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#I’m like the lowest I’ve ever been in my life :)))
emilymk20 · 2 days
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TW: $u!c!d3 $h 4n4
This is my note that I’ve had written out for a while 🙃 Fair warning, it is really long. I don’t know, maybe it could help somebody, whether it helps them keep going or just helps them relate. Much love 🫶🏻🖤
This is so cliche, but I feel obligated to leave some kind of explanation. I am absolutely positive there has always been something wrong with me. Normal people don’t want to die at eleven years old. One thing I was always good at was covering it up; I almost wish my struggle was more visible, but I know that people always just want to help and truthfully help is the last thing I want. More reason why there’s probably something wrong because who thinks like that? The one thing that I am losing is empathy. It was always empathy that made me “better.” I didn’t want to make anyone waste their time worrying and I didn’t want to be seen for what I am so I started eating more, I stopped cutting myself, I didn’t take the pills, I didn’t cry, I didn’t let myself feel anything. In a way that made me hold on; the idea that I didn’t want anyone to have to find my body, I didn’t want anybody to mourn me, I didn’t want anyone to think that they could have helped me, and I definitely didn’t want anyone to think that the decision I made was their fault. I don’t expect anyone to understand it, but nothing happened to make me feel this way. Some awful things have happened in the midst of it, but there’s no root cause or trigger; I apply blame to nothing and nobody except myself and the operations of my own brain.
I’m tired. It’s so difficult to explain, but I think I’ve felt so deeply for so long, I have nothing left to feel. I feel like a shell of a person. I’ve noticed a recent trend in the past three years that I’ve never experienced before in the impulsively of my emotional rollercoaster. I’ll spend days, weeks, sometimes months feeling so proud of myself and hopeful, motivated more than ever before to better myself, happy where I am, and then in a matter of minutes it all slips away from me. I push everyone away and I can’t help but stop trying. I won’t eat or I’ll eat until I’m sick from it, I’ll cut myself because that’s the only thing that can make me feel, I won’t sleep at all or I’ll sleep all day, I won’t clean, I won’t shower, I won’t even get up to use the restroom. It’s as if I go completely brain dead, but my thoughts still won’t stop racing. Then, once I can come to terms with it all and maybe find a solution, the mania hits again and it all doesn’t matter anymore because I feel like I’m on top of the world. I don’t eat because it feels good to be hungry or I’ll eat a lot because “I deserve it,” I don’t sleep because that seems like so much valuable time going to waste, or I’ll sleep a lot because it’s a form of self care and if my body is that tired I should let it, and I’ll cut myself still because it’s empowering and I find it almost pretty. Nothing tangible ever changes, just the unbearable fluctuation of my head. Maybe that’s why it’s so easy for me to hide it, because to everyone on the outside, that is my normal.
I constantly feel like I’m watching myself glued to a tightrope. I can pull myself down to my lowest, feeling all that tension, and then suddenly skyrocket to my full potential. Well, I have to fall back down at some point, and I always do. The only thing is that I’m stuck. I’m stuck in my head in that cycle and the only way out is to fall off. Sure, there’s ways to get make it bearable, I mean there has to be some diagnosis for all this to explain it, but would I really want to spend my life maintaining symptoms? Would I really want to spend my whole life fighting? No. I don’t even want to spend the present fighting. I know from the outsider’s perspective I just seem lazy, and trust me, I feel that way too.
I can’t even begin to describe how exhausting it is. What I think about often is how humans are awake during the day, but you can always take a break when nighttime comes to sleep. I’m hyper aware of everything that takes my energy that I don’t have control over. My brain never stops thinking, my blood never stops pumping, my body never stops breathing…I know these are things that regular people don’t think about, but with every breath I take it feels like a loss. I just want nothing more than real rest and peace of mind. I don’t understand why things bother me when everyone else wouldn’t even have these thoughts pass their mind. Why am I so introspective and aware? Ignorance truly is bliss.
It seems really crazy, maybe because I am crazy, but the higher points of my life are more painful than the lows have been. There’s something so comforting about losing my drive, letting myself slow down, watching myself rot away and fall further from reality; it’s almost my ideal, but not quite. I just want true rest. I really wish I had the option to completely start over. I romanticize my childhood so much; bittersweet nostalgia is my biggest downfall. I was so clueless then; so full of joy. I wish that I could put my finger on what happened and when it all went wrong. I don’t know why I long for that life so much now; I love being independent and having the freedom to make my own decisions as an adult, but maybe it’s the immanence of responsibility always pushing me down. I miss the days before it started looming over me. I don’t feel as though I was ready to be on my own, I don’t think I ever learned how to handle that freedom because all I’ve done is abuse it. There are irreparable decisions that I’ve made for the specific purpose of digging myself deeper in a hole because I feel like that’s what I deserve. You can say that’s not true all you want, but it’s a little too late to still be invalidating my feelings so allow me.
My self hatred is so deep rooted, I can feel it in every nerve of my body. I’m embarrassed by myself. Truly, if I was somebody else, I wouldn’t even speak to me. I am undesirable in every aspect; I harbor so much jealousy, I’m a deadbeat, it’s probably been a decade since I’ve made a “good decision,” I’m annoying, I talk way too much, I have a huge ego (which is interesting because obviously I don’t like myself all that much), I have too much baggage, I’m ugly, I’m insecure, I have no room to consider anyone else in life, and I don’t care. To my core, I wish I could be anyone but me. I don’t know how to describe the gravity of me wishing I was dead. It doesn’t even seem like that big of a deal to me anymore because in all honesty I feel like I’ve been slowly slipping away anyways. Death is not a stranger to me; I feel like I’ve been hanging out on the front porch of the end for far too long, and I just can’t wait to step through that door. When I was little, it was always, “I want to die, but I guess I can wait until after _______…” There was still some hope back then. Now it seems that my hope has run out for me and I just don’t care anymore. I am sorry, but I have exhausted every option for me, and I believe that it’s time for me to regain control at least for a final moment.
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shireduchess · 5 months
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phantom-of-the-north · 9 months
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azertyhug · 2 years
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king for a day by pierce the veil featuring kellin quinn *heart eyes* *soul ascends* *brain explodes* *skips song*
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rush-the-stars · 27 days
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AFFECTION'S EDGE: PART I
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|| alpha!suguru getou x omega!afab reader || E/18+ || wc: 6.5k || ao3 || Part II -> coming soon! || masterlist ||
minors and ageless blogs do not interact, 18+ only
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“You’ve got it all wrong,” he murmurs, “but what am I to expect from a stray like you? You’ve lived off scraps and abuse your whole life; of course you don’t know what to do now that I’ve given you food and shelter.” Suguru’s fingers ease up towards your neck as he continues, “a warm bed to lie in. Toys to play with. A collar—so you’ll never be lost again. No one’s ever given you this before, hm?”
***
Suguru tries to tame you.
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✧ SPRING FEVER collab masterlist ✧
cw: omegaverse, brat taming, mind games, toxic behavior, yandere suguru getou, yandere reader if you squint, biting, blood, marking, eventual forced bathing in later parts, eventual forced feeding in later parts, eventual smut in later parts; masturbation, voyeurism, a blurring of boundaries, consent as punishment?
a/n: this is for @lorelune 's SPRING FEVER collab!! i have been working on this for awhile now and i am excited to share it! this should be about 3 parts...i am very close to finishing the whole thing so i should be releasing a part a week for the next two weeks!
thank you for reading!! i would love to hear your thoughts <333
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“I think you’d be perfect.” 
Suguru’s voice is a caress, low and soft, as he sits across from you. 
Somehow, he always makes you feel like he is just beneath the surface of your skin, even if there is a respectable distance between you. He always makes you feel as if he is lurking somewhere in the lowest parts of you, pulling at strings you once thought hidden to yourself. 
You’ve kept your distance for this reason.
You swallow hard. 
And then you manage to get your voice to unstick, to find it somewhere inside of you and bring it to life. It’s firmer than you’re anticipating and you’re proud;
“I don’t think I would be.” 
Suguru looks at you in a way that makes you feel as if he’s seeing through you, pulling you open slowly to gaze at all the inner workings of you. His dark eyes are keen, so sharp, even if they’re shaded by half-lidded lashes. 
He smiles pleasantly and indulges you, but you know he believes very firmly that he is, in fact, right, “why not?” 
“I told you when I agreed to join you—all I wanted in exchange for helping you, was to be an unbound Omega.” You force yourself to meet his eyes and to not get sucked into the dark tide of them. 
“You asked for my protection.” He reminds you. 
Your eyes flash this time, heated, a little spark that skitters to life inside of you.
“I didn’t—“ 
“Is that not what you’d call it?” Suguru asks, “when I interfered, every time, to be sure no other Alpha got to you? Or when I scented you to keep them away?”
Prickling warmth dots your cheeks, can feel at the back of your neck, too, the tips of your ears. You try a different tactic. 
“I’m not a homemaker.” 
His smile is soft, “I don’t want a homemaker.” 
“I’m not obedient.” You counter again, as if you could dissuade Suguru Getou once he’s made up his mind.
“You’ve been quite good for me.” Suguru says smugly and this time, a little noise of embarrassment or frustration eeks out of you. A short, sharp little growl from your throat, almost a groan of irritation.  
“I—I’m doing your dirty work. That’s our agreement! You give me assignments that I complete and in return, I get my freedom.” 
“I don’t know why you’re so opposed to this. Is it not similar already to what we have now?” He asks simply, “I’d still let you roam, if that’s what you’re so scared of.” 
“No it’s that—that power and mentality that I don’t want you to have over me.” You snap. 
“I already have it,” he says and it isn’t intended to be cruel, but certainly is, “how long do you think you’d last, without the protection of an Alpha?” 
“I didn’t have any before you.” 
“You were starving, injured, and constantly on the run before me.” You open your mouth to protest, but he cuts you off, “it would still give you what you want.” 
“I don’t want to be yours.” You say frankly, perhaps to be cruel yourself. And then you show teeth a little, flash them in warning, “I don’t want your mark.”
Suguru looks amused, if anything, by your display. 
His smile is knowing and insufferable. It makes your anger ratchet up inside of you, hackles rising. You feel a little growl working its way out of your throat. It tears out of you in annoyance, when he says, “I don’t believe you.” 
You slam the door so hard on its hinges that it rattles the entire wall. You wish it would rattle all the world. 
***
Your cursed technique rips to life like a star exploding outwards. 
Beast that you are, it overtakes you, transforms you until you are all claws and dripping, little fangs. Your body elongates, elegant, and built for speed, viciousness. The horns atop your head are sharp, too, curled the slightest into a crescent shape. The beast in you stretches and pulls at your bones, fits your skin to it in a way that you have come to know well. 
(“Cursed technique: Cursed Creature,” Suguru hums, “allows you to turn into a cursed version of yourself, a sort of,” he pauses, looking you over, “monster?” 
“That’s right.” You tell him, body trembling all over, in dire need of food. Care. Sleep. 
He places a large hand on top of your head, strokes gently, until his hand nudges your cheek, beneath your chin so you are forced to look up into his eyes. Depthless violet. 
“You have a deal.”)
The sorcerer is cast backward with the force of your transformation. In this form, everything heightens, sharpening into brilliance. So much brighter, clearer. So much more overwhelming. 
You are a flash of darkness when you move, a mass of lethality. 
The sorcerer doesn’t stand a chance, the moment you dash past him with a deep swipe of your claws, you know this will be an easy match. You chitter in this form, excited, warbly little sound erupting from you before you careen towards him again. 
This time, he is warped away. 
But you are fast, changing your trajectory mid-step to catch up to where he was warped. 
Except, this time, a white haired sorcerer takes his place. 
Your claws meet air. 
A growling hiss erupts from your throat. 
Satoru Gojo. 
Suguru told you to stay away from him. At all costs.
And speak of the devil, your name is called, whistled almost. Your head turns to find Suguru appearing, too. 
Faintly, the more human part of you wonders what the occasion is. 
For a moment, all you can see is threat. Your hackles rise as your growling gets lower, more sinister, your form moving behind Gojo as if you might circle him, unable to let down your guard. 
“Call off your pet,” Gojo says. 
Suguru calls your name again and there’s something else in his tone now, a little sharper. 
(Fear, you wonder faintly, in some far away part of your mind. Is he worried Gojo would hurt you?)
You come to heel at Suguru’s side, remaining in this form, making a low, threatening sound still. Warning. Your claws still drip with the blood of that sorcerer. 
“Go,” Suguru says to you. 
Your head snaps to look at him, eyes narrowing. “I’m not leaving,” you snap and the words have a bite to it, around the curves of your fangs. You look back at Gojo. If this comes to blows, you don’t want Suguru facing Gojo alone–you don’t want to leave his back suddenly unguarded. 
It’s counterintuitive to you, goes against all of your instincts. You don’t leave him, you don’t leave his side, his back. 
“Go,” Suguru says, harsher this time and the command seeps into you. You waver. And then, “I won’t tell you again.” 
When you hiss at him in that warbling way of curses, he smiles faintly, almost fondly, as your teeth drip with venom. But you do listen to him this time.
And with your heightened hearing, you hear Gojo underneath his breath as you slink away;
“How interesting.” 
***
When Suguru returns to you, he is unharmed. 
You’d paced the length of the hallway outside of his room in the compound until you could have worn a hole into it. 
Few would be brave enough to wait for Suguru outside his door. 
When he arrives, he is mildly surprised to see you, before his expression melts into a sort of—smugness. A knowing glint to his eyes. 
“Why would you send me away?” You snap.
“You could’ve gone in, you know, if it would’ve soothed you.” Suguru says instead, head nodding towards the door to his suite. “Would you like a key?” 
You blanche, taking a half step back, “I don’t—“
It allows him to get to his door and open it. You’ve been here before, in the privacy of his suite, but now it feels strange. A little different. He holds the door open for you. 
You glance at the threshold and feel as if you’re making an important decision. 
“Come on,” he says smoothly and before you can think twice about it, you are being led inside, his hand drifting somewhere near your lower back. He never touches you, the feeling is a phantom one, the impression of it. You shiver a little. 
But you round on him again, “why would you send me away?”
He doesn’t acknowledge you, instead he goes rifling in a drawer, digging around a little. 
His suite is larger than others. The living room is open and attached is the kitchen. It’s all light wood, with tall windows that overlook the courtyard. You know, despite never being inside, that his bedroom is down the hall and to the left. The bathroom is across from it. You’ve sat many times on the floor of his living room with him, going over assignments, plans that he has, and what he’d like you to do. 
When he finds what he’s looking for, he makes a soft noise, before turning to you with a small, gold key. 
“I don’t want a key!” You snap. 
“It’s a spare, take it just in case.” He replies and when you don’t move to grab it from him, he takes your hand in his much larger one, and opens your palm to him. 
He places the key in your hand. 
And then his eyes catch yours, “you were worried.” 
“No-!” you get out, “I don’t like being—I’m supposed to protect you.” 
Suguru smiles, hand still swallowing yours, “isn’t that sweet?” he remarks, “an Omega attempting to protect an Alpha.”
Immediately, you jerk away from him.
The key is still in your shaking fist. 
“Don’t start,” you snarl, low and vicious and hurt, “I’ve always been the one at your side.” 
“Yes,” he agrees, hand falling back down to his side listlessly. “I already told you that.” 
You’ve always been at my side, he’d said, when he was trying to convince you to–
“That’s not what I meant!” Your voice rises without your consent and you feel an embarrassed, angry flush through your face for being so worked up. The room is thick with your worry and anger and frustration, all of your pent up energy like a knot in your chest, in your voice. It’s in your heart and the way you look at him. 
“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” Suguru says easily, “it’s still the truth.” 
When you slam the door this time, you hear something fall from the wall. 
But the key is still in your trembling hand, digging indents into your palm, and your heart is still a beast in your chest.
And behind the closed door, Suguru Getou smiles fondly, and retrieves the fallen, shattered frame from the floor. 
***
For a while, you avoid Suguru. 
You stuff the key he gave you in your nightstand drawer, far in the back, in an attempt to keep it out of sight and out of your mind. 
And at first, you think he is respecting your boundaries; you receive assignments through others from him. You see him only in passing and he never speaks directly to you. He hardly acknowledges you. 
But after a week and a half, it begins to feel like punishment. 
And the key is starting to burn and itch in your mind. You think about it at night, tossing over in your bed; you think about unlocking his door at this hour. What would you find? Would he be asleep? Awake? Alone? Fully dressed? 
You think of him half bare and lounging, hair slipping over his shoulders, and the scent of sandalwood and fig. Tonka or something woodsy, maybe. You know it well and it lingers long after he leaves you. 
You suddenly miss it, crave it. 
Him. 
You twist beneath your sheets. 
Why did he have to–
You make a soft noise of frustration, turning over again. 
You’re restless. 
Something beneath your skin begins to itch and squirm. 
Previously, Suguru had hardly mentioned your status as an Omega. He rarely acknowledged it; you were too brilliant of a sorcerer for him to care, you thought. You were too powerful. The only instance he brought it up was to scent you, a form of caution in a particular instance, for a particular mission. The memory still simmers in your mind, the way he’d rubbed the gland on your wrist with a careful thumb. He’d given you clothes of his to wear. He’d had you sit in his quarters for long hours, until it seemed as if you were his, in some way. 
But now that he’s actually brought it up, offered you his bite, to be his, it paints him in an entirely different light. 
Had he always…wanted you? 
Was he always planning this? 
The naive, desperate parts of you want to believe this is a recent thought of his. Previous to this, he only ever saw you as another sorcerer, a powerful one that aided him. You had always been one of the closer ones to him, at his heel, his beck and call. 
You’d be lying if you said you’d never thought of Suguru this way; as an Alpha. An unmated one, who kept your company. 
And he does, no matter how badly it burns to admit it, protect you.
You know he wards off Alphas. 
You know he perhaps does more than even that. 
But you don’t want—
You don’t want to be mated. 
You don’t want to suddenly be coddled by him, held back, don’t want to be the little thing that keeps his bed warm.
Your face heats with the thought. 
Images flash through your mind, flickering, melting together like film that bleeds and runs, of him overtop you. Shrouding you. His hair on your shoulders and back. You think of his mouth on your throat, teeth in your neck. 
You rub at your eyes suddenly as if to clear them.
You know he leaves on a mission for a week in two days. 
You assume, at some point, he’ll speak to you. And break this strange silence. 
You’ll both return to normal then.
And then perhaps you won’t lose any more sleep over him.
***
Suguru never says goodbye to you. 
It shouldn’t bother you as much as it does—you just figured he’d finally drop this silly little silence game.
You suppose he must’ve thought the same of you.
Besides, what were you expecting from him? An apology? It’s foolish to even entertain. You knew you weren’t going to apologize either. The least you’ll do, when he returns, is  act as if all is normal again. Perhaps it’s better that way, not to address what he’s put in his head recently. 
The more you speak of it, or think of it, the worse it unravels in your mind. 
On the second day that he is gone, you realize you miss his scent. 
You realize it has become such a staple in your everyday life that its sudden disappearance  is almost alarming. It makes you more irritable, more vicious. You snap at the others faster, bite out insults and brutalities. 
You—
Well, you miss it. 
Him, maybe. 
The admittance is a hard one to swallow around. It burns going down. 
On the third day, you’re genuinely craving his scent in a way that makes your teeth ache. You had no idea you could even miss a scent like this, need it so bad that your body would betray you with a physical pain in your chest. Somewhere in your mouth, under your tongue. 
You try to ignore it. 
You go on with your life. 
But by the fifth day, you are agitated and aggressive. Everyone knows something is wrong with you. You know something is wrong with you. You can feel it beneath your skin, crawling, squirming. It makes you want to tear out your hair, rip at your nails, or sink your teeth into something. You’re restless.
You can’t sleep. 
You can hardly eat or think. 
And as you lay awake in your bed, kicking at sheets, sweating and twisting, you know what it is you need. 
You’ve known the whole week. 
You throw back the covers and wrench open your bedside drawer. 
The key rattles, hot, like it knows it’s finally about to be used. It’s musical sound a siren song, it’s been burning away in there the whole week. 
You swipe it and turn sharply from your bedroom. From your own apartment. 
It’s the middle of the night; not a soul sees you in the compound. 
Like a person possessed, you walk. Your back is straight. Your steps are quick. Your mind is set, on fire.
Suguru’s door has haunted you the whole week.
The key in your hand digs into the flesh, carving it’s divots there like your hand might be the lock itself. 
You try not to think about it–you unlock the door. You throw it open. 
You shut it behind you, slide the lock back into place. 
Darkness greets you.
You wander in like you know the place (you do, you do–)
You wander in like it’s yours to wander in. 
Instantly, something loosens inside of you. 
You exhale hard. 
Inhale sharp. 
The smell of him, fainter because he’s been gone, assaults your senses, sweeps over them. You take in a lungful like gasping for air, you smell faint traces of fig and sandalwood. Notes of tonka that you long for, that urge you to move deeper into his space. 
In the dark, you make your way down the hall, towards his bedroom.
You haunt the arch for a moment.
Guilt or regret or embarrassment almost seize you. They make you pause. 
Some sane part of you is clawing at your insides, wailing to turn around and leave. Leave now. 
But he gave you a key.
He gave you a key, you think in circles, again and again. He gave me a key. 
You cross the threshold.
You sink down into his bed and his scent is strongest here, even still, after several days it’s his. 
You turn over the covers to get beneath them, cool sheets against your legs, sliding and smooth. You turn your face into his pillow and inhale. 
A soft little groan works it’s way out of you.
Instantly, your muscles slacken. 
Everything leeches from you; your anger and irritation and restlessness. 
It soothes you so deeply and so swiftly it makes your head spin. 
You curl beneath his blankets and take deep pulls of breath, squirming a moment if only to bring his scent tighter around you. You envelope yourself in it.You shroud yourself in it. 
And finally, after five days of restless nights, you fall asleep almost instantly. 
Not a single dream. Not one moment where you wake or stir. 
You sleep deeply. 
In the morning, the sun warms you through the broad windows like a content cat. 
You stretch lazily like one, too.
Suguru will be home tomorrow. 
You know you need to leave his bed, hope that your scent dissipates by the time he returns. 
You didn’t do anything wrong, you know—he gave you a key. 
He gave you a key. 
But rather, you know he would never let you live it down. He would use it instantly, as ammunition for his argument, the debate that the two of you keep circling.
You don’t quite leave as quickly as you should still, though: 
You linger.
You’re comfortable.
Calmed for the first time all week.
And when you do slip out, it’s silently, locking the door behind you.
Like maybe you won’t ever let yourself back in there, trying to shut it like it was a one time indulgence and gone now from your mind and body. 
But his scent clings to you. 
And little do you know, your scent clings to his sheets—and to Suguru, it’s sweet as can be and unmistakable—irreplaceable.
He collapses in his own bed when he returns and knows you’ve been all over it. He can smell the crush of dark berries, jasmine, the soothing note of vanilla that clings to you, that he’s come to adore. 
He grins to himself and knows then, he’s got you right where he wants you.
***
For a moment, you think Suguru is going to make you be the bigger person and apologize upon his return. 
Instead, he finds you. 
And he doesn’t say he’s sorry for his recent behavior, but he does say;
“I’d prefer if you didn’t avoid me in the future.”
It feels like sorry enough. 
And for some time, things return to a state of normal.
A version of it.
It isn’t quite like it was before—in fact, you seem to spend more time around him than previously. He calls on you more. He brings you into his space more frequently, often urging you to eat with him, beside him, at his table.
This is ideal for you. Close but not too close.
Although, he begins to ask, don’t you have your key? Can’t you let yourself in? 
You say you haven’t used it.
He hums like he knows differently, but doesn’t press you.
Until finally he asks you to retrieve a notebook in his study and bring it to him.
Fetch, he says.
“It’s locked, isn’t it?”
“You have your key.” He answers simply, not looking up from the book he is reading. 
For a moment, you almost protest, but something stops you. Maybe the twitch in his brow.
It’s a useless argument to pick, anyways.
You do have a key.
It would be fastest, easiest, to just use it.
So you do. 
And you hand him the notebook he asked for, fingers brushing against his as he takes it from you with gentle hands.
“Thank you,” he adds, voice so smooth and low, almost tempting.
You swallow a little.
Then you quickly avert your gaze. 
“Whatever,” you grouse, but he smiles fondly, amused.
And it opens another door, more than just the one to his suite.
***
Tentatively, you begin to come and go.
The first (second)  time you use your key to enter without his order, he is careful not to react to you any differently than how he usually does. 
His eyes brighten a little, though, like a leopard that’s caught something interesting in its sights and is waiting to see what it’ll do. 
Still, you grow more comfortable entering his space on your own. 
You claim portions of it; a corner of the couch. A particular cushion around his low table. All of the sunny patches in his suite become yours, scented with you, indented with you. More than that, some horrible, hidden part of you adores that your scent is all over his space. 
It’s comforting to find it beside his scent. 
It soothes a part of you that you don’t wish to admit to. 
His hands grow bolder. 
Now they’re always hovering at the small of your back, the nape of your neck. He tucks strands of your hair away from your face and though you jerk away from him, it’s often half-hearted. You snip at him and he only smiles.
Pleased. Smug. Knowing. 
His hands guide you as you walk beside him.
You grow accustomed to his touch in some way—he makes sure of it.
Then, as if to prove something—
Another cult member begins to cause trouble with you; he is another Omega. He begins with snide comments and remarks that test your patience. He doesn’t stop until you are growling and bristled and ready for a fight. 
And all it takes to stop you is Suguru’s large hand coming down on the nape of your neck. 
His thumb rests atop one scent gland at your throat, fingertips pressing delicately into the one on the other side. Hand wrapped around the back of your neck.
“Easy,” he murmurs and just like that, you can feel some of your aggression slip from you, deflate like a balloon.
It’s involuntary, the energy and anger unspooling from your body in an instant. In the back of your mind, you’re alarmed; how easily it was for him to effect you. It’s terrifying.
You swat his hand away, lurching from him, another little growl in your throat.
But you don’t fight him or the look in his eyes, the way he tilts his chin up in the barest hint of dominance. 
You storm off.
Instances as such continue to happen, though, where he’s able to sooth or quell your temperament with a touch. A word. A look. 
It comes to a head while you’re eating dinner with him. 
“You’re so wound up,” Suguru comments lightly, “your scent is so sharp with it. What’s bothering you?” 
Reflexively, you snap, “you are.” 
And it’s meant to be some sort of insult but Suguru’s lips twist into this hitched little smile. “It’s my fault you’re wound up?” He asks lightly. 
“Don’t twist my words.” You respond, fixing him with a glare, “you bother me.” 
He’s still deeply amused by this, you can tell by the twinkle in his eyes. The smug way he holds himself. 
“Would you like me to help you?” He asks. 
“No,” you say reflexively. 
A beat of silence before he says, “come here. I’ll help you.” 
There’s a command in his voice, laced there, and doing something strange to your head. 
You hesitate.
He pounces, “just a massage.” He soothes, “I can tell your shoulders are knotted up and tense. I can see it.”
His voice has dropped into that soothing lull.
Warily, “away from my glands?” 
He smiles, “of course.” And then, “come here.”
Your body moves easily now and he murmurs, “sit in front of me. Back to me—there, that’s it.” 
It feels more vulnerable than it should to show your back to him, to sit in front of him like a child to their mother. You try to keep your posture straight and careful. 
But then he sets large, warm hands to your shoulders. His fingers dig into the meat of them gently, pressing into your muscles which spasm and twitch in pain. You yelp, jerking away. 
Suguru tsks, “see how tense you are? You’re in pain.” He scolds softly and you feel heat smart across your face, “sit still for me. I’ll be gentler.”
True to his word, he eases up, fingers careful as they run into your tense muscles.
He finds bundles of twisted up tension in your back and shoulders, pressing into them until a noise springs from you—a groan, a whimper, a little growl. He works the sounds out of you. You swear he’s doing it deliberately and you wouldn’t be surprised if it was all just to humiliate you a little. 
But you finally loosen and slacken for him. 
When you finally sink into his hands, he murmurs, “I don’t know why you fight this so badly.”
You let go of a heavy sigh, “you do know why. Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.” 
“Because you’re stubborn?” Suguru asks lightly and you snort, despite yourself, “because you don’t know what’s good for you?”
“You’re no good for me.” You respond.
Suguru’s turn to sigh and if he digs his fingers in to make you yip in pain, he’d never say it was purposeful. 
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he murmurs, “but what am I to expect from a stray like you? You’ve lived off scraps and abuse your whole life; of course you don’t know what to do now that I’ve given you food and shelter.” Suguru’s fingers ease up towards your neck as he continues, “a warm bed to lie in. Toys to play with. A collar—so you’ll never be lost again. No one’s ever given you this before, hm?”
Reflexively, you jerk away from his touch, you turn to look at him over your shoulder with a sneer. 
“I’m not a pet.” 
Suguru does not heed your warning and instead gently pulls you back towards him by your waist. 
“No?” He asks lightly, fingers resuming their steady massage. You go completely still like prey, unsure, wary. Angry. Humiliated. “It’s not a bad thing to be a pet. You’re thinking about it all wrong.” 
His fingers ease up towards your neck and you stiffen again. 
“Suguru,” you say in warning as he nears your scent glands. Perhaps to what he’s said.
“You’re my pet now,” he continues, “though you don’t like to admit it. It’s not so bad, is it?” 
Stubbornly, you don’t answer him.
But after a moment, you say, “if I’m already yours, why do you need this last bit of me? If you already see me as your pet, why do you want me so terribly, in this way—“
Suguru suddenly pulls you back deeper, into his lap, against his chest. 
You squirm, but he holds you tight, hooks his chin over your shoulder.
Alarm bells ring frantically in your head now that he’s so close to the glands in your throat. 
“Don’t play dumb,” Suguru muses, half-mocking, “it doesn’t suit you.” 
“Let me go,” you snarl low and hot.
“What are you scared of?” Suguru responds, “that I’d trap you? If you’d take my Bite, I’d let you roam further than I do now. You’d be safe.” 
“Liar,” you hiss, “I’m not dumb.” 
“I’m not trying to stifle you, I’m trying to set you free.” Suguru almost purrs and his voice is warm and low and creeping up over your spine and trying to find its way inside you. 
You begin to squirm this time, thrashing in his hold until you manage to wriggle free, falling forward onto your hands and knees. 
Instinctively, you turn to keep your back protected, scrambling away from him. You bare your teeth at him. 
“I don’t believe you.” 
He watches this show of aggression with amusement, tilting his head slightly. And then he sighs, “I don’t think anything I say will convince you at this point.” 
You narrow your eyes at the tone. Your hackles rise. 
In an instant, he has grabbed you by the ankle and pulled you back to him. 
Underneath him.
You shove hard at him, twisting and fighting as he settles himself over you. 
You realize how solid he is, how strong, and large. He doesn’t budge. He doesn’t even flinch. 
“Suguru,” you hiss at him, pushing as hard as you can on his chest.
“See how easy it was for me to subdue you?” He says then, voice smooth and low. “If I wanted to take you, I simply would’ve already. You’re no challenge to me; if I wanted to trap you, I would’ve.”
“Get off me!” 
You thrash hard beneath him and in an instant, he has your hands uselessly pinned above your head, stretching you out beneath him.
His nose dips, near the scent gland at your throat. You squirm.
He squeezes your wrists, “stop squirming.” He murmurs low, “or my instinct will be to bite.”
Your stomach does a horrible flip, a flutter of—fear, excitement. 
“Just—get off—leave me alone!” You get out, voice high and tight. You try not to arch away from the way he lets his face fall to the crook of your neck. 
“Hush,” Suguru hisses, nudging his nose beneath your ear.
He’s scenting you. 
He’s done this before and despite everything in you, you finally go slack. You force yourself not to tilt your head or offer up more, rather let him urge you into the way that he prefers. 
He nudges his cheek and nose against your jaw. He lets out a relieved breath, fitting more of his body to you and you feel the push of chest into yours, his hips.
You squirm a little and a growl erupts from his throat.
You fight back the sound that almost works its way out of you now, swallow around it.
When he’s finished, he asks, “would you like to scent me?” And instinctively, you want to say yes, but you temper yourself. Then he adds, “I’m sending you away on a mission alone. I’ll be scenting you until the day you leave now.” 
You catch his eyes, glinting.
“So, I thought it only fair if you’d like to scent me, too.” 
You don’t know why, but something squirms inside of you, something a little hurt. 
“You’re sending me away?”
Suguru hums softly, “I need you to take care of something for me. I only trust you to do it.” 
You flex your hands a little in his hold, but he doesn’t budge. 
He nudges at your jaw again, gentle, and murmurs, “this would be easier if you’d take my mark.” 
You turn your head then to shield your throat, and face him. His nose nearly brushes yours and you look up at him through your lashes. You bite your tongue from any further complaints, dipping down to the crux of his throat now. 
Easily, perhaps eagerly, he bares his throat for you.
Satisfaction erupts beneath your skin as his scent washes over you, dark fig and oud, sandalwood and musk. Carefully, your nose runs along the column of his throat. 
“I’m not even—“ you huff, retry, “I haven’t had a Heat in—it wouldn’t take, anyways.” 
“Ah,” Suguru says and you wish you hadn’t told him at all. Realization dawns over his features the way a cat might realize it’s caught its mouse beneath its paws. “Is this what you’re so scared of?” 
“No—I prefer it this way. It’s another reason that you can’t. It wouldn’t work.” You say stubbornly and perhaps in your irritation, you burrow further down into the crook of his neck, tuck your cheek to his skin to nudge. 
“I could give you a temporary one,” he murmurs, “I’d let you do the same in return, of course.” 
You go quiet, brushing your lips against his skin, hesitating. 
“I don’t need it.” You finally decide, even as you let the blunt side of a tooth nick gently against his neck. “I can protect myself.” You pull away to look at him again, “am I not one of your strongest?” 
“You are my strongest.” He agrees, he praises. “But am I not also strong?” He asks, “and yet you still insist on protecting me.” 
You open your mouth to protest, but he takes your chin in hand suddenly, words dying before they can escape. 
“You are my strongest.” He says, “I would like the world to be aware of it.” 
“I told you, I don’t want to be yours–” 
“Then stop protecting me. Flee. Run away and never return.” Suddenly, his touch, his body, all of him is gone. He rolls off of you and onto his back beside you. Cold air sweeps in. You can feel his touch like burning imprints on your skin. 
You turn your head to the side to look at him. 
“You would hunt me down if I ran.” 
A flicker of a smile ghosts his face. 
“And if I ran from you?” He asks, “if I discarded you?” 
Something twists so viciously and sharply in your chest that your eyes sting with it. You lock your jaw tight. You stare up at the ceiling. 
“You refuse to speak but your scent is spiced with distress, sour with despair.” He turns to look at you, “not so easy to hear, is it?” 
“I can’t stand you or your games.” You get out. 
“There are no games.” He says evenly, “only the one you’re playing with yourself.” 
You scoff, “which is?” 
He sits up slightly, over you, looking down at you, the inky silk of his dark hair sliding over one shoulder. 
“Seeing how long you can outrun what you want.” 
You exhale roughly, in exasperation, and then you ask dryly, “and what do I want, Suguru?” 
“To be taken care of.” 
“I don’t need–”
He cuts off your growl before it can start, taking your chin in hand to turn your head towards him once more. “You never have, but it doesn’t mean you can’t want it.” 
“I don’t want it either.” You snap. “You have some grand delusion of me in your mind that I am some weak, submissive creature in need of your care.” 
“I’ve said none of that, have I?” He hums. “Now you’re twisting my words, being purposefully churlish–in hopes of, what? To scare me off?” 
His palm opens up against your jaw, your cheek. His thumb touches your bottom lip. 
“You snap and you snarl and posture as some ferocious, independent creature to scare everyone off. I don’t blame you–I am certain you protected yourself many times this way from lesser people.” His voice is soft, almost a lull, you allow his palm to open against your lips, to turn your face into the cup of his hands. “You don’t believe anyone can handle you and you hope if you bite hard enough, tear into them, they’ll run off. And then you’ll feel vindicated; you were right, you are too much to handle. You were right, you are a monster. You’re unworthy of care or companionship or protection.” 
His hand moves upward, baring his wrist to your mouth now, “go on,” he encourages, “bite me. As hard as you like. Scream and cry and tear into me. Loathe me and scorn me.” He leans closer, over you, as he hushes like a mother to their child, “I’ll still be here, with the rings of your teeth marks littered in my skin. I’ll be the only one, bruised and bloody, still taking care of you–no matter how badly you fight me.” 
Out of anger or frustration or something else entirely, tears prick your eyes. As if to hide them, you open your mouth against his wrist, gentle first–warm and soft lips and tongue. He looks enraptured. He looks starving. 
You sink your teeth into his skin viciously. 
He hisses in pain, sharp, but doesn’t pull away. “There,” he coos, leaning over you, sinking into the pain, “is that what you wanted?” 
Blood bursts into your mouth in a way that is almost startling, sharp and metallic. It should be gross and horrible and–you whine a little, somewhere in the back of your throat and bear down harder. 
If that’s what he promises, you’ll make him prove it. 
If he wants to be the one beside you, you’ll make him pay. 
He leans down to kiss at your cheeks, gentle, humming. You realize there are tears. Your jaw aches. 
But you don’t let go and he doesn’t even flinch. 
“Does that feel better? To get your teeth into someone who isn’t scared of you?” He murmurs, nudging at your tense jaw, kissing there. “Shall I do the same to you?” 
You release his wrist and shove him off, hard enough that he gives and he goes. 
You stand up and storm out of his chambers, slamming the door on its hinges as hard as you can. You hope it knocks over every painting on his walls. You hope the entire compound somehow hears it. You hope it breaks something in the same way that something has been broken open inside of you.
You wipe his blood from your mouth with the back of your hand.
Suguru doesn’t even bandage the wound. And he wears his sleeves high, so that all the world might see it.
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janeyseymour · 2 months
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Landslide
Summary: Melissa's doing a lot of self-reflection while she ponders about what the future might hold for the two of you.
Feel free to listen to my cover of the song too!
WC: 1.95k
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Melissa Schemmenti has been through a lot- there’s no two ways about that statement. She’s had plenty of rough seasons, and they’ve shaped who she is today. And then you came crashing into her life the day that you quite literally tripped and fell walking into her during the first day of development at Abbott your first year. Your mere existence threw her into an existential crisis, and that was before the two of you started dating. And now? She’s contemplating asking you to marry her (how you managed to get her to rethink her entire outlook on life, love, and marriage without your realizing it is beyond her). With this revelation of hers that she might want to get married again, she’s doing a lot of reflection of the course of her life.
I took my love, I took it down. I climbed a mountain and I turned around. And I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills, til the landslide brought me down.
She used to wear her heart on her sleeve. That’s actually how she fell in love with Joe. It was a typical school girl crush in the eighties when she met him in an entry level writing course during college that everybody was required to take in order to graduate. They fell in what she thought was love and got married far quicker than she had ever expected herself to do. She had climbed that mountain, and she almost made it to the top. But then, their marriage had turned into the situation that she had promised herself she would never be in. She turned around, and as she began her trek down, she saw her reflection in what was now a snow covered hill. She saw the way that this experience changed her, and she knew that she would never be the same again- not after what Joe had done. And then the landslide brought her down, and she had fallen from what felt like the highest peak, and she found herself in one of the lowest valleys.
Oh, mirror in the sky: what is love? Can the child within my heart rise above? Can I sail through the changing ocean tides? Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Building herself back up to be as much of the Melissa Schemmenti that she knew and missed was a process, and the redhead knew that it was always going to a little different than it once was.
Melissa found herself looking up at the sky quite often, feeling a sense of serenity when the sun in the sky shone on her face or when the droplets of water that fell from the clouds trailed down her face and she couldn’t quite tell what was rain and what was tears. It was freeing and made her feel as though everything might just be okay.
The redheaded woman was looking up at the sky on a rather cloudy and dismal day as she wandered through the city aimlessly when she finally decided to ask herself what love really is.
Melissa came to the realization that day that she had no idea what love was. Her mother and father certainly didn’t have the love story everyone yearned for- no, they ended up divorced by the time the redhead was ten. She remembers hearing their fights, the cursing and tears, while she lay in bed trying to fall asleep. A part of her had died in those years, and she truly wondered in that moment if the inner child within her heart could ever rise above and find love- true, real, and natural love that wasn’t forced or expected of her.
The woman walked through the city without a destination, wondering if she could handle the changing ocean tide of being in a marriage to being single again. Could she handle the different seasons of her life that were yet to come? She supposed she made it this far, so she can’t give up now- if anything to spite whatever God was trying to make her life a living hell.
Well I’ve been afraid of changing, cause I built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older. And I’m getting older too.
That night, Melissa went back to the small apartment in the middle of Center City Philadelphia that she couldn’t quite yet call a home. She stood out on her balcony, eyes focused down on the streets below her. Somewhere, Joe was roaming those streets looking for his next booty call. And in that moment, she realizes that she needs to change her ways- it’s been two months that she’s been moping around since the divorce was filed.
But she was terrified of change. She had built this whole life around Joe and his friends and family,  and she lost it all in an instance when she caught him in their bed with another woman.
With time, Melissa’s heart healed and mended itself- the only true remedy for heartache and heartbreak. And in that time, she grew to love where she worked at Abbott Elementary. She grew bigger and bolder, back into the woman that didn’t put up with shit and marched to the beat of her own drum.
Years passed, and the redhead found herself watching her first class graduate from Abbott. Only then did she realize that even children grow and get older- onto their new chapter, and then in a few short years she would find herself at their high school graduations cheering and clapping for them among their families.
But Melissa Schemmenti was like family to some of those kids- like a second mother, or even a first mother in certain cases. And she would continue to be there for them.
Only after she enters the door to her townhouse that at least somewhat feels like a home to her now does the second grade teacher realize that she too is getting older. 
And then you came around. You started working at Abbott when Melissa was finally settled into her own being and she was happy with where she was in life. And you came and shook that all up in your flowery sundresses and bright smile. You turned her world upside down with your infectious positivity and sunny disposition. The redhead who wore mostly muted colors with her pleather pants and leather jacket started to wear brighter colors again, because you unintentionally made her see the world like she was living in technicolor.
And after a few months of you working there, the two of you began to see each other romantically. You brought out parts of the hardheaded second grade teacher that she thought she would never see again, yet she was still Melissa. She was still the woman who knew a guy and wasn’t afraid to back down from a bare knuckle fist fight or to bring out her bat to destroy someone’s car who wronged her. You found yourself loving that. You also found yourself loving the way that Melissa would turn soft for you in an instant if you needed it. You knew she was the woman of your dreams, and the redhead felt that too oddly enough.
And so, here she is in her classroom as she waits for you to finish up a meeting with Malik’s parents and doing some self-reflection again as she wonders if maybe you are the miracle that she’s been waiting for her entire life- if you are the one true, real, natural love that she’s been looking for. If you’re the one that she’s going to throw caution to the wind for and get married to.
Well I’ve been afraid of changing, cause I built my life around you. But time makes you bolder, even children get older. And I’m getting older too.
She’s been afraid of change her entire life. Melissa Schemmenti thrives off of routine and the things that she knows to be true in the world. But you came and shook everything up, and she’s built her new life around you now. Is she willing to change everything if a second marriage of hers goes south again?
But… time has made her bolder. Time has shown the redhead that no matter what happens, she’s resilient- she’ll make it through. And genuinely, she isn’t so sure that she would hate the change of being married again, as long as it was to you. 
Time passes around her slowly as she looks around her classroom and realizes just how much has truly changed since she started teaching you and even just in the past few years that you’ve been in her life.
The kids that she started out with are onto the real world, they’ve grown up. They’re off creating their lives, creating families and raising beautiful children that are now wandering through the halls of Abbott themselves.
The practice of teaching has changed and evolved as Melissa’s been here, and while she’s always been afraid of change, the redhead realizes that she’s always been changing and growing to fit the standards of the time in order to give her students the best education she can.
And you? You’ve brought a new sense of life and passion into her world… she’s getting older, she’s aware of this. Maybe you’re worth the potential landslide that could take her out again. She doubts you will- you’re nothing like her ex-husband in the slightest. And that gives her hope. The lingering fears though stay with her, because much like you’ve shaped her, so have her past experiences. 
Oh, take my love, take it down. Oh, climb a mountain and you turn around. And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills, well the landslide brought me down. And if you see my reflection in the snow covered hills, well the landslide bring it down.
Melissa’s worn her heart on her sleeve when it comes to you. And so far, she hasn’t had to take it down. You’ve both climbed the mountain, but neither of you have turned around. She saw her reflection as she climbed up, and she’ll be quite frank: she still glances down at the snow-covered hills occasionally when a moment of self-doubt and self-worth takes over. But she doesn’t think that the landslide will ever bring the two of you down.
And so, she opens her phone and pulls up the number of one of her guys.
“Jack? I think I need a ring,” she says into the phone lowly, praying to God you aren’t coming around the corner. 
“For?”
“I think I found the future Mrs. Schemmenti,” Melissa reveals with a soft smile on her face. “I’m done letting the landslide bring me down.”
“Meet me tomorrow after work, and I’ll have a few things picked out for you.”
She hangs up the phone with a smile.
You walk into her classroom a few moments later, bags slung over your shoulder.
“Hey, babe,” you sigh. “You ready to go home? I’m beat, and I need some relaxation and Desperate Housewives.”
Melissa chuckles softly as she stands from her desk chair and grabs her own bag. She stretches to peck your cheek before taking your left hand in her own. Subconsciously, she rubs her thumb on your ring finger as she thinks about the meeting that she has tomorrow with her guy. 
Melissa Schemmenti has always been afraid of change… always wanted to heal that inner child of hers that used to look up into the night sky and wonder what love was. And here she was, changing for you and knowing what love truly felt like.
TAGS: @schemmentis @thesapphictimelady @marvel210 @itisdoctortoyousir @morgana-larkin @thesamesweetie @doesthatsuggestanythingtoyou @marvels--slut @gwennybriggs @megamultifandomtrashposts @lemz378 @http-sam @melissaschemmentisbranzino @imaginesmultifandoms @sexysapphicshopowner @lilfartbox1 @maybe-a-humanbean @imlike-so-gaydude @sapphicxrat @a-queen-and-her-throne @sunsol-22 @notinmyvocab @melanielaufeyson
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avoxrising · 5 months
Text
The Feral One • Epilogue
Finnick x Y/N
Series Masterlist Link
Prequel is coming in a few months! I haven’t made a Taglist yet and probably won’t start one till I’m closer to publishing. I’ll make a post tagging this series’ Taglist when I’m starting the next one.
Content Warnings - Mentions of fertility issues/miscarriage; death; the end of this series (don’t worry it’s a good ending imo)
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Dear Brielle,
A lot has happened in seventeen years. I’ve now lived half of my life without you, mom, and dad. I’ve been thinking about you a lot so my husband Finnick (yes that Finnick lol) said I should write you a letter of all the things I wanted to tell you but never could.
A little over ten years ago we killed President Snow. The districts rebelled and won. The war was brutal and there were times I nearly died, but Finnick pulled me through.
We got married a year later. We never really did the whole dating thing, our friendship just evolved into a beautiful romance overnight. He was there for me after you left and he has been here ever since.
The years since the war have not been easy. I’ve had bouts of seizures that leave me bedridden and ill for days. The doctors said my condition should be worse so I should be grateful. Countless medications and treatments have made slight improvements to my health but the pain will always be there.
Two years after our wedding we almost hit our breaking point. Finnick and I had been trying to start a family for over a year but nothing was working. It was the most frustrating experience of my life post-war and I do not wish those struggles on anyone.
Three years after our wedding, Mags passed of old age. Although we were sad, we were all glad she got to live out her last few years in a free Panem. Johanna decided to move in with Annie afterwards so she wouldn’t be alone. We are still neighbors to this day.
Four years after our wedding, I got pregnant, only to lose the baby a few months in due to a bad seizure. This was Finnick and I’s lowest point to date.
It’s now been a bit over 9 years since I married the love of my life and the father of my child. We were finally blessed with a baby boy, Neptune, 4 years ago today. He is everything I could have asked for in a child; rambunctious, kind, and adventurous. He looks just like his father but acts like his mother.
Two years ago, Neptune’s best friend arrived in District 4. Annie and Johanna adopted a little girl, Jodie, from District 7. Neptune and her do EVERYTHING together. Finnick keeps joking that we should build a tunnel between our two houses so the kids can hang out all the time.
All in all, it’s been a very painful 34 years of existence. Part of me is glad you didn’t have to witness what happened. The other part of me still hopes you’re out there, even though I know you aren’t. I hope that wherever you are, you’re at peace.
Love, your dear sister,
Y/N
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Taglist:
@randomgurl2326 @mystargirl-interlude @uther-pendragon-is-an-ass @yourdailymemedelivery @americanprometheuss @|3хі3luv @noisyalmonddreamer @nordicvxid @teaganthemorningstar @samatokisunfinishedcigarette @justtrying2getby @lvsticm @notplutos @innercreationflower @nexxus13 @kachelleee @helluvafire @haymitchabernathyslover @memeorydotcom @frostsword @meri-soni-meri-tamanna @giverosespls @honethatty12 @just-levyy @dd122004dd @nekee-lilac02 @impeterporker @nox-the-gay-nerd @redsakura101 @hopefulatrocity @eddiemunson4ever @fangirlvibez @kittimbo @zucchinimalfoy @sleepy-roman @secretsicanthideanymore @writerofadream @finnysmusic @mayonesavegana @lilifl0wer @finnickodaddy @abbersreads @fox-bee926 @ginger-swag-rapunzel @isasalom @yizhoutv @livingdead-reilly @coriolanussnowswife @faephoria @omwtkydttfym @iris1587 @sarcasm-and-stiles @10ava01 @impossessedbyjeongyeon @littleanubis21 @scorpiolystoned @maxinehufflepuffprincess
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wandasfifthwife · 3 months
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Din Djarin | misunderstandings
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Din Djarin x fem!reader
tw: pinning after each other, sorta confessions, misunderstandings, reader used to be mandalorian, reader gets a bit insecure, din is confused, mentions a past-gunshot wound, hurt/comfort, happy ending
a/n: idk if this fandom alive anymore but I still love this man sooo, enjoyment is wished upon whomever this lands upon. This is shit writing and I’m so sorry. I’ll re-read and edit later (if you read and enjoy this now… thank you for loving me at my lowest fr)
.·:*¨༺ ༻¨*:·.
You’ve been on his ship now for almost a year, the months feeling like they were slowing down the further time went by. He originally treated you like a co, only asking what was needed, very obviously separating you from his personal life.
The ship had crashed some time ago, the both of you stranded on a desert planet for almost two months. Something had shifted, changed, and it got worse. The air felt thinner when he was close and your heart would pound.
You felt he cared to listen when you began to share small details about you like where you grew up, what scares you, how you got a scar on your forearm. You felt he began to change too.
“cyar’ika,” his tone is straightforward, “go to bed, you’re just straining your muscles now.”
It scared you when he began to use that instead of your name. You were too frightened to ask what it meant. The only tone he speaks in is monotone and he wears a helmet, it’s hard to read him. Everytime you think you begin to understand, you feel him slipping further away.
You hear a banging sound, one that happened because you drop the boxes from your grip.
“Was only trying to help,” you quip, stepping beside him to enter into the ship.
He shuts the door behind you, asking about the kid. You arrange the boxes so they’re out of the way, “he fell asleep minute after you left.”
He hums, the sound muffled slightly from his helmet. You stand near him to try and get the last package, though with the distance and your strength the box ends up falling to the ground and on your foot. You almost go still from the pain, chest growing tight as you tried to work through the pain. The mandalorian takes the box off of your foot as soon as it fell, a hiss sounding from him.
His body is tense when you try to walk, obvious pain showing on your face. He’s oblivious to how it cringes even more at the name. Sitting yourself down, you cradle your foot, tears coming to your eyes and you blink them away. The sight of tears startles him.
“Your injury, is it hurting that—?”
“No,” you cut him off, “I’ll be fine, I think it just bruised it.”
He offers you a hand, “ner sarad. Get off the floor.”
You swat it away and attempt to get up on your own. How stupid could you be? He’s only ever called you these names in an accusing manner. You had hope, but now that you’re looking back, you’ve lost it.
Last week he used it when you had gotten shot in the shoulder after chasing him for hours. About a month ago you remember him using his language in an angry manner when you argued.
A quiet sob escaped you, “why are you always getting angry at me?” You go limp when his hands come under you, lifting you so he can place you down on his bed. You’re stuck between wanting to push him away and pulling him closer to you. He works on removing your shoe and lifting your pant leg with a sigh.
“The words I’ve been using are terms of endearment,” he gently rubs his thumb over the already forming bruise, “cyar’ika means beloved.”
“I thought you were cursing my name out, using them as expressions of anger.”
“I started using them since you mentioned you were mandalorian once.”
He pats your thigh, getting off the ground to grab the medical supplies. You wince as he wraps your foot tightly, “I was, but we’ve never used those terms. We only called one another by our given name. I didn’t know those words existed.”
“And I’m a fool for assuming your clan was the same as mine.”
“Not a fool,” you smile at him, “you were trying to flirt and I interpreted it as sarcasm. I’m the fool.”
He stands, a hand coming to cup your cheek, “I can teach you, ner kar’ta.”
Your hand covers his, a shiver going through you at the warm feeling of his glove, “what is ner kar’ta?”
“My heart.”
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nightshadow1607 · 1 year
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Immortal Izuku: What’s up guys? I’m back.
Shinsou: What the- you can’t be here. You’re dead. I literally saw you die.
Immortal Izuku: Death is a social construct.
--
Aizawa: I slept for almost 12 hours but I might still be tired so let’s go for 12 more just in case.
Hizashi: Shou, that's a coma.
Aizawa: Sounds festive.
--
Vigilante Shinsou: Are you sure this is the right direction?
Informant Kaminari: Certainly, I'm as sure as I am honest!
Vigilante Izuku: In that case, we're definitely lost.
--
Vigilante Izuku: I was arrested for being too cool.
Shinsou: The charges were dropped due to a lack of supporting evidence.
--
Feral Izuku: Just because I'm too short to reach the lowest self in the cabinet doesn't mean you shouldn't watch out for your kneecaps.
--
Shinsou: With great power comes great need to take a nap. Wake me up later.
--
Aizawa: I’ve come to a point in my life where I need a stronger word than fuck
--
Izuku, holding a python: I impulsively bought a snake, what do I name him
Hizashi, in the verge of a heart attack: You did WHAT–
Shinsou: William Snakepeare
--
Izuku: Jail is no fun. I’ll tell you that much.
Aizawa: Oh, you’ve been?
Izuku: Once. In Monopoly.
--
Shinsou: I think I'm having a mid-life crisis.
Aizawa: You're like 15 years old
Shinsou: I MIGHT DIE AT 30!
--
*Izuku and Shinsou are doing something absurdly dangerous*
Vigilante Izuku: I think Houdini did something like this once! Why, if I recall correctly, he was out of the hospital in no time!
Vigilante Shinsou, deadpan: Well that's encouraging.
--
Izuku: Bad things keep happening to me, like I have bad luck or something.
Bakugou: Deku, you don't have bad luck. The reason bad things happen to you is because you're a dumbass.
--
Kirishima: If I accidentally sat on a voodoo doll of myself, would I be trapped forever in that position, doomed to starve to death?
Tokoyami: How am I supposed to know?
Kaminari: You say, as if we don’t use you as a source of knowledge of the occult.
Tokoyami: *sighs*
Tokoyami: You wouldn't be trapped.
--
Spinner: What do you think Dabi will do for a distraction?
Mr. Compress: They’ll probably, like, make a noise or throw a rock. That’s what I would do.
*Building explodes and several car alarms go off*
Mr. Compress: ... or they could do that.
--
Izuku: I've already sent good vibes your way… they’re coming. There’s nothing you can do to stop them.
Shinsou: This is the most threatening way I’ve ever been cheered up.
--
Quirkless Izuku: I’m going to defeat you with the power of friendship! ... And this knife I found.
--
Uraraka: What do you call a fish with no eye?
Iida, not looking up: Astyanax mexicanus
Uaraka: 
Uraraka: fsh
--
*Shinsou and Izuku sitting in jail together*
Vigilante Izuku: So who should we call?
Vigilante Shinsou: I’d call Aizawa, but I feel safer in jail
incorrect quotes because why not? (part 5)
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ironunderstands · 10 days
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god can anyone have any fun around here ever
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I just???? How is your reaction to this post anger at the fact that people like theorizing about their favorite character
Any joy??? Any whimsy??? ANY
Also incorrect if he was a woman the exact people who like jade and sparkle would decend upon him and I would have to 1 v 500 the lowest common denominator as they turn my favorite character into a “omg don’t end that flop Ratio!!” or “mommy” figure while I violently gesture to the fact he has an actual character
If you think Ratio being a woman would make his fans like him any less, you sorely misunderstand his appeal and entire character. People are tossing around theories of the aeons he could be connected to is because HE HAS A LOT OF AEONS HE COULD BE CONNECTED TO. This man is mysterious, he figured out dormancy somehow, his character stories are told from everyone else’s POV, he’s been acting or working under an agenda for most of the time we see him, he don’t really know why Nous doesn’t acknowledge him, his perspective on life is the exact fucking same as Acherons, a literal emanator of Nihility, etc.
Also I do not know another Ratio fan who also isn’t violently passionate about at least one female character in this game, I will defend Topaz and Acheron with my life and they are both incredibly fascinating characters in their own right that deserve to have their own narratives, it’s just like Ratio they require at least a little brain function in order to appreciate them. Istg if we do not get a Topaz breakdown arc I’m killing someone this woman needs to develop class consciousness or I will lose it.
Look idk, don’t send hate to this person obviously, but like I genuinely wanna know why people think like this. I’ve never seen something people do something that is so fun and harmless get dogged on like this before. And I know it’s Twitter but like, COME ON
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Text
Cats Don’t Chase Dogs
Disclaimer: I’ve never read the book. My title happens to be the same.
It’s a lot more special when I’m able to capture my cat’s attention than my dogs. No matter what I do, he’s always begging for my attention when my cats can’t stand my attention. I say this because it’s easy as a young woman, to go with the flow and be the cat chasing the dog when other relationships in your life are like that.
Every time I get one of my cat’s attention, I cherish it. If they sit in my lap, it’s really a special experience.
Be the elusive cat.
You aren’t hurting the “dog’s” feelings if you start running once you get his attention. Being into being chased than the chaser activates their innate ability to pursue and gives them motivation believing they have a chance of winning you.
For example, if the dog locks its eyes on you and says, “hey mrs.,” you’re not going to say hey sexy/hot stuff or “I’m your misses?!”! You’d react on the same wavelength or lesser, in a classy way. Practice a sweet, feminine tone with songs by crooning singers, or songs that utilize the vibration of your bottom OR top of your vocal cords.
The cat is not surprised or impressed with being chased.
Keep your excitement contained to yourself by taking deep breaths, if you feel excited at all. It’s no surprise someone finds you alluring!
The cat always keeps the dog on his toes.
Never give away your secrets because you were cornered or barked at.
If you tell the dog the reason why he SHOULD chase you, you just sold fantasy you to the lowest bidder.
The cat never tells the dog to chase her.
It can feel unnatural at first to turn your back on a pursuer, but do it anyway.
The cat doesn’t care if she loses the dog's attention! It’s not her responsibility to maintain the dog’s attention or ask how she’s doing in keeping his attention. There’s nothing more attractive than being self assured.
There’s nothing wrong with feeling special and paying more attention to your appearance, either! Treat yourself how others should treat you. It’s no one’s job to build you up, not even your family’s. You don’t need your family’s permission to date upwards!
When the cat wants to surprise the dog, her actions are purposeful, meaning you’re not making physical contact for the sake of touching.
You are not starved for attention! Never ever say to anyone or yourself that no one has ever noticed you and how amazing of a partner you can be!
Once you say how you’re never anything, you’re opening yourself up for manipulation.
You are not going to chase the dog.
It’s unnatural and emasculating to a masculine man to initiate physical contact and heavily flirt with him. The dog may think you have issues and back up.
You are not going to persuade the dog to act like a cat.
You are not going to give free passes to the dog to capture you.
By free passes, you’re not going to dedicate an ounce of your mind to wondering if the dog really likes you and whether he’ll escalate the chase. You are not afraid or worried about losing anyone’s attention.
Those who are interested show interest. Write out all of your emotions uncensored when the chase scatters your nerves.
After you’ve been elusive and allowed the dog in closer OR to claim you, allow friendly competition.
You’re a knockout, and as a knockout, many guys will be ruthless in getting you to lose interest with this guy who looks smitten with you! Meaning, they’re going to target the dog’s self esteem and wallet (since you look so expensive!!) by blatantly flirting with you and paying for you.
💖Maximize the Pretty!💖
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trendywaifus · 11 months
Note
hey!! i saw that your reqs are open so i'd like to request hc of eula, hu tao, beidou and baal comforting their s/o who thinks that they're annoying and a burden because of their past relationships who made them believe that. e.g the s/o is afraid to talk about their interests because they feel like they're boring and annoying them. thank you so much in advance if you decide to write my request!! i hope the holidays are going well for you!
i like this one! remember everyone, don’t let anyone make you feel like you’re a less of a person. you’re more than they will ever be and you deserve more respect. someone who truly who loves and appreciate you will prove it! doesn’t even have to be a special someone, it can be family and friends. i’m also here for you whenever you feel like you’re at your lowest. (sorry for any errors and whatever im sleepy!)
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— eula understands how you feel. coming from a widely—hated clan without any outside support, use to do a number on her. you feel as though nobody isn’t interested in how you feel or your interests. they look at you from outside lens and judge you without personally getting to know the real you—she understands. but don’t worry, she’s here to listen and unfold everything you’ve been wanting to say. she’s not good at comforting others but since it’s you, eula will do her best.
— you think you’re a burden? nonsense, don’t ever think like that; you make her darkest days bright. your smile, your laughter, it’s always engraved in her mind each time she fights and dances under the moonlight. you are one of her main sources of motivation, remember that. she’ll protect you with her life if she has to.
“ (name), that’s rather interesting, i could see you doing that, “ she says with a warm smile as you shyly tell her one of your interests. “ why didn’t you tell me sooner? “ you play with your hands nervously, gazing into her curious eyes, “ well, i’m use to others disregarding my interests. so. .i don’t really bother anymore.”eula’s face cutely scrunches up to a look of disdain and reaches out to hold your hand, her gloved fingers gingerly skimming across your palm. “ how unreal. my love, perhaps you should tell me who these others are? shall i enact vengeance on them? “
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— like with eula, she understands how you feel in the realest level. she’s like the clown of the town, constantly getting talked about, judged, all of that stuff. yes, there’s times where she felt alone but she remembers her grandfather, zhongli, the traveller, and the friends she met as she breathes each day. there’s also you, how could she forget you? her special someone she dreams of so often.
— so when you tell her that you felt like a burden to others and to her, her usual cheery mood is gone from her face and hu tao’s serious. she listens, uncharacteristically quiet as she soaks in your words about your history with individuals who showed a lack of interest in you as a person. despite what was told about hu tao, she is a great listener.
“ my butterfly, all of what they said isn’t true, not at all.” her palm touches your cheek tenderly, she frowns. “ your voice is gentle to the ears; it managed to reach down and warm the cold, darkest feelings i’ve buried deep within my heart.” hu tao leans in to kiss between your eyebrows and pulls back with her signature smile. “ aiyah, you’re my muse after all. “
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— as someone who’s been fighting for her life ever since she was a child, she understands how cruel teyvat and the people can be. she had to fight for respect and people to look in her direction. but now, she is a powerful captain with an excellent crew. she also has an amazing partner, a invaluable treasure that she would never give away and will protect with her life.
— when you spoke about your hesitance at revealing your interest to others, afraid of being seen as boring and uninteresting, beidou was shocked however she quickly recovered and continue to listen to you until you were done. she tells you how much she loves you with that toothy smile of hers and empathizes with how you feel.
she takes you into her strong arms, rubbing your back in a smoothing manner. “ sweetheart, you’re a strong person for openin’ up to me. don’t let anybody tell you otherwise, you’ve impacted my life in a positive way, i look forward to seein’ and hearin’ you talk everyday about anything and everything. don’t give those fool’s words anymore weight in your head than they already have, let it all be dead weight that you gotta start sinkin. “
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— ei would genuinely be confused. it’s more like why could anyone mistreat you when you’re such a wonderful being? no matter how much she pondered at the thought of it even happening, she thinks the possibility is close to 0 and if it does happen, she will wipe the poor soul from existence.
— she is rather ignorant to social cues and not very quick in noticing human behavior unless it’s fear and anger. you have no reason to fear her and there’s nothing she has done to anger you. but when you show clear reluctance in telling her about your past and feelings when asked, she was worried but patient. when you finally unravel everything, ei felt terrible. how could she had not notice the signs? after this, ei’s more obliged to be more attentive towards your needs.
“ i. . see. “ ei grabs your wrist and gently guides you closer to her. her other hand places itself on the back of your neck and she rests your head against her chest in a comforting manner. “ i’m ashamed that i did not ask you this sooner and not being aware of your struggles. i will do whatever i can to make you feel how you make me feel, dear beloved. that’s one promise i will keep until i fall victim to erosion. “
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cakeboxie · 9 months
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Oughsgksh thinking about newly human Neuvillette.
Pairing: Neuvillette / gn! oceanid! Reader
Cws: lil bit of hurt/comfort, sfw.
WC: 0.5k
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“You’re like a fish out of water.”
The lithe man scowls at you as you chuckle at your own joke, your voice echoing from the water around him as his silvery scales fade in and out of existence as he practices moving between his human and dragon forms.
“I would like to see you try and engage successfully with a human. They’re painfully fickle, and their social structure is nuanced and strange compared to our own.”
He flexes his talons as they become hands, and you manifest your own flowing hands to hold them.
“Though I can’t help but feel like it’s not worth the effort.”
He frowns and stares at his hands and yours together.
“My love. You’ve been interested in humans for centuries, how many books do you have filled with notes on them hm? What has you discouraged after so long?”
He leans into you as you manifest the rest of your form out of the previously shapeless water. The smooth scales of his tail wrapping around you as you engulf him in your wings.
“I’ve spent many nights telling you about their mannerisms, do you happen to remember their social hierarchy?”
“Of course my love, I remember all that you’ve told me of them.”
His lips pull into a small smile, and his grip on his human form wanes, skin shaping back into scales as he speaks.
“Then you know the rigidity of it, how it’s easy to fall down through the ranks and near impossible to rise back up… I was firmly cast to its lowest tiers.”
He makes a point of keeping his form smaller than you as he settled into his draconic form, his wings folded neatly as he turned in your hold. Resting his head on your chest.
“I see… I’m shocked people weren’t more reverent. I thought the elemental dragons were important figures to them?”
“They are. But I fear my human disguise was too good. When I tried to introduce myself as the descendant of the hydro dragon they treated me like a madman.”
“Hm… I’m inclined to believe you'd not like to prove it to them?”
He tilts his head and blinks slowly, before speaking.
“No… no I fear their reaction would be too intense. I don’t seek worship, I simply want to…”
“You’d like to be human.”
He winces and looks away from you. Moving away from your hold, you make no effort to stop him, allowing him to make as much distance as he needs.
“You’re not upset at me for it, are you darling?”
“Of course not, with the fondness you speak of them with it’s unsurprising to be entirely honest with you love.”
He nods and offers you a distinctly human hand. Taking it gently with your wing you continue.
“Should you ever want to visit me I will always be here.”
He grips your wing tighter and kisses the appendage softly, looking up at you with a newfound determination.
“I suppose working from the bottom up is the most human thing I could do.”
You talk together until the early morning, when he chooses to make his way out of the water. The fresh morning sun catching his silky white hair as he wicks the water out of his clothing. He was a beautiful man as he was a beautiful dragon, and you find yourself admiring him as he left for his new life as Neuvillette, a human and nothing more.
Taglist: @yarnnerdally / @starrry-angel
Wanna be added? Send me an ask off anon!
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bsd-fan · 1 year
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Dazai osamu: Evolution
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In a lot of ways this is where my Dazai analysis will really start, this is going to be insanely long so be prepared. It also has spoilers of the manga, anime, and most of the light novels.
I’ve talked about how is a mistake to measure Dazai’s character growth in terms of morality, because that has never been the main point of his characterization. Being a “good” or a “Bad” person is not as important as the fandom makes it to be. Dazai is unapologetically a morally grey character and he will always be. However, this doesn’t mean that Dazai hasn’t changed.
He has and it goes far beyond him changing into a boring trench coat and calling himself a detective. He has changed so fundamentally speaking that I’d go and say that right now is the most developed character in this area and the thing that make this even more surprising is that his character growth has not finished yet. He keeps evolving.
To understand this let’s start analyzing him chronologically:
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Fifteen year old Dazai is probably the lowest we’ve ever seen Dazai. Starting fifteen, Dazai is showed to us as someone who genuinely wants to die, he is /not/ attempting suicide as a joke, is not a comedic relief. Fifteen year old Dazai wants to die with a desperation that borders on madness. He is so tired of living, so bored of life and the people that surround him, about how predictable they are, about how easy is to manipulate them, there’s not a thing in this world that can surprise him, he is living in this permanent state of numbness. He is completely lonely in a world that will never be able to understand him. And let me make a pause to talk about the fact that it has been /heavily/ implied that Dazai was living in this situation for a long time. People loves to blame Mori for Dazai’s personality but this is simply and canonically speaking not true.
Dazai has already formed most of his worse personality traits by the time Mori found him. Let me remind you that they met when Mori saved Dazai’s life /after/ he attempted suicide at fourteen. Fandom loves to act as Dazai was a perfectly healthy kid that Mori ruined when that’s not true. Mori made it worse, yes. But he wasn’t the cause of it.
“Miscalculation.
You misjudged the situation, he told himself. You failed to pick the optimal solution. You shouldn’t have chosen this child to help you. Dazai is unpredictable. He can be sharp but in a dark, twisted way. He’s observant. He’s cold and calculating with no equivalent even in the mafia, where the most evil reside”- Mori about Dazai, ligh novel fifteen.
I will talk about this more depth in another essay about Soukoku and the mafia but this is important to aknowledge. Dazai was like this even /before/ Mori’s influence, Mori was scared of him even when Dazai was just a child because he saw how deeply disconnected from his humanity he was. How cruel, cold and calculating he could be.
So going back to the main idea, at this point of the story, Dazai is already numb, manipulative, and machiavellian, he doesn’t trust in anyone and his only real connection is with Mori that looks at him like a convenient weapon to wield. But the most important trait of Dazai at this age? Is how deeply apathetic Dazai is to everything. At this stage of life Dazai lives in a pure nihilism, he doesn’t believe in /anything/, he conceives life as completely meaningless, he doesn’t see a point in existing when there’s no a reason for it. It’s so bad that it’s funny. Mori knows about the /raw/ potential in Dazai, about how valuable he can be as a tool but he can’t use him because Dazai is so unmotivated that he simply doesn’t give a damn about anything. He is a genius and he only uses his intellect to try to kill himself. He can’t be bothered with anything else, even breathing is an annoying task and a waste of effort and then…this happens:
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I’m not pointing this out as a soukoku shipper because this is not even a soukoku analysis, this is all about Dazai. People will always talk about Fifteen importance for chuuya, but fifteen was also fundamental in Dazai’s arc.
Cold and apathetic Dazai was literally kicked in the face by his biggest narrative foil. Chuuya who is loud, and ridiculously emotional, who can’t for the life of him hide his expressions, who is a terrible liar, impulsive, pathologically loyal to the point of idiocy, and so fucking full of vitality, so hungry for life. And so /unbearable human/. And then Dazai gets annoyed, and surprised, and out of nowhere he is screaming at the top of his lungs, showing /emotion/, he is curious, he is intrigued. He went from saying that breathing is such a hassle to fucking throwing a party and singing happily while he, in person, decorates, he even got a cake for fuck’s sake.
He doesn’t understand chuuya, he is curious about the sheep dynamics and as the story progresses we realize that this is probably the first time that Dazai fucks up, he failed to predict a situation, he didn’t saw it coming.
He wasn’t able to realize that Chuuya was Arahabaki, he didn’t even thought about that possibility. Because since the first moment, he never thought that chuuya could be something else than human. He didn’t saw Rimbaud coming because the idea of a person going that far for someone else? Is ridiculous, it doesn’t make sense, is illogical. It’s not how people are supposed to act.
“-So it’s all for your partner-Dazai said listlessly- Betraying the mafia, spreading rumors about the old boss’s resurrection, this fight we’re in now…it’s kind of hard to believe, to be honest
-Maybe for a slimeball like you it is- Chuuya scoffed. He looked up at Randou- Throwing everything away for your friends is a perfectly respectable reason to risk your life if you ask me”- Dazai and chuuya, fifteen years old. (Pause to scream about how much I love chuuya, help)
So basically every thing that happened in fifteen leads to this:
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And this guys, is one of the angular stones in Dazai’s development.
“The boy’s eyes were as clear as the sky on a sunny day; they lacked any shred of trepidation. This was not something earned, for only those determined to live could possess their heavenly blue sparkle”- about Dazai, fifteen.
This is the /only/ moment in the entirety of the series where Dazai not only doesn’t want to die, but that he /actively/ is looking towards life. The only moment in all bsd, Dazai is excited at the perspective of living. Fifteen is so important because this is the first time, Dazai’s view of life is challenged. Dazai was wrong. He made mistakes. People are not as predictable and boring as he thought. Dazai doesn’t suddenly start thinking that life has meaning, but he starts thinking that it /may/ exist, he just hasn’t found it yet.
This scene makes a radical switch in Dazai’s character because his primary goal changed from wanting to die to finding a reason to live.
In fifteen Dazai found hope, and everything that came after is possible because of this.
And it’s logical to an extent. He doesn’t understand life, but maybe if he understands death he can come closer to understand it. People always lie but when they are about to die? People become genuine, pretensions disappear, what do you cling to when you don’t have anything? When you’re dying, why do you keep fighting? If he can understand this, then maybe he can understand the sense in life. Maybe he can connect with his own desires and emotions. Maybe he can find his own reason to exist.
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Unfortunately this doesn’t last.
By stormbringer, Dazai falls into despair once again, he goes back to looking for his death.
“Dazai glanced back at him, perhaps amused by this, then he muttered as if he was talking to himself. -I couldn’t find anything in the end’- Dazai osamu, stormbringer
“It seems true that he wants to die. It seems that all the value standards of living reflected in his eyes are just as worthless and ugly as scrap iron”- Oda about Dazai, The day I picked up Dazai osamu side A, translated by poppopretty
For a long time, I thought that was the culmination of Dazai’s development as a character. He went from wanting to die to trying to find a reason to live, he struggles but he is trying.
I was wrong.
Chuuya solves his main conflict in stormbringer, Dazai doesn’t. To understand this, we need to understand that one the main themes in Bungou stray dogs is existentialism.
In simple (extremely simple) words existentialism can be defined as: “ the philosophical belief we are each responsible for creating purpose or meaning in our own lives”. Which means that in a way existentialism also understands that life can be meaningless, that maybe there’s not a big purpose in existence BUT that doesn’t have to mean that it has to stay that way. Existentialism defends that people can find their own purpose and maybe is not something big, it may be not life changing for others, but is something people cling to and that’s enough to give sense to the world. I will be talking more in depth about this in chuuya’s analysis but right now the important thing is to understand that this is not enough for Dazai.
He /needs/ a bigger purpose, a better answer, something objective and logical, something that can’t be debated. Because if it’s not, then Dazai’s genius mind will pick on that and he will once again be drown in desperation. Dazai needs an absolute answer.
Enter oda, the catalyst of Dazai’s next biggest arc as a character. But first let’s understand sixteen year old Dazai’s perspective of live, shall we?
“- you said it is foolish to die, right? So here is my question. If dying is foolish, then why do we have to die?
(…)
-So, you mean life is not something to regret?
-No, it is worse than that. Even though we are all promised death, from the beginning, all human beings were born with a present desire called “I don’t want to die”. This is also one hundred percent true. That is why, that desire will never be fulfilled”- The day I picked up Dazai Osamu, transplanted by poppypretty
So, to summarize Dazai can’t understand what’s the point in living if by the end there’s no real point in it. There’s nothing there, there’s not a reason to suffer so much because that’s what he is doing. He is suffering. He is all alone, feeling like an alien in a world of humans, just using a mask and trying to hide how really inhuman and empty he is behind all of that and for what? The world is senseless. Worse than that, there are not a lot of things he cares about but when he finds something worth preserving, he loses it. Dazai is in a horrible situation because his intelligence alienates him and isolates him from other people but it’s not enough to win against the senseless of life. He lives at edge, trying to predict and control everything to protect himself and the things important to him, he purposefully goes along with the alienation and isolates himself more thus going farther from his humanity, and at the end is worthless. Because it doesn’t matter how intelligent he is, is still not enough, he will never be able to control everything, he will never be able to predict everything with 100% of accuracy because life doesn’t work in that way, is all about chaos. And Dazai can’t deal with that.
Time passes, by eighteen years old, Dazai in a lot of ways gets worse. He is the “Demon prodigy” destructive, cruel, a master in torture and his mental state continues to get worse and worse but funnily enough he is still standing and that’s thanks to two things:
1) the hope he found at fifteen and never let him. Yes, Dazai goes back to wanting to die because life sometimes becomes unbearable but his goal is still to find a reason to live. And that didn’t changed.
2) his friends. Odasaku, Ango and Lupin bar are important things for Dazai. He is still lonely but it’s a little better
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Then everything goes to shit.
But I want you to understand this. After Oda decides to die, Dazai tries to stop him and this is what he says:
“-Find something to rely on. Expect good things to happen from here on out. There’s gotta be something…Hey Odasaku, do you know why I joined the mafia? (…) I joined the mafia because of an expectation I had. I thought if I was close to death and violence-close to people giving in to their urges and desires, then I would be able to see the inner nature of humankind up close. I thought if I did that…I would be able to find something-a reason to live”- Dazai Osamu, Dark era.
This is frankly tragic, because just as I said in previous analysis. Dazai’s worse trait, the real cause of all his suffering is his complete lack of self awareness. His main problem is not his lack of understanding of life, is the lack of understanding of himself. He thinks that understanding human at their most basic, desperate state will make him understand better humankind and that ultimately will make him closer to his humanity. But that’s not how it works. He can’t just watch from afar and expect that to be enough. Dazai needs to connect with himself, even the worse parts of himself, even the parts he doesn’t want to see instead of covering them up, he needs to let himself bond with other people, he needs to connect with his own emotions and desires. He needs to leave his overly complex ideas behind, to go down from the high horse he is in, to stop with the omniscient being act that aggravate his isolation and alienation, the things that ultimately make him perceive himself as something inhuman. He needs to accept that at the end of the day he is just human, just like the rest of the world and he is just as powerless as them.
Now let’s go to arguably Dazai’s most important scene as a character: Odasaku’s death
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People love to make this scene about soukoku and it’s fucking ridiculous.
People will take this scene and put it as evidence for the “Chuuya’s always the second choice” theory that they came up with (even if the whole theory is fucking ) but specifically this? Dazai leaving the mafia? Has nothing to do with chuuya. It’s part of his /individual/ character development and exactly what it should be.
Let’s start analyzing it
Dazai arrives and Oda is dying, he is desperate to save him even when he know is too late and the Odasaku says something. And this, this guys is what ultimately leads to Dazai’s character growth.
“-you told me if you put yourself in a world of violence and bloodshed, you might be able to find a reason to live (…) you won’t find it-Odasaku said in an almost whisper. Dazai stared at him- You should know that. Whether you’re on the side that takes lives or the side that saves them, nothing beyond your own expectations will happen. Nothing in this world can fill the hole that is your loneliness. You will wander the darkness for eternity”
“ That was when Dazai first realized: Sakunosuke oda understood him much more than he’d ever imagined- right up to his very heart, almost to the center of his mind. Dazai didn’t realize until then that someone had known him so well. For the first time in his life, Dazai wanted from the bottom oh his heart to know something. He asked the man before him:
-Odasaku, What should I do-“- Odasaku and Dazai osamu, Dark era
This is the most important scene for Dazai. He has always been lonely, he has always lived with the knowledge that it doesn’t matter how much he tries, no one will ever able to understand him but then just minutes before oda’s death he realizes he was wrong. To say that he left the mafia for oda is as inexact as saying that he decided to live for chuuya. It’s simply not true. He was heavily influenced by both of them but at the end of the day it was for himself.
“People live to save themselves”
I’ve say it before but this sentence is the core of bsd. If you want to analyze a character in this series, not matter who, you need to start by this quote. Dazai is not the exception to it.
He joined the mafia trying to find his own salvation, to get closer to his humanity, to find his reason for living, to find answers and he left because he realized it was useless. He always knew in a way, but he couldn’t bring himself to leave because this was his only chance, the mafia was his only hope, was the only thing he was clinging to. Even in his worst moments, Dazai still clung to the idea that he would find what he was looking for. But then, while dying oda talks to him and he realizes that there was someone who understood. Someone who knew about his pain, someone who understood his desperation, someone who looked through the mask and realized how utterly broken he was. And thing is, he failed, he tried the logical option and he found nothing but then maybe oda, oda who knows him best, oda who probably understands him better that he understand himself can tell him what to do. That’s why Dazai is so desperate in this scene, asking what to do. Because this is a new chance, there’s new hope. What Oda said might sound horrible but it was exactly what Dazai needed to hear and is the reason I was wrong.
Dazai doesn’t read as a character who went from wanting to die to wanting to find a reason to live.
Because to begin with, what Dazai was looking for was completely unreachable because it doesn’t exist. He can be looking for a reason to live all his life and he won’t find it because there’s not an absolute answer. There is not a bigger motive. The world really is senseless, that’s how it is. And Dazai needed to understand that. That’s why oda tells him to forget all about that silly hope. Because is useless.
“Be on the side that saves people. If both sides are the same, then choose to become a good person. Save the weak, protect the orphaned. You might not see a great difference between right and wrong, but…saving others is something just a bit more wonderful”- Oda Sakunosuke, dark era.
But that doesn’t mean than living is worthless
And this is how we come to Dazai’s real change as character. Dazai goes from nihilism, to a failed attempt of existentialism to absurdism.
Absurdism is the philosophical theory that existence in general is absurd, meaning that the world lacks meaning or a higher purpose. It also refers to the discrepancy between two things such as: the conflict as a colission between a rational man in an irrational world. In simple words, absurdism refers to the struggle of the man to find sense in a senseless world and we can see the mental impact of this struggle in the form of existential crises (yes, just like Dazai) Okay so I swear this made perfect sense in my own language, I’m gonna try as best as I can to explain it in English. Absurdism is different from existentialism because it doesn’t think that you can find a sense in the world, it really defends that not matter what you do, you will never find anything, that it doesn’t matter what you cling to in the great scheme of things it still means nothing, and in a way this need to find a sense in life will lead to more chaos BUT it also defends that you have to keep living despite that, maybe out of pure spite of it. Things doesn’t need to make sense to be worthy.
Absurdism says that there are three options to deal with this problem
Suicide: the pure desperation of trying to reach something that doesn’t exist will lead to the rejection of life. But this is not the correct answer (Cough, young Dazai, cough)
Religion: trying to cope, clinging to the idea that there’s a higher purpose. (Cough, Fyodor, Cough)
Rebellion against the absurd: which is the right answer, the individual needs to learn to accept the absurdity of the world and of his own existence but keep opposing to it. Which means, that the individual keeps living clinging to little things that may not have sense, but that are still worthy and valuable. In even simpler terms, absurdism says “do what you have to do to stop from killing yourself, not matter how stupid that thing is”
Cadmus explained it even better using this example:
You all know about Sisyphus, right? If not is basically this man that was punished by the gods. The punishment consisted of rolling a massive rock up a hill, but it doesn’t matter how hard he tried, at the end of the day, once the rock reached the top it would roll down again. So it was a completely senseless punishment. Not matter how Sisyphus tried he could never win against the absurdity of it. And this also happens with human lives, we do meaningless things all the time, knowing that at the end we will die. Not matter what we do, if we end up as vagabonds or if we find the cure against cancer, the result is still the same, we will all die, so everything we do in life is pointless. BUT Cadmus said that you still can’t give up. Because at the end, sisyphus needs to stop caring about something that he can’t change, the result will always be the same but the important thing is the instant of happiness when he comes close to finishing his job. The moment when the rock reaches the top? seconds before it rolls down, that satisfaction? Is what life is really about. And that’s exactly what Dazai is trying to do right now.
He won’t find sense in life, but being in the ADA is a little more beautiful and that alone is reason enough to be there. Maybe he is not a good person, maybe he doesn’t understand morals but he is with people he has come to appreciate in a better environment doing something that he enjoys more and that’s enough.
There’s this omake in bsd that shows a conversation between Atsushi and Dazai. And Atsushi asks Dazai, why he is in the ADA because someone as intelligent as Dazai can surely find a job with better pay, and Dazai looks at him and tell him that it’s true, but he is fine where he is because he likes to use his brain to help people. That guys, is absurdism right there, Dazai acknowledges that it may not makes sense but he likes what he does and that’s enough.
This change has been gradual and Dazai still struggles with it. He still has problems with the idea of letting things go, he still is a manipulative bastard and that will never change, because at this point is just a part of his personality, he still is trying to control everything but at the same time he also is ready to accept that sometime you just don’t have the answers and that’s part of humanity. This is one of my favorite panels on earth:
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Dazai is trying to convince kyouka of living, to choose to do something different from the things she’s good at, if that what makes her happy. This is one of the few scenes Dazai accepts that he is not omniscient, that there are no answers for all the questions, and that we are all a little lost because of it. This is also the first time Dazai is not in desperation while saying it. His growth is not about becoming a good person, he still does horrible things, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t changed. To accept that life is senseless but it still is worthy, to accept that he can’t control everything but the possibilities of it are not necessarily something to be afraid but opportunities? /That’s/ his character growth
This whole arc is a masterpiece because it highlights Dazai’s growth. He is against Fyodor, who in a lot of ways is just like him but at their core they are completely different.
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This hands down is my favorite Dazai’s panel because is all about his growth. Because he can see what Fyodor doesn’t. Fyodor see himself as a god, Dazai doesn’t because he knows that it doesn’t matter if they are pulling the strings, they are still isolated and alienated from everything, the people that really is moving the world is the one out there, the people that jumps even when they don’t know if they will be caught. The people that don’t know half of what they know but still are able to move in the middle of the uncertainty. And that’s something that neither Fyodor nor Dazai are able to do. But Dazai is no longer in pain because of that, he now understands the problem and is trying his best to overcome it. Dazai stopped resenting the world for being senseless and illogical and is learning to accept it and just adapt as best as he can to it. To give everything for the people he cares about even when there’s no guarantee that it will end well, but Dazai is trying and that’s what matters.
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I really wish I had the time to make a better analysis but I don’t. Even then, I wanted to share my pure love and admiration to this character. Dazai is so beautifully written and by far the most complex character in this whole story, all of his development as a character is simply fascinating and the way Asagiri is writing him right now has me screaming and running in circles.
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moronphantom · 3 months
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this one might get long and sappy, but when I first joined this fandom I was 16 and had just freshly been disowned by my family for being trans, living at what felt like the lowest point of my life. I found a home in dp, in how all the art and stories of him being trans both with and without his family’s support.
today I am 22. I came back to the fandom after being gone for a while, now with a home and a family and a life. I just woke up from top surgery, and on the way to the hospital I kept smiling, kept thinking of young me being so sure it would never happen. but it did! and I keep thinking of Danny, of all the characters, and this amazing fandom who’s helped me get to where I am today. the happiest person I’ve ever been since all the hell I went through before joining this fandom.
so I guess I wanted to say thank you all for creating a place for me to just be me. thank you for all the art, fanfics, theories, memes, and all types of posts who made me smile. I owe every single one of you the world for how much you made me smile and brought me the energy to keep going🫶
(sorry I’m sappy I’m a little all over the place from the meds)
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mytrouvailles · 6 months
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night in the woods is such an important game for me and i can’t ever explain as in depth as i want to but i just replayed it for the seventh year in a row so here we go
mae’s from a small town, a poor town. she’s got her close knit friends. and everyone else has got this perception of her that they’ve attached to her since she was young. lots of people bringing up her past and not even opening their minds to the fact that she may have changed, it’s just a bunch of no one’s forgotten who you are or what you did, you know. people that never even knew mae in the past, like lori m., know about what she did. it’s small town talk, and small town talk always moves around in ways you never want it to.
it takes forever in the game for mae to finally open up about why she left college, and it’s because of exactly what the small town folk have assumed of her: she hasn’t changed. she still has this illness and she represses it because that’s what she’s told to do, rather than process it, work through it like selmers says to. she represses it so deeply that we, the player, spend the entire game wondering what our character is going through. we see mae’s thoughts and feelings and what she says and doesn’t say to people, and yet she never mentions how difficult it is for her to feel alright, even internally. and it’s so devastating to have a repressed illness that you’ve shown so many clear signs of, one that you’ve been taught to ignore until your wires snap. one that takes so hard of a toll on your well-being, makes it impossible to do what seems so easy for others. and it’s so real.
i think that’s what i love most and identify most with this game, is that it’s real. from mae’s repressed mental illnesses to gregg’s insecurities with himself to bea’s losses and angus’ abusive home life, it’s real. there are people out there with lives exactly like these.
i’m from a small town, a poor town. i’ve known people like mae, gregg, and bea, and angus. i’ve known kids that were neglected, abused, ignored. i’ve known shoplifters and people that armed themselves on the street and who’ve lost their loved ones at the worst of times. i personally was not the kindest or well-behaved teenager, and i’ve watched the same people i was with then either grow into redeemable people or get themselves into something irreversible. and just like in the game, people act like they’ve forgotten about all of that. that’s small town polite right there. something happened and the signs were there, it was all the talk for a while. our moms told us not to talk to you. and suddenly you’re told to get over it without any sort of diagnosis, an answer. and everyone passes over it, even your closest friends, as if they have blocked it out of their brains for the convenience of not dealing with it. until you drown in it, and something else happens.
i’m in college now, and every time i visit home i get this feeling, one that nothing changed but yet everything did. i see someone i know with every step i take. some will serve me at the restaurant i go to eat at to catch up with my family. some will be greeting me at the only grocery store in town. some will have passed away and some will have been arrested. my high school friends have grown up, they’ve either worked or graduated college or are nearing there, they’ve set themselves up with full time careers and plans and relationships. and yet i feel as though i’ve regressed in life, i’ve decided to go to school for even longer to prevent growing up. i stayed here and got older, while you went off and stayed the same.
and it’s one thing to feel like you’ve made it no where compared to your lowest point, but it’s another to still have doubts of yourself after you’ve become a better person. you can move away, make new friends, find a loving relationship. you can start on a completely clear slate, but at the end of everything, it’s nothing but a facade if you don’t truly feel redeemable in your heart. you question how you deserve something so good, how you possibly could be seen and loved by people who know what you are, when you don’t even know yourself. i’m a good person, right? i have really up up days and really down down days, and i don’t know which it is until it’s over sometimes.
mae has no idea what she is, what her point is, there’s nothing but holding on to what she thinks is herself and her friends and her world, which is realistically so much different than how she sees it. gregg knows what he is, he knows what he was and what he wants to be. he knows that there are parts of himself that get in the way of truly believing he is good. i think that mae is in some sort of denial about learning who she is in her early adult life, constantly looking back at the past and pretending that things aren’t different when they are. where gregg is growing into himself, coming to terms with commitment and responsibility and making up for the reckless person he once was. still fearing to regress back into his more careless self, and destroy those expectations of maturity when mae is around.
throughout my seventh play-through, i found myself relating to mae and gregg more than any other characters. i have a feeling that as i have grown up, moved away, started taking care of myself as an adult, i see more and feel more for what mae and gregg each go through. mae is unhealthily attached to her hometown because attempting to start new had regressed her mental state. gregg seems to be doing all he can to get out of town, move away and start fresh. i believe that mae and gregg had grown up in their own fucked up ways, yet they have discovered opposite, personal reasons for moving past it all. they represent something that one person could always experience; they could ache for and return to familiarity, whether it’s real or not. but they could also beg and work for change. these are two feelings that i hold deep in my chest, and some days i feel one or the other, or both.
a small hometown is a bittersweet experience; it can leave you with a sense of safety, community, and flexible routine. but it can also be despicable, it can be suffocating, it can be nothing but another town, another mass of people to live far away from. mae and gregg represent this spectrum, from enjoying staying in one place to doing anything to get away from it. their reasons and their fears and their feelings are so real.
i am a woman in her 20s, who has always grown up with a complicated relationship with her hometown. i’ve never played a game that has ever hit me this hard, nor stuck with me for this long. i make it a point to replay it every year because it helps. i realize something new about these characters, i identify more with their experiences. it’s comforting, and it’s healing.
so when i tell people about this game, and i talk about getting a tattoo from it and they look at me like i’m crazy, i understand that they’ll never know why.
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