to, like working for your father - oh, Risotto can see that easily. You’re such a bleeding heart. Too gentle and too kind for your own good, never the kind to want to upset someone. 

If that’s it, he thinks, he’s doing you a favour - and he thinks of his car, parked one block away. He thinks of the tinted windows. He thinks of his house, on the outskirts of the city. 

Doing you a favour. Taking you away from all of this. Keeping your light safe and bright and making sure nothing ever dims it. 

He crooks a finger, and you blink, woozy on your feet suddenly. The little faces of his Metallica peek out from the cut on your hand, and he imagines them in your bloodstream even now. He imagines them melding together, taking the iron flowing through you (even your blood is pretty, he thinks, as you make a distressed noise and reach out for him and he steps towards you) - and he visualises the iron disk blocking your windpipe. Your hands clutch uselessly at your throat, eyes widening and closing, a horrific noise falling from your lips--

(Oh, he’s glad he’ll only have to hear that once. You should never be in pain.)

And your eyes flutter closed, your body falling heavy into Risotto’s arms. 

Risotto is more than strong enough to carry you out of the door. A passerby sees him and you - Risotto calls out to her, and she ducks her head, not wanting to attract attention. Risotto is used to that. Risotto is used to being hurried past. Risotto has never considered it a right for people to treat him as they treat other human beings. 

“I’m going to the hospital,” he calls out, even though the woman clearly does not want to know. “Passed out.”

She hurries past, and Risotto carries your body to his car. It’s still early in the morning. Nobody but that lady is around to watch the man take your body and bundle it into the back seat. 

He eases the disk away, but continues to pull iron from your bloodstream. Better for you to be dizzy and unconscious and unaware whilst he takes you away. He doesn’t want you pounding on the doors of his car and attracting attention - or worse, realising where you two are going well enough to find your way back. 

Somebody else will deal with the mess in Dolcezza. You - beautiful, wonderful, lovely you - will never have to worry about cleaning up after your father again. 

He drives. He thinks about how safe you will be in his home. He thinks about coming home to you after a hard mission - he thinks about how your hands will feel on his shoulders, how your smile will warm his cold heart. He thinks about the brush of your lips on his - he wonders if you taste as sweet as the things you make. He thinks about your skin hot against his whilst he’s asleep, your head on his chest. 

Risotto has never entertained thoughts of a domestic life before - he’s never thought he’d ever find anyone to share it with. He’s been thrown his fair share of admiring looks, of course, but he’s seen the darkest parts of the world. Most people disgust him. 

But not you. 

You stir, groaning, and Risotto uses Metallica to draw more iron from you until your breathing evens out. 

Nearly home, he thinks - he feels almost giddy when the thought flickers in his brain. He has always thought of it as his house. It has never been a home - but with you there, in his bed, in his arms, in the kitchen or the living room or anywhere at all . . . with you there, it is certainly a home. 

One of his neighbours is out, a hosepipe in his hands. Risotto takes a moment to remember his name. Clemente. He is old and infirm - even now, he stoops, watering his garden. 

Risotto does not need to think twice. He parks his car neatly and goes to the back door, opening it to scoop you out - and Clemente looks at the man he has lived next to but never spoken to because he is too afraid, and puts the pieces together. 

Before he can scream, there are razor-blades in his throat and knives in his wrists and needles in the vital arteries pumping blood to his heart. Risotto is strong enough to drag the body to his door with one hand and support you with his other arm. 

It is not exactly a spur of the moment decision, really. Risotto thinks as he locks the door to his house behind him and carries you up the stairs, leaving the still gasping but far too weakened to move Clemente in the hallway to bleed out. 

It makes sense, Risotto tells himself, that you might be afraid at first. You do not know Risotto Nero that well. You have only ever known your life with your father. You are leaving behind all of those other people who ate at your time and basked in the glow of you that they did not deserve. He expects an acclimatisation period. 

And with fear, he knows, comes a desire to escape. He is not so selfish as to think you will not try. Risotto is a smart man. He drops you on the bed carefully, making sure your head is cushioned by soft pillows. He goes down the stairs to fetch Clemente - with the man’s body, he is far less careful, his fetching a drag. 

Clemente’s blood bubbles from his mouth, but that is unimportant. Risotto will dispose of the corpse later. 

The iron in Clemente’s body does well for forming the shutters over the window - it blocks out the natural light, but Risotto has lamps - and the light of your smile and your laugh and your voice will be enough for him. In time, perhaps you’ll win the light back. But for now, the windows are too much of a risk. 

He uses more iron to make the caged bars that come down outside and inside of the door - inside first, and a key. There is just enough left in Clemente to make the outside cage - and then Risotto is left with a shrivelled corpse. He’ll deal with that at a different time, by cover of night - he knows all of the best places in the city for such things. He has used them plenty of times. If worst comes to worst, he will take the corpse in his car to the rest of his gang and ask Illuso to toss him in a river in the mirror world. It will hardly be the first time the other man has dealt with clean-up detail. 

Iron shutters. Two locks. The bars too strong and thick to bend. 

Yes. 

He knows this will be the best for you. 

You will be away from the life that you never wanted. You will be with him - you’ll love him, Risotto is sure of it. 

No. 

You already love him! For if you do not love him, how could you bear to look into his eyes? Why would you laugh like a silvery bell when he tries to tell a joke? Why would you trail your fingers across his hand just so when you hand him his goods and his change? Why would you talk to him and not run from the blackness and the evil and the rot inside him? 

You must love him. You’ll realise you love him. 

His teammates will miss the sweets, of course. Risotto will miss his licorice. 

But that’s a small price to pay for the sweetness of your body and your mind and you, every day to come home to for the rest of your life. 

Click. Clank. Click. Clank. Click. Clank. 

He is alone in the room with you, the doors secured, no light creeping in through the iron shutters on the windows. He approaches the bed - and brave now that you and he are finally alone, he leans down and smoothes a kiss over your forehead. He lets the iron drain slowly back into your body. 

Any minute now, you will come back around. 

Any minute now, Risotto will be able to introduce you to your new life. Show you your new room. Whisper to you about the future he has already built in his head for the two of you - a rose-tinted future he’d never have been able to even imagine had you not smiled at him and given him those free licorice pinwheels. Had you not had sparkling eyes and a smudge on your nose and the sweetest laugh he had ever heard--

Oh. 

He can hardly wait. 

[purgatoryandme]

Hello!!! Happy 3 day new year!! I just saw your previous reply on shadow work and just wanted to ask you a question. What behaviour would you call someone who has hurt you in the past but tells you to "get over it" and to "not hold any more negative energy" anymore about that hurt? Would you say that it's gaslighting to dictate how long a person can be hurt over something/an action that you do? Thank you!!

I think it really depends on the full context of the situation and how holding onto that hurt affects you and a relationship that you may or may not want to keep. If a person has a pattern of behaviour that is injurious to you, wherein they are consistently disrespecting boundaries that have been communicated or are being inconsiderate after conversations about how their behaviour is hurtful, then ‘forgive and forget’ is a poor approach and them treating your hurts as ‘negative energy’ is skewing your relationship in an unhealthy direction that puts your needs below theirs. However, if a person isn’t aware they hurt you, or if the hurt was a single time event that they have apologized for and tried to move past, then the situation becomes a little more complicated.  Mindfulness exercises will teach you that holding onto hurts, especially for years, and using them as a reflexive defence or punishment in a relationship in which you feel insecure is bad for YOU. For instance, if you were friends with someone who stole your boyfriend in high school, bringing that up whenever you fight or feel insecure is hurtful behaviour on your part that fails to acknowledge any of the work that person has put in to make up for their mistakes and also avoids the real issue (whatever it is you may be fighting about currently). This kind of behaviour is common in families - when you live with people, especially since childhood, they cannot avoid hurting you at some point, but bringing it up constantly in a competition of who-hurt-who-the-most only makes each new conflict worse. Everyone makes mistakes, and while some hurts are difficult to move past, when leaning on that hurt only hurts you and the other party more...what’s the point? Nobody can dictate when and how they get over something fully, but we all dictate when we start that journey and how much work we put into it for ourselves and others. We also dictate how we communicate those hurts and the limit to which we will tolerate exposing ourselves to them. In that vein, I really think ‘gaslighting’ has become a pop psych term online that people use to highlight the current divide between ‘toxic’ and ‘good’ people. Genuine gaslighting behaviour has intent behind it, is an established pattern of behaviour, and is designed to make a person question their own perception and memories of an event. Telling someone to get over something isn’t gaslighting, but telling them that everyone else involved has moved past it, that it wasn’t that bad, that it happened longer ago than it did, that you weren’t that hurt at the time CONSISTENTLY is, especially when the person tries to highlight the irrationality of your behaviour to yourself and brings in other people. Gaslighting is manipulative behaviour and needs to be squashed quickly when it arises if this is still someone you want in your life, which they might be.  Anyway, I don’t believe in removing negativity from your life either by cutting people off or by simply getting over things (re: no negative energy :))))) ). Life isn’t black and white, people are stupid, and it’s hard to be human. Anger, sadness, grief, hurt - they’re all important emotions and I think their expression allows us all to become better people and to feel more connected at the root of it all. It’s best to express those things and struggle your way through communication at least once before deciding if you want to work with somebody to patch things up or if you want to remove them entirely. Fight with them! Argue! Cry! Punch a hole in their wall! Be vulnerable enough to expose why you can’t get over something! Maybe you’ll iron things out, or find out enough about how they feel that you can work towards forgiving them. Or, if you feel they’ve changed since they hurt you (in a good way or a bad way) and you’re tired of it all, tired of yourself, tired of not being able to discuss it with them because maybe you two aren’t the kind of people who can do that, sit with the feeling for awhile and change your perspective of their relationship with you. You can keep people in your life without trusting them. You can learn to love them again from a different angle, knowing that the scar they left will always be there. You have choices when you stop trying to think of everything as right and wrong or healthy and unhealthy. People have friends for different things, and some people aren’t the friends that you share all your thoughts with, and some people ARE but they’ll never agree with you and that’s ok. There are friends who cut you off at the knees because you’re destroying your own life, there are friends who help you rebuild, there are friends who are only friends when the world is falling apart - they’re not all the same, and not all of them can be trusted with all your secrets, and some of them can become damaging when you place them in a different context, but none of them are inherently right for you or wrong for you. To finalize this whole thing without knowing any of the context in which you’re asking, I’m definitely hypocritical about a lot of this and it isn’t easy. That said, I’ve kept a lot of people in my life for over a decade, and I’ll tell you with complete honesty that plenty of that decade hasn’t been good for us. Most of my closest friends were, at some point, people who hated me, and some were bullies directly involved in one of the worst periods of my life. We’ve been close, then grown apart, then close again until we learned each other’s limits and even then new limits came up through mental health crises and mutual ignorance. I’ve grown apart more permanently from some of my best friends when they’ve changed, not necessarily into worse people, but into people incompatible with me, too. So yeah, thinking on shadow work and the like, everybody has something terrible inside of them and if you stick around you’ll see it. Sometimes it can be worked past, where the shitty things in them match up with the shitty things in you, and you’ve hurt each other enough times that it all kindof evens out. Sometimes it can’t be. But you’ve got to look into yourself, consider what you can tolerate and if you want them around, and then either try or walk away - and even then it doesn’t have to be forever. Hopefully that helps? 

[pynkhues]

I'm kinda thinking the newest child actor is gonna be Dean's secret child (whether he knows it or not) as well. I feel like Beth is kinda backtracking on pushing Dean out of her life, despite all the shit he's done, and I think a secret child by another woman is exactly the kind of thing that'll force her to kick him out for good. Poor Beth though :(

I totally agree, anon, and I actually don’t think Dean will know about him. I think it’s going to be a surprise to everyone. 

From what we know so far about the season, I think s3 might be spending some time holding Dean accountable for his actions, and I think they might be doing it away from Beth, which I’m actually looking forward to. I’ve said it on here a few times before but it makes sense to me that Beth’s combined low self-esteem, exhaustion, compartmentalising and avoidance tendencies mean that she’s unwilling and unable to hold Dean accountable for his behaviour, but that I still, as a viewer, need the story to hold him accountable in a way s2 didn’t. 

I’m trying to keep my expectations low, and, of course, this is all (probably wrong) speculation but given we know a) Dean’s still not working for himself like he wants to be / Boland Motors looks like it might be gone for good (they’re shooting 3.07 at the moment and Matthew’s still shooting with Ione at the hot tub store location), b) that it sounds like from Gayle’s character description that Dean might try and treat her like he treated Beth, and it doesn’t sound like she’s going to let him get away with it, and c) Wesley / Tim is in at least three episodes now, is billed as recurring, and has been shooting now without any of the other kids on set, which to me means he isn’t a classmate or a park friend.

He could be Gayle’s son possibly, but like I said in that last post, he looks so much like Matthew, and the casting on this show is just too good. 

And honestly, if played right, those three things could be a really satisfying way of holding Dean accountable for his actions - from the fact that he’s not a good businessman and no longer has any assets he can pit against any debts, to getting called out on his raging sexism, gaslighting and misogyny by someone he can’t ignore i.e. a co-worker, to giving him a very real, very human reckoning for his years of cheating on Beth. We still have the cancer lie to contend with, but it would be a start, haha. 

But seriously. If that is the case with Tim, it’s going to be awful for Beth, particularly since Tim looks like he’d be around Danny’s age :-(