#I always feel so bad for Dora.

[spilledkaleidoscope]

unreliable narrator

[kavehater]

I don’t think the weird anxiety/panic will ever leave my tumblr experience🧍‍♀️

[palms-upturned]

YEAH AND ITS LIKE KIM IS THIS WISH FULFILLMENT FANTASY FOR SUICIDAL PEOPLE RIGHT, LIKE HE MEETS YOU AT THE EXACT MOMENT THAT YOU HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO REBOOT YOUR WHOLE LIFE, HE DOESN’T KNOW YOUR PAST OR HAVE ANY PRIOR OPINION OF YOU, HE ONLY GETS TO KNOW THE VERSION OF HARRY THAT YOU’RE TRYING TO RESHAPE AS THE PLAYER. AND HE HOLDS YOU ACCOUNTABLE WITHOUT BEING JUDGMENTAL, AND HE’S KIND AND PATIENT AND EVEN GENUINELY LIKES YOU AND YOUR COMPANY! HE’S LIKE A PILLAR OF STRENGTH AND THE MOMENT YOU LAY EYES ON HIM YOU JUST KNOW THAT HE WOULD LITERALLY DIE TO PROTECT YOU. HE’S JUST SOMEONE WHO YOU FEEL SUPER SAFE WITH IN EVERY SENSE OF THE WORD, YOU KNOW? SO PART OF THAT HALO IMAGERY IS A REFLECTION OF THAT, LIKE YEAH HARRY HAS A HABIT OF IDEALIZING PEOPLE AND ITS BAD BUT ALSO KIM DOES REPRESENT AN IDEAL TO THE PLAYER. WHAT’S HOLY ABOUT HIM IS THAT IDEAL OF UNCONDITIONAL LOVE AND SUPPORT. AND ON TOP OF THAT KIM’S HALO HAS THAT SORT OF DOUBLE MEANING OF A SUNRISE. HARRY IS FIXATED ON THE IDEA OF A SUNSET AND HIS LIFE COMING TO AN END BUT KIM TURNS HIS ATTENTION TO THE SUNRISE INSTEAD. THATS WHAT THAT HALO BEHIND KIM REALLY IS. THE SOUND OF THE KINEEMA AND KIM’S ARRIVAL IN HIS LIFE IS WHAT WAKES HARRY FROM HIS BLACKOUT BUT THE INFERNAL ENGINE ISN’T THE KINEEMA, IT’S HARRY! WAKING UP EVERY DAY JUST TO DO IT ALL AGAIN! AGAIN! GETTING WORSE EVERY DAY BUT STILL HANGING ON IN THE HOPES OF SOMEDAY GETTING BETTER. SUNRISE PARABELLUM, TIME TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY. BUT HARRY DOESN’T HAVE TO FIGHT ALONE! IF YOU TREAT KIM RIGHT HE’LL STICK BY YOU. AND THAT’S THE ONLY WAY TO GET THROUGH IT, YOU KNOW? WITH SUPPORT. BUT THE PROBLEM IS THAT KIM IS STILL A COP, RIGHT? AND HE ONLY GIVES YOU THAT SUPPORT BECAUSE YOU’RE ALSO A COP. THE SAD TRUTH OF THE WHOLE GAME IS THAT THERE’S NO ENDING WHERE EITHER OF YOU STOP BEING COPS. YOU PROBABLY NEVER WILL. WHEN THE GUYS FROM THE UNSOLVEABLE CASE GET DRUNK AND CAUSE TROUBLE, THEY GET BRUTALIZED BY HARRY AND NOBODY CARES BECAUSE THEY WERE DRUNKS. WHEN HARRY GETS DRUNK AND BRUTALIZES CIVILIANS, HE GETS OFFERED A PROMOTION BECAUSE HE’S A COP. AND KIM ISN’T ABOVE ABUSING HIS POWER IN PETTY WAYS EITHER. THE TRUTH IS THAT IF YOU WEREN’T A COP HE WOULD TREAT YOU THE SAME AS ANY OTHER ADDICT ON THE STREET. HE WOULDN’T BE YOUR FRIEND. ISN’T THAT FUCKING SAD? THE BEAUTIFUL HOLY MIRACLE OF DISCO ELYSIUM THAT HARRY AND KIM COME SO CLOSE TO GLIMPSING IS JUST LOVE. GENUINE LOVE AND CARE FOR PEOPLE AROUND YOU AND LETTING IT MOVE YOU TO BE KIND IN MATERIAL WAYS. THAT’S WHAT KEEPS THE INFERNAL ENGINE GOING. THAT’S WHAT SHIVERS MEANS WHEN IT SAYS “I LOVE YOU.” THE CITY LOVES YOU BECAUSE COMMUNITIES ARE NOTHING WITHOUT LOVE. AND ALL OF THIS IS COMPLETELY ANTITHETICAL TO THE POLICE STATE. THATS WHY YOU GET A GLIMPSE OF IT IN MARTINAISE, A TOWN ABANDONED BY THE POLICE. EVERYONE THERE KNOWS WHAT IT MEANS TO BE POWERLESS. EVERYWHERE THEY LOOK THEY SEE THE SCARS OF BOMBINGS AND FAILED ATTEMPTS TO GENTRIFY THEM. HELL, EVEN THE PALE IS CREEPING INTO THE CITY. BUT THE PEOPLE KEEP GOING. YOU KEEP GOING. AND YOU ALMOST REALIZE WHY. BUT YOU NEVER QUITE GET THERE BECAUSE A COP WILL ALWAYS BE A COP FIRST AND A HUMAN SECOND, INCLUDING KIM. HE’LL KEEP DRESSING LIKE A REVOLUTIONARY AND THERE WILL PROBABLY ALWAYS BE THAT LITTLE SEED OF SHAME IN HIM BECAUSE HE KNOWS HE’S LYING TO HIMSELF BUT HE’LL NEVER DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT BECAUSE HE’S RESIGNED HIMSELF TO BEING UNABLE TO CONCEPTUALIZE A FUTURE BEYOND THE FAILURES OF THE PAST OR THE PRESENT STATUS QUO. BUT THE TRUTH IS THAT THERE IS NO FUTURE FOR A POLICE STATE. AND HE KNOWS IT BUT HE WON’T FACE IT ANY MORE THAN HE’LL FACE THE DIFFERENCES IN HOW HE TREATS YOU VS CUNO OR THE KIDS ON THE ICE. HARRY IS THE ONLY ONE WHO WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO SEE KIM AS A SAINT BECAUSE HE’S A COP. AND IN THE END YOU AND KIM LEAVE THE REALITIES OF MARTINAISE BEHIND THE SAME WAY THAT DORA LEAVES THE REALITIES OF DISABILITY AND POVERTY BEHIND WHEN SHE LEAVES HARRY. THE LOVE WAS ALWAYS CONDITIONAL AND ALWAYS WILL BE IF THEY CAN’T STOP BEING COPS. ANYWAY HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF TEHO TEARDO AND BLIXA BARGELD—

Image description: two people at a party or concert of some kind. One person is leaning into the other’s ear and shouting with an arm around their shoulder, the other is standing stiffly and looks exasperated. End description

[cosmicbyeol]

𝙖 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙙𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙬𝙖𝙨 𝙖𝙨𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙤𝙧?? : 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 18+ 𝙙𝙮𝙣𝙖𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙛𝙨

take this however it resonates.

calm down and take deep breaths.

WARNING : this contains mature content!! warnings will be before each pile for any triggering contents!!

♥︎ pile 1. seven – jungkook & LATTO

there’s a sense of love here ( obviously ). they’d prefer to take things slow most of the time. they want to take their time with you, even if you’ve had sex multiple times they still explore you like it’s the first time again. most of the time your making love and not going full force all the time. they may like lots of eye contact, it helps them sense what you’re feeling and deepens the connection between you. most of the time sex can start by then massaging you after a rough day for you. ( this is a new deck that I’m using and in the guide book it describes this card as “like a sexual Poseidon” and mentions the ocean a lot so it is in fact “show you what devotion is, deeper than the ocean is” )  

no matter what they can always seem to get you in the mood, no matter where you are or what time it is. they have a way with words and it’s like they’re compelling you. they never force you of course, but you finally give in. their dirty talk could be amazing. they always know what to say. whether it be in person, or texting. I think they like sexting as well as maybe video calls. they might like to introduce new things into the bedroom pretty frequently. but it’s mostly things they’ll think you’ll like. 

for this relationship I think it’ll be important to set up boundaries. having structure. there might be complications that could lead to arguments. this could be an outside of the bedroom thing that could lead into the bedroom or just something that they did that you didn’t like while having sex. just like I’m the music video, they’re arguing and she’s putting him off and ignoring him or annoyed that he’s constantly trying to be in her space. but he’s only trying to prove himself. but in the end they make up. 

this is someone that will like to spoil you in and outside the bedroom. they like praising you, saying you’re doing well and that you feel good to them. they might buy you a lot of undergarments. they like to see you looking ethereal for them. they like giving you what you want. multiple orgasms is a thing for them, however many you want or however many they think you deserve ( they actually think you deserve the world so… ) which probably leads to overstimulation. 

they might feel possessive of you when this is happening, they like feeling like they’re yours and you are theirs. they won’t let you go. there might be a lot of marking and maybe even a breeding kink. but in the aspect of having a family with you and just the thought of being with you “forever” just does something to them. they’re devoted to you and only you. 

they put your own pleasure above theirs, there might even be times where they don’t cum or if they do it’s because they came because they were taking care of you. I’m seeing them eating you out or them sucking you off and then finishing in their pants or on the bed. they get their pleasure from you.  they don’t care if they don’t finish to be honest. most of the time it’s you that wants them to cum or wants to touch them. you’re the one that asks to touch them or wants them to cum too. 

♥︎ pile 2. dOra maar ( english version ) – OnlyOneOf

mentions of a safe word & the use of one; exhibition; treating someone like a possession;

there’s a sense of someone being inexperienced here. the one that’s more experienced will sort of take you under their wing. they’ll teach you a lot and will guide you through things. they have a craving to be your firsts for a lot of things. I think at first they’ll see/treat you as someone who learns from them or like a possession. I don’t know how to explain it and make it not sound bad. they like you and stuff but the feeling is sort of detached from their love or attraction towards you. like this line “keep you in sight, keep them safe at all cost. because you’re my masterpiece”. even if they might not be your first they most definitely want to be your last.

they like your physique, they feel like they could stare at you forever and never get tired of you. I feel like they like edging a lot, mostly yours. they might like to see you cry a bit. they get off on your glossy eyes looking back at them. they like when you chip in as well, like if they’re making you feel good they like it when you’re adding to the stimulation. they think having an orgasm is a joint effort. there also might be open to trying new things and new experiences in the bedroom with you as well.

they like being the one that experienced new things with you. even if you are somewhat experienced they like bringing new crazy things into the bedroom. things they hope you haven’t tried or experienced with someone else. a somewhat blank slate. a blank canvas. they want you to feel safe and for you to just let go. they want you to sit back and not worry about anything. they’ll take care you.

they’re very big on boundaries, even outside of the bedroom they have safe words. they probably have a sit down talk with you once you’re ready to have sex or be more serious about it. they want to know all the things you don’t like or things you might be willing to try. things that are strictly off limits to you and to them as well. they also put themselves on the table and in the open. they tell you what they like and what they might want to try. you guys often sit down and have talks like this. talks about previous times and what you liked and didn’t like. it might not seem like it, but they do adjust themselves accordingly to your tastes and needs. they want to be able to explore your world safely. and visa versa.

they don’t like exhibition that much because they want to keep you to themselves. there’s a sense of wanting to keep you shielded from peering eyes. they want to be the only one that gets to see you, to see all of you. they might like seeing you take the lead or for you to have an air of “hey look at me, we’re going to have it my way”. I can see you walking up to them naked or maybe with pretty undergarments, with all your prowess and them sitting down legs spread looking at you with want and a small smile.

even though there is communication here, there might be a big misunderstanding of some kind. I’m getting it’s from the inexperienced person. they might want to try something that might be too much for them, but they say it’s fine and that they can do it. even though they’re a little scared they just want to be pleaser. but it just might go fine in the end. you might have a talk afterwards because they knew you felt that way. they went easy on you of course, but if it happens again they might punish you for it.

♥︎ pile 3. blah blah – the boyz

bondage with ropes & ties/anything at hand; humiliation;

I’m getting one of you being showered in gifts, whether it be clothes or toys. it’s already in your possession before you even think about it. this person wants to provide for you. they want you sitting on a throne, if it was possible they’d absolutely do it. they want to give you everything you want. they honestly want to wait on you hand and foot. they’re a very much a power bottom, whatever you tell them to do they’ll do it. they want to give you EVERYTHING. 

this all might help build your confidence if you’re lacking. body worship might be a big thing as well. especially in front of a mirror, they want you to see how good you look. how ethereal you look to them. praise is a big thing too, especially them tell you how you deserve to feel good. you might have gone through some partners that didn’t know how to make you cum or finish so you most likely finished by yourself afterwards. but don’t worry that doesn’t seem to be the case with them. 

on more harder nights there might be bondage including ropes. but for the most part they like scarves or whatever they can get their hands on. they mostly like tying your arms up but some nights maybe your legs. for your legs it doesn’t really matter to them, tied open or even your thighs tied together. humiliation might also play a part when they’re feeling more dominant with you. making fun of you because you’re liking what they’re doing to you, or if they’re barely touching you and you’re already hard/wet. 

no matter if this is a fwb, sugar, or you’re partners you both complement each other. even if you’re the same or you look like polar opposites. you’re a match sexually. you like what the other is sporting and dealing out. it just feels right to you. to spice things up you might role play, you don’t really need to spice things up. this is more for fun than anything. 

they like the thought of you exploring yourself. when they’re away they want to hear all bout your little escapades.  they want to know new ways to make you cum. they want to know their way around your body. there might be mutual masturbation, or at least them watching you every once and a while. 

not really a sexual thing but people honestly wonder how you do it. they want to know how you have this person wrapped around your finger. in the palm of your hand. not to sound stupid or anything but I’m telling you, those people that want to know have running theories. the top theory I’m thinking is why I chose this song, it’s about being entranced by someone’s voice. they could listen to it all day and night.   

[soundbulb]

it makes sense to me that maggie is the one capable of saying something cutting to rust, if only by being the only woman in his life who isn't dead. the whole crux of the conflict, in terms of the state of the soul of true detective, is rust and marty's denial that all men's weakness, sadism, beliefs, mistakes disproportionately destroys the lives of women and children, and the men who do it get to just keep truckin, sometimes with guilt heaped on. they just get away with it over and over and it kills women and girls. I think of rust's, "she sounds sad, marty, like a person on their last legs" about dora after visiting the bunny ranch. how dora was predated on by her father ("why wouldn't a father bathe his child?"), ended up with charlie lang, and was then marked as a target because charlie showed her naked pictures to his cellmate who he hated.

marty's whole hang up is just a classic cop one. he's the good guy and he hunts the bad guys. rust doesn't think he's the good guy, he's just another bad guy hunting bad guys, but that's still denial. when he passes a tide of hallow rationalizations to maggie, they suddenly sound like exactly what they are. normally rust has been monologuing to male audiences -- papania, marty -- who balk and seem defensive or quietly suspicious, but when maggie is the audience you realize rust actually sounds exactly like marty giving his stupid "you gotta decompress" schtick. she's not hung up on any of his actual ideas, doesn't take a single one seriously, because it turns out they're a baby blanket. in rust's phrasing, they're just the encouragement of illusion so he can get through his reality. that scene coming so soon after rust saying, "when I think of my daughter, what she was spared." he just can't do it yet. despite all his efforts, he just can't look at anything head on, not until the end, when he's in that syrupy blackness experiencing his loved ones. he only edges up to the truth, keeping himself mostly at arms length. he gets right on top of it in that same monologue, "she spared me the sin of being a father." the death of women in girls in this season are redemptive; the childress' seem to use them as some kind of baptism. when they're not around to destroy, the men who destroy them are spared of being the men who destroy them.

marty is always under the impression his intentions are good. "was that a down payment?" and marty chews him out for "joking" about his moment of decency, but it was absolutely a down payment. rust clocked it correctly, most of the reason marty was mad was because he was attracted to beth, and he started blustering some rhetoric and then gives beth a twenty, hissing out a white hot, "do something else," like an accusation. but marty goes through all the motions of a hero, so to beth he looks like one. he slaps his daughter and calls her a slut for doing the kinds of things he does with women. he beats on the men she was with so he can feel like a Father and a Hero then vomits in front of his car because it was all just clumsy violence and cowardice. rust knows he isn't doing any good, but he still wants some of that redemption; he tells maggie his little screed about man-woman drama because he wants her to accept it. he knows the women and girls pay more to live in the same world, they don't get away with just existing while men get away with it all, but knowing that doesn't bring him any closer to looking at it head on. he's still asking maggie for something: accept it, get on the same page, spare me, and maggie says no, at least right then. eventually she does, then ultimately she doesn't.

anyway, I think it's interesting how different it feels to hear rust say what he says in that scene. you suddenly realize exactly how his words fall on the ears of reality. "at the end of the day you duck behind rationalizations just like the rest of them."

[bazaarwords]

thank you @why-does-it-matterr​! i think i got a little carried away, but i hope you enjoy!

cw: descriptions of injuries

-

There was a place she used to go to after the Order had days like these. Bad days. Ones that left her numb.

Historically, the place is both tangible and not—a lonely tower at the Cat’s Cradle, and once there, a few long moments of contemplation. But her old home is a long way away, and so Beatrice finds the part of her mind that needs this kind of treatment and sends it elsewhere. As for her body, she deigns to get to work instead of separating herself. The OCS may not be her world anymore, but there are wounded. People she cares for.

In the wreckage of their makeshift hideout, Beatrice wonders if maybe it’s never been the events of the day that seep the feeling from her. Maybe it’s always been this—this thing she must do to herself in order to succeed. Months of wandering have not divested her of the need to perform. The months have, however, been a reminder of all she’s lost.

She sets her feelings aside. There are things to do.

The first order of business: Camila’s shoulder is out of socket, and for all their collective expertise, Beatrice remains the best candidate to set it. Years ago, before the Order had swept her away, she’d spent a long summer volunteering in a hospital. It’s not the medical training she’d received afterwards, but the exposure was, at the very least, an advantage.

“Ready?” She asks, although she knows that Camila is always ready.

Camila, in the kind way she does all things, just smiles as if Beatrice is the one that needs the reassurance. She nods. “Go for it.”

Camila doesn’t flinch. She lets out a long, measured breath and she says, “ow” and she laughs at herself. Beatrice would like to take the time to laugh with her, but her joy is locked up in that faraway place. She squeezes Camila’s other shoulder, helps her into a sling made of a torn shirt, and moves on to the next.

Sister Dora has twisted her wrist. It’s discolored and swollen, but her bones are, thankfully, intact.

“A tarask,” she explains, “I thought it’d… well, I thought it’d kill me but…”

But she came back, Beatrice thinks to herself, searching the wreckage for wood to make a splint. She saved you.

She blinks that away—she has to. Sister Dora must notice her reticence. She doesn’t complete her thought. So Beatrice secures Sister Dora’s arm, and she moves on.

Yasmine has taken a glancing blow to the head, and Mother Superion has opted to stay up with her in the wake of the fight to monitor the damage.

“I’m okay,” Yasmine says when Beatrice comes by, holding up a placating hand. “I mean—I remember my name, so. So that’s good, right?”

Superion offers the smallest of smirks. It’s fond, not hard-won. “Yes, Yasmine,” she says, and rises up on unsteady footing. It’s not the new, halo-resurrected Superion.

“What happened?” Beatrice asks, firmer than she’d meant to. Emotions are nebulous when she settles into this way.

Superion shakes her head. “Nothing that should concern you. A few bruises.” She gives Beatrice a meaningful look—one she’s not present enough to catalogue. “There’s a cot in the back. Rest. We’re fine here.”

It sounds like an order, and even though she’s put the church behind her, she still respects Mother Superion. She can still recognize that she’s done all she can for the group, within reason. So she makes her way to the back room, feeling nothing. She sits on the edge of the cot, feeling nothing. She shrugs off her outer layers, feeling nothing.

Her mind has been in that faraway place, however, and as she returns to herself, everything sinks in.

While information comes in in pieces, on thing is for certain—there’s pain, everywhere. It would make the most sense to take stock of the worst places, the ones that need her immediate attention, but when feeling rushes back into her, the only thing she can think is that she needs to get out of this room and to wherever she’s gone—

There’s a jolt, razor sharp in the already excruciating throb of her abdomen. It’s quite obviously from when she’d been launched across a courtyard. The intensity winds her halfway to standing and her hip smarts as soon as she’s fallen back to the cot. She tells herself several times that she needs to get herself back in that empty place, that world where she feels nothing. Above all things, she needs to be there because she needs to find Ava.

A week prior, there had been a desperate call for help, a train from the small Finnish town she’d wandered into the month before, and Beatrice had found herself right back in the fray. Seeing the faces of her friends again after all their time apart had been bittersweet. When the fight had come to them, she’d remembered the last words Lilith had said to her. A holy war.

Despite her best efforts, she’s in the middle of it.

“Fuck,” she says, because she curses now. Because she knows that her knee is going to give out if she tries to stand. Because she’s effectively trapped herself in this room.

Frustration wells up in her like a lit fuse.

Assess the damage, she thinks, because what the hell else can she do?

The buttons of her shirt are slow work, her hands are weak from gripping her machine gun, her knives, the side of a building as she hoisted herself and Yasmine back to safety.

God is lost to her now, but it is a miracle that none of her injuries have drawn blood. A massive swath of skin along her side is purple and yellow but unbroken—it is the very worst of things. It hurts to draw breath, and hurts even more to bend and pull her pant leg up past her knee, to find the skin there in much the same condition. Upon further inspection, her hip, too, is a wild mess of bruises.

She’s a wreck, and what do they have to show for it? A few inches of ground? A few battered nuns, scrounging up whatever tools they can find?

Ava.

They have Ava. She just… doesn’t know where.

Beatrice had seen it happen as if in a dream.

The blinding light from above, the shockwave that had sent the tarasks flying in all directions, but hadn’t so much as nudged the sisters. When she’d looked, it was Ava’s form in the center of the light—Beatrice would know it anywhere, in any world—flickering in and out. She remembers shouting, desperate, stumbling through the wreckage. The details from there are hard to recollect. It’s when she’d been grabbed and thrown, it’s when the fight had resumed and she’d lost sight of Ava.

But she had seen her. That she’s certain of.

She closes her eyes, wincing as she tilts her head to the ceiling. The breath she tries to take is shallow and does nothing to steady herself.

“Beatrice?”

The pain of movement is forgotten, the voice like a ribbon of gold around her heart.

There’s Ava. There’s Ava.

The breath is gone in a rush, and Beatrice forgets the rest of the pain and she tries desperately to stand, to run, to move. Her leg gives out and Ava’s on her in a second, easing her back down.

“Ava,” she says, voice breaking, throat tight, “Ava.”

Ava kneels in front of her and she takes Ava’s face in her hands and she can’t look away. Suddenly, that place she goes—the one that is empty and lonely is filled with life. Filled with Ava. And she’s here, she’s real and alive and breathtaking in all the ways that Beatrice has loved. Loves. She feels nothing but it, looking at Ava.

“Bea,” Ava says, fingers wrapped around Beatrice’s wrists like they’ve been fused there. “Bea, you—you’re hurt.”

“You’re here,” Beatrice responds—nothing else matters. “Ava, you’re—“ She doesn’t have other words.

It should hurt to speak. It should hurt to lean forward, but then her lips are on Ava’s and nothing hurts, everything aches. Ava makes a small noise that lets loose something in Beatrice’s chest, and she wants to draw Ava closer, but her body betrays her, her whole side lighting up as if on fire. As if to remind her that respite is fleeting. But she doesn’t care, nothing else matters—

Ava notices her wince and pulls away. It hurts to try to pull her back, but still Beatrice tries. “Fuck,” Ava says, voice shaky, “Bea—hold on. You need—“

“I need you to not leave. I’m fine, I promise.”

“I’m not—you’re not fine, your—oh, God, Bea your side—“

Another Beatrice might have taken modesty into consideration. Her shirt is wide open, her trousers undone, and Ava is knelt before her, a hand on her bare knee. She just—she just wants so keenly that the constant, painful reminders of her body’s journey through battle feel like they’re killing her. She wants to pull Ava up and on to her lap, she wants Ava’s mouth on hers again, she wants, she wants, she wants. And maybe it’s her pilgrimage and her seperation from the church that’s allowing her this clear revelation, or maybe it’s just the relief to be in the same room as the girl she loves. Maybe that’s all it’s ever been.

“Let me… shit, I don’t know how good I am at this yet.” Ava focuses down on Beatrice’s splotchy, wounded knee, and the dark room is slowly illuminated by the glow of the Halo.

It feels… itchy, at first. It’s not a scab, but the injury takes on the properties of one—Beatrice tamps down the overwhelming need to scratch or pat at it, but then—as soon as it began—it’s gone. Ava pulls her hand away and the skin is as normal as it’s ever been. An oblong scar where bone is closest to skin from one too many skinned knees, but other than that? Nothing.

“How did you…” Beatrice trails off, swinging her leg back and forth easily.

“I’d… you know, I’d really like to explain it, but, uh. I have no fucking idea.”

Beatrice can’t help it, she laughs, a little hysterical. And then she wants to throw up.

“Don’t—no laughing. Stop it,” Ava says with a worried smile. She sets the tips of her fingers at the massive bruise on Beatrice’s side, and Beatrice can’t tamp down the shiver that rockets through her at the feeling. “Sorry. Sorry, I just need to...” Ava says, her voice thick, “just let me…”

The Halo does its work again, scrubbing her pain from her, raw and red until it’s not anymore. Beatrice takes a breath, and there is no pain.

“Good?” Ava asks.

“Good,” Beatrice responds. She wants that to be the end of it, but when she tries to move in again—“I think there’s another…”

Herein lies the problem. Her hip.

Ava looks down, and they’re in the middle of a war, but Beatrice wonders if she closes her eyes for just a moment, maybe they’ll be back in the Alps. Maybe there, this touch is necessary for another reason. Maybe Ava is looking up at her like this and maybe nothing has ever been wrong.

But they’re in the blown-out remains of a church, and there are demons everywhere, and in her darkest moments she’d worried that this—her and Ava—was lost for good.

Ava hovers over her bruise, and Beatrice nods. Ava is delicate, fingers light over her hipbone. This is not the time to wish for another life, but still she does. And for the first time in months, the wish has legs. It climbs out of that place she goes and it smiles at her, and Ava smiles at her too, proud of her work.

Beatrice draws her in, and the war rages on, but there are no more lonely places.

She has Ava. It’s enough.

[liyawritesss]

ᴡᴇ ʙᴇ ʟᴏᴠɪɴ' ꜱᴏ ʜᴀʀᴅ

Characters: Spider-Verse!Miles Morales [Spider-Man] x Black!Fem!Reader

Type: Drabble

Word Count: 1.4k

Synopsis: When there’s question of how the two of you should come public with your relationship, Miles has an idea. Despite it being quite cheesy, it’s one of the sweetest gestures he’s ever done for you.

Warnings: Some cursing but that’s about it

A/N: ‘lovin’ so hard’ by becky g came on so randomly and when i tell you the whiplash i got cuz i aint heard that song in YEARS…so proud of becky she’s doing her shit and i love her sm…needa get back into her catalog real bad

Song Suggestion: "Lovin' do Hard" by Becky G, "Sunflower" by Swae-Lee & Post Malone, "I Wanna Be Down" by Brandy, "Comfortable" by H.E.R.

Tags: @6-noir @babyboiboyega @badass-dora-milaje @jacuzziwaters @mbakuetshurisprincess @shuriszn @verachii @writingintheshadowsforever @cafehyunji @niyahwrites @pantherheart @marsfunzon22 @movie-enthusiast22 @famedrs-blog

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“I got a question.”

It was ten forty five on a Thursday night, and like any other night, you wind down the evening with a daily FaceTime call with you boyfriend of four months - Miles Morales.

In the four month time frame that you and Miles have been together, you’ve learned that the boy had a lot of questions to ask about you. It was endearing, really, how the extent of his curiosity knew no bounds. He had questions about everything, from the different hairstyles you wore, to the classes you were taking, to what you aspired to be as an adult. More often than not, he would ask them in a cute, almost childlike voice, with big doe eyes and an awaiting look of inquiry, and because he was just so polite about it, you always gave in.

“You got a question?” You repeat, glancing up to your phone, looking at the boy on your screen. You’d been busy with homework at your desk to pay him much attention, which, now that you think about it, could have been the catalyst for one of his questions. You’d only been on call for an hour, but you did tend to get reeled in to your work pretty easily. Miles was no stranger to this, so while he tried his best to not bother you, his attention span was waning thin, and he wanted to talk with you as much as he could before he had to go out on patrol.

Hence why he was dressed in his spiderman suit, no mask, but with gray sweats hanging off his torso and the faint sound of Biggie Smalls playing in the background as a way to hype him up for the next few hours of swinging around Brooklyn. He loved being Spiderman, but it had been an exceptionally long day, and knew he would not survive his patrols without some sort of pick me up - which is why he was more than happy when you called him for your nightly FaceTimes.

“Yeah, I gots a question,” he begins, albeit a bit dramatically, with his arms folded over his chest and a pout on his lips as if he were sad about something, which garnered your attention even more, “and it’s very important, y’know, so yo’ homework gotta share you for a minute!”

“Miles,” your voice goes, a soft scoff leaving your lips as they spread into a grin at his behavior, “what is it, baby?”

There’s a bit of a stutter that runs through his body at the pet name. He’s growing familiar with it, sure, but the tingle that rings through his bones has him questioning is it just his sheepishness or was he so down bad for you that you’ve influenced the enhancement of his spider-senses.

“That sweater’s lookin’ mighty comfortable,” he starts, and you can feel your eyes begin to roll at the game he starts, “wonder who you got it from, hm?”

Granted, you didn’t know you grabbed his sweater - the same one he’s always left over your house by conveniently ‘forgetting’ it when he left. It was a noticeable red zip-up that faintly smelled of sage and cinnamon, which was a comfort on cold days and stormy nights when Miles couldn’t be there for you in person. He’d ‘given’ it to you before the two of you started dating, and you’ve claimed it to be one of your most prized possessions generally, but especially from him.

“Boy, please,” you muse, lips spreading wide with a grin once more, “I’m not doin’ this with you tonight.”

“I’m just saying!” The brown-skinned boy exclaims. “I just find it funny how it’s cool for you to have my stuff, but I ain’t got nun’ of yours!”

While Miles was possibly the most emotionally intelligent boy you knew (which you’ve definitely thanked Mr. and Ms. Morales when you met them, both as Miles’ friend and as his lover), he loved to not be direct with what he really wanted sometimes. He feigned victimhood for the giggles he loved to hear from you, even though both of you knew what he wanted in the grander scheme of things. This instance was no different.

“Why you gotta be so dramatic,” you laugh at him, his lopsided grin making an appearance on his lips, “if you wanted one of mine you could’ve just said that, dork.”

“No!” Miles says rather quickly, which catches you off guard and earns him a puzzled look, eyebrows furrowed together at his behavior.

“No?”

“N-No.”

“So…you don’t want one of my hoodies? Even though we wear the same size and everything?”

Miles bit his lip in anticipation, his chest rising and falling with his deep intake of air through his nose. The boy scrunched his nose, a habit of his you’ve come to understand as him preparing himself to go out on a limb, which only confused you more.

“Your- uh…your scrunchie.”

Your eyebrows furrowed together in confusion at his confession. “My…scrunchie?”

“Yeah, y’know,” he stairs to move his hand around, motioning towards his hair, “the things you put in your hair? That somehow don’t go against dress code, even though I always get talked to about my shoes for some reason.”

“To be fair, you got some loud ass shoes.” You respond, a short laugh breaking its way through your lips despite you trying to hide it. The pout that graced Miles’ face didn’t help with you regulating it, either.

“Okay, okay, fine!” You eventually say after regaining your composure, and before Miles goes to threaten to hang up the phone on you. “I’ll bring the jar tomorrow and you can choose which one you want, how does that sound?”

Miles nods vigorously through your phone screen, and you could tell by the little twinkle in his eye that he’s absolutely ecstatic about the proposition.

“This is…a lot of scrunchies.”

It’s the first thing that comes out of his mouth when Miles watches you dump the jar of scrunchies onto the lunch table, eyes growing wide when you seem to pull out more than what looks like the jar can actually hold. There’s a little pile of varying colors, styles and sizes that’s built itself onto the table, and Miles has to admit that the task at hand seems a bit overwhelming now that it’s actually before him.

Granted, he doesn’t think he’d ever seen you wear the same scrunchie twice, but had he known your collection was this big, he’d just asked you to pick one out for him. How could he possibly choose now?

“How many do you even have?”

“I don’t know, I stopped counting after sixth grade-”

But Miles is already sifting through the pile, pulling out ones that immediately catch his attention. He has a concentrated look in his eyes - he’s taking the task very seriously, and it’s honestly adorable to you how deep into this whole exchange he was.

You took note of some of the ones Miles has already pulled out - a ribbed-fabric beige one, a group of satin ones varying in shades of blue, and ironically black and red colored one that he continuously eyes every now and then, and a silk sake green one that just so happens to be your favorite. Miles finds out the reason why the second he touches it, being soothed by the silk fabric under his fingertips.

“You want that one?” You ask him, to which Miles glances up at you from across the table, seemingly embarrassed by his entrancement of the hair ornament.

“It’s your favorite, though, right?” He responds. “I don’t wanna take it if it’s your fav-”

“-and I think that’s the perfect reason why you should take it.”

You say it as you begin to stuff the remaining scrunchies back into the jar, handfuls of the bunches slipping into the glass container with ease as you spoke again, “It’s the one I use most frequently. Meaning it smells like me more. Meaning that there’s more of a ‘me’ touch to it, so that you won’t be as lonely.”

It takes a second, but when your words register in Miles’ head, you can almost feel the heat that begins to creep up his neck from the affectionate words you spoke to him.

The bell rings, signifying the end of the free period. Miles takes no time in slipping the hair ornament around his wrist while he bids you farewell. As you depart for the second half of your classes for the day, Miles can’t help but fiddle with the object around his wrist as his own classes drone on. 

You were right, he thinks, he definitely doesn’t feel lonely with the presence of your scrunchie with him. 

[dream-a-little-bigger-x]

Criminal Minds | Masterlist

SERIES

Begin Again:

Chapter One: The Savior

Chapter Two: Room 304

Chapter Three: I Know Who Did It

Chapter Four: Swimming Pool Kisses

Chapter Five: Ninety-Nine Percent

Glitter & Crimson:

Glitter and Crimson

Reader is keeping a secret from the rest of the team and they're adamant to find out. When they do, they're absolutely gobsmacked. One of them more than others...

Steady As A Drumbeat

And that ends in a night neither of them will ever forget.

A Little Less Conversation

+ The Aftermath

ONE SHOTS / IMAGINES

Memoriam

Season 4 Episode 7 rewrite -- Spencer's childhood best friend helps him on the Riley Jenkins case. Working together after years of not seeing each other brings up old memories and new feelings.

Do Re Mi

Spencer's next-door-neighbor comes into the BAU, distressed, saying that her ex-boyfriend was the person responsible for the recent string of kills happening in D.C.

Truly Madly Deeply

Spencer comes home from a case and wakes up next to reader. Inspired by One Direction's 'Truly Madly Deeply'.

Johnny and Dora

Spencer and Reader go undercover together to catch the most prolific identity thief in New York. What happens on the case might spark a shift in their relationship. Inspired by the Brooklyn 9-9 episode with the same name.

When?

Reader is tired of always coming in second place. Even when her and Spencer have split up, she's still looking over her shoulder as though he'd still be there. When will that end?

When The Girls Talk Boys

Spencer and Reader talk to their friends about one another, which causes their co-workers to find out about their secret relationship. Inspired by Girls Talk Boys by 5SOS.

Nothing is Accidental

After hearing Spencer's talk on a conference, Reader tests her luck and talks to the young Doctor. It sparks a new friendship, partnership and maybe even more. Rewrite of Season 7 Episode 11: True Genius

Dream Away The Dark

Four times where Reader comforts Spencer after a bad dream and one time where Spencer does the same for Reader.

Hunting Monsters

Halloween is Reader's favorite holiday and she plans to implement that love into her child's life, too. When little Poppy tells Reader she doesn't want to go trick-or-treating, Reader and her husband's co-workers help her convince the tiny genius.

I’m Recharging

How Spencer and Reader's ritual of 'recharging' began.

Tongue Tied

Reader is invited to her best friend's birthday party where she meets Dr. Spencer Reid. An instant connection is made.

Meet Me On The Courtyard

Spencer encounters his neighbor from across the yard, dancing around in her apartment until she catches him. They decide to properly meet on the courtyard.

You Owe Me A Date

Spencer and Reader plan to go out on a date. When she doesn't show up, Spencer gets worried.

You Knock The Wind Out Of Me

Spencer clearly dislikes Reader, but when she tries to ask him why, he evades the question. Only her boyfriend being disrespectful towards her forces her to admit his true feelings.

A Man After Midnight

Spencer and Reader are best friends since they were kids. When Reader is set to marry James, Spencer decides to give her the bachelorette party of her dreams. Only he wishes it were him she was about to marry...

Girls Can't Drive

Where a case hits reader a little too hard. Spencer doesn’t get why it’s hitting his girlfriend so hard until she finally tells him how hard it is to be a woman sometimes.

Annotations

Spencer finds a book in the breakroom one time and when he starts reading it, he noticed the notes in the margins. What quickly develops as a love written in the margins of several books, might have to step out into the real world soon.

King of My Heart

Spencer has always taken care of reader. Whether it was giving reader food before they realized they were hungry or buying them coffee, ... Tiny gestures that made it impossible for reader not to fall in love with him.

This Love Is Ours

Reader and Spencer are best friends with obvious feelings for one another. When Spencer ends up in prison, Reader gets angry at him, which keeps them from visiting him. But once she does, there's no pane of glass that would keep them apart.

Mine (Spencer's version)

Spencer reminisces about the first time he met Reader.

New Romantics

After a bad breakup, Reader and her friends go out to party where she meets one young FBI agent. Suddenly, she'd forgotten her ex even existed and was more interested in getting to know the stranger.

I Can See You

When Penelope's best friend comes to help out the BAU on a couple of cases, there's an immediate connection with the youngest of the team. After longing glances, soft touches and wild fantasies, the truth comes out accidentally. What is the resident genius going to do with that information?

There's A 100% Chance I'm Gonna Marry You

The team doesn’t even know of her existence but when Spencer can’t get a hold of her, he gets worried. Now he has no other choice than to tell his coworker about her.

I Think He Knows

JJ invites her best friend, a linguistics professor, to help out on a couple of cases. When she and Spencer work together, something sparks between them.

Maybe We'll Take Some Time

Spencer and Reader broke up five weeks ago. When he comes knocking on her door, crying about a friend's death, their love is resparked.

HANDS

Spencer's hands are lovely and as he placed them on Reader's cheeks, it was the only way to calm her down. So, when Reader comes home breaking down after a difficult day at work, he's quick to calm her down.

The Stranger

Spencer and Reader are coworkers and best friends. When Reader gets hurt on a case, Spencer's feelings for Reader are bared.

Floored Decisions

Many decisions were made on the floor of their apartment. One day, she asks him a very important question.

[stressfulsloth]

In regards to your post “and now I'm. Just thinking about the loneliness that is SO pervasive through Elysium.”…

I have one thing to offer, or perhaps nitpick if you’d prefer it that way.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to say the Sunday Friend isn’t a real friend. The Smoker On The Balcony believes him to be a real friend, even if he isn’t going to be there come Monday morn. But isn’t that enough? A friend on Sunday is still a friend, even if it makes waking up Monday all the worse.

Perhaps I’m biased though! Now that I think about it, most of my friends would fit the description. “Fair weather friend” feels to cold, but “sunday friend” is good enough.

And of course none of this is to say your post is at all wrong. It’s lovely and true. I just felt the need to quarrel publicly with that little detail.

To conclude, since I really just did not make myself very clear here; you are utterly correct to include the Sunday Friend in a post about loneliness but I take slight issue with saying he’s not a real friend. And so I wrote you a very long ask. And now as I reach it’s end I’m realising this was a very silly undertaking. But I’ve come this far so I’m going to grow a pair and hit “ask”.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, I hope it isn’t too desperately obnoxious.

Peace out ✌️

Ahh man I'm sorry anon but I'm going to have to disagree with you pretty strongly here 😅 tbh I was a little too easy on him in the original post. It's not necessarily the temporary nature of their acquaintance that makes the Sunday Friend's friendship questionable on its own, although it doesn't help.

The Sunday Friend is quite literally not a friend. "Friend" in his title is a euphemism; he's not coming to visit the Smoker because he's his friend. He's coming to visit the smoker to do a bit of poverty tourism, to admire the crumbling place that his beliefs have helped to destroy, and a bit of heavily implied sex tourism too. A "first world" tourist, a bureaucrat from the international government, visiting one of the most impoverished districts of Revachol to spend his nights with a student. He's not the Smoker's friend, he's a client. They're using 'friend' as a stand-in for his actual role, which is a) as a part of the moralist bureaucratic system repressing the revolution and keeping the city as a whole trapped in a laissez faire purgatory easily exploited by foreign capitalists and ultraliberals, while still maintaining a friendly respectable face, and b) as the Smoker's customer, exploiting the poverty of Martinaise's residents to get what he wants for cheap and using the easy mobility that his money and status give him. Imo he's intended narratively as a parallel for the moralist coalition government; he views from a distance, focused on money and *ze price stabilité* but entirely divorced from the poverty and consequence of his work. Happy to dip his toe in and make use of exploitable populations in Revachol, but always ready to leave too. When asked how he became 'friends' with the smoker, his response is literally to describe the coalition occupying Revachol.

He knows so little about the Smoker beyond him being there to study art, but what kind? "Perhaps graphic design? Printmaking? Who knows?" As to your point about the Smoker thinking he's a real friend, the Smoker is under no illusions about who the Sunday Friend is. An injection of money. Someone with power, someone with the mobility afforded to him by ownership of a non-Revacholian passport, someone content to watch the place decay and do nothing but indulge himself in pet projects and worry about bureaucracy. Someone with the freedom to leave when things get bad; a freedom that is narratively only assigned to a rare few extremely bourgeois characters. Dora, on her flight to Mirova, Joyce and her boat, Trant and his academic travels, and the Sunday Friend who will be out of Martinaise like a shot the moment things start to kick off despite being a part of the overarching structure that is responsible for Revachol's subjugation and rising political tensions. The Sunday Friend will use the Smoker's labour, use the vulnerability of Revachol's precarious situation to his advantage, then once it becomes too precarious or he gets bored, he'll withdraw. In answer to your question, no, I don't think that's enough. Again I probably oversimplified in my last post but the loneliness all throughout DE is not just an emotional state but a political one. Alienation is a major theme. As is the impossibility of building community in the face of capitalism relentlessly subsuming anything in its path, in the face of shallow relationships dictated by the need for survival. The Sunday Friend embodies that concept perfectly. He is exquisitely shallow in conversation, a perfect moralist who at all times strives to remain impartial and distant.

Anyway. Tldr; my point is that the relationship between the Smoker and the Sunday Friend is far more transactional, and far more exploitative, than you seem to believe. "Friend" is not being used literally but euphemistically. A 'fairweather friend' is better than none, sure, but that's entirely inapplicable to this situation. Sorry for the long post and I hope it's not too rambling- I'm surviving on very little sleep right now but I hope it clears up for you a bit why I referred to the Sunday friend in that way initially.

[lieutenantism]

i'm currently thinking about how jean loses himself completely to harry. just dissolves entirely. very little sense of identity left outside his partnership with him, which i find so intriguing. i mean, it's the definition of codependency, but that doesn't make it any less interesting (long post, again).

"i won't let my life unravel because of this." is just so insane and melodramatic to me because WHO is that man to you, jean? and why is his alcoholism the reason for your life unraveling? jean takes on harry's drinking problem as a problem of his own, a threat to his life before harry's, even though the drinking doesn't affect harry's ability to do his job, and jean acknowledges that as well as everyone else in the major crimes unit.

but why does he have such a big problem with harry's alcoholism? why's he the only one out of the task force who seems to care obsessively? because the one before him failed to save him, and he feels as though it's his responsibility now. to jean, harry's life is divided to three parts; before him, during him, and tragically, after him.

the fact jean puts himself in the same position as dora, harry's ex, tells you enough. almost as if he considers them to be the same, in terms of responsibility for harry's wellbeing. he's cleaning up her mess, he seems to think. she was way before my time, as though they hold the same significance to harry. of course, this isn't entirely jean's fault. both him and harry share the guilt of their twisted relationship; harry's guilty of getting too personal with anybody within arm's reach.

and jean's guilty for wanting to clean up a mess that he didn't make, and losing sight of himself and his true professional duties in the process. so it goes like this; they partner up, harry's bad at drawing the line between personal and professional relationships and jean's even worse, harry goes on benders every week and jean witnesses them and tries to pull him out of them relentlessly, which then leads to whatever fucked up partnership they had, right before martinaise. the question is why did jean feel the need to save him? because he projected onto him severely.

they're both broken men; mirrors of each other, though jean will never say it out loud. he sees himself in harry, and since he can't save himself and everyone's given up on him, even the professionals, he decides not to give up on harry. in a way, jean's trying to prove to himself that he's not a lost cause through sticking by harry's side through it all, because if even the most lost of causes manages to have at least one person who's there for them at all times, who says he can't have one too? why must he be labelled as the anomaly? if harry du bois could be saved, so can he. he maintains this "i have my shit together, i'm better than you." persona during the entire confrontation, when he isn't. like i said, harry is everything jean works hard in order not to become, yet he still manages to lose his sense of identity while "saving" him and only becomes "harry's partner". that's all he is. nothing but a safety net, there to catch him at all times.

that's why he becomes extremely defensive when you choose the "kim's cooler than you." option, because you're practically robbing him of his identity. throughout the entirety of the game, he keeps repeating: "i'm your partner", to reassure himself more so than anything else, and what the game does here is very clever. you first hear him say that on a call, so distant and away from you; he cannot convince you that he's your partner even if he tried. then, he says it when he's in an idiotic disguise that you didn't recognize, and quite frankly it's making you uncomfortable, it's hard to take him seriously when he looks so stupid so you don't believe him, again. then at last, when he confronts you, and he's himself. then you think it sticks.

but it doesn't, and you dismiss him again to ask about the others. i've always found it perplexing how there's no "how can you be my partner?" option during the confrontation. you can ask about mikael heidelstam for fuck's sake, but not your partner. simply because you don't believe he is, at least not anymore. he's just a very angry man who was in a stupid disguise, and that's all you can ask him about. isn't that so insanely tragic? when you think about how dismissive the "confrontation" is? and jean's lashing out that way because his whole identity is hanging in the balance? no matter what jean tells harry, there's no click, no lightbulb flickering moment, nothing. jean tries everything, it's painful to see, really. the "i didn't lie to you. no one lies to you." and his lines to judit and trant where he's like "i told you, it's typical harry behavior. it's our shitkid." and so on are all attempts to prove that he, jean, knows him, harry, better than anyone else, even himself. he KNOWS him, which is why harry has to need him. he has to keep him. as his partner or whatever the hell it was, because nobody else knows him or will ever get to know him that way.

jean's response to harry telling them "i don't wanna be in your unit." only further proves it. "i'm your partner, i answer for you when you're not there." considering the fact harry and jean had begun to blur ever since their partnership came into being makes the line funnier lol. jean had locked himself up in a prison of his own making, of course with harry giving him all the means necessary to build his own cage beforehand. it was a matter of time and conditioning, and severe loneliness. every crime of harry's feels like one jean is guilty of.

[sygneth]

Echoes lore time! (And also my random DE thoughts about Harry's place!)

Reading the last page, you might have had a feeling we're going to see the inside of Harry's place soon, and you were right!

So to make everything clear (and because, in the first place, I had a place with a very specific plan in my head when I've been writing scenes at HDB's) i drew a lil cheat sheet.

(Yes. I like to make building plans. A lot.)

I believe Harry inherited this place, and thus he owes it. And also, this is why it's in a not-the-worst of tenement houses and in not-the worst standard. It was a place where they used to live with Dora, and I think he made it a sanctuary of a kind after she left. He never moved anything from its original place deliberately, and so the place slowly started to become a decaying memorial of a nonexistent relationship.

Harry's place is a whole big meta topic to explore and I feel like there is a lot to it in terms of the psychology of a place.

Assuming that he is still living in the same place as he used to when with Dora, oh boy. The bad days, when every single thing reminded him of her. The remorse, the memories, the past. A scratch over the floor, where she tripped while dancing. Her favourite mug, or rather the few pieces of it, after he broke it in a fit of rage. An empty space after a painting that she loved so much. The scratched wall over the bedhead. The bed itself.

Then, the better days, when he tried to take care of his apartment, but some things were already damaged beyond repair. The plants died, he could buy new ones, but he knew that, sooner or later, they'd share the previous one's fate. The ripped carpet, stained furniture, cracked tiles. Could be replaced, but sooner or later they'd share the previous one's fate. A scratched floor. The scratched floor.

And then, rather sooner than later, the days become bad again.

I don't think Harry liked to spend time at his place. Especially in the bedroom. Especially when he wanted to quit. There was too much past in there, staring at him from every corner, every crack of the floor. I think a good deal of his past relapses might have been caused by this place. Sometimes a forgotten something he found while cleaning it up, sometimes just the space itself, soaked with memories.

(And to all my faithful readers of Echoes, I just want to let you know I read every single one of your tags and comments and it always makes my day <3 Thank you for that everybody, and if I don't always reply to the comments, I want you to know I do read them and I do appreciate them a whole whole lot, life is just very overwhelming sometimes)

[linktoo]

I got an ask wondering about who is my favourite character in Disco Elysium, which I stand by my answer of being not really one in particular. But, Dora is one character I've been thinking about a lot and I think I want to expand on that.

The story is told through Harry's eyes, and regardless of his in-depth analysis of and narration of his attributes, it's unreliable. Undeniably so. This is part of the story, I really do feel for Harry's inability to move on. I feel for his aching loneliness, and his need to be needed. The crushing feeling of missing someone so achingly bad, only for them to learn that they have actually forgotten a lot about you and moved on is a feeling of deep rejection, devastatingly demoralizing and painful.  "I betrayed her, overwrote her, and happier for it" is a visceral line of feeling the alienation of someone you've lost to time, someone you used to know but has moved on without you. 

But I really can't help but feel so much for Dora's position in all of this. As a woman in a male dominated society your emotions are seen as both weak yet mature, you are constantly objectified down into pieces of meat, and seen as vapid and shallow when you put yourself first. When you choose to finally stand up for yourself, that is long after you've known better, long after you’ve been embittered by your initial innocence and first experience.

“You were my first. My first kiss, my first time to have sex.”

The game continues to emphasize how Harry loved her, how Harry missed her, and yet I get deeply uncomfortable with how her presence is described with her physique rather than her actual self as a person. 

“A dolorian figure, cut in black, moves below. It's still her. Her legs, her breasts, her hips…”

[...]

“‘No, Harry.’ She shakes her head. ‘It's just regular skin. I'm not as beautiful as you always thought I was.”

It’s reductive. It’s dehumanizing. It’s not about her, it’s what she represents. The most perfect goddess of a woman, put on a pedestal and quite literally turned into a deity. Not to be loved romantically, but to be worshipped as a religious figure. Worshipped for the violence and destruction she creates to degrade him and feed into his self loathing, and thus Dora becomes Dolores Dei.

There is a selfish hope and longing that comes with any sort of kindness or pity she give him. She knows that and her words are cautious, she has been through it before, and no longer feels any sort of way about it. She is vulnerable, she did used to care, she is sympathetic to his pain, but she firmly does not anymore and will not allow her empathy be used against her.

YOU - "But… that's not a very good way for things to be." DOLORES DEI - "It's not, but…" She looks at her feet. Little golden sandals cover her toes. YOU - "But what? Tell me there's something good…" DOLORES DEI - "I don't know why I said but. There is no but." YOU - "That's it?" DOLORES DEI - "That's it, yes," she looks up from her toes. "We've talked about it a million times. You will get over it, just like I did. People do. Things will get good for you again…"

I understand that detachment so deeply.

There is a pain to know men you trusted and cared and loved only to be seen as a reductive version of yourself. The one who is “nice”, the one who is “ethereally beautiful” and that’s… about it. You’re not good for each other. It didn’t work out. But by finally deciding it is best to remove yourself from that relationship, you are considered the slut that left him. You are considered the gold digger, the shallow bitch, the uncaring freak of a woman. We didn't really get to know about her and I don't think she was good to him either.

And I just can’t help thinking about that. I’m glad she’s happier now.

[kavehater]

AURGHH I KEEP FLASHBACKING TO THE AWKWARD SITUATION TODAY

[axailslink]

Are You Ready?

Shuri x FEM reader

Summary: you find yourself falling in love with the princess I mean how could you not? She's gorgeous and smart. The princess thinks you're bullshitting and has been pushing away her feelings in avoidance of getting hurt. She's afraid you'll run in fear of commitment.

Shuri stands in front of you looking at your wrapped sprained knee you could see the way she wanted to say so many things but she stays to herself. "I'm being careful" you spit out to cut the tension currently suffocating you in the room. "Careful would mean you wouldn't be in my lab you are the most clumsy Dora milaje member I know" you smile so big as if you were taking a family picture but she didn't return it causing you to groan. "Oh c'mon it's nothing but a sprang" you shrug Shuri has such a big heart she cares for everyone but it squeezes your heart knowing she cares for you just a bit more. "What if it's not just a sprang next time what if next time you're bleeding out on my table?" You jump down from the lab table and look up at her.

"Shuri I need you to stop caring so much you know it hurts knowing it's not in the way that I want" she sighs and rolls her eyes "this again?" Shuri looks frantically between both of your eyes trying to read the truth as if it's written on a book in your beautiful alluring eyes but this only causes your breath to falter as you look at her eyes in return. The space between you two continuously grows small you want to pull away but it seems so alluring as if magnets were pulling you two together. "Shuri I cannot handle another rejection from you" she lets out a deep breath that fans against your lips "then you should pull away" you grab her shoulders and at this moment you wish you would stop but you can't help yourself it was everything about her you just want her to feel as loved as you do.

Your hands climb their way up to her face and she looks as if she's on the verge of tears eyes glassed over and squinted trying to keep them at bay. "If you want me to stop I will" she says nothing because in truth she knows she deserves this she deserves to be loved to be happy especially after everything she's been through but she can't help but punish herself but while doing so she's also punishing you for loving her. "God damnit Shuri just say you want this too please your silence is deafening" Her body noticeably tenses when you say those words you lean up quickly peck her lips expecting this to be the last time. You couldn't keep doing this you refused to keep hurting yourself until she was ready for you. "Thanks for nothing" you grab your spear and leave the lab leaving Shuri alone she hits the glass table next to herself with more force than intended and winces as she waves her hand.

You meet with Okoye as you leave the lab and you immediately straighten up you couldn't have her thinking you're distracted even though you are very much distracted. "I'll be gone on a mission today you'll be sparring with Shuri as replacement" you almost visibly groan no matter how subtle your change in body language was she noticed "is that a problem?" You look at her with pleading eyes. "Yes... Maybe... Sort of? Me and Shuri aren't on good terms right now I'm pretty sure she doesn't even want me sparring because of my leg" Okoye that little evil smirk of hers "hm I don't think so she requested you and I mean right now you should stay here anyways wouldn't want a weakling to slow us down" you furrow your brows completing passing the main part of of her words and going straight to "weakling." "Weakling? I'm one of the only ones who can beat Shuri in fist fighting" Okoye nods "indeed you are but you're also reckless and distracted you always lose footing around her it's like you enjoy being under her foot." Damn you really were way more than down bad for her you were in love. "General...? Why didn't anyone tell me I was in love with Shuri?" Okoye grabs her spear and stays silent "you two are young. People shouldn't interfere in what they know nothing of" she palms your shoulder and makes her leave with the others.

You knew you took a liking to her but you didn't think you loved her you just stand still for a moment letting it all wash over you. What was your next move? You can't go see her with this realization you can't your mind will be everywhere except training.

You eventually decide not to go and embarrass yourself more you can't handle a lot of emotions right now you need to stay level headed for when you heal and can start your missions again.

The shower feels amazing on your back after such a confusing day it's like the cup of ice that makes it cool down just for a bit.

An abrupt banging causes you to jump out of the shower grab your towel and spear "the day just keeps getting longer" you wrap yourself in the towel and open the door just ajar and peek through the visitor pushes past you so fast your eyes can't make them out only until you hear her voice "you don't show up to training suddenly!?" You plop your back against the door and cross your arms over your chest. "Who the fuck you think you yelling at? This is my private space." She's taken back by your change in tone you're always so soft spoken with her even when you're upset.

Shuri sighs into her hands"I didn't mean to yell I just feel like I need to get my point across" "you can do that without yelling at me Shuri the queen of Wakanda when... when are you going to have time for a queen of your own? Hm I've showed time and time again just how much I love you just how much I'd give for you yet you do not reciprocate if I am not what you want just say it please because you are not the only woman in line." Shuri entraps you in the door of both of her hands beside your head "you are what I want but are you ready for what comes after sleeping with me?" She says letting one of her hands drop and loosen up your towel "I uhm" you swallow thickly as her hand travels under the loose towel now running up your thigh "are you ready to be my queen? My love my everything?" You choke on your words before you can even get them out "if not tell me now because being mine takes a lot of commitment" she says snatching the towel from around you and letting it pool to the floor "after four years of pinning of course." You gently pull her closer to you by her shirt and peck her lips "just don't run because I will find you" she smiles and glances at your spear "I know you will because you're one of the only women who can beat me in a fist fight" you groan embarrassed from what you told Okoye earlier "For her to be such a great general she talks a lot." Shuri laughs and agrees.

[soundbulb]

my friends tease me for loving manosphere stuff, which is true, but they always find it kind of baffling and I guess I did too until I realized the manosphere men admired the men in these shows. obviously we all wish we could monologue in beautifully paced and well articulated philosophy, that's not what I'm saying, but the men who like this story seem incapable of viewing rust cohle as someone who is expressing beliefs that create ironic tension in his own narrative, same as marty.

it's not quite as bull in a china shop as marty saying "a man needs boundaries" in monologue while we watch him break down the door of the twenty something woman he's cheating on his wife with. but from the moment rust brings up "encouraging the capacity for illusion" it becomes glaringly obvious rust's mainlining of the secrets of the universe -- as well as the bulk of his philosophies outcropped from grief -- are exactly that same encouragement of illusion. "the world needs bad men" and "it was never supposed to work, the whole man-woman thing" is hitting you over the head in the context of the show; rust is ducking and hiding. it's intolerable, how grief irrevocably changed him as a person, the marriage that crumbled from that grief ("we turned on each other"), and the resentment it bore, and not because nature programmed it to end but because it all just did.

but that belief, that nature programmed it to end, is an extension of his idea of time as a flat circle. if you will be reborn into the life you've always been born into, than none of these choices are really yours to begin with. none of what happens has anything to do with you, which is how it feels when you lose everything to an accident on some regular day. so if you believe you're wrought through every motion in repetition, then in this repetition you're exponentially separated from anything resembling agency. but still, nature's programming is You, somewhere at some point in imperceptible time; You at one point lived the life for the first time, then over and over and over, it's Your programming, Your design. the marriage ended who knows how many times. it was never meant to work. your kid died who knows how many times because she was always going to, and you have to continue even though it feels like you're trapped inside a predetermined motion, predetermined not by a benevolent power, or even a malignant one, but by You. everything you ever did or everything done to you happens over and over, there is no such thing as once. which is just true within our lifetimes, we still live inside our decisions, our trajectories, and the trajectories of other people worn on us.

but I'd be surprised if rust believed in a "first time" like that. it's like if you roll a marble on a looping track; an elastic collision got it going, but it's already on a loop. you're born without preexistence, but does this mean that first life is a byproduct of your decisions? in the same way gravity dictated you'd move kinetic, a certain shape, slowing and speeding up at this part and that part, can the same be said for how time dictates you move through your life?

but this is what it feels like when your life is completely devastated by something random. it's the aimless inattention of a couple people at the same time; it's positions in space and speed and impact, gravity; it's an accident. you can't cope with the scope of that. you'll lose everything, but of course the world doesn't change, and the giant devouring mystery is no closer to sated or understood or whatever you believe it seeks. it's in the same way a pandemic wipes through your life and leaves you injured and ill. a plague doesn't really care about anything but living, it was never about you; lives in you but doesn't know what You are, in the same way you don't know what massive devouring mystery you live inside.

even in the murder of dora lang and marie fontenot, murders that are actually committed by men with malice and forethought, there's this thing looming above these women and children as though they're likewise devoured by something too large, incapable of seeing them. this is why it's important that dora lang and marie fontenot are easy targets, "chum in the water". it's impersonal, the accumulation of hundreds of other things that made it easy to pick them off. for some of them it was hurricanes. I love the use of hurricanes in true detective, great use of massive destroying mystery. anyway, it's why marie fontenot's disappearance is paired with the "cerebral event" that paralyzes her uncle. all of these are acts of horror too large to perceive, and why this horror is cosmic depends on where you are in the narrative. is it because evil is a design of nature (or god)? is it because you were propelled into this motion, and gravity will bring you back here, to the moment you're devoured? is it because the only closeness to this mystery is in it's silence around you, incapable of speaking to something like you, so small it could never know you were there at all? that one comes at our half way point with joel theriot -- "all my life I wanted to be nearer to god. the only nearness, silence."

the men doing the killing believe they're feeding this cosmic mystery, that it's a mouth and gut and gets hungry for the people they already view as consumable. they make it into a god that demands sacrifices. rust seems to believe it doesn't need to be fed, it will always eat. his relationship to it is hard to pin down, it clearly guides him, but when he speaks of it it's more like it's coming for him. "it's like something's got your name on it, like a bullet or a long nail in the road."

I do relate to this instinct to embrace "there was never another version". whatever I've lost to encephalitis and it's autoimmune consequences, I have this feeling in my gut there's no version of life where it doesn't happen. there's no trajectory for the me before this except becoming the me in this and after this. I think that's why rust's version of grief does resonate so much, because there's nothing he can do about how random it is, so he turns it into a bullet with his name on it. what he embraces here is the morbid version of "it was fate".

so he's mystified his experience of grief, rightfully so, because grief is inherently mysterious, and that is quite literally the process of engaging your capacity for illusion. and ultimately the story isn't telling you what's eating you, it's saying you'd know it much better by it's silence than by anything definable, present.

[wysteria-clad]

“I haven’t laughed like this in a long time” with the Moon Knight boys might actually end me, I am BEGGING you please!!

The hair problem

paring: moon boys x fem! reader; established relationship

a/n:

my writing style is slightly different in this one.

Marc is a silly idiot in this one, don't take him seriously, he likes to tease you playfully.

Thanks to @imgoingtofreakoutnow for Spanish words and phrases 💗

warnings: cutting your own bangs lol

genre: fluff

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You shouldn't have done that. You should not have done that. But it was too late now.

Fifteen minutes ago, you have been scrolling pinterest and pictures of girls with cute bangs caught your eyes. Your eyes lit up at the mental picture of you having a full front bangs.

Part of your mind warned you not to do it by yourself. But you ignored it. You opened youtube for watching tutorials. Hey, how hard could that be?

Two tutorials later, here you are. A chunk of your luscious locks on the bathroom sink.

"Shit. Shit" you drop the kitchen scissors. Yes kitchen scissors. Look, you were in a hurry and I'm not gonna judge. We've all been there.

You don't know if you should laugh or cry.

You stare at your reflection on the bathroom mirror.

It was too short than you expected and too blunt. Your thick uneven bangs rests at your eye level, few strands longer than the rest, reaching down the corner of your right eye.

You laugh to yourself, mix of panic and humor sense at your mistake.

"Okay, I can fix this" a lie you tell yourself. A sigh escape your lips. You just need to trim a little bit at the same level. That's it.

A bad idea, really. But you are desperate to fix your bangs. You bring the trimmer near your forehead, accidentally trimming your right eyebrow in the process. Yikes. You didn't realise it until after the deed was done.

"Where is it?" you mumble to yourself with half belief, searching for the electric trimmer Marc keeps, opening and closing the doors of couple shelves.

"Fuck!"

Could this get any worse? You mutter few more profanites. Half of your right eyebrow is gone.

You should have resisted the urge and gone to sleep instead. Any urges and thoughts after 9pm was a bad idea. Now you knew that.

"Y/n, baby, where are y-" Marc stops himself, finding you in the bathroom, his eyes fixed on your bangs. "Oh my God" he pauses, "what happened?" he chuckles as if trying not to laugh fully.

"Can someone smack him for me?" you cross your arms.

"Hey!"

"Oh, love, I'm sorry" Steven strides towards you, cupping your face in his hands. "It's alright, Y/n/n. It's not that bad. We can fix it, yeah?"

"So it looks some level of bad?" you pull away from his loving embrace momentarily to glance at the mirror again.

"That's not-"

"I'm sorry. C'mere" Marc cuts off Steven, opening his arms in hugging gesture.

Okay fine, maybe you could hug him, you think.

His eyes moves from your eyes to your bangs.

"Don't you dare-"

"You look like Dora" he bursts into fit of laughter. His unrestrained laughter fills your ear. "I haven't laughed like this in a long time"

You couldn't help but think how lovely it sounds. When was the last time you heard him laugh like this? You laughed too at the beginning. Maybe, it's not that bad. He wouldn't actually do anything to hurt you intentionally. Besides, it's just hair, it always grows back, you mentally shrug, somewhat consoling yourself. But that doesn't mean, you forgive him that quickly.

"No, you laughed at me" you swat his extended arm playfully with a pout.

"What happened to your eyebrow?!" his expression changes when he finally notice the part of missing eyebrow when he moves the bangs.

"You really want me to ask that?" you sigh exasperatedly.

"I can shave my eyebrow too, if it would make you feel better" Steven fronts, determined to make you feel better. Oh, darling.

"No we are not shaving our eyebrow" Marc protests.

You couldn't help but laugh. Steven ever the sweetheart. But why not play a little with Marc. You can tease back too.

"Actually, I'd like that. We can match!"

"Hell no" Marc Spector would jump off a cliff for you, bring the moon closer to you if you wished. Probably be would shave his head too if you asked. But shaving half of his right eyebrow? Nah, mate. Not happening.

You can see him looking in the mirror and arguing with Steven. "No"

Marc resists hard not to grab the trimmer as Steven wanted to do it. Alright, that's when you decide to interfere and tell them you were just kidding and you were playing with Marc for his teasing earlier.

"You are evil"

"Oh, shush you big baby"

You watch Marc punch himself in the face. "Ow!"

"Doesn't feel great, right?" Steven sasses. "That wasn't me though" he smirks.

"That's for teasing my princesa" you hear Jake's accent and a smile blooms on your face.

"Our girl, Jake. She is our girl" Marc was quick to correct him.

"Not when you make her sad, hombre"

You giggle at their banter.

"Hey" you gently cup Jake's face, making him look at your eyes. "I belong to all of you" you smile. "And I know Marc was just messing around, don't worry about it, okay?" you assure Jake.

He presses a kiss to your head. "Let me fix it" he makes you sit next to the sink. "Eres hermosa, no importa qué, querida", he lifts your chin up with this fingers ever so gently, making you look in his loving eyes. With a kiss to your nose, he makes you giggle and grabs the scissors to cut off the uneven pieces and make the bangs look even. And he did.

Marc apologised again later that night. He wouldn't stop until he heard you laugh.

Now your bangs rests right above your eyebrows and after you styled it with a straightener, it actually looks pretty cute, not gonna lie. Thanks to your man Jake.