#I always thought that alters identifying as the

[solarisgod]

Y'know, if Micah's canon series ever comes to be well known, I can easily imagine that Phobos would be labelled as the " evil alter " or the alter who is " the most flawed " of the Starwake System by majority of the fandom, when, in fact, Philos and Phoebus are not that great either, but their flaws aren't just as obvious as Phobos'.

Given that Phobos is known to be a lot more rough and reactive while it tends to rely on violence than Phoebus and Philos, this fact paints Phobos as it having flaws that are " more prominent " than the two mentioned alters to an individual's eyes, though this is only due to most of its flaws being what can be perceived easier, whereas what Phoebus and Philos have are less noticeable when their flaws are generally more psyche and verbal based than physical. Phobos is an alter with traits prominently taken after various of abusers who Micah had met in their childhood when they moved between foster homes across America, as well as most memories it carry have to do with violence and experiences made by other people that could have gotten Micah harmed or rarely killed.

While DID is generally considered to be a covert condition when most alters would blend with the Host in order to not stand out and place the system in potential dangers, along with Philos in a smaller degree, Phobos is not as overt as the other alters to those outside of the system because it firmly believes that if it keeps its words and actions to itself instead of bringing them to their threats, then the system would most likely be harmed or killed, so, Phobos wants to stand out in order to make people fear it and the system. Of course, going back to what it can recall and the traits it carry from Micah's abusers, being ill-tempered and violent are what it can at least be because it doesn't really know what kindness is supposed to mean and also its belief that the world is so full of cruel people who the system can not trust. Being kind and considerate to alters and those outside the system isn't part of Phobos' responsibilities, nor is it something that it is familiar with.

When it comes to Philos, even though Philos is usually seen to be highly friendly, cheerful, and understanding; they are also extremely pretentious and manipulative while they lie a lot. It's quite difficult to be able to tell if Philos is being genuine or not when they are highly skilled at going along with the flow and coming up with ideas or evidence in sudden / unexpected cases. Created as a social alter, she has to be the one to be proficient at communication in order to get through social events and common settings that emphasize on social interactions, such as a school or a workplace, especially during a long period of time when Micah can not. With this role, she is an expert at reading people and keeping tabs of them with everything from their attributes, skills, background, so forth. She knows best with what can make her the most compatible with the individual she interacts with and how she should say and act to get by a variety of situations, including the uncomfortable and / or dangerous ones.

Though because Philos have to change himself constantly, making from biggest to smallest details, in order to fit in or help him / the system pass a particular incident, he ends up heavily relying on the acts of lying and manipulating. While Philos are RARELY like this to his system associates, doing so mainly because either he doesn't want to be in trouble with any of the alters ( especially Phoebus ) when he hates being scolded at and being (in)directly told he is at the fault, or he's doing it with a genuine intention to try protecting them, he still manipulate and lie a lot more to individuals outside of the system and it's something he will never admit unless he's forced by the other alter(s) to or he's being excessively confronted about it by the individual(s) he manipulate / lie to.

Now with Phoebus, their flaws are a bit more complicated than Philos' and Phobos'. Of course, keep in mind, what ALL of these alters have that may appear fully wrong to the eyes of an individual outside the system when in their own beliefs + mindsets and based on their own experiences + memories, they heavily rely on these unhealthy methods to guide / strengthen / protect the system; a lot of Phoebus' flaws most emphasize on the idea of helping the system. Their overly strictness and protectiveness in the system are what bring harm to not just those outside of the system, but also their system mates as well. Remember, Phoebus was the first alter to be formed a week after Micah became five years ago in order to pull Micah away from their rebellious and self-destructive attitude while helping bear most negative experiences from their abusive foster families, so, while Phoebus would learn and witness so much about the world and people in it by being constantly co-conscious with Micah, they have been with Micah in the majority of their life and they know how life itself goes, more longer and much more than the other alters.

Therefore, Phoebus believe what they do and say for Micah and their system is the most efficient, comparing with Philos' and Phobos'. A therapist would say that Phoebus being the one to front when they are least needed or Phoebus being the one to place their goals and intentions over the other alters', including Micah's, are a few ways of showing that Phoebus holds very little to no trust towards their system mates, which is damaging to the system as a whole when there is lack of trust and communication between the alters. Phoebus is more reserved than and, surprisingly, the most unpredictable comparing with Philos and Phobos. While Philos fight with words and Phobos fight with actions, Phoebus can do so with both just as efficiently, but while they seem more knowledgable and wise, they are not any more stable or " right " than the other two.

Of course, while the original canon timeline proceeds, along with Micah, all of the other system members, especially the three alters in question, will go through their character developments. They will get the professional support they all need and have to get in order to build and strengthen solid and meaningful connections between them; and they will help and love each other through healthier methods and mindsets. With Micah getting the official diagnosis and confirmation that they have DID in the beginning of the original canon, after being misdiagnosed three times and they were harshly told at the final time that DID wasn't real, they will be in denial and attempt to push the other alters away, but they will eventually come to terms with what they have and accept their system mates. This system would go through a lot of hardships from each other, but everyone in the system would make their meaningful personal growths and find better ways of living with each other through harmony in the end.

[headspace-hotel]

facts about The Fear, after 20 years of life with her

The Fear is NOT:

an intruder, invader, or some other entity from "outside" You

inappropriate, wrong, or incorrect

a responsibility

a punishment

"irrational" or otherwise able to be understood through a relationship to "rationality"

an "inaccurate" representation of reality

The Fear IS:

an innate part of you

extra-rational—she exists outside and completely independent from "rationality" and does not respond to being judged according to that lens

self-love—her purpose is to protect you and keep you safe

self-sufficient—fear is a 100% whole, complete entity that doesn't "represent" or "reflect" something else

earnest—fear is always a 100% real experience that is exactly as it is felt, and, needing no comparison or reference to any external reality, it is not "dishonest" or "inaccurate"— it asserts a claim about only itself

subversive [not quite the word I am looking for but it will have to do]— is not necessarily beholden to social and cultural norms of what should be feared, how much, and how you should respond. She does not stop existing in the absence or suppression of vocabulary to describe her.

a demand for care— she does not just communicate to you but to the community you are part of; she calls attention to an obligation that this community has toward you, to make sure that you are safe within it and that your experiences are heard and understood.

yeah, so, i've had severe anxiety for my whole life and the way it's been treated and dealt with, and the way I've been taught to understand it, has really fucked me up so I am trying to lay the groundwork for understanding it differently

I think it's pretty fucked up that we're taught to see anxiety as deceptive or inaccurate. Now, obviously the images or projections in my fearful thoughts do not usually "reflect reality," but I have come to see this as...not particularly important?

Teaching an anxiety sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict "irrational" fear is, in my opinion, the same as teaching a chronic pain sufferer to restructure their thoughts to dismiss and contradict pain with no clear physical source. You might as well speak of "irrational" pain, and pain has the same relationship to rationality that fear has.

"Irrationality" is a quality assigned to fear that is judged by an outside observer, or by the collective cultural biases and hang-ups of a society, as not appropriate to a given situation. This is total fucking nonsense and we should be talking about that, because...well, the first reason is that it implies some kind of fixed standard for what fear ultimately is and isn't for. i like to tell people to watch one of those Coyote Peterson videos where he's going to get a tarantula hawk wasp to sting him, because he's obviously having a strong physical fear response, even though he knows it won't kill him. Is it "rational" to fear suffering and not just death? How much suffering? Sit with that one a little while.

The second reason, which is even more convincing, is that the "rational" brain is not consulted at any point, ever, when a person feels afraid. It's just a response. The fear response is not routed through the conscious, sapient, reasoning brain. And thank God, because if we needed to hear back from an upstairs executive before we could decide whether to run from a lion, our species would be extinct.

Techniques like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy were absolute fucking shit at making my life any better, but fantastic at wrecking my ability to identify my own emotions, because Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for anxiety basically amounts to trying to brainwash yourself into thinking you don't feel the emotions that you do. It's a really neat way to develop bizarre psychosomatic symptoms and start experiencing anxiety through constant body pain, swollen lymph nodes, and digestive issues.

For an institution that pathologizes having "alters," psychiatry sure loves to encourage a suffering person to view normal and ultimately good parts of themselves as distinct, intruding entities to be shoved in a closet somewhere.

And yes. Fear is ultimately a good part of you, a part of you that loves you.

What began to set me free was feeling that acid terror and sickness and rage course through my body and realizing—really realizing—that I was being illuminated with this ancient, powerful force driving me to LIVE.

I want us to make it. I want you to live.

And you know what, I want me to live too.

I abandoned the doctrine of calming down—Lord knows it had never worked anyway—and started really just exploring and existing in the Fear.

How did that feel? Bad. Very very very very very bad and really not productive or helpful at all initially. Which was unavoidable. Necessary. She had been frantically clawing to communicate with me for so long, and I had been shutting her away, silencing her, resenting her presence in my psyche. I started trying to show gratitude toward the signals my body gave me. I started trying to show gratitude toward her—and i guess the Fear was a Her now, this just seemed more respectful.

And it seemed like nothing happened, but several things happened.

I stopped searching for validation. That was a big one. At some point I just...stopped needing a "reason" or justification for the fear I felt (trauma???? neurodivergence???? neurodivergence trauma????) and the fact that I experienced it became completely sufficient and satisfying to me. So much guilt and confusion disappeared.

I also became steadily more confident about my own boundaries, particularly in regards to recovery.

It's awful now that I think about it, but I think I felt this sense of almost moral obligation towards "recovery," as if I needed to "overcome fear" to be Courageous and Virtuous. It made me feel crushing guilt to feel any hesitation about this.

But then this started to change. It became more real to me that was the only person affected by the steps I did or didn't take toward recovery, and there was no moral dimension to it. A therapist couldn't put me in a box I wouldn't willingly go into.

Freedom from these judgmental frameworks is really important to me. I think that I always hated the idea of getting "better" because it seemed like "better" would mean just getting better at submitting to things I was afraid of while everything felt just as bad as it always did on the inside.

And on some level—even though I could never put it into words at the time—I violently hated the idea of "recovery" from some of my fears because it seemed like the ultimate denial of agency. I didn't want to "become okay with it"—the possibility felt dehumanizing. It felt awful.

And I realize now that this is because The Fear represented something I needed to have a right to. Many of my most life-destroying fears centered around things being done to my body, and if I could have pressed a button and been no longer afraid, I wouldn't have, even though it would have spared me so much suffering, because...I needed it to be okay to want agency over my body. I needed it to be right. The Fear, in this case, was a demand that my body be treated as sacred.

I realized that there were many cases where The Fear was a territorial claim of sorts, a demand that certain needs be honored and met—She needs this. This is FUCKING non-negotiable.

And it really...prompted me to look backward on my life and see The Fear differently: not as a responsibility I had failed to shoulder (me?? a little child??? responsible?? Responsible for being brave, when every day felt like facing a firing squad?????) but as a collective responsibility

Because I was not alone in those memories—I was surrounded by adults that saw me suffering, and often dismissed, ignored or ridiculed it. The Fear grew larger and larger; why?—to protect me. Because teachers, nurses, doctors, and camp counselors did not do any of the thousand thousand things they could have done to make that little girl feel safe. Because my well-meaning parents praised me when I was "brave" but I, a little kid, literally couldn't communicate how awful it always felt.

The Fear was not there to torture me. The Fear was and is doing her best to keep me safe. It's not wrong, there's no need for guilt. It just is.

It doesn't feel good. But maybe one day it will feel better.

[elliespet]

camgirl!abby, camgirl!reader, pervbff!ellie

laying between abby’s legs with your own draped over her strong thighs, her chest pressed so safely against your back. your head resting on her shoulder as she kisses the side of your face, cooing sweet nothings in your ear.

her phone positioned to get the most perfect shot. right under your necks, to capture everything people wanted to see. “send some more gifts if you guys think we can get one more out of her,” she speaks into the air and it settles next to your ears. you heard her, of course you wanted to tell her you couldn’t do it anymore, but you couldn’t.

mouth dry and brain fuzzy, you couldn’t remember the last time you looked at her. abby, the sweetest girl you’ve ever met, torturing you? Who would’ve thought! Surely not ellie, dina.. not one soul. Or so you thought.

neither of you could keep track of how many times you came on the pretty pink sheets she had you splayed out across, but someone else could. On that little glowing device, someone was counting.

just as requested, someone did gift more. more than enough more than abby thought anyone would. who would spend so much money on watching her play with her pretty girlfriend just for fun? some creep, probably. the donation was pretty inconspicuous. no message, just another $25 into the bank. they were just ‘user207399’, non-identifiable.

on the other side, the so called user could tell exactly who was streaming. those pretty thighs and that smooth like silk voice they could pin from miles away. ellie, with her fingers tucked inside herself and eyes squinted, phone set right in front of her face. ellie, who surely has came just as much as you by now.

abby’s best friend, who she’d never suspect, getting off to her pushing that horrible vibrator against your overstimulated bud. desperately she wanted it to be her head. abby’s ring adorned hand tangled in her hair pushing her mouth up against your clit. her tongue being the one you were grinding against and letting her taste everything.

it’s been months. she had found the two of you a few weeks after you started, eyes widened and jaw dropped noticing the oddly familiar flex of muscles from the bigger woman in the video. the all too recognizable birth mark fixated on the inner thigh of the other girl in front the camera.

abby pumping her strap into you and your sweet voice spilling out of her phones speakers, bouncing off the walls of her dorm. frankly, if you were there, you would’ve laughed at how fast she shut off her phone and threw it across the room.

that night may have altered her brain chemistry for maybe the rest of her life. of course she had always had the smallest crush on both you and abby, bringing home girls who hold the same characteristics as one of you. if it wasn’t a girl with blonde hair and pretty blue eyes, it was one with ten times the muscle mass she had. if it wasn’t a girl with the same big doll eyes and long lashes as you, it was one with an ass almost as good as yours.

she tried her best to get back into her regular routine, bringing a new girl to her place every other day. it wasn’t working, her mind always wandering back to the two of you. she stopped, people noticed. there were girls who wanted to go home with her and she blew them off. normally, ellie would be at parties flirting with every single girl she met, maybe even selling a few blunts here and there.

her situation got worse when she couldn’t watch the two of you fucking. she’d search through her phone for any saved videos she had every night if not every 30 minutes.

tonight, possibly one of her biggest donations to date, she’d keep upping the price until her cards ran dry.

“alright. i think it’s about time for us to log off.. this pretty girl over here is close to passing out!” her voice was light and soft, hands sliding up and down your thighs in a comforting manner. “thanks for another great night.” were her last words before she shut the stream off and ellie could’ve sobbed right then and there.

it was late, almost 1 in the morning and she was positive you were exhausted yet still wanted more. it’s like it had become a craving.

you and abby had made enough money to hold you off for a few weeks, therefore you didn’t feel the need to stream. it was good to take a break and after that session, you most definitely needed it.

ellie wasn’t happy though. the thing she relied on had stopped and she became pissy with the whole world. distant from both of you, dina and even joel. it was driving her crazy not seeing that ring of white against abby’s strap.

she’d snap on anyone and everyone over small things, poor girl. all she wanted was to relieve that stress and she couldn’t. all because of you. you weren’t aware, too obsessed with abby yourself to care about anyone else. it wasn’t the same for the blonde. she was ellie’s best friend, after all. it’s crazy to think they didn’t fuck a few times before you guys got together!

abby knew what she needed and she knew how ellie looked at you when you wore those pretty skirts or the shorts that squeezed your thighs perfectly. she had thought a few times about proposing the idea to you. abby never did though, afraid you’d be freaked out by it.

she had something planned. all three of you, together. to be honest, that’s what she needed some of the money for.

i bet you’re curious.. too bad abby wants to wait a few days before letting you know! wife’s orders, i’ve gotta listen. see you soon! ❤︎

[universalitgirlsblog2]

👛🖤SELF-CONCEPT👛🖤

CONTENTS OF THE POST

- MEANING OF SELF CONCEPT

- IS IT NECESSARY TO MANIFEST ?

- HOW TO IMPROVE IT ?

- SELF CONCEPT AFFIRMATIONS

- QUOTES ON SELF CONCEPT BY NEVILLE GODDARD

👛MEANING OF SELF CONCEPT

The way we perceive ourselves and the ideas we hold about our competencies and attributes is called self-concept. ( This definition is from my psychology textbook but it described self concept really well )

🖤IS IT NECESSARY TO MANIFEST ?

Self concept is not necessary when it comes to manifesting but it is very helpful and it does make manifesting more simple and easy.

👛HOW TO IMPROVE IT ?

💞Affirm !! Affirm and saturate your mind with those affirmations. The best way to reprogram your subconscious is through REPETITION. The more you repeat a thought / affirmation , the more dominant it will become.

👡Never underestimate the power of music. If you go on a spotify , just search self concept or confidence or that girl playlist & you will find so many songs which are filled with powerful and positive affirmations. Artists like Nicki Minaj , Le sserafim , Ariana Grande always include powerful affirmations in their songs. Listening to their songs enhanced my self concept.

💞Find a role model! Refer to my post on self concept icons , there are three parts in total . Click here - 1, 2 , 3. Suppose you want a self concept like Blair Waldorf , you can use her effect affirmations and a playlist dedicated to Blair and her vibes. Or maybe your self concept icon is Song Jia ? Then use affirmations based on her and listen to playlists dedicated to her. I have made affirmations for Jia too !! Your self concept icon can be anyone !!!! If you go on spotify and just search Blair , Regina, Song Jia or Thewizardliz etc you will find alot of playlists dedicated to them.

👡Create an alter ego and start acting like her . YOU ARE HER NOW !!! STOP IDENTIFYING WITH YOUR OLD SELF WHO HAD POOR SELFCONCEPT. THAT VERSION DOESN'T EXIST ANYMORE.

💞Already assume that you have a perfect self concept . Don't give the old story any attention or don't waste your energy on your old self. Stop affirming how you have a " bad " self concept and need to work on it. Just assume that you have a perfect self concept already.

👡Mental diet can do wonders. Whenever you have a thought that doesn't align with your perfect self concept. Ask yourself , "Does this thought align with my perfect self concept?" . If the answer is no , then reject it. Become aware of your thoughts and only entertain productive and useful thoughts. Have a positive SELF TALK

💞Realize how powerful you are. You control your reality. You tell your reality/ 3D what to do. Your circumstances , 3D or reality doesn't control you, you control them. Your inner world creates the outer world. Stop victimizing yourself. You are the main character and director of your life. Start acting like it.

Self concept work is supposed to be easy and fun . Don't complicate it.

🖤SELF CONCEPT AFFIRMATIONS

I have a strong and empowering self concept .

I am the creator of my reality

I control how my life unfolds

Everything always works out to my advantage

Circumstances and things are always rigged in my favor

I deserve the best in every area of my life

I am the girl who has it all

I am the It girl of my reality

Nothing is impossible in my world

I am good at everything

I am a master manifestor

I am the best

I am loved and valued

I am wanted by everyone

I am the prize

The world is my oyster

I am successful at everything I do

I have Lucky girl/ boy syndrome

I am the universe’s favorite child, so all my needs and wants are always met, instantaneously

I am powerful beyond limits

I am fearless, unstoppable , invincible and antifragile

I am the one with all the health, wealth, and happiness in the world.

I have a perfect self concept

I can maintain a good mental diet easily.

I am aware of my thoughts

I only think useful and productive thoughts

I am completely in love with myself

I always get what I want

I don't chase , i attract

I am a priority , queen / king , and chosen.

👛QUOTES ON SELF CONCEPT BY NEVILLE GODDARD

"Your opinion of yourself is your most important viewpoint. You are infinitely greater than you think you are.”

“Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live. Do not try to change people; they are only messengers telling you who you are. Revalue yourself and they will confirm the change.”

“Stop trying to change the world since it is only the mirror. Man’s attempt to change the world by force is as fruitless as breaking a mirror in the hope of changing his face. Leave the mirror and change your face. Leave the world alone and change your conceptions of yourself. The reflection then will be satisfactory.”

“To reach a higher level of being, you must assume a higher concept of yourself."

“I AM wealthy, poor, healthy, sick, free, confined were first of all impressions or conditions felt before they became visible expressions. Your world is your consciousness objectified. Waste no time trying to change the outside; change the within or the impression; and the without or expression will take care of itself. When the truth of this statement dawns upon you, you will know that you have found the lost word or the key to every door. I AM (your consciousness) is the magical lost word which was made flesh in the likeness of that which you are conscious of being.”

"Everything depends upon our attitude towards ourselves. That which we will not affirm as true of ourselves cannot develop in our life.”

"Our present mental conversations do not recede into the past, they advance into the future to confront us as wasted or invested words.”

"The individual’s inner speech and actions attract the conditions of his life.”

“Nothing is impossible to you.”

“Live your life in a sublime spirit of confidence and determination.”

“The world cannot change until you change your conception of it. 'As within so without'.”

"" The part you play on the world's stage is determined by your conception of yourself ."

[softservecanine]

So How Do I Know if I’m Nonhuman?

Disclaimer: This post is largely targeted toward those who experience or are questioning nonhumanity in a non-physical way, such as therian, otherkin, and some nonhuman alter experiences, as that is the realm I have the most knowledge on. Please keep this in mind going forward.

I’ve been in the alterhuman/therian/nonhuman communities for *checks watch* eight years now, give or take. I’m very confident in my identity as a dog, and I live my life as a dog in a human body every day. I’m very open about it with people in my life. I’m just always like this.

I get asked a lot— in my DMs, in my asks, personally by people I know— how to know if you’re nonhuman.

Unfortunately I do not have an easy answer for that. Finding out you’re nonhuman, and being comfortable with that identity, is a long, confusing process for most. There are so many ways to experience nonhumanity, and a lot of people will tell you narrow definitions based on what their experience looks like.

My experience with finding out I was nonhuman is messy and long, and it took me several years to get as comfortable and as confident in my identity as I am. I know that’s not an answer people like to hear. I know how hard it is to just think “This will take time” and be cool with that.

So I think my biggest piece of advice would be: Don’t be afraid to experiment. Don’t be afraid to get it wrong.

There have been times where I’ve thought I was a wolf, a rabbit, a fox, a dragon, a husky, a bear, all kinds of things, before I finally figured out the right answer for me. I only have one theriotype. My theriotype is psychological and trauma-induced in nature. Yours might not be. You will very likely not experience nonhumanity in the exact same way as anyone else. That’s why it’s so confusing. That’s why it takes so long to understand your own journey.

Look dude. Get the gear you like. Do what makes you feel species euphoric. If you’re so worried about “faking” your nonhuman identity, chances are you’re not. Also? I personally wouldn’t care if someone who identified as nonhuman later retracted that identity, and I don’t know anyone who would care either.

If labeling yourself as some kind of nonhuman feels right to you right now, that’s okay. Your ‘types may change and grow overtime, you may feel more or less connected with them, that is all okay. Experience nonhumanity in a way that works for you right now. There’s not one way to know if you’re nonhuman. But I’d say if the community and the label is right for you, you’ll stay with it, and you’ll be more confident in it over time. And if it isn’t, that’s okay too.

[earthtooz]

rin kiss cam absolutely a masterpiece, i loveeee it so much <3 but i got an opposite idea. since you are very damn talented writing for sae, perhaps where you and sae had an argument which upset you so much, you have been ignoring him. then the following day, sae has a football match. after the match which of course they win, all the cams are on you and he said “please give me another chance to fix this, us” THEN THEN he held a massive bouquet of roses DJOWJDOSHDJSJDJ

for @limitlesshq - changed up the storyline a little, anon, sorry! your ask gave me inspiration for this, i'm sorry if you don't like the alterations, but i hope you enjoy nevertheless! this is VERY unedited.

sae, who has a sharp tongue and an even sharper attitude to match with that blunt personality of his. sae, whose words burn and singe your skin, leaving searing pain behind that you try not to show, especially when the venom drips onto your skin and brands you with shame, humiliation, and wrath. sae, who has never talked to you like he had in the argument you had two nights ago.

since then you hadn't talked to him, cringing at the thought of messaging him and reaching out. your friends tell you that you should try and mend whatever has happened, that knowing the two of you, sae's probably feeling the same and misses you too. your heart agrees but your conscious is still a little scarred, wincing when you recall the words that were thrown around.

sae had sent you a few posts here and there- like he sometimes does on instagram (they're hardly funny and you're still trying to find a way to tell him that), and you would only respond with a double click of the message instead of a proper response. other than that, he hadn't reached out in any other way.

the problem was that tonight you had a match to attend, with tickets that sae personally booked for you so it'd be a little harsh to not go.

just because you were still... upset at him doesn't mean that you didn't love him.

but did he want you there? what if he doesn't want to see you? what if he's still mad? that's probably why he hasn't made any attempts to try and talk it out and lord knows that you're still too busy fighting your own thoughts to make the first move.

pathetic really, it is, but when itoshi sae is your partner and the person who you have to apologise to... it's a little hard...

nevertheless, you go. your eyes lingered on the jersey he had given you, debating on whether or not you should wear it.

you decide against it, walking out of your apartment with a sinking feeling that it was a decision you'd regret. at least you still looked cute.

arriving at the stadium, you occupy your seat quite quickly especially since you were watching solo today. it's always daunting to be alone, especially in an environment like this, but you don't want any of your friends to witness how rocky you and sae are right now, so just purchasing this one ticket was a good idea.

even if that meant you had to cure your own boredom by scrolling on your phone whilst waiting for the match to start.

despite your indifferent front, your stomac was doing somersaults from where you jittered with anxiety. was showing up the right move? what if he didn't want you here?

then the stadium announcers begin talking, shushing everyone almost immediately as the teams are introduced. each running onto the grassy field when it's their turn, basking the roars and screams of the crowd that came to support them.

when real madrid comes out, your eye immediately lands on the figure of your boyfriend. although you can't see him all that clearly, it's not hard to identify him from his magenta hair and build; one that you see practically all the time (excluding the last three days).

he's scanning through the crowd, whipping his head around as if in search for someone, and when he finds the vip section for real madrid, his eyes land on you. you can't see him clearly, but there's a shift from his figure, his aura darkening as he slows his steps a little, falling behind from his team.

a fellow teammate has to push sae a little to snap him out of whatever funk he was in and a part of you twists uncomfortably at this weird behaviour of his.

all because he saw you. maybe it wasn't the right choice to come tonight. what if you impact his play?

the kickoff begins before you can think too much about it and the match officially starts, the players scrambling around the field.

90 minutes are over before you can count, the victory going to real madrid (to your relief because thank goodness you didn't affect their precious midfielder).

however, where you thought you would head home immediately after the match, it seems like sae has other plans as he runs towards the barriers separating the audience and the field, eyes locked on you the whole time. he beckons for you to come over and with a little hesitation, you do, weaving through exiting crowds in anticipation for what he'd need.

"congrats for the win," you say in greeting, plastering on a smile to give him the false perception that you were okay. he didn't need a victory to be soiled. that'd be a rough way to end such a pleasant event.

he doesn't meet your smile. instead, his eyes seem troubled, eyebrows slightly furrowed as he looks you up and down again and again, as if his eyes are deceiving him.

"you're not wearing my jersey," he says finally, looking back up at you with turmoil clear in his eyes.

"oh," you look down at your own outfit. "yeah. i decided not to."

"why?"

"well after our argument i didn't know where we stand," you confess shyly. he frowns further before stepping back.

then he takes off his jersey- the one he was wearing, and fiddles with it until it's facing a certain way. he had a long sleeve shirt on underneath but without the jersey, you can see that he's wearing the couples necklace you got for your anniversary.

he then threads the jersey on over you and despite being shocked at his abrupt actions, you comply nevertheless, weaving your arms through the holes.

sae hums in approval and you feel a little gross wearing his sweat-sopped shirt, but he looks content and happy. a stark contrast to the troubled expression he was wearing previously.

you open your arms for a hug. he accepts it, winding his arms around your torso as yours go around his neck. the athlete breathes you in, relishing in the feeling of being so close to you after so long.

"are we okay?" he asks, voice muffled as sae hugs you a little tighter.

"yeah," you respond. he takes his head out of your shoulder, indifferent eyes glossy. you think they're tears, but you're not going to give yourself such high credit.

"missed you. i hate it when you're mad at me."

you chuckle, pressing a kiss to his nose, causing him to scrunch his face at the sensation. "i wasn't mad, sae. i thought you would be."

"me? why?"

"i don't know. you're kind of scary, y'know. especially to those who have wronged you or you don't care about."

he softens before bringing his head to your shoulder again, finding solace in your touch. "but you're neither."

"noted," you laugh, running your hands through his hair. everything feels okay again.

you only find out after the match that sae was hoping you'd come all along and that he even brought gifts for you as a way of apologising after the match.

[neobora]

a definitive guide to actually fulfilling your desires

"i affirm and persist all day long but nothing is working!!"

"i ignored the 3d for a week straight and did xyz whenever i could but nothing happened"

stop forcing yourself to work for your manifestations. you can do tons of methods and challenges and still see zero change in the 3d. why? because states manifest. it‘s that easy.

now, when you affirm and visualize on loop to get your desires without success in what state do you find yourself?

in a state of lack. you are affirming to GET. you should never feel like you have to WORK for your manifestations.

"Ideas are impressed on the subconscious through the medium of feeling. No idea can be impressed on the subconscious until it is felt, but once felt - be it good, bad or indifferent - it must be expressed. Feeling is the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious." - Neville Goddard (Feeling is the Secret)

THE ONLY THING YOU HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO GET YOUR DESIRES IS TO FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE THEM. FULFILL THEM MENTALLY. read that again. you have to FEEL like you already have them. nothing else. everything else will follow.

"The subconscious never fails to express that which has been impressed upon it. The moment it receives an impression, it begins to work out the ways of its expression. It accepts the feeling impressed upon it, your feeling, as a fact existing within itself and immediately sets about to produce in the outer or objective world the exact likeness of that feeling. The subconscious never alters the accepted beliefs of man." - Neville Goddard (Feeling is the Secret)

isn't that amazing? you can genuinely have or be ANYTHING, yes, anything, just by feeling. and it will ALWAYS be expressed into the outer world as long as you fulfill it in the inner world ( -> your imagination).

now how do we go on about this?

first of all you need to actually realize that YOU ARE THE ONLY CREATOR. the only cause. everything you see in the 3d is dependent on your beliefs and ideas. you do not have to be anything you don’t want to be. you are consciousness moving through states. read that again. engrain it into your beliefs.

i recommend doing this meditation by edwartart. it really helped me realize that i don‘t actually need to see anything in the outer world, but can instead just experience it in my imagination. and as we learned earlier, "once it is felt, it must be expressed."

this is also why you really shouldn’t care about your 3d. you dont have to ignore it, but you should never identify with the outer world. you are pure consciousness. live in your imagination as much as possible, as imagination is reality. thoughts manifest -> the dominant feeling manifests.

and instead of consuming even more posts about manifesting, go try it out. you dont even have to meditate, just close your eyes and remove the outer world from existence. then be the person you want to be. experience living as that person. you‘ll soon realize that it‘s incredibly easy to manifest and you‘ll also automatically stop caring about the 3d when you reach the state of fulfillment.

and don’t say you "cant get into a state". once you get rid of that mental blockage and ALLOW yourself to feel and experience it‘s genuinely SO EASY. don’t force it! if it doesn’t feel good you’re probably imagining something you don’t really want. try imagining your heart‘s desires. imagining is so fun. do it whenever you can, when you’re waiting for the bus, taking a break etc.

read this post again if you need to. actually understand it.

now go live in your imagination. fulfill all your desires mentally and you‘ll soon realize the 3d automatically catches up without you having to lift a finger. the life of your dreams is literally just waiting for you to experience it!

~neo

[mortalityplays]

This is a very good illustration of the increasing susceptibility to conspiratorial thought patterns I've been seeing on the left lately. Just because you don't believe there are space marines on Mars doesn't mean you're immune to building imaginary connections between aesthetic or emotional data points and mistaking them for evidence. A lot of well meaning people in my circles have been sharing this story, buying uncritically into the first narrative they encountered. I want to break down why:

Jones' twitter thread was extremely emotional and extremely urgent. The idea of a child being ripped away from his frantic mother and a ticking clock to decide his fate both helped the story to bypass analytical scrutiny. It sends the message 'act now, before it's too late, it's the only compassionate thing to do'.

Her connection to an existing conspiracy (a concerted effort by the state to cover up Covid statistics) creates a strengthening association with the idea that this is also a conspiracy. The thread offers no positive evidence that her son's arrest was a conspiracy, and no positive evidence that his arrest has any connection to her prior experiences.

Jones' allegation that the arrest was retribution for her actions as a whistleblower implicitly identifies her in the reader's mind. A lot could be unpacked about her dispute with the DOH but it doesn't really matter because I don't think most people who circulated this story knew much about it either way. The point is that it anchors her identity in a few key concepts: 'whistleblower', 'covid scientist', 'concerned citizen'. None of these qualities are relevant to the events detailed in the thread (or evidenced in the thread, if we're being really rigorous), but they unconsciously prejudice the reader's assessment of whether to trust or side with her. Simply put, if you are concerned about how covid was handled and/or inclined to support whistleblowers, you are more likely to assume she's credible.

If you dislike and distrust cops, you are primed to accept a narrative in which they are doing something straightforwardly evil. Don't get me wrong, fuck 12, but I say that armed with an enormous preponderance of cases in which we have positive evidence of police acting out of self interest, cruelty, corruption, racism, misogyny, etc. Allowing ourselves to be seduced by the fantasy that they are always always without fail breaking rules and fashing it up in broad daylight only makes us easier to delude and manipulate.

She repeatedly made the point that her son is autistic. Again, if you are autistic or sympathetic to autistic people, you are more likely to be 'warmed up' by this detail and inclined to take her side. I'm not going to say it's irrelevant to the idea that he was being unfairly targeted, but it is overwhelmingly emotionally weighted. And again, it is not evidence that he was unfairly targeted. It's another weight on the scale that tips you to judge the truth value of her story without reality checking.

The example of a meme that she shared is characteristic of a type of online humour that is at least familiar to most of us. If you or your friends make edgy jokes and share tasteless irony memes, or if you've been online for more than like a week, you understand that they're mostly harmless. The idea that this meme could be used as evidence by law enforcement to detain you is ideologically threatening in an immediately relatable way. It evokes a reflex defensive impulse — that's not fair, the cops are wrong, the kid is innocent — bypassing the process of verification. Is this meme the reason he was arrested? Is it the only one he posted? Is it the only reason he was arrested?

All of these factors create a gut-led constellation of information that quickly forms a picture. Because it is being pieced together from multiple subconscious feelings and prejudices, it feels as if it has been evidenced. Because the thread was highly emotional and highly urgent, readers were pressured to jump to rapid conclusions and ask "what can I do to help?" (and the answer, as it almost always is, was 'donate money, quick').

I want to be really clear that I am not saying Jones manufactured any of these effects on purpose. It would be completely within reason that having a young child arrested would send anyone into an emotional tailspin, grasping for reasons this might have happened, leaping to his defense, rallying resources to fight on his behalf. I am not in any way ascribing malice to her actions.

What I'm interested in is the effect that this emotive kneejerk appeal had on people who were unknowingly predisposed to believe that the state of Florida would kidnap a child to punish a scientist for disagreeing with the department of health about covid statistics. That is a baseless conspiracy theory, and a huge number of people in my immediate circles reflexively amplified it.

Personally, I think arrest is a godawful way to respond to a child having a mental health crisis, even if they are seen to pose a violent threat. That still doesn't mean the cops did it at the bidding of a mad dictator in waiting. In the hypothetical parallel universe where it turns out Jones was right and this was all a conspiracy to punish her, it still would not have served the situation to jump to that conclusion on a gut feeling.

Pausing to identify relevant, verifiable facts before sharing a story like this is always warranted, even if you think the person telling it is 'on your side'. The more you worry that questioning the narrative wastes precious time or makes you a bad person, the more you should scrutinise why you are being made to feel that way. Accepting unfounded conspiracies into your worldview is not benign, even if you think the 'targets' deserve it. It erodes your critical perspective and turns you into a vector for the people around you.

tl;dr: you are not immune to baseless conspiratorial thought

[wordsnstuff]

Hi!

I have reached out to more people, but I'm still having problems with this, and I wanted to hear another opinion.

As a writer, do you have problems continuing a story once you hit a difficult scene?

Because I do, and honestly it's getting me frustrated at this point.

I have a good idea and a plot already done, but every time I hit a difficult scene I just get stuck, and can't write for weeks, sometimes months. I hardly even open the documents when it happens, and sometimes it comes right when I'm on a writing spree and being happy with my writing.

Do you have any advice on how to deal with this? How can I get past this issue and just keep writing more frequently?

I'd really like to hear it!

What do you do when you hit a snag?

When approaching this topic, the frustrating thing is that age-old advice has a lot of truth to it. Sometimes it is true that the best thing you can do when you're stuck is to stop struggling against the resistance and take a meaningful, intentional break to rest your mind and reset your thought process. Sometimes the key to getting started again is shaking up the routine and the altering the process until you find a new combination of habits that meet you where you are.

However, for a lot of us, the turmoil reaches deeper than that. A lot of people who do creative things are neurodivergent, so that has a place in the conversation when discussing what's preventing us from realizing our vision. Even if you don't identify with specific neurodivergence, there are a lot of tools and techniques that have been tried and tested for coping with immense, intrinsic difficulty with things like productivity, mindfulness, interoception, focus, and consistency. Just because these techniques are not specifically designated for you doesn't mean they won't be effective for you.

It is always a helpful exercise to take a step back and examine how you're feeling, both when you are writing and when you aren't, and try to identify any areas where you might be able to improve by changing things within your control.

When it comes to a specific scene holding you back from carrying on, I usually find that it's the result of a decision I made earlier in the plot that isn't serving the story as it continues to develop. I would take a chunk of time to take an analytical look at the scene, where it's come from, what is and isn't sparking in it (is the stagnation mostly due to the characters, events, environment, or lack of information, and is it a scene that is imperative to the reader's understanding?). A lot of the time, it's a scene that can be cut, or it's a scene that can be made redundant by infusing the necessary information of the scene into another place within the story.

If you've identified a scene as "a difficult scene", ask yourself why. If it's daunting because it's too long, then it can probably be cut way down and then added to later if while editing it seems a little thin. If it's challenging because things aren't falling into place and you aren't getting into a flow, then the set-up for the scene probably hasn't been developed effectively and you need to decide whether you're gonna go back in the draft to investigate or move on and return to it while editing.

If the information in the scene needs to be communicated at this specific point in the story, the problem might be the way you've chosen to present it. Pay attention to what your instincts are telling you, because pushing through a scene for the sake of getting past it will not produce a compelling scene to read. If you need to move past it, you have permission to do that. You can always come back and completely dig it up later.

Overall, I think it's very important to write with acceptance that the plot may not turn out the way you planned it. The process is much more effective and much more enjoyable if you aren't trudging along on a predestined path. If the characters and story develop outside of the lines, see where they go. You'll always have the opportunity to return to the outline and tailor later.

Best of luck,

x Kate

[balioc]

I have a beard, of a particular slightly-distinctive style. I've had that same beard for the entirety of my adult life.

This is, obviously, the most contingent kind of fact about me. If I wanted to shave it off, or to style it differently, I could do so right now with zero difficulty. It's not a cultural signifier, or a marker of group belonging, or anything; even to me, it doesn't really mean anything other than "this is a symbol of me-the-person because it is associated with me because I have it." I started cultivating it in mid-adolescence for ephemeral irrelevant reasons, and kept it going basically out of inertia.

Nonetheless: it is really important to me. Like, really really important.

I basically cannot use character-creators or avatar-generators of any sort unless they have appropriate-enough beard options. When I contemplate getting rid of the beard...well, based on the way other people use the term, I think that the appropriate word for the feeling I get from that is dysphoria. During a brief period when I thought that I might have to get rid of the beard for medical reasons, I seriously considered wearing some kind of full-face leper mask whenever I left the house, because the thought of hiding my face from the world forever made me less unhappy than the thought of having people see me clean-shaven.

And, crucially, this affects my ability to Identify With People in literature and media. I am about 900% more likely to have an "it me" mental reflex if the character in question has a Beard Like Mine, regardless of whether there's any actual substantive commonality or grounds-for-sympathy there. I can control this with deliberate effort, but -- it takes deliberate effort. This phenomenon has probably had some measurable effect on my personality and philosophy, simply by causing me to identify or not-identify with potentially-high-impact characters in a subconscious (or conscious) way.

For example: I basically always see elves as Other and Not-Me, because elves are usually portrayed as the Beardless People, even if there are all sorts of obvious reasons to map myself onto a particular elvish character or elvish culture. Which there often are!

You might be inclined to say that this is, uh, stupid. I wouldn't blame you. It is, at the least, definitely very irrational; it's an aggressively hypertrophied bit of mental DNA, the sort of thing that you might fairly-if-uncharitably call a "psychic cancer." But of course it's never going to change, because the phenomenon operates deep down on the level of appreciative impulses and happy-buttons, which are mostly impervious to reason. (Assuming that you're inclined to try and alter them through reason, which is usually not worth the effort even when it can work.)

----------

It's not actually a problem for me that beard-related neurosis prevents me from identifying with elves. Not much of a problem, anyway. I guess I lose out on some cool Line of Feanor feels.

But I can imagine it being a problem. I can imagine the world in which the cool resonant myth that everyone cares about, the thing around which you want to build big chunks of your identity, has only elves with whom to identify. I can imagine the world in which all the cool smart people I want to be my friends are endlessly talking about their elfsonas.

And, y'know, in that hypothetical world, there's a few different ways I could react. I could say "fuck you, fantasy myth is for losers." I could be a mythic entrepreneur, and aggressively push my own homegrown stories featuring dwarves and ogres and other beardy folk. I could try to [shudder] map myself onto a beardless elf in my mind, and let that image occupy space in my fantasies, and hope that the revulsion and dissonance don't tear me apart. I could just be kinda sad about it all.

Or I could say: Hey, guys, could we maybe just agree that elves can have beards? Since they're made up and all, and their beardlessness doesn't even really matter to the myth anyway?

If I were so inclined, I could even follow that up with: Look, this is a really big deal for me. I'm pretty sure it's a much bigger deal for me than it is for any of you. That would be 100% honest.

And I imagine that many people would respond: What? No. Ew. The elf stories have clear lore and a well-defined aesthetic, and you're proposing to shit all over them with your weird beard nonsense. You don't get to do that; you don't get to make the akashic commons worse for your own private benefit; it doesn't matter what your reasons are. Play by the rules, or go play another game.

I would have a lot of sympathy for those people.

----------

(Yes, yes, I know, Cirdan the Shipwright, don't @ me.)

----------

There are, of course, lessons in this. Perhaps I will spell them out in another post, soon, if I find myself feeling less tired and cranky. But for now: he who has ears to hear, let him hear.

[epilogue-and-prologue]

Holding On

Fandom: The Lord of the Rings Ship/Pairing: Haldir x Reader Trope: Best Friends to Lovers Note: Took advantage of the potentially invented elven tradition of gifting someone your most precious possession after your first kiss :D. Warnings: Angst/Miscommunication - damn you Haldir/Slight smut if you squint and zoom at the very end. Word count: 2 836 Tag-list: @heilith @asgardianhobbit98 @middleearthpixie @glassgulls @evenstaredits @fizzyxcustard @sotwk

The gentle breeze brought a soft tune to your ears. Of course, he would be playing in the first hours of the night. What else could he do, before leaving for another long month of patrol? Certainly not seek you out. The bitter lingered.

Haldir was a dear and close friend of yours. He had drawn you in with his cheekiness and teasing words. You were lucky enough to know those sides of him, usually hidden. Unlucky enough to be on the receiving end of those same unruly sides, sometimes. It felt harder and harder with each joust of words to stop the ones you wanted to say from blurting out of your mouth. Today was about fixing that. Upon walking the narrow path, your eyes met his silhouette before he could see you. The length of his hair covered his face. His bow and arrows were left in the grass, carefully propped against a branch. His head rose, and he finally saw you. A flutter of wings came to life in your stomach. He smiled at you.

“What are you doing out this early, melon?”

You had no good answer for that. Knowing he was leaving was one thing. Seeing him do so, even in your dreams, was another. Every departure was a torment for you.

Your lips curled sadly with your next words.

“Why did you not say goodbye, Haldir?”

The underlying harshness of your tone startled him. He paled, his eyes growing wide. He did not expect that. Not from you. You who were gentle and kind. Soft-spoken and careful in all manners of life. He never wanted to disappoint you. Nor hurt you. After your first encounter, he knew very quickly your presence could never be replaced by anyone else. When he identified those feelings as more than friendship, he snuffed them out. The mere thought of losing you because of them was unbearable. Deep down, he knew you would not leave him so. Yet, he feared it all the same and kept himself quiet.

“I thought I did. What is happening to you?”

A heavy sigh. Again, your emotions had got the better of you. The loneliness he left behind was a most cruel sentiment to have. Or to hold on to. His hands had stopped playing, and he laid the instrument next to him.

“I am sorry. I fear my future loneliness at your departure is haunting me in advance.”

Haldir chuckled weakly. You always did have a way with words. Even more so since becoming a script here in the palace. Where he was the one leaving, you were always the one staying. It tore his heart in two to see you afflicted so. The Marchwarden did not know what to do to alleviate the sadness in your eyes. You stepped forward until he had to raise his head to look at you. Soon, you sat down in front of him. An itch went through him from his fingertips to his shoulder blade; how he wanted to touch you right now…

“And you woke up this early because of it? Have I altered your sleeping by my rudeness? — Do not flatter yourself that much, Haldir.”

Finally, a smile had made its way onto your face. You reckoned that being mad at him was not your best skill. Unwavering, he stared at you expectantly, wishing you would answer and share your troubles with him, as you always did. This time proved harder than the other ones.

“I have made a decision.”

His eyebrows rose.

“What kind of decision? — About… us.”

His heart skipped a beat, and his breath shortened. He frowned even more, at a loss for words.

“We have been friends for a long and appreciable time. — Yes, we have. — Please do not interrupt me, it is already so hard to do…”

You bit on your lip, your courage leaving as water out of its bed. His stare became more present, his fingers tapping an invisible rhythm against the earth. Could this be it? Or had he been a fool this whole time?

“As a token of my appreciation, I want you to have this.”

Out of your hand, a piece of paper neatly folded — just as you knew how to. He had had those notes before. When you wanted to see him but could not fetch him yourself. Or when you wanted to say anything to him while he was on patrol. He took the piece of paper, seemingly heavier than the lasts. It seemed to contain something. Before he could pry it open, you stopped him.

“I also want you to wait until you are at your post.”

He looked at you as if you had grown a second head.

“Humour me. — Oh, I will.”

You laughed with him this time, inclining your head on one side. He found it entirely too endearing.

“I will, I promise. — Thank you.”

The letter clutched in his hand, he found himself speechless again.

A loud sound announced his departure. A few of his comrades passed you by. They soon waited by the end of the path for him to follow.

“Goodbye, my friend.”

While saying the words, he grabbed what was his, placing your letter in an inside pocket close to his heart. You noticed. You smiled as brightly as you could.

“Safe travels, my friend.”

He smiled brightly back, always one to try to cheer you up. Before you could register what he had done, he grabbed your hand and kissed your knuckles. His steps were barely echoing around you anymore when you realised. The flutter in your stomach turned into a full storm.

*

The advanced post took them three whole days to reach. During those three days, Haldir could not help himself from touching and toying with the piece of paper you left him with. He was patient; you knew that. When it came to you, he could have waited another lifetime. Yet, this simple piece of paper and what it contained, almost weightless, made him more impatient and frustrated than the longest watch had ever done.

Finally, he reached his destination, and they relieved the others from their patrol. He waited the middle of the night to be alone and open the gift you had left him with. The paper unfolded easily enough. It almost toppled the thin ring left inside. The details were weaved around it, organised in rows of leaves and polished silver. It could not have belonged to you. The size was too big, and the ornaments were indicative of a skilled touch. He held the jewel in his palm for the longest time, almost losing track of what he was supposed to watch out for. Luckily, his brother had joined him and kept an extra eye out when he saw him entranced by what an object he could not see. Rúmil only hoped it would be a good thing. And made a mental note to ask about it later on.

On the paper, read the following.

“Dear friend,

I have known you for the longest time. I have cared for you for just as long. In truth, I have more than cared for you. My friendship was soon turned into affections and my affections turned into love. True unbearable, unbreakable love. This seems sudden, I know, and if you do not feel the same, I wish you would forget all about this affair and we will go back to the way things were. I promise not to bring it up again. In my heart, I know that no matter what, I will always be by your side. I believe you know in our tradition, a first show of affection is to be rewarded by that which is most precious to us. With the ring, I hope to offer a payment in advance. You see, this belonged to my father. Before him, my grandfather and before him, my great grandfather. It has seen better times. I hope it will see better times. He passed it onto me, as his only child. It is my most precious and meaningful possession. I want you to have it, for if you feel the way I do, there is no other way forward but to spend the rest of my life with you.

You have known me to be meek, but when I am with you, I become brave. I want to be brave with you.

Again, if you do not wish for me in those ways, I will understand. That ring, nevertheless, shall always be yours, for I will never love anyone else.

With love, Your friend.”

Haldir’s breath stopped. The shock must have shown on his face, for the comrade next to him shook his shoulder in the hopes of waking him up from his reverie. A wide smile had spread across his face, his heart beating anew.

“Are you alright? — I am. Now go back to your posts, please.”

Never before had he said please when giving orders. They figured this letter must have broken his skull, for he spent the rest of the month whistling and daydreaming, spending more time alone than with them. The oldest knew. The youngest were still asking questions. When they received no answers, they settled for quiet speculations.

None of them could have figured out what was happening in Haldir’s head the whole time.

*

You waited for an answer.

It never came.

Your days were spent writing and copying the history of your people, under a strict supervision. Celeborn would have no mistake be made, whereas Galadriel encouraged you in more positive ways. They were nervous, for those scrolls were to be sent to other countries for archiving. They were a testimony and inheritance of your people’s knowledge and myths. No room for errors.

Alas, you were distracted. On the first week, you were wondering if anything had happened to Haldir during his trip to his post. Then, news came that his group had safely arrived. The second week, you convinced yourself he did not return your attachment and cried yourself to sleep every night. It was cruel, but you had expected it. After all, he was a Marchwarden and you were a mere scribe. The third one, right before he was supposed to come back, you willed yourself to go back to the way it was. He was probably giving you the space to mourn and grieve for what would never be. You had to let things go, eventually.

On the day he did come back, Haldir made no specific announcement to you, nor did he arrive during daylight. Rúmil had warned him about showing up at this hour, himself having gone directly to bed. Of course, he did not listen to his brother. Especially when he was teasing him about the love-struck face, he had a hard time hiding, all the way back home. The first thing he did was seek you out. Despite his restlessness, the odd hour triumphed over him, and he could not find you anywhere. Straight away, he went to your room, which for this hour should not have been this cold, nor this lifeless. Your bed was undone, it was obvious you had trashed around in it, the sheets left in disarray. Your work clothes were scattered around the floor. The windows were open, a faint trace of flowers in the air. He did not recognise this to be you. His worry only grew when he found inks and quills, papers thrown about on the desk. All of them with his name, some angry, others drowned in tears. The library was empty, your usual meeting point by the pond too. No guard could tell him where you had gone. He almost snapped his bow under the pressure of his hands. A quick detour to his room and he dropped off his bags and weapon. It was his fault. All of it. Not knowing what you wanted him to do, he had tried to write letters, never sending them out. It was all his fault for not telling you, even in unwisely chosen words, how he truly felt. What an actual idiot he had been. Only then did he realise where you must have been and ran.

The scribes had all left their working space. And here you were, hunched over and scrapping paper after paper, in your usual measured manners. He halted his steps. From where he was, he could not see your face, nor your hands, yet he was sure they were covered in ink stains and sore from having been overused. His feet reached you rapidly. You were about to cry out when you turned around.

Haldir had been right. You were wearing a wrinkled nightdress, clinging onto your skin with the sweat, your eyes haggard, hands covered in small ink stains. You probably had touched your face too, for it had several spots of ink there too. One by your left eye, over your eyelid. Another on your cheek, spread in a wild sprawl. The last ones on both your temples, where you must have tried to erase a headache.

As well as tears. So much tears growing in your eyes dying on your lips, nesting in your throat, making your skin damp when he reached for your face. How could he had let this happen?

“Why are you here? — I love you.”

He figured that in the state you were in, brutality was the swiftest way of ripping this sadness away. He did not think far enough to predict the anger that would follow.

“And you’re only telling me now!”

You wanted to hit him. Badly. Even tried to slap him. If it were not for his stupid reflexes, you might have done so. He would have let you, if the need to embrace you had not been so overwhelming. He pressed a lingering kiss to your forehead before securing his arms around you. You relented, too tired to fight with him. Without warning, he picked you up a hand under your knees and the other on your back. Your hands secured against his neck as he carried you out. Haldir did not bother looking out for onlookers. They would have no answer from him anyway, too focused as he was on seeing your face for the first time in a month. It was lucky this mission had been this short, otherwise… He did not want to imagine otherwise. Your room was the closest, and he reached it first, settling you in bed. You were the one to stop him. Those pleading eyes he could not resist, and a need to rest his bones close to the person he wanted to be with. He laid down with you, and you fell asleep safe and sound in his arms.

* The next morning, he woke up with a back pain, in the bed only made for one. You were nowhere in sight. He sighed. Maybe you had gone to wash and would come back soon. He waited a little while before deciding he probably had the time to wash and change too until you arrived. As he had been previously, he was wrong.

When you came back an hour later — the ink had washed away with difficulty and you needed clean clothes — your room was empty. No traces left behind. Frustration took root within you. Where could he be? Showing up in the middle of the night, no notes, no nothing announcing his return. Not directly from him, at least. You had hoped for a letter or a missive. Something, anything.

He did not have another mission yet, as far as you knew. The only logical places he could be were the bathhouse or his chambers. You chose the latter. You stomped into his bedroom with no warning.

“You did not say goodbye, Haldir.”

A chill ran down his spine. His undressed state did not seem to phase you. But then again, he thought he was the only one in love in this relationship and it had proved wrong. Deciding against his first instincts, he put a light shirt on and walked to you. You wanted to slap the smirk off of his face. Just as much as you wanted to take that shirt off of him right this instant.

“No, you did not this time. — I did not?! How… — Please…”

This time, he was the one pleading for mercy. You were looking precious, like this. A nymph or a divine being, freshly out of the water, droplets dragging against your skin. Haldir’s thumb touched your lips lightly, plump and warm against his fingertips. Your breath shortened, anger drowned by him. By his arm around your waist, by his breath fanning over your cheek, his hair caressing your collarbones, your throat, firm hands mapping your back. The fire within you could not be stopped this time.

“If you start this… — I know.”

His lips touched yours, and the world was ablaze. He brought your legs against his hips. You could feel his desire against your core. Never before had you willingly surrendered to your feelings like this.

You felt the edge of a silver ring you knew by heart around his finger. You bit your lips hard and kissed him again, even harder.

There was no letting go now.

Only holding on.

[sunflowertherian]

Therian journalling prompts/ideas

make up or learn a secret cypher (i use an altered version of greenrune), find the coolest looking journal you can or make one yourself, and write everything you want, your secrets, your dreams, your therian experiences all without having to worry someone will read it. seriously. it's incredibly freeing!

doodle and describe how you feel yourself. a human? an animal? a mix? do you see an animal on two paws, or perhaps a human on all fours? get as creative with this as you want

make a scrapbooking spread. make it messy or neat, all to your preferences. add everything you possibly can think of in there that reminds you of your kintype, be it dried plants, colored paper, pictures of nature, or maybe even scraps of fabric. draw the paw/feet/similar identifying trait of your theriotype over it all. make it yours

do you have any gear, or want any? why or why not? delve into that thought, and see where your mind takes you. it's always alright to get off track

dedicate a page or two to your theriotype(s), with information you know, things that remind you of them, perhaps add images or drawing of the, as well.

what was the best/most fun shift you've ever had? why? what caused it? try to replicate it and see how it goes!

do you like to/want to do quads? make a tracker for what days you try, and keep notes of what you do well and what you need to practice more!

in similar suit, track your shifts, along with what kind of shift it was, what animal you were, what you believe triggered it, and how long it lasted. it can help you learn more about what kind of shifts are typical for you, and predict shifts a little more

territory. do you have any? do you remember any from animalistic memories? would you like some? plan ahead! scout out areas nearby, print pictures of it, and draw over areas you'd like to create. think that mound might look nice with a den right next to it? want to have a quads obstacle course? maybe an area where you can sit and do homework or relax? note all the ideas down, plan how you'll mark your territory, and draw any elaborate plans you may have!

list a few meal ideas for yourself that work with your theriotypes! if you make them, write about how they tasted!

Feel free to suggest more ideas!

[iirulancorrino]

People ask me all the time what’s the worst thing a customer said to me, or what’s the craziest story I have from work. I always say: I don’t remember. I used to store things like this, anecdotes to share on social media, but by the end, I went into work, I got through my shifts, and when I left, I wiped my brain like a chalkboard. When people ask me this, I get the sense that they’re looking for entertainment. What, I wanted to say, do you think I do this job for anecdotes? People will say that, too. Oh, it must make you a better writer, seeing all these people and the crazy things they say. 

It has not made me a better writer. It’s made me lazy. It’s made me love money. It’s made me see that life is more than writing, it’s lessened my chokehold on dedication. I no longer identify as an ambitious person. I identify as a person who wants to make the life that they can scrape together as comfortable as possible. 

I do think being a waitress has done one great thing with respect to writing: it has made me understand deeply and fundamentally how many writers are full of shit. It has altered my view of privilege and money and the ways that people complain that mask the fact that in their world, they would never have to do a job that equates to basic manual labor, because their intelligence is worth more than waiting on others. (Side note: Sweetbitter was an overrated waitressing book, Love Me Back is underrated.)

...

For so many years I thought that I was missing an element of secret knowledge about how actual jobs worked, and that therefore I would be stuck forever. But now that I do other work, I see it all for what it is: everything is a system. The restaurant is a system, the content management is a system, the computer is a system. Everything is so much simpler than I imagined it was. I thought I was doing an easy job, but everything is an easy job when you know the system. Other professions weren’t magic. They were systems too.

[brandyllyn]

Sinners

Pero Tovar x f!reader

Summary: "I do not understand you, Pero Tovar. Or this… whatever this is. But I will not give something that cannot be returned." Words: 8.4k

My Masterlist

Rated: Explicit Warnings: pining. talk of adultery (no one actually commits it). a lot of reference to vaguely Catholic religion on reader’s part. smut. 

This one is @pedropascalsx​​ ‘s fault. She attacked me without warning. Don’t let her convince you otherwise.

He was too handsome, that was your first thought.

Well, not your first. When he had arrived in town he had looked like one of the roving monsters from the tales of your childhood - teeth flashing from behind a scraggly mess of a beard. You had quickly stepped out of his line of sight; peering from around the corner of a crofter’s cottage as he rode by, his companion’s horse trailing just behind him. They were obviously only passing through, likely stopping for supplies before moving on.

But they hadn’t.

Instead they had taken up residence on the south end of the village, a lop-sided building that had stood empty since the elderly couple who lived there had passed, their son long lost to war.

The man had stalked the town for nearly a week, speaking with locals and buying supplies. Stores were low this late in the winter but summer was just around the corner and with the promise of new crops the villagers were more than willing to sell the last of the foods that had seen them through the cold months. You had avoided him the entire time, his angry visage and large frame enough to send you quickly in the opposite direction.

How quickly you had proven shallow.

When he walked through the village a sennight later, on his way to the smithy, freshly shaven and his hair cut into neat curls at the base of his neck, your heart had skipped a beat. His lips were full, and the chin you had assumed weak was instead perfectly framed by a strong jaw. Even the scar over his eye only highlighted the angular jut of his cheekbones.

He was beautiful.

And married.

Who else could the woman be who had arrived with him? Who shared his home in the one room cottage? They were not related - her features reflected far-distant lands - and she treated him with a familiarity borne only from shared experience.

She was a lucky woman.

The Holy texts only mentioned coveting of thy neighbor’s wife, yet surely coveting her husband was equally damnable in the eyes of the Lord. But you couldn’t seem to help drifting by the forge a few times during the next week. Nor could you resist letting your eyes settle on the muscles of his back as they strained under the weight of the hammer he was lifting with trained precision.

Envy was a sin. But surely it could not be a sin to look?

You did not ask, you knew what the answer was. 

And yet…

And yet you found yourself altering your route to the forest, eyes darting to the smithy in the hopes of catching a glimpse of him. In the bracken woods your fingers moved without conscious thought, your mind elsewhere as you imagined what it might be like to share the small cottage with him. And at night, you bit your teeth into the meaty part of your palm to muffle the your own fingers and thoughts of him were drawing from you.

It was a sin, you knew that. But then again, you’d always known you were a sinner.

Pero Tovar had spent his life in battle. He knew the whistle of an arrow as it passed his ear and the precise noise a knife made as it parted flesh. He could identify the craftsmanship of a blade whether it was from the Far East or the wilds below the sands of the Sahara. He knew the moment to strike, and more importantly when to hold his own counsel - when to fight and when to run.

And he knew when he was being watched.

The woman made no attempt to hide it, darting glances at him from behind long eyelashes. At first he’d bristled at the attention, waiting for the sneering comments or sharp gestures that were sure to follow. But they never came. Day after day he saw her, more and more often, once even caught her staring at him from afar with her lips slightly parted, her basket of herbs loose in her grip.

Wiping the sweat from his brow with one hand he’d nearly called out to her, scolded her for her inhospitality and rudeness. But her gaze had fallen to his bare arms, her lips parting even further and he’d flexed for her almost unconsciously. Even from meters away he could see her sudden swallow, nearly hear her gasp as she quickly turned her back on him and all but ran into the woods.

Humming thoughtfully, Pero traded his large working mallet for one of the smaller hammers, ignoring the sparks that flew as he repaired the tines on a pitchfork. He had assumed the local healer was only wary of him - many in the village gave him a wide berth and he did not blame them. But he knew that look in a woman’s eye - could clock the rise and fall of a bosom as easily as he could the footfall of an assassin.

She wanted him.

After that he began to work shirtless more often, using only the leather aprons for cover, making a point of stretching and reaching whenever he caught the movement of her in the corner of his vision. He did not acknowledge her staring - she would likely faint and he was enjoying the attention too much to see it come to an end.

It was nice, to be wanted, even knowing that he was still not worthy of her. Nor was he free to pursue her. Lin Mae had his presence as protection from the villagers. And while it seemed unlikely they would turn on her, he had promised William when they left that he would protect the man’s love with his life if needed. The least he could do was give her the protection of his name.

It hadn’t seemed like such a large ask, when it was made. But now his fingers itched to reach for another. To draw someone else into his arms. He did not deserve her, had no chance with her, but was it not the penance of those damned to dream of what they could not have?

The first day he changed his schedule he missed her entirely. The second he found himself arriving at the smithy just as she appeared around the far corner. It took him four tries, in fact, to time his short journey so that they rounded a corner at the same time, nearly running into one another.

"Oh!" she let out a short yelp and stumbled backwards and he reached a hand out to steady her under one elbow.

"Pardon," he tried not to think of how smooth her skin felt.

They walked to the smithy in silence, the light scent of honeysuckle drifting up from her hair. It stayed in his nose the rest of the day, teasing his senses and making his blood thump loudly in his ears.

The next day he did not scare her, in fact he was nearly certain she had timed her arrival as well, falling into step beside him without a word. They did not touch, not even a brush of her arm against his. And at the forge he left her without so much as a goodbye - ignoring the urge to look back and see if she watched after him. If her eyes traced over him the way his hands longed to trace over her. To wrap his fingers around the back of her neck and-

No, those thoughts were for the nights. Laying on his pallet near the fire, one hand stacked behind his head and the other around his cock. In the darkness he could pretend he was another man - one free to court her and touch her. To find out what his name might sound like when it fell from her lips on a sigh of pure pleasure. A man she might choose.

He was doing it on purpose.

At first you had thought he was confronting you. Lying in wait for you to leave your home so he could scold you for your licentious behavior. But he hadn’t said a word

Nor did he say one the next day when you met in the small clearing between your cottages, walking side by side until you parted ways behind the smithy. On the third day you didn’t even need to go to the woods, it was a day for brewing and drying. But you went anyway, walking near to the silent man and gathering kindling before making your way back.

It was impossible that no one would notice.

No one said anything to you, not directly. You were the best healer for leagues in any direction and they would turn a blind eye to any multitude of transgressions before dismissing you. But you did see the Master Smith giving him what looked like a stern lecture one day, both men’s eyes following you as you fetched water from the stream. 

The next day he was not there and you sighed as you skirted the edge of the smithy, sighing louder when he was not there. It had been a short fantasy, and not an unproblematic one. You would do well to remember that he was spoken for - and that anything beyond mere companionship was not fated.

But then he spoke to you. Catching up with you one morning as though he had never missed a day.

"Morrow to you."

"Morrow," you mumbled, trying not to stumble. His voice was gravelly and deep, exactly as you had expected it to be.

"The Master Smith says you have a salve for burns," he continued. "I do not believe it is serious but-"

You stopped in your tracks, turning to him and scanning what of him you could see with a trained eye. "Show me."

Sighing, he pushed one sleeve up, revealing blistered red flesh high on his forearm. You held back a gasp, reaching out with one hand to grip above his elbow. "This will scar," you told him with a frown. His lips twitched and you realized suddenly that he was covered in them. Thick and thin, burns and cuts. 

"I would hate to add another," he said dryly.

Biting back your own smile you prodded lightly at the edge of the burn, listening to the quick hiss of his breath. "It will need to be covered, come with me."

You didn’t wait to see if he followed, your cottage was not far and he was welcome to make the decision for himself. But a moment later you heard him fall into step beside you. He even held your own door open, only ducking inside once you had and leaving it slightly ajar so that any passers-by would be able to see what was happening. A courtesy you had not expected.

"Sit," you ordered, pointing at a low stool. He did not argue, sinking onto it and resting his arm on your table. You gathered your supplies quickly, a jar and a stack of clean bandages.

"When did this happen?" you asked as you set the items near him, slowly rolling the edge of his sleeve past the wound.

"Two days ago, I was… distracted."

You didn’t ask why, spooning a generous amount from the jar and gently spreading it on the burn. When you returned with a second you saw his nostrils flare, one eyebrow rising.

"Is that… honey?"

"It is an old cure," you shrugged, carefully covering the edges, "and one that has long stood the test of time." Picking up the bandages you motioned for him to hold his arm from the table. "Besides, it might help to make your disposition a bit sweeter."

Sweet Jesu had you really just said that?

A snort left him and he turned to more fully face you, eyes meeting yours. "I’m not certain you have enough for that."

"I shall have to save it for myself," you demurred, tucking the edge of the bandage under and patting it softly.

"Are you so bitter?"

"Not bitter," you laughed softly, once again gathering your supplies. "Only…" 

This man was a stranger to you. And while you might like the look of his face and admire his fine thighs, he was not your confidante.

"Not bitter," you said again, more firmly this time. Wiping your hands you felt the small tug of the cloth against your finger and raised it to your lips without thinking, sucking the small bit of honey from your flesh. "Is there-"

His eyes were locked on your lips, on the hand still hovering near them. When had it gotten warm in your cottage? When had he stood up? Gotten so close? You had to lean back to look into his eyes, his chest was practically touching yours, a soft growl rumbling from deep within him. You felt an answering purr rise in your own - something soft in your reacting to his nearness.

Then he shook his head suddenly and stepped away. "Apologies, I did not mean to overstep."

Could he hear your heartbeat? You could. And the way he was looking at you…

"It is no matter," you waved a hand uselessly in the air. "We were finished unless there is something else I can help you with?"

"What is my debt?"

You waved a hand again, "For this? It is nothing."

"It is not nothing," he insisted. "Do not sell yourself so cheaply."

"I do not sell myself at all," you pointed out, carefully stepping away to place the honey back on its shelf. "People help me when they can, if you really must insist there is wood behind the house that could stand being chopped and brought in."

He nodded and strode out the door and you let out a breath. That had been far too close for comfort. If he hadn’t stepped away… would you have? You liked to think he would but the smell of salt and smoke that clung to his clothes made your head spin.

A loud noise cut through the air and you frowned, following his path outside and crossing your arms when you saw him. 

"I didn’t mean now."

He shrugged and set up another log, swinging the ax high over his head and bringing it down with a solid thunk. "It is a task that needs doing, no?"

"It is," you waited for him to bring the ax down again before continuing, "but I certainly had no expectation you would do it right after being treated."

"It does not interfere," he pointed out. 

"I will not treat it again," you scolded softly. 

A smile lifted the corner of his mouth and you noticed he had a dimple on his right cheek. Why did he have to be so handsome?

"Perhaps if I find some honey you will be sweeter to me."

I am far too sweet for you already, you thought with a sigh, turning your head before he could see how flustered he made you.

Ignoring the fact that you had been headed to the forest before being sidetracked, you pulled your largest kettles into the clearing beside your home and began to set fires beneath them. The sound of chopping wood kept you company as you set the fine sticks of wood carefully under them and grabbed your bucket. You were halfway back from the stream when he caught you, taking the pail with a scolding murmur and taking two back with him. While he fetched the water you carefully minced herbs, dropping them into the water and striking stone to steel to create a fire beneath.

You spent the remainder of the morning tending the pots, carefully judging the smells, consistency, and colors of each. Illness always came with the spring, people being in too much of a hurry to enjoy the weather to take proper precautions, and you wanted to be ready.

At midday you tried to stop Pero, offering him a hunk of bread and cheese and pointing out the amount of wood he had chopped far exceeded to small amount of care you had given him. He’d grunted at that, taking the proffered food and shoving it in his mouth. Then he had pulled his shirt off and gone back to work, leaving you agape and trying not to stare.

He was too handsome for his own good.

It wasn’t fair of him and he knew it. But then again, what mattered was who won the war, not how honorably they fought.

He knew he was tempting her to sin with a married man. And he would feel worse about that if he was in fact married. But he wasn’t - and the way her breath hitched in her throat every time he stretched and moved made his lungs near burst with pride.

Swiping a hand across his chest he shook his head, feeling droplets of sweat spray from the hanging ends of his too-long hair. He’d been working in the sun for her for hours now, chopping what had to be a half cord of wood and stacking it neatly both inside and outside the cottage. No matter what he did she seemed to be nearby, finding tasks that kept him in her line of sight.

Could he tempt her down to the stream? There was a small, shallow pool there - barely as high as his waist. But if he could get her in it… no, she still was as fresh and clean as she had been this morning - keeping to the shade even as he sweat in the sun. Well, he always had a backup plan.

"You have another pail?"

Her head jerked up and she tilted her head to the side without seeming to think about it. He took the proffered object, heading to the river and bringing it the entire way back before dumping it over his head.

"Ah, that is better," he said, shaking his hair out.

She was staring again. Hands clenching and unclenching around the small paring knife. He took a careful step closer to her, watching the ways her eyes tracked his movements and her chest rose and fell in rapid breathing.

"Is there more I can do?"

A confused noise left her and he bit back a smile, moving closer until she tilted her head up to look at him.

"I see how you watch me." Her head shook in a frantic denial and he stopped her with a finger under her chin.

"I do not," she tried but he raised one eyebrow and she quickly silenced. A long moment stretched between them and her shoulders dropped. "I should not."

"No?" he asked, tilting his head. "And do you think I do not also watch you?"

Her lips parted and he took advantage, ducking his head and pressing his own to them. A soft noise left her and he swallowed it, gathering her into his arms and deepening the kiss. She made no protest, her hands clutching at his shoulders and her lips parting even further for him when he dipped his tongue inside.

Without thinking about it he backed her up until he had her pressed to the stones of her cottage, reaching down and hitching one of her thighs around his waist. She fit him perfectly, the hard planes of his body sinking instantly into the soft curves of hers.

"We can’t," she whispered.

"We must," he countered.

She tasted of herbs, rosemary she had chewed that morning and bits of things that clung to her skin after her day’s work. His hands gripped at her hips, her thigh, the dip of her waist and the curve of her ass. He couldn’t get enough of her.

But when she shoved at his shoulders he stepped away. He had never taken a woman unwillingly. Convinced, wheedled, paid - even once long ago had quite nearly begged - but never forced.

"You are married," she bit out, one hand pressing to her chest.

"An inconvenience," he told her truthfully. "We are together only in the eyes of man, not God."

Her eyebrows drew together, "What does that even mean?"

How could he explain and still keep his oath to William? He was treading a fine line already. "It means I have never lain with her. Nor do I plan to."

"I don’t understand," she shook her head and when he went to step closer she held her hand between them. "I do not understand you, Pero Tovar. Or this… whatever this is. But I will not give something that cannot be returned."

"And if it were?"

She closed her eyes, hand wavering, and he took his opportunity. Were this a battlefield he would have sliced her tendons at the knee and downed her from one heartbeat to the next. Instead, he pulled her into his arms again, dipping his head and nibbling at the soft column of her throat.

"Do you want me?"

"It is a sin," she sighed, but tilted her head to give him more access.

"Lying is a sin," he pointed out, scraping his teeth along the flesh she offered. "Do you?"

"I shouldn’t."

"Do you?"

Someone called her name and Pero swore, stepping away from her quickly and jerking his shirt from the ground. He would not see her shamed in the eyes of the village.

"We are not finished," he told her solemnly.

That man was a menace.

He continued to meet you on your walks into the woods - and even on the days you varied your routine he managed to find you at some point. Falling into step beside you and brushing your shoulder with his. Twice, when no one was around, he tried to tug you into shadowed corners. The glint in his eye giving away what he wanted.

You were only flesh.

Flesh that was weak where he was concerned. Arms wrapping fiercely around his neck even as you cursed yourself for it. You went willingly, allowing him a few stolen kisses before breaking away. He always asked the same question, "Do you want me?" and you always avoided it.

You dreaded to think what might happen if he knew it for certainty.

Even now, settled in his lap beneath the span of a large oak tree, his lips repeated the words into the tendons of your neck. But he said it as a statement, his hand slipping under your skirt and palming the skin of your thighs in rough strokes.

"You want me."

"It doesn’t matter what I want," you told him for perhaps the hundredth time.

He bit you and you yelped, pushing hard on his shoulders and glaring. He was glaring right back, his lower lip protruding in an uncharacteristic pout. You ignored it, climbing to your feet and swatting his hands away when he tried to pull you back down.

"You have to stop this."

"I do not wish to," he grumbled, leaning back on one hand and looking up at you from lowered lids. He looked positively pagan, sprawled among the early spring flowers like some sort of god.

"The weather is changing and with it the markets will begin again. I will find someone else."

He moved so fast you didn’t even see him, a blur of motion and he was in front of you, grasping your arms in a strong grip. "You are mine."

"I am not," you gritted out, trying to shrug him off to no avail. "What can you offer me except heartbreak?"

"I would offer you everything," he said quietly, ducking his head to force you to meet his eyes. They were earnest, soft and brown and it took all of your will not to sway to him.

"Everything but your hand."

"Even that," he cracked a small smile. "I have two."

"That’s not funny," you growled, finally moving away.

"I found it a small amusement," he huffed.

"Tovar…"

"Pero," he corrected.

"Tovar," you said more forcefully. "The spring festival is at the next full moon. I intend to make my intention known that I seek a husband."

A snarl curled his lips and you took an unconscious step back. One hand clenched at his side as though he might find a weapon there. "You will not."

"I will," you corrected. "And you should gather peonies for your wife."

"Peonies? I do not understand"

"You don’t… I suppose maybe it is not your custom." You bent and picked up your basket, "During the festival, couples will exchange the flowers - to show their love. At nightfall, all of the unmarried townsfolk will take to the woods hoping to find their own." A thought came over you and you waved a hand, trying not to look flustered, "Many return together."

He hummed thoughtfully, holding a hand out to you to help you step over a large tree root. "And I should gather these flowers for my love, yes?"

You nodded, swallowing past a knot of emotion. "I will not tell you this has not been… fun. But it is over now. It must be."

Humming again he guided you back to the path. "And you are certain that this is what you wish? You will find your husband during the festival?"

A small laugh escaped you and you shook your head. "I intend only to find the flowers, to make it known I wish to find someone."

"So there is no one else?" The answer fell from his lips with a more plaintive tone than he seemed to want, frowning to himself after he finished.

"How could there be?" You brushed past him, swinging your basket, "I already spend half my day in confession because of you."

A low growl caught in his throat and he grabbed you, pulling you back to his body and once again taking your lips. You let him, conscious that your time with him was drawing to a close. And besides, you were already going to have to confess that morning’s indiscretion - what was one more?

The setting sun bathed the village in warm glowing light, making the women look ethereal as they danced around the large pole in the village square - but Pero’s eyes sought only one. By his side, Lin Mae smiled and spoke with one of the local farmer’s wives - comparing the soil and harvest months. She had notes in that strange writing of hers, ideas for things she and William might grow when he returned from his journey.

"Does my husband grow bored of me so quickly?"

Pero blinked and glanced down at her, raising an eyebrow and scowling. She smiled in return, tucking a piece of jet black air behind her ear. "It is strange, the gossip, and how many women of the village want me to know your eyes have strayed."

"They should mind their own business," he grunted, finally spying who he wanted through the crowd. Her eyes shone in the firelight, the orange glow making the simple white shift she wore seem to come alive around her as she danced with several other women.

"They think they are protecting me," Lin Mae shrugged, taking a sip of her drink. "They were properly disgusted at your behavior."

He grunted again, not bothering to give her words. The woman who held all of his attention was braiding flowers into another’s hair - fingers working quickly.

"I don’t suppose I could make you pretend that you are not pining for her this eve, could I?"

"Small chance," he said truthfully, sipping his drink and never taking his eyes off of her.

"They are getting ready for their ceremony," Lin Mae said, shifting her stance slightly. "Perhaps I am growing too tired to stay out."

Frowning, Pero glanced down at the former Commander of the Crane Troop. "Are you well?"

"Perhaps my husband should take me home, so we may both retire for the evening. That way, if he disappeared into the woods later no one would note it."

He finally turned his full attention to her, "You are a brilliant woman, much smarter than your husband."

She winked and he held an arm out, studiously avoiding looking back at the revelers as he led her away from the fires. They returned the shouted greetings from a few people and he held the door to their shared quarters for her when they arrived.

"Is there anything-"

"Go, Pero Tovar," Lin Mae smiled, settling by the fire and patting a hand over her stomach. "I will be fine for the evening."

He did not need to be told twice, going out the back door and circling around the forest to watch the festival. An old man stood by the fire, hands held high in the air and saying something he couldn’t hear. Near him, two groups of men and women giggled and chatted amongst themselves. Blushing and elbowing as they looked towards the other group.

The man’s hands came down and the women sprinted into the forest, although Pero noticed many did not seem to be in a particular hurry. He slipped into the forest behind them easily, padding on soft feet and slinking through the trees like a wraith. He found his quarry easily, her lilting laugh all he needed to zero in on her. With casual competence he brought down two men who sought to follow her, leaving them in slumped piles to be found in the morning. Soon she had outpaced the other maidens, either through swiftness of foot or perhaps their own desire to be caught. It didn’t matter to Pero.

Moonlight bathed the glen in pale light and he slowed to a careful stop. He had arrived before her and he did not pause before plucking several of the prizes before  ducking behind the old oak tree and watching for her. It was not long before she entered, laughing to herself and throwing her head back to stare at the moon before dropping to her knees. The beautiful petals of the flowers were almost black in the silvery light, her hands cupping them as though they were the most precious thing. But that could not be right, because she was there and there could be nothing more precious.

He watched as she carefully picked three of the blossoms, cradling them tightly before rising to her feet and turning back to the forest. Back towards him. He could no more have plucked the moon from the sky than he could have stopped himself from reaching out. Catching her wrist in one hand, pulling her back to his chest and dropping his other to press low on her stomach. She gasped in shock and he nuzzled his face into her neck, nipping at her earlobe with his teeth.

"Careful, one might think you wished to be caught."

The tenseness flowed from her and her body melted back against him. He groaned with it, crossing his arm over her chest and feeling the petals in her fingers crush under their combined grip. Slowly, he released his own hand, letting the flowers he had gathered fall and mix with hers.

"I have done what you said, I have gathered these for my love."

"Pero…"

His body lurched at the sound of his name on her lips. Sucking a bruising kiss to her neck he tried to turn her, growling when she resisted. Instead he let her wrist go to grip her chin, jerking her face towards him and thrusting his tongue past her lips. He met no resistance there, the soft give and take of her mouth and the low moan in her throat enough to set his blood thrumming through his veins. Her fingertips gripped his forearms and he tightened his hold.

"Lay with me," he groaned, dragging his lips across her cheek, dipping his tongue behind her ear. "Let me make you mine."

A shudder wracked her frame and he paused, this time meeting no hesitancy when he spun her to face him. "What is it?

"You will always belong to another," she whispered quietly, pain tinging her voice. With the greatest care he cupped her jaw in one of his palms, brushing his thumb over the apple of her cheek. 

"I belong to no one," he told her, willing her to look into his eyes. "Except perhaps to you."

Another shaky breath and her eyes squeezed closed. "Tovar-"

"Pero," he corrected quickly, pressing his lips to the lip of her nose. "If you are to hold my heart you must call me by my given name."

"How can you say these things?" she chided softly.

He should tell her, should have from the start. Tell her that in the eye of the Lord he was free, that the only sin between them was lust. But she would not believe him. Hell, he wouldn’t believe him. Not here, not like this. Not knowing the things a man might say to have a woman in his arms.

"All I can ask is that you trust me," he whispered. Stooping down he plucked one of the round flowers into his hands, holding it out to her in his cupped palm. He waited, holding his breath until she took it with shaking fingers.

"And when we are damned?"

"Then we will burn together."

This time when their mouths met he felt no hesitancy, her arms coming up and fingers threading through the hairs on the back of his neck. He shuddered in her embrace, pulling her close and falling to his knees on the soft mossy ground. His hands shoved at the cloth of her skirt, pushing it upwards as she sank into his lap, her knees on either side of his thighs. The moon behind her cast her in a soft, silvery aura and he paused to admire her beauty.

With careful fingers he slipped the sleeves of her dress from her shoulders, watching them fall until the shift caught in the crook of her elbows and on the swells of her breast. From her position above him it was an easy thing to lean forward and catch it with his teeth, pulling downwards and exposing her soft flesh inch by inch. He heard the hitch in her breath when her pebbled nipples were bared to the cool night air. And he felt the way her body trembled when he curled his tongue around the hardened nub and sucked it deep into his mouth.

His name fell like a prayer between them and even if he were what she thought he was - there was no world in which this was a sin. No world in which holding the trembling figure in his arms was anything less than worship.

"Pero," she cried again, her hips rocking in his lap and his control snapped. He reached between their bodies, fumbling with the buttons on his trousers.

"You know the herbs?" he asked, breathless and frantic.

She nodded, hands working between them as well. Groaning he shoved her fingers to the side, lining his cock up and sinking the head of himself into her. "You will tell me if it is too much?"

"Pero please," she begged and he lost himself, plunging forward until he was seated fully inside her. Her heat made him go cross-eyed, and the small cry that broke from her lips made him cup her face in his hands in worry. 

"Are you-?"

She lunged towards him, pressing him back down to the moss. They tumbled for a moment, legs tangling, her hips rocking into his. A deep curse left his lips and he steadied her with hands on her waist, looking up in awe as she rose to her knees over him, one hand pressed firmly to his chest and the other his waist.

"Fuck," he snarled, unable to take his eyes off of her. The white of her shift shone ethereal in the moonlight. This could not be a sin, for surely she was an angel sent down to redeem him. Her muscles bore down and he cursed again. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe she had been sent to damn him.

"Pero," she sighed, reaching for one of his hands and tangling their fingers together. "Please."

This he could do for her. Slip his hand beneath her skirt and find where they joined, rub his fingers in wide circles through her slick until she threw her head back and came around his cock. It was all he needed to follow, clutching her skin so hard he knew he’d leave bruises before hauling her down and into his arms.

Confession was going to be interesting this week.

Measuring the pennyroyal carefully, you added it to the other ingredients of the tea you were making. You had made it many times in the past for other women - but only once for yourself.

Then again, last night had been only the second time you’d ever lain with a man. The look in Pero’s eyes told you it was well on its way to also being the third and perhaps fourth before you were interrupted by a small group of giggling girls, barely old enough to participate in the festival, bursting into the clearing and exclaiming at the sight of the flowers. It had been almost gentlemanly, the way he had tried to shield you from their notice. But all it took was standing up for your clothes to be set to rights - he had to fix both his shirt and the fall of his trousers. 

Plenty of time for you to escape and join them.

It had been a mistake. A massive, soul-damning mistake. Adulteresses did not get to go to heaven. There was literally a whole commandment devoted to it - right between killing and stealing. That’s how important it was.

You’d be saying Hail Mary’s until you were old and gray to atone for this.

Sighing you wrapped your hands around your mug, taking the first sip and opening your front door to let in the morning air. The sight that met you froze you in your tracks however. Pero and his wife were arguing. Shame overcame you and you turned away before they could see you - but you couldn’t help but overhear their voices carrying.

"I am not fragile, Tovar, and will not have you treat me as such."

"I know as well as any man that you are as tough as forged iron." A strange way to talk to his wife, but then again he had been telling you for weeks theirs was a strange marriage.

"Then get out of my way."

"I will not have you harm the babe!"

The world stopped and you gasped, watching the mug tumble from your fingers, the dark liquid spilling across the dirt. Your head jerked up and Pero met your eyes. 

Of course that’s why he asked if you knew how to not conceive.

"Cariño…" his soft voice floated across the field and you stooped down quickly to pick up your mug. You would need to rebrew it - be sure you had taken enough. You were absolutely not going to have that man’s child.

Your pot had just started boiling when he stepped through your doorway. "It is not what you think."

"What I think?" Your voice had an edge of hysteria and you fought to keep calm. "What I think is that you left your pregnant wife at home to seduce me last night. Am I wrong?"

"I told you I have never lain with her."

You blinked, jerking backwards. The world seemed to come to a standstill. After a moment a strangled laugh left you. "Your wife sinned with another - so you sought to do the same?"

"It is not a sin," he growled, coming around your worktable in long strides. "This - you… it is not."

Saints above he was kissing you again, and as angry as you were your body betrayed you immediately. Sinking into his warmth and burying your fingers into the curls at the nape of his neck. With an ease that left you breathless he lifted you onto your table, shoving your skirts to your waist. The hard ridges of his body pressed between your thighs and you gasped.

"It is not a sin, cariño. To want an angel?" His hips rolled and you arched into his chest. "To take a piece of heaven for myself?"

"It is one of the first," you corrected him, gasping for breath and speaking the words directly into his mouth. "Is it not why Lucifer fell?"

"Fuck Lucifer," he growled in return, clutching your body closer. "He wanted power. I want only you."

Why, why did he have to say things like that? "Pero…"

"Say it again," he groaned, fingers working the fall of his trousers. "Say it while I am inside you."

You should protest. You absolutely should not be letting him swive you after everything else that you now knew. But he fit you so perfectly, and looked at you with such wonder in his eyes you couldn’t help it.

"Pero."

The words that left him were in a language you didn’t understand. Falling from his lips like a psalm and for just that moment you let yourself believe him. 

And when he slipped into your cottage that night, wrapping you in his arms and pressing your hand over his heart - you let yourself imagine a world where he was yours.

Pero’s shoulder brushed hers as they walked through the village. He wanted to wrap an arm around her waist, hold her close against the morning chill - but he knew that was impossible.

It had been amusing, at first, sneaking away into the forest. Going to her cottage in the middle of the night and having his way with her. And she with him. Once she was in his arms she showed a remarkable imagination and flexibility that often left him breathless in the aftermath.

But the secrecy was quickly growing old. He wanted to kiss her. Her eyes were bright and her skirts whipped around her legs as they walked into the wind, reminding him of how they felt wrapped around him only hours ago.

A leaf caught in her hair and he reached up with a smile, plucking it from the strands and touching it to the tip of her nose with a playful tap. She grinned in return and he felt his heart swell in his chest.

"It is shameful how they carry on."

Pero froze, his jaw tightening. For a moment he hoped she hadn’t heard.

"He’s a foreigner, probably an infidel, but she should know better."

Oh she’d definitely heard, her eyes widening as she took a step away from him.

"Cariño," he said softly, willing her to look at him. The leaf dropped from his fingers and he reached for her. But she was shaking her head frantically, her hands gripping her basket so hard he worried she would snap it.

"There always was something unnatural about her."

Pero’s vision went red and he turned, ready to confront the two gossiping women. Or kill them. He wasn’t sure which. They balked at the look on his face and he took a threatening step their direction before a hand on his elbow stopped him. Scowling, he looked down at her.

"They do not know what they say," he told her, trying to keep his voice level.

"They know exactly what they say," she corrected quietly, "and none of it is untrue."

The truth lay thick in Pero’s throat, the chance to say it long passed. William was not supposed to have been gone this long. Should have only been a fortnight behind them. Instead it had been nearly two months and Pero was beginning to grow worried something had happened to his friend.

"They question your honor."

"I know what I am," she said softly. "I know what I chose when I chose you."

Something lodged in the back of Pero’s throat. He had fought for everything, every chance he’d ever had. Even William and he had ended up together only by chance, joining the same merchant trip to the East. He had trained harder than anyone else, stolen what couldn’t be achieved, and paid coin for another’s favors. But no one had ever chosen him for him.

"Cariño," he took a step towards her and she stepped away.

"Not out here, I don’t want to give them more to talk about."

"Let them talk," he grunted, pulling her into his arms and tilting her face up to his with one finger. "I choose you as well."

"A second choice," she whispered and Pero’s blood thrummed through his veins.

"First," he corrected. "First and always."

"How can I be? You’re-"

He cut her off with a kiss, not caring who saw. Not caring the way it would look to others. She was his and he would claim her for all to see it. And he could not hear her say that word again, could not hear her denial of what he felt.

"Trust me," he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers. "That is all I can ask."

"With everything," she murmured back. Her spine was straight when she stepped out of his arms, ignoring the hushed mutterings that followed her as she left to the forest and he turned to the smithy. He contemplated scaring the women within an inch of their lives, his size and face more than enough, but it would only cause more problems.

The days were growing warmer and soon enough Pero had sweated through his shirt, tossing it to the side and covering himself only with his leather apron as he worked the metal. A few rings of his armor melted down, the most precious thing he had, now being reworked into a far different purpose.

"You can’t even pretend to make friends can you?"

Pero froze, closing his eyes a moment before turning.

"Tu hijo de puta."

William held his hands up, brows drawing together. "What did I do?"

"A couple of weeks, you said." Pero carefully set his finer tools down, reaching for one of his larger hammers as he approached his friend. "No time at all."

"Things were more complicated than-"

William dodged Pero’s casual swing, but dove straight into the man’s fist.

"That is for taking so long," Pero grunted, setting the tool to the side and shaking out his fingers. "Your head is as hard as ever."

Rubbing his cheek, William blinked at him. "Has Lin Mae been that difficult?"

"It is not…" Pero sighed, picking up his shirt. "Come, I will tell you on the way."

You took a different path through the forest than usual. You didn’t want Pero following you, although you knew he could easily track you if he wanted to. You need time to think, to come to terms with what you were doing.

It had been too much to hope, that no one would notice. It was a miracle that you had avoided the gossip as long as you had. And there would be no denying it, not after that kiss.

Your fingers touched your bottom lip for a moment and you sighed. Pero was a passionate man, and yet you had never seen him touch his wife the way he touched you. It heartened you, although it shouldn’t, that maybe he did feel more for you than he did her.

"Ave, María, grátia plena," you said quietly, stooping to pluck an herb. "Dóminus tecum."

No harm in getting in a few prayers before confession - you were bound to be given another dozen at a minimum for what had happened today.

At your cottage you set about preserving your stores. The rainy season would cause many things to rot if you did not dry them carefully now, hanging them from the rafters in bundles. You hummed as you worked, trying to ignore the events of the morning. There was nothing that could be done about it now.

A knock jerked you out of your thoughts and you glanced towards the window to check the time. It was early afternoon, and you were not expecting anyone. Certainly not the sight that greeted you when you opened the door.

"Pero?"

The man was standing there, arms overflowing with peonies of every color. He must have taken the entire field’s worth.

"Cariño," he said softly. "Quiéreme."

You gasped, covering your mouth with one hand. "What?"

"Love me," he repeated, offering the cascading bundle of flowers in his arm to you. There were so many that some fell to the ground as he moved, littering around your feet.

"I do," you smiled, a small wane thing. "You know I do."

"Marry me." You gasped and he dropped the blooms finally, not seeming to care as he crushed them and gathered you close. "Marry me, today. As soon as we are able."

"But you’re-"

"Do not say it," he growled, dipping his head and kissing you. "I will not hear you say it again. William."

William?

A cough interrupted your thought and you glanced over Pero’s shoulder to see a blonde man with his arm around Pero’s wife.

"I believe this is my fault," he said, nuzzling his nose into the woman’s hair and you noticed a bruise forming around one of his eyes. "This lovely woman is not Tovar’s wife, she is mine."

"What?" The word left you on a whisper, your mind unable to comprehend.

"I am not wed." Pero said it this time, tilting your head back so you looked into his eyes. "I never have been."

"Why did you-"

"Me again," the blonde called out. "Pero promised to look after her for me. This wasn’t exactly what I thought would happen but…" The woman at his side elbowed him and he gave you a sheepish smile.

"You are not married?"

"No."

"Then we…?"

"Have not sinned."

A giggle bubbled out of you and you smiled up at him. "I believe we have sinned many times."

His answering smile was dazzling. "A small thing, and one that can be absolved when you are my wife."

"Your wife?"

"Now," he punctuated the word with a kiss. "As soon as we can find the damned priest."

"Your friend is injured," you pointed out. 

"No more than he deserves," Pero griped.

"And the banns have not been read."

"I do not care if another seeks your hand, you are mine." He suddenly looked unsure. "Unless you do not want-"

You threw your arms around his neck, hugging him close. "I have two hands, Pero Tovar, and neither are claimed."

"I will take them both," he told you solemnly. "And make you mine."

"As you are mine."

Taglist:

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[dairy-farmer]

You know what's awesome and enough people don't seem to consider? DamiTim where Damian "solves" his succession crises issues with courtship. See his biggest threat as The Heir Of Batman is unquestionably Tim, he knows this, he HATES this. But! He can ALSO admit to a long list of admirable qualities in Drake, including his good looks and excellent management of Wayne Industries.

He's also said "🖕Fuck You" to Damian's grandfather via explosives on multiple occasions, which... is VERY pleasing.

The only issue Damian comes to realize (and it admittedly is a considerable issue), is that they are competing. Were Drake unrelated to the mantle of the Bat he would like him A LOT.

Then one day he looks at Tim's medical file more closely then he has in the past. Not for weaknesses or specific emergency medical information, perhaps just curiosity. And? Drake, while he clearly identifies as a man, IS one... never went for the surgeries. He has a-...

A thought springs up in Damians mind.

Spouses support one another, do they not? Share in each other's burdens? If Drake were to be MARRIED to him... then Damian would be the unchallenged Heir. Would be able to have powerful heirs of his own. They could be... unstoppable. And it's not like Drake is a Wayne, he's emancipated and not Wayne by blood. But... he could be by marriage.

Father would love it. Tim is favored despite his distance. Father is forever trying to pull him back into the fold. This would tie him firm back into them family. Would GROW the family. A child from Timothy would be beloved, favored above all other contenders. His Heir would never need to fear for or doubt his place.

And beyond that? He could... he would... How had it never occurred to him before? Did he simply not allow himself to imagine the impossible? Sharp eyes and cutting wit, pressed suits and form fitting armor. Skin just as marked by battle as his own. Hands that graceful, certain, skilled things that wouldn't flinch back from his skin.

A slight chest, androgynous in form like some ancient divine statue. So accustomed to pain, he would likely have no idea what to do with pleasure. Displeased with his form, having no one to worship at his alters. Damian could fix that. He has become a skilled man.

He could learn what makes Timothy gasp, what makes him clench and jolt, whimper or beg. Learn to tease out ever drop of pleasure that body has in it, until Timothy can think or move no longer. Bury himself then, deep inside the wet and whimpering depths of his body, and fill him with more.

The thoughts racing through his head are obscene. His desires growing swiftly depraved. Where to even start? Damian start plotting his courtship even as thoughts of tying Timothy to his bed, fucking him till he's full, plugging him up and KEEPING him like that until it takes, dance around his head. He would be so beautiful. Damian could paint it. Capture forever his magnificent and depraved undoing. Just for him. Only him.

!!! damian being obsessed with tim is always so good!!!!!!!!!😩😩😩😩 why be enemies when you can just make that man your wife and breed him full of your babies!!!!!!!!!! i love this sort of damian where he's fixated on owning and possessing tim not only to eliminate competition, but because of the genuine sexual attraction and tension between them and thinking of how magnificent tim is once he gets rid of the haze of competition between them 😩😩😩❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️!!!!!!!!

[hellfire--cult]

Baring Teeth {Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader} - Ch. 2

Picture for Banner: pitifulbaby

Chapters: Masterlist (Go here to see list of chapters.)

Pairing: Eddie Munson x Fem!Reader

Tropes: Enemies to Lovers, Non-Traditional Omegaverse, Slow burn, Modern!AU

Warnings: Ab*se, Violence, Mental Health, Cursing, Smut (mild), treat it as a normal Enemies 2 Lovers book, but the A/B/O dynamic will appear at some point.

Crossposted on: Wattpad & AO3

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Chapter 2

“Sweetheart, you don’t have to go…” Your mother protested, tears running down her face as she looked at how you were stuffing your suitcases. You sniffled, the tears running down your face, even after two months had gone by, after everything turned upside down in your life, in your perfectly organized life.

“I have to– I can’t– I can’t stay here. I can’t stay with these memories Ma. I can’t.” You sobbed as you put one of your shirts in your suitcase, followed by a stuffed bunny plushie from your childhood. You didn’t want to leave, you really didn’t, but what choice did you have? It is a small town, everyone knows everything about everyone, and you cannot stand being here another day longer.

“I know, I know, it was hard darling…” Your mother said as she sniffled again, covering her mouth to swallow her sobs and you simply shook your head in disbelief as you closed the suitcase.

“Hard doesn’t even begin to describe it… It doesn’t even compare.” You sat on the bed, your hands over your face to sob into them. The despair you felt inside, the loneliness of it all was ripping you from inside out. You were happy, two months ago, and now you cannot wait to move on, do a restart in your mind and body, forget about everything else, forget about Atlanta and the people in it.

Your mother, your sweet mother, sat next to you, putting a hand on your back, soothing you, or trying to. Your head found her shoulder easily, sobbing there as she held you close to her.

“We’ll always be here if you need us… We’re a call away, and some hours of driving. You don’t have to be afraid of anything my dove.” She caressed your head, gently, her own sobs filling the room, going in the same beat as yours.

—————————————————

You opened your eyes with a gasp, your breathing slightly heavy, as if panting and you felt moisture in your cheeks. You raised your hand up to rub onto your flesh, noticing you had cried in your sleep. Great. Fantastic.

It’s been a year, yet those memories keep coming into your mind. Memories that altered your way of living all together. Memories that hurt you in the deepest of your heart and soul, to the point that your way of being and your way of socializing changed thanks to them.

You got up from your queen sized bed, walking towards the bathroom that was right next to the bedroom. You have a nice, warm and cozy apartment, with one bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room, a kitchen in a separate room. Your job paid well, gladly, so you couldn’t complain about where you were living right now. You missed a house, of course, but at least you were alone with your thoughts here.

Although you didn’t know if that was a good thing or not.

You woke up before your alarm, noticing the sun coming up just now, so you took the chance to shower yourself, humming under the water to some Ed Sheeran. You grew to like him actually, which you didn’t before, not at all. When you first heard his music you found it cheesy, almost too corny for your taste.

Yet here you were, jamming to it months later.

You walked out of your long shower, wearing only your lilac robe around your body. You walked towards your living room, turning the tv on to see the news and figure what time it is.

6:20 AM.

Yep, too early. You looked at the small headline below the forecast one.

Female Betas protest over single motherhood and gay rights.

You sighed at it. You still don’t know why people say Beta nowadays. It’s just male and female, maybe something in between or someone who identifies as nothing at all, but there’s no need for the word Beta anymore. The last Alpha ever heard of was in 1932, and last Omega, 1940.

You wondered how a Female Alpha looked like. It sounds weird, but that’s what it was, a secondary gender. So apart from having a vagina, replacing the clitoris you would have found– You squirmed at the thought. Male Omegas had it the same. You remembered the anatomy book you found in a restricted section at the library of your school, and it showed the anatomy of the Male Omega. His sack was gone, and right below his penis, the slit would form, like a vagina.

You squirmed again. It sounds too surreal. Too much like a fictional book, but it did happen in real life, and it’s weird to even think it did. But, so many things happened in the world that are hard to believe, such as wars, starvation, communism, and so much more. Guess that part of life isn’t so weird if you think about it if you compare it to WWII.

Now, the title of the headline did get your attention. You sign too many contracts to do the fertility treatment, but sadly one of laws commands that it is illegal to start treatment without a spouse or a partner that will undergo the same treatment with you. There are so many single women that want kids without the need to get impregnated by a partner. There is adoption of course, but they think that by making the baby have two parents, the likelihood of it getting abandoned is lower, so adoption always takes a long while, even years.

And also, same sex couples cannot undergo the fertility treatment, because that would mean they would have to be inseminated or have a surrogate. You just thought it was simple homophobia at this point. The child would have two loving parents nonetheless.

You scoffed at the TV, turning it off, heading towards your room to get ready for the day. It’s Tuesday now, and you were wishing that it was the weekend already.

————————————————

“Okay, so maybe put the skirts of Balenciaga on Pages 23 to 25, so that it can jump right into the dresses.” You explained as you started putting the pictures and paragraphs over the lit up table below you, making it look like a page. You examined it once and nodded, liking the overall look of it, and turned to Robin, who was absent minded with her phone. “Robin, are you even listening to me?”

“Oh, shit, yeah sorry.” She put the phone away and looked at the work below her and nodded, grabbing a photo and switching it up with the one below. “There, if you put the green skirt at the top the page will look droopy since the red skirt is at the bottom.” You looked down at the work and nodded.

“Yeah. That does look better.” You looked at her as she started assigning the dress pictures for the next pages. “What’s got you so distracted, Buckley?” You asked with a smile to your face, knowing who she might have been talking to. She blushed immediately and turned to look at you.

“Am I too obvious?” She asked you and you finally let out a giggle, nodding, looking down to start arranging the paragraphs and pictures for the next pages. The magazines were solely for designers and famous people. This wasn’t out for the general public, because the public magazine is arranged by another team entirely. This is basically the catalog for rich people.

“Oh Robin, yes. You are a blushing mess when you look at your phone… I’m guessing Vickie is coming to visit?” You asked her with a wiggle of eyebrows and she nodded, biting her bottom lip.

“Yes, yes she is…” You smiled at your friend, happy for her really. Even if the girl that was coming over was just a friend, Robin has been crushing on her since high school or something. She always tells you that she will confess, that this time will be the one, but she never does. Hopefully your friend gets the courage she needs and goes for it. You have met Vickie, and everytime she’s over because of family business, she visits Robin, so you kind of know that there’s more than just a simple friendship there.

“She better leave town not single Buckley.” You smirk at her, making her throw a ball of paper at your head, a laugh escaping your lips at her flushness. You take out your own cell phone this time, Robin leaning over to look at your screen and groaning loudly when she sees you open up your Instagram chat with Jason Carver.

“You have to be shitting me.” She says out loud, making you look at her with a groan.

“It’s just a dick! It’s been a while…” You excuse yourself slightly and look down at your screen. “Plus, he looks buffed, and cute.” You say with a smile as you look at the time for your date. Friday at 7 PM. He is in town because one of his buddies has a birthday party in Indianapolis, so he was in the city for the week.

“If I even begin to tell you what he has done at school…” You rolled your eyes as you looked back up at Robin.

“That’s the past, this is the present. And the present tells me he is hot, he is built, and he looks like he can make me have a good time!”

“You’re going to regret it though.” Robin responded with a smirk and you squinted at her.

“You’re starting to sound like Munson.” She gave a throaty laugh at you and shook her head.

“For once, I agree with him, it’ll be a disappointment.”

“I bet he won’t.”

———————————————

It was.

It definitely was.

You were walking towards your car after going back to the motel room he got for the week, and you shifted in your legs for the orgasm you could not reach, because the fucker only knew how to shuffle your clit like an amateur dj.

And you cursed to the sky when he pulled his pants down and… Munson was right. He was small, not like a thumb, but smaller than the average. You faked most of your moans, faked an orgasm for the whole action of 7 minutes.

He was a nice dude, nothing like the bully they mentioned, but he was lacking so much in the physical department. Now, you would have to fake a smile, act like you had your shit rocked as you drove towards Robin and Steve’s shared small one story home. You weren’t going to grace them with letting them know they were right. When Robin has been telling you all week how bad that date was gonna go. Steve, Nancy and Argyle backing her up.

Eddie was the worst of them.

You looked at yourself in the rearview mirror, and reapplied your gloss. Your make up was almost untouched because well… That’s really how bad the sex was. You parked, stepping out of the car to walk towards the front door, and you shook yourself first trying to act the least shaken from what transpired tonight, and try to look somewhat satisfied.

You could already hear laughter on the other side, and you knew the door was unlocked for you to step in, so, taking a deep breath in, you opened the door, walking into the living room to see everyone sitting down on the couches and chairs while drinking away, including now, Vickie. They all looked up to see you enter, and you smiled at Robin as she whistled away at your arrival.

“So, how was the dick Dudette?” Argyle smiled as you sat down on the couch, grabbing a beer from the coffee table, opening it to take a sip from it.

“It was nice. You all didn’t give him enough credit, jesus.” You lied with a smirk towards Robin, who rolled her eyes at you. You heard a scoff from your right side, from a person who was sitting on the floor as they rolled up a joint. “Anything to say Munson? I mean, I at least am getting some.”

“Jason Carver is not someone to brag about. Trust us on that.” He licked onto the paper of the joint to seal it closed, and his eyes landed on you. You raised your eyebrows at him, completely unamused and he snorted as if he remembered a joke in his head, making everyone look at him.

“What’s so funny?” Steve asks as he takes a sip of his whiskey while he sat next to Robin.

“Ah, nothing. Just… Bullshit.” He licked the inside of his bottom lip as he looked at you one more time. That sent a shiver down your spine. What is wrong with him?

“Whatever.” You grabbed the pack of cigarettes that were on the coffee table, probably Steve’s, taking one stick out, and the lighter. You grabbed onto your can of beer as well, getting up from the couch to go to the small yard outside in order to smoke. You were feeling watched right now, and not by any of your friends. They couldn’t care less if it went well or not with Jason, because they just didn’t like him at all.

And the shiver followed you all the way outside, as Eddie Munson came out of the house as well, already lighting the joint as he stood next to you. You scrunched up your nose at the smell. You weren’t a person that liked weed that much, because the few times you did try it, you ended up on a bad trip.

“Can you at least move away a bit?” You immediately started, feeling the smoke hit you right in the face as you tried to smoke onto your own cancer stick. He chuckled and didn’t move from his place.

“So… Is it already time for me to say, I told you so?” He suddenly says, making your head snap at him as your heart starts to increase its pace in nerves.

“Told me what, Munson?”

“That it was going to be a disappointment. Which it was, obviously.” You shook your head, taking another drag of your cigarette as you looked at him, now slightly angered. He wasn’t going to sour your mood, not when it was already on the floor thanks to the lack of orgasm in the night.

“Why would I say something like that? I had a good time–”

“Yeah, okay, did you cum?”

“Excuse me?!” You exclaimed, now pissed off and also growing a glowing red on the face because he could see through you, once again. It was just embarrassing to know that he saw through you right after you had sex.

“By your way of acting, I am guessing a flat out No.” He said with a snicker in his lips as he took a hit of his joint.

“I don’t think it’s any of your business what I do intimately or what they do to me for that matter.” You say with venom in your throat and he finally looks at you, a sly smirk in the corner of his lips, and once more, you wanted to burn his face with the first flammable thing you could find.

“I will say it now Sweetheart, so you can save your bullshit story.” He leaned over, close to your face and you were stuck on the ground. You could smell his cologne, followed by something like bonfire, or just a wooden scent. Your eyes were locked in his, as he got closer, but you weren’t going to lose to him. You weren’t going to step back and show fear. No. He noticed, making him smirk again and finally spoke into your face, the hint of weed hitting your nostrils. “I. Told. You. So.”

Your nose flared up in anger, and that was it. His taunting. His insults. His ways of riling you up whenever he had a chance. You were sick. Sick of it. Sick that he could read you like an open book. Sick that he knew what was going on with you without even asking. Sick that he knew how bad you were getting right now, and all he was doing was smiling even wider.

So that was it.

You stepped back, putting the can in front of you and in his face, and all you did was squeeze, hard, and out of nowhere.

His face got drenched, in one second. His arms wide on his sides so it wouldn’t get on his clothes, and he stepped back as well as he spat the beer that got in his mouth. He then wiped his face with the hand that wasn’t holding the joint and glared, as his breath was going through his teeth, as if snarling at you.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” You stood your ground as he took a step closer to you, and you shook your head at him, throwing your cigarette to the floor.

“What the fuck is wrong with YOU?! Who the fuck do you think you are, claiming to know about me, or what I think, or what I go through?!” He rolled his eyes as he wiped his face with his sleeve now, throwing the ruined joint to the ground.

“Jesus, you should really go and get off sweetheart, maybe your mood will lighten up if you do.” He snapped back at you, which only angered you even more, turning red all over. He didn’t need to remind you how miserable your night was. Not him.

“Maybe you should mind your own goddamn business for once.” You snapped back and you were ready to jump into his jugular, you just didn’t care anymore. If killing Munson was going to be the end of your career and life, then so be it. You’ll take the risk.

But he was saved when Robin rushed out with Steve, drinks in hand and looking completely wide eyed at the both of you.

“What the fuck is going on–” Robin started, and it was just too quick. It happened so fast you didn’t catch it at first. It was quick how Eddie grabbed onto Robin’s drink, a glass full of rum and coke, and the next second you know it, you are drenched, and the fucking drink even got in your eyes, making you wince in pain and stepping back, holding your face.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK MUNSON!” You yelled as the burning didn’t stop in your eyes, but the burning in your chest was so much bigger. It was so much, so much build up going on. So many failed dates. So many failed hook ups. So much failure. And he is constantly reminding you of them.

“Eddie, get the fuck out.” Steve looked at Eddie, who simply rolled his eyes as he still wiped his face from the beer of before and as he was about to answer to Steve, to tell him you had started it all, he tumbled to the ground, a huge weight straddling his chest, compressing on his lungs, almost knocking the air out of him, until he looked up to see your blood shot, red eyes. Be it from the incoming tears, from the burning of the alcohol, from the pure fury you were feeling at the moment, nobody knew, not even yourself.

But as you raised your hands to start slamming them, anywhere you could on his face, or chest, or just anywhere, as you sat on his chest after you tackled him, he was quick to grab your wrists as you both thrashed on the ground. It was childish, snapping like this, but you were just so fed up. And you hated him. You hated him. You fucking hated him.

“Holy shit!” You heard Robin calling out your name, but it was just a buzz, feeling your shoulders being grabbed onto, trying to pull you away but you were just seeing red. Complete red.

“Get the fuck off me!” He yelled, and you could feel a rumble underneath your chest, but you didn’t pay it any mind, you were just being controlled by so many pent up feelings, so many emotions you didn’t know you were even holding, and he cracked your shell open, in two seconds. Your name was now called by someone else, probably Steve.

“What the fuck happened in the two seconds you both came outside?!” He asked as you tried to break free from Eddie’s hold, to land a punch, anything at all, but he sat already pissed off at your aggression, coming face to face with you. His breath was flaring through his nose as the grip in your wrists tightened, his neck a red hue now. You knew he was controlling himself to not do anything to you, and as you were about to spit in his face, you were being pulled away by Robin and Vickie, holding you back.

Jonathan and Steve were getting Eddie up from the floor and he looked at you, venom and resentment in his eyes, and you felt a cold sweat run through your body as you finally talked again, praying your voice didn’t break at all.

“Stay the fuck away from my business Munson! You think you know everything about everyone, but you know jack shit!” At this he fake laughed and his serious tone came afterwards.

“Just because I call you out in your bullshit, doesn’t mean I am interested in any of it. Be fucking sincere for once, because maybe, just maybe darling, that might be the reason your dates fucking fail.” And you froze in place, no longer struggling, the pit in your stomach becoming bigger and bigger at each word he spat out. You felt as a coldness filled your whole body, your brain slowly shutting down, and you didn’t think it could get worse.

“Eddie!” Robin called him out.

But he didn’t stop.

“Have you ever thought that maybe, probably, POSSIBLY, you are the problem?”

Eddie, in most of his life, never regretted his words. He always says what he thinks, without a beat, without really thinking of how the other would feel about it. Nobody cared how he felt in his life, whenever people threw words at him, or what he heard people say about him, so he learnt to simply not care about them either. He said what he thought, whenever he wanted, however he wanted.. He always took pride in the coldness he created, in the acting of being nonchalant to his own words.

But as he saw your brows twitch, your features fall, and he could even see when your eyes moved to a distant place, as if you were no longer with them… He regretted them. He deeply regretted them.

You were just standing there, not really focusing on anyone, not even to the person that said those words that haunt you even in your sweetest dreams. Because, what he said, what he just thought of you, was something you thought about constantly.

What if it was all your fault?

You could hear your name being called, slowly pulling you back to earth, and that’s when you realized you weren’t breathing. You gasped when you came back, looking at Robin who had a shocked look on her face as she held your hand. She was about to ask you something, probably if you were okay, but you simply let go of her and Vickie’s hands, and walked inside the house, calmly.

You didn’t even say goodbye to Argyle, who was waiting on the couch, calling you out, asking if you were alright, but you kept going, towards the front door. You didn’t want to stay there a minute longer. You couldn’t process your thoughts properly, because you could feel it. The vomit. The vile. The knot in the stomach from the pain and the betrayal you suffered.

You had these episodes before, but it happened whenever you got a reminder on a social media app, or if your mother without noticing said something to you about it. You simply shut down, like a machine, your feelings becoming numb, and all you need is some time alone, watch a comfort show, or movie.

You could feel your phone buzzing, but you didn’t care. Not even as you finally reached your apartment complex, not even when you crossed the front door of your house, not even when you took a glass of water, not even before taking a shower.

Only after it, you managed to pull up your messages, and answer to Robin, despite the rest of the gang, except for a particular person, sending you messages as well. Robin might be the only one you could say you trusted enough to let her know you were safe. So you did. You answered to her and simply wrote:

‘I’m home.’

And then, you went to sleep.

—————————————————————

End of chapter 2

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