#I've been meaning to do this for like. Months

[allbark-no-bite]

good boy.

art donaldson x reader (wc: 2.9k)

summary: as Art’s personal physical therapist, it’s your job to fix what Tashi has torn apart, by whatever means necessary. or in which Art just needs some TLC

warnings: 18+ smut, it could be worse tbh, mentions of disordered eating

author’s note: i’m back ig?? im out of uni for the summer and challengers has me in a chokehold. Art Donaldson the man that you are

————————————————————————

You're standing just within earshot of the doorway, passing a sanitary wipe over one of the tables in the athlete treatment room when you hear the door abruptly open. Tashi storms in with a purpose and Art trails meekly behind her. Even if you had been clueless to how the match had gone rather than on the sidelines beside Tashi not even twenty minutes ago, you could have guessed by the hard line of her mouth that Art was in for it. Not that her displeased scowl was much different from her usual scowl, but you'd been around long enough to know the difference.

She stops abruptly, and Art heels obediently as Tashi turns around to face him. "I need you to tell me when you're going to fucking get it together so that I can stop wasting my time."

Weary and sweat soaked, Art just stares at her with that pitiful look on his face and says nothing in reply. His blue eyes solemnly take in her harsh disappointment as though beyond used to it. At this point it's not all that foreign to you either.

"You may as well be fucking asleep out there," she snaps.

This time his mouth opens. "I- I'm just tired-" he begins, although there's hardly any argue to his voice at all.

"No, I'm tired, Art," Tashi interjects. "Do you have any idea how much fucking work I've put into getting you back onto the court this past year?! I've done everything! The least you could do go out there and try to act like I've done anything for you at all!"

Art swallows, the slight frown on his face deepening. "I am. I just- I don't-"

Before he can even finish his sentence. The open palm of Tashi's hand connects with his cheek as she pops the left side of his face. Art closes his mouth. You pretend to concentrate on wiping down the table. It's not the first time you've witnessed one of these conversations but it still feels private, like you shouldn't be here. You keep wiping the table.

Understanding that anything else he says is only going to make Tashi angrier, Art resigns to once again watching her in silence. His blue eyes are sad. The usually fair skin of his cheek is tinted pink where she popped him. Although it wasn't very hard, you're sure it still hurt him all the same.

"Quit wasting my time," is all she says before she finally turns and leaves, walking right past you and out the other door. You hold your breath as she passes you. Art watches her go but makes no move to follow. You release an audible sigh. It's been a frustrating day for everyone. As Art's personal trainer, physical therapist, and close friend, you felt every loss, every ache and pain, every bad play. And there seemed to be a lot of those lately.

Art is still standing there, watching the closed door that Tashi left though.

Not knowing how to break the silence, you finally pat the freshly sanitized treatment table. "C'mon," you call gently, as though beckoning to a wounded dog.

It takes a moment for him to budge, but eventually he does, his disheartened spirit apparent in the way he walks over. Used to the usual routine, he tugs his damp shirt off over his head as he takes a seat, the lean muscles of his torso flexing as he does so. You allow yourself to ogle at him, only for a brief moment before stepping in between the bracket of his knees. Gently, you cradle his chin, tipping his head back to look up at you as your thumb smooths over the redness of his cheek. His blue eyes blink up at you, sad and dog-like.

"It wasn't terrible," you reassure him. "You had surgery six months ago. You're still getting your feet back underneath you. Most people wouldn't have come back." You're right. The still-pink scars on his shoulder are still fresh on your mind. The stitches weren't even out before Tashi had him in physical therapy. Even though his medical team had released him, it was still a bit early to start doing rehab so soon after surgery, Art's comfort being your biggest concern. But when Tashi wants something, she gets it.

Wordlessly, Art sighs, the weight of his head settling into your palm as he finally lets go of the tension he'd been carrying. It was always like this. You fixing what Tashi had torn apart. You understood where Tashi was coming from. Art needed a firm voice in his training, and you had a lot of respect for the way she put her foot down and never let up, not even once. But there was only so many times you could kick a dog while he was down.

So if Art needed someone to coddle him, you would coddle him.

He trusts you. He needs you, is what Tashi had told you when she asked you to stay on as his trainer full time. The three of you had been in the same year at Stanford all those years ago, Tashi and Art on the tennis team and you helping out as a student trainer as part of a class requirement. Three peas in a pod, the trio of you were. Of course then they both graduated, leaving you to finish up your schooling, meanwhile Art set off to go pro.

A few years later, once Tashi officially took on the position as Art's coach, she began building his team, and that's where you came in. You were hesitant at first.

'I already lost to you once, Tashi. I won't come in second to you again.'

She had paused on the other end of the line. Back in your Stanford days, it was obvious to anyone with eyes that you were head over heels in love with the blonde tennis player. But loving Art was like accepting the participation ribbon for a game you knew you weren't going to win in the first place. It was like standing next to the podium, just lucky enough to be included in the picture while Tashi and tennis took first and second place. And so you let him go.

'I'm not asking you to. This is different.'

Your hand slips from his face, and he forces his eyes open.

“Have you eaten?" you ask, stepping away in order to put some distance between the two of you and look for the granola bars that you keep especially for him. The gels were good sources of quick fuel in between sets, but they were hardly enough to even begin to make up for the calories he burned while playing.

Slowly, Art shakes his head, but he makes no move to take the snack from your hand when you offer it to him. Ever since his injury, nutrition became all the more important. So much to the point that every single thing that he consumed was mapped out to the exact calorie. Although he would never admit it, any sort of change in this routine made him incredibly anxious. Some days it was better not to cause him the anxiety than to force him.

Today, you insistently hold out the bar until he begrudgingly takes it from your hand. You don't move until you've seen him tear open the package and take a bite.

"Were you still feeling tight?" you ask as you walk around the table, stopping at the slouch of his turned back. You reach out to grasp at the joint of his neck and shoulder, your thumb smoothing over the kinesiology tape that's peeling away at the base of his neck.

He half turns his head to glance back at you. "You watched the match. You tell me."

His response is meant to be snippy, but it comes out more defeated than anything. To be fair, you've been his trainer long enough to know that if something was bothering him physically, you would have picked up on it.

"I want to hear it from you."

"I felt fine."

Your left hand follows suit on the other side of his neck, and you use both of your thumbs to apply pressure to what you assume will be a tense spot along the upper part of his traps. Predictably, Art groans at the attention. The muscles of his back contract as he fights the urge to shake you off. Relaxing the muscle hurts as much as it feels good. Besides his obvious discomfort, the rest of his body has gone lax under your touch. His shoulders have dropped at least an inch, and his chin has fallen to rest against his chest.

"Finish your granola bar," you reprimand him, your firm fingers working across his back until you find another spot that nearly has him jerking away. He releases a whine but obediently takes another bite of the bar. This time he finishes it before you have to remind him again.

You spend a few more minutes torturing him before you're satisfied that a majority of the tension has left his shoulders.

"Okay, good boy," you murmur, leaning forward so that your chest is close enough to brush against his back. One of your hands trails up to squeeze the back of his neck reassuringly.

You're close enough to hear him swallow at the name. The skin on the nape of his neck shivers despite how hot he still is from the match.

"Was I?" he asks timidly. "Good today?"

'I can be his coach. Or I can be the person he cries to after a bad day. But I can't be both. That's why he needs you."

Without removing your hand from his neck, you walk around the table so you're standing in front of him. Art widens the spread of his legs so that you can stand between them. His chin is still pressed to his chest, blue eyes focused on the ground.

"Art," is all you say, shifting your grip on his neck to tug lightly at his golden blonde hair. At your voice, he lifts his head just enough to look up at you through the pale wisps of his eyelashes. The irises of his blue eyes shine are wet with uncertainty.

Your fingers loosen their grip to allow your nails to scratch at his scalp. "You're good, Art. You'll always be good."

Art twists his head to nuzzle his cheek along the inside of  your outstretched arm. His lips kiss the crook of your elbow. He swallows again. "Even if I don't play tennis?"

You can tell the question's been bothering him, eating at his nerves, and messing up his game. You know him well enough to know that retirement isn't what he wants, not really. At least not right now. What he wants is the reassurance that it's going to be okay if he can't swing the comeback.

"Look at me."

He lingers a moment longer with his lips pressed lovingly against your skin before he reluctantly shifts his gaze up to you. His look is anticipatory but reserved, as if to preemptively conceal his disappointment should you choose to crush his heart with your answer.

His fear is understandable. Art's relationship with Tashi has always been entirely built off of his tennis career. By being the driving force behind his success, Tashi has vicariously lived out the life she would have had had her injury never happened. Without tennis, Art has nothing left to offer her. He knows that if he gives up tennis, he loses Tashi.

Your relationship with Art was a little less conditional. Hell, you'd been in love with him since the first time you'd laid eyes on him at Stanford. You can still picture him standing there on the court, barely nineteen, scrawny, nervous smile, backwards cap over his strawberry blonde hair. Before he was the Art Donaldson. But when Tashi had stepped into the picture, you figured that was where your fairytale ended.

"I don't love you because of tennis. I love you because you're kind, and thoughtful, and you're passionate about what you do." You smile a bit before adding, "And you're my good boy."

The name turns him bashful again, and he's quick to turn and hide his smiling face against your arm, only the flushed tips of his ears visible. "[Y/n]," he mumbles, likely meaning to be threatening, but it doesn't come out that way.

Art Donaldson lived to be praised.

You laugh, pulling him closer so that his face is held against your chest. The hand that you don't have threaded through his hair trails up the muscle of his defined quad. "You're my good boy. Aren't you, baby?"

Art whines, squirming when your hand reaches the apex of his thigh and hovers over the forming bugle of his shorts. He's not quite there yet, his dick only half chubbed up in interest, but given the day that he's had, you won't make him wait.

"Please?" he mumbles, his face still buried into your collarbone, as if attempting to curling into you, like a small child needing their parent to hold them for comfort.

You rake your nails lightly up the inside of his thigh. "What, baby?"

Not only did Art liked to be praised, but he was masochist even on his worst days.

"Want you to touch me," he mumbles, his voice muffled by your shirt. "Please."

Your hand still scratching through his hair, you press a kiss to the side of his head, unable to suppress your smile at his timid politeness and how it never seems to fail him. The only time he ever resembled anything remotely voracious was on the court.

Palm finding his tented shorts, you cup him through the fabric. Art responds immediately to your touch, his hips shifting further into your grasp. You continue to pet him through his shorts, appreciating the way you can feel him actively responding to your touch.

His nails dig into the padding of the treatment table when you give his now fully hard dick a less than sympathetic squeeze. His breath is hot as he pants against your collarbone, alternating between laving open mouthed kisses to your skin and whining when you pause fondling him just to feel his hips rut up into your palm.

Art was so in control on the tennis court, that often after a match, putting the control into someone else's hands was just what he needed.

When his hips start to stutter, you ease up but continue to stroke him through his shorts. The front of his shorts are damp with the musk of residual sweat and precum.

His breath is shallow—anticipatory.

"Gunna come?" you ask softly, speaking into the blonde mess of his hair, cradling him. He right there, you can tell by the lackluster buck of his hips, his building fatigue, and the change in his breathing.

"Can I? —Please?" Art asks breathily. He hiccups out the last part, his voice catching.

"You know you don't have to ask."

There's a brief pause, as if coming to the realization, before he meekly murmurs, "I know.

It should be sad really, his unwavering obedience, but there are two sides to Art, two polar extremes. On the court, every match, every set, every debilitating second is up to him. No one else can help him out there, and up until about a year ago, he played like it. That was the side of Art Donaldson that Tashi wanted. After the match is a different story. In private, Art needed someone to do the thinking for him, to pull him into a reality where he could believe that it didn't matter whether he won or lost. Tashi had not the sympathy nor the patience for that kind of fragility.

Art comes with a brief cry into your chest, his body arching into yours. Your hand palms at his pulsing dick until he's oversensitive and pulling away. When you relent, the front of his shorts are sticky and wet.

Finally, Art lifts his face from the safety of your chest. His blue eyes are glossed over, but it's an improvement from the detached look they held ten minutes ago. His cheeks are flushed, a mixture of his own embarrassment and satisfaction. 

You can't help the soft smile that creeps onto your face at the look of him, and immediately Art is abashedly trying to hide his face again, his own smile starting to appear. Before he can, you bring your hands back up to cradle his face, thumbs wiping away the wetness from under his eyes. This time he lets you.

His eyes study your face for a second, admiring you, appreciating the love he has for you.

“I don’t want to play tennis anymore.”

You can’t tell if it’s more of a statement or a confession. Either way, you know he’s telling you the absolute truth.

“Okay,” you reply softly, not hint of judgement in your voice. Maybe some disappointment, but that was understandable.

Retirement would be a kindness. Art would finally put back on some healthy weight, start smiling again, put on a real, actual smile. You could already see it, a nice house for the two of you to settle down in, with a picket fence and a dog in the backyard, the kind of things the two of you would have never had time for on tour.

Tennis had brought the two of you together, but it wouldn’t end you.

[vettelsvee]

... READY FOR IT? | Charles Leclerc

MY TORTURED DRIVERS DEPARTMENT REPUTATION ⋆ TRACK 1

charles leclerc x reader ⋆ smau

summary: y/n finally decides she’s ready to make her relationship with charles public even people just hate her so much for her past dating other f1 drivers. 

taglist: [@celemilii @theseerbetweenus @anniee-mr @stelena-klayley @lozzamez3 @0710khj @afterg1ows @vincentvanshoe @coco-loco-nut @minkyungseokie @lemon-lav @stinkyjax @seokjinkismet @c-losur3 @annewithaneofthegreengable @khaylin27] thanks to all of you who wanted to be tagged! don't forget you can join my taglist by commenting or telling me through dm <3

a/n: i was supposed to start posting this on june 1st, but since we reached 500 followers here i wanted to start posting as a "celebration". i really don't like thinking about thing kind of things BUT i thought this was a special occasion, especially since you've received me really well here. thank you so much to you all who take time to read my works! i've never thought someone would read what i write tbh this is my very first smau so sorry if it's a little bit crap, i promise to improve for the next ones 🙏

you can send your one shots requests here! feedback, as well as comments and reblogs, are truly appreciated!

y/n just posted

y/n we're sooooo back on track (for the third time, yes! idgaf what you all have to say 🥰)

liked by carlossainz55, charles_leclerc and 376193 others

user1 wait wasn't she dating mick schumacher? what is she doing in the ferrari garage?

user2 that was during 2021 season. she broke up with him and then started dating lando back in july 2022 if i remember correctly

f1gossip yep! in 2021 she dated mick, in 2022, lando, and now seems like she put her eyes on one of the ferrari guys 👀

user3 what a bitch. she's fucking everyone to get fame or...?

yourbestfriend go on girlie! show your amour your support 😌

y/n yourbestfriend what a stupid action... fuck you

user4 y/n are you going home? because that's what you should be doing lol

user5 guys I know that y/n might not be a piece of cake for everyone, but PLEASE, respect her

user7 exactly this!

charles_leclerc ❤️

user10 charles explain?

user11 wdym A READ HEART

user12 she might be dating charles omg

carlossainz55 happy to have you finally here! ❤️🙌🏻

user13 NOW CARLOS? WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY GUYS? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?

comments on this post have been limited

y/n just posted

y/n since you seem so interested, yep: i'm on the ferrari garage f1 are you spilling the tea? cos I'm not. xoxo, your friendly neighborhood wag

comments on this post have been disabled

y/n just posted

y/n i was scared af to tell you that french dude and i've been dating for the past seven months. you can call me whore or whatever you want because at this point i don't really care about anything. it's been a wild ride with me feeling soooo uncomfortable with you commenting every now and then about my past relationships. i love mick and i love lando, but sometimes things don't work out, and you don't seem to understand that. anyways, all I have to say is that charles makes me the happiest woman on earth, and that we don't apologize for winning ❤️💋

comments have been disabled

charles_leclerc just posted

charles_leclerc life in these past seven months has been insane. y/n, bet your ready for more but... are you ready for it?

[notsunnyowo]

Iᖴ YOᑌ ᑕᗩᑎ'T ᗷEᗩT TᕼEᗰ - ᒍOIᑎ 'Eᗰ

ᑭᗩᖇT 2

Part 1

Summary: After experiencing the thrill of being flustered for the first time - Satoru Gojo decides he needs to feel it again

Content: Fluff, Flirt! Gojo, Female! Reader (AFAB), Teen! Gojo x Teen! Reader (Reader is the same age as Gojo)

Word Count: 631

Satoru Gojo was on a mission.

Get the pretty new girl in his class to flirt back with him.

Ever since getting a taste of what it felt like to be on the receiving end of the flirting game, Satoru was hooked.

He desperately needed to feel the same emotions the new girl had somehow managed to stir within him.

And he was going to get what he wanted.

He always did.

And so- That's how his 'mission' started.

After that fateful day in your classroom, Satoru stepped up his game. He was a determined young fella. One that, when he set his mind to something, did everything in his power to obtain his goal.

Yet despite Satoru's persistence, you didn't seem to be doing what he was hoping for so desperately. That, however, didn't necessarily mean that his actions weren't getting to you. You hadn't even realized it when you started to actually enjoy his flirting attempts.

"Oh? What's this?" Satoru chirped, large frame shifting as he looked down at you. "You, giving me the time of day?" He grinned. Earlier that day, Satoru had come to you with another cheezy pick-up line and you'd actually giggled at it. To say that the young sorcerer was ecstatic would be an understatement. He was on cloud nine. "What's changed?" He cooed, tone dropping an octave as he continued. "Finally admit I'm hot as hell?~" Looking back at him, you tried to hold your serious expression, you really did, but there was something about the way Satoru had you practically pinned against the wall made your expression falter. You could feel the rosy blush slowly climbing up your neck, threatening to tint your checks with its vibrant rosy color. "You wish." Your reply was short, for you feared that if you were to continue speaking Gojo might notice the falter in your voice. You mentally scolded yourself for the way your heart thumped faster with each passing moment you spent so close to him. Letting out an amused chuckle Satoru teased. "You're such a bad liar, sweetcheeks." Gently raising a hand to grab your chin, forcing you to look straight up at him he continued. "You know I've been trying to date you for how long..? -Think it's been around six months." He said referring to somewhere in the beginning of the school year. "And yet, you're still givin' me the cold shoulder." God he was so close. Way too close. "What's a guy gotta do to get a date with you huh?" His words were so smooth, rolling off his tongue with practiced ease. You'd think they were some rehearsed lines for a romance movie. As your eyes met with his, you could feel the way your body reacted to him. The way goosebumps traveled across your torso to your arms, not to mention the way heat rushed to your cheeks. Fuck it. "That's what you want?" You asked, shooing his hand away from your face. "Fine then. You can take me out on a date this weekend." Did he hear that right? Did you really just agree to go out on a date with him? And that easily?? There it was again. That familiar warm feeling in his chest. Satoru looked back at you, his checks involuntarily turning a soft shade of pink. If you only knew the things you did to him. "Pick you up at seven, sweetcheeks." Quickly composing himself the young man took a step back from you. And with that he left, mostly because Satoru wasn't sure how much longer he could hold his excitement in him and not let it show. Meanwhile you were left there staring at his retreating form, with an amused smile on your lips. "Let's see what you've got, Satoru Gojo."

Author Note:

Wrote this while I was supposed to be sleeping so it might not be the best-

Regardless I hope you had fun reading! :)

[cambrinkownsme]

.·:*¨༺don't leave ༻¨*:·.

paige x reader

word count - 586

themes :

-angst

-just pure sadness

warnings :

-arguing

-sad ending

-cursing

a/n - sorry this is so short, i just had some...feelings i needed to get out. i might make a part two idk....

paige slammed the door behind the two of us, locking it aggressively. "can acknowledge what happened?" she said while i had my back turned at her.

we had been out for a while, she was obviously drunk out of her mind and i had to deal with that mixed with the fact that i was hanging out with another girl most of the time we were out.

"acknowledge what paige? acknowledge the fact that i was talking to someone else while you were getting shit faced? it is not that big of a deal."

i snapped and immediately regretted it. i knew how jealous paige could get and she was convincing me that this was her highest point of jealousy. but to be fair it was my fault that she wasn't even talking to me tonight.

i heard her take a long but sharp breath and when i turned around her hands were tangled in her own, already messy, hair. i could feel the anger surging through my veins when she spoke again.

"y/n you can't fucking do that to me. if i'm drinking without you it's not my fault if you don't follow. but the last thing you should be doing is going and talking to other girls." she was practically yelling now, flailing her arms in the air in between us.

"it was a girl. just one. do you think i'm the kind to just go and flirt with someone else the second i'm not getting attention?"

paige scoffed, turning her head around to hide the obvious smile on her face.

"i mean i wouldn't be surprised." she whispered under her breath.

i could feel tears welling up in my waterline. i quickly swallowed the hard lump in my throat, shoving it down to my stomach.

"what the fuck did you just say? you cannot be serious paige." i took a couple steps closer to the blonde.

"be real with me y/n. let's get logical. everytime you get in a relationship you get all touch starved and need someone new within two months."

i wanted to punch her. the rage built up behind my face had never been here before. especially not for the one girl i had done anything for. i've always beat myself up thinking about if i fuck something up with her and here i was being accused of doing so.

"i-" i stumbled upon my own words, not knowing how to come back from what was just said to me.

"yeah." she snarled.

my lip began to quiver at the thought of losing paige but i quickly got rid of that hesitation.

"fuck you." i said plainly before leaning down and picking up my bag along with a pair of shoes and my keys.

"wait shit i'm sorry i didn't mean that" paige quickly rushed to apologizing, while trying to cup my face and hips.

"no! get the fuck off of me paige." i pushed her off and stormed out of our apartment. my first instinct was to head over to azzi's place or nika's but i couldn't even be around them.

i ended up staying at a hotel for the night.

my heart was heavy. paige had never said anything like that, even while she was drunk. and if she actually meant that i don't know if id ever be able to forgive her. i fell asleep on a tear soaked pillow without any covers over my body. no blanket could replace the warmth of paige that i still needed to sleep.

------------------------------------------------------------

again i'm sorry this is short....i didn't spell check btw!!!!!

[ninyard]

Heyy! You said someone should ask you about Kevin under this post about Kevin's struggles from the nest of which we don't know enough... So I'm asking you about Kevin! Please tell us your Kevin thoughts! You always make very good points and I like reading your thoughts!!

cody my friend I am so glad you asked but you might regret it. i hope you're prepared from an unorganised huge convoluted MESS of a ramble

i've been thinking for a few days about this one like... what would a kevin POV look like? what is he hiding? how does he cope? WHO IS HE?

the kevin we ""know"" is a "coward", an insufferable bitch, an asshole and a hardass. other people's opinions and view of him makes up the entirety of our impression of who he is. but that's not who he is. that's just who we're supposed to believe he is.

kevin, born and bred to have this... borderline psychopathic lack of empathy, who can look his teammates in the eye after being told seth is dead or andrew is being committed and say, "what about the game?"

but when the raven's are switching districts; his sense of danger and fear is paralysing. he's three steps ahead trying to figure out how to please riko, how to keep himself safe, willing to put himself back into the centre of his abuse just to stop riko from finding him and killing him. he has to get blackout drunk to deal with any amount of riko. he's frozen with fear by being in the same room as him.

kevin knows where jean's mind and body goes to when hes panicking, knowing his worst place is right back in the nest being drowned by riko. kevin telling neil "do you know what he'll do to you?" and "he'll break you" when neil asks for his ticket. kevin's text to him before he goes into the nest, and staring at neil like he'd seen a ghost when neil returns after the nest (when he looks like the butcher). his comforting "i know what he's like" or "i know how he sees you, i know it means he did not hold back,".

kevin nervous breakdown panic attack day vs kevin smile for the cameras one track exy mind day

im so intrigued by him. how does he cope? his mother is dead, probably killed by the mafia family he was raised by. he grew up into a cult, he was only a child watching neil's father cut a man into pieces in front of him. how many other's had he seen?

how many other injuries cover his body, in places where the cameras can't see? how many rapes and assaults was he forced to watch in the nest? how many beatings was he forced to participate in? what did he have to say to jean in french that he didn't want riko to hear?

he needs someone with him all the time because of the nest. he's a "health freak" because of the nest. his sleep schedule, his anger, his anxiety.

did he say "what about the season?" re: andrew after drake because he doesn't care, or did he think "i've seen this happen too many times. and they've always kept playing,"? did he think "andrew is the strongest person i know. andrew is stronger than me. he would never let this destroy him," knowing that it has?

nobody has protected him in his life apart from the cameras and andrew.

he's scared. he doesn't know what love is supposed to look like.

he's only been a human for a year.

his scars are healing for the first time in his life and they're not being replaced by new ones, but every day he's afraid that that's going to get ripped out from underneath him. his entire life already got flipped upside down when he left the nest. of course exy is the only thing he "cares" about.

because it's the only thing that's been certain in his life, and even for those few weeks or months where he thought he would never play again, he trained and trained, and learned how to use his non-dominant hand because he can't lose this. he can't lose exy like he's lost everything else.

kevin has never had anything stable in his life except for violence and exy. now he has people he's supposed to care about, and he has to change his priorities. he has to learn how live a life that isn't fueled by self-preservation for the first time ever.

jean was only in the nest for five years; and look at him. look at what the nest has done to his social skills, his view of himself, his self esteem. look at what it's done to him, how he expects violence and contrition, coach and always waiting and waiting and waiting for the punishment to come.

kevin might not have had the same level of physical abuse that jean had, but he was there far longer. the ravens existed before him; their mindset and their abuse and their violence and their poison.

he's been drinking the raven poison since his childhood. the only difference between him and jean other than those things above is that kevin had more pressure to hide it, because he was half of the face of the ravens, half of the face of Exy; media trained or PR trained or a master at being a fraud and faking the way he speaks when he's being recorded.

kevin knows how to hide his abuse because he has always had to, and he's had quite a lot of practice at it.

kevin has only been a human for a year. kevin has only been kevin for a year.

so who is he? does he even know?

or is he just Kevin Day, Raven Fox starting striker, number two, six foot two, left handed right handed left handed, heavy racquet, stick size five? is that all he will ever see himself as?

anyways. or something like that. maybe he is just an insufferable bitch for no reason at all. who knows!

[misc-obeyme]

would u consider obey me a dead fandom?

Um. Nope. I sure wouldn't.

If there's anybody out there who thinks Obey Me is a dead fandom, I would say they're probably confused about what a dead fandom actually is.

I think an argument could be made saying that there is no such thing as a dead fandom. But I'm going to assume you mean that fan content is at an all time low.

Friend, I have been in fandoms where the content was like... you get a fic or two every year if you're lucky. This for a media that hadn't put out any new content in decades.

Obey Me? I get an average of five asks per day about Obey Me. I can queue 10 posts per day about Obey Me. I still average over 800 notes a day on this here Obey Me blog. In the past few months, we've had new artists and writers joining the community and posting their Obey Me fan works. The game is still active and updating. There are two apps even.

So no, I personally would not consider the Obey Me fandom to be dead by any means.

It's certainly been more active in the past. I'll never forget the surge of activity that happened when Nightbringer first came out. My Solomon fics seemed to double their notes over night lol.

But we're also in a bit of a lull right now because we aren't getting new chapters. Every time an event happens, there's another burst of activity. And then things die down just a little before they surge again. That's the nature of fandom.

Another common fandom thing is people coming and going. I've been here for almost two years, but there are others who have been here for four. And then there are some people who've only been in the fandom for a couple months. And then there are the people who were here at the beginning, but have since moved on. Maybe they only stayed for a few months before moving on. Maybe they're only casually in the fandom, dipping in now and again. This is also just the nature of fandom. There's no right way to do it. And it doesn't reflect on whether a fandom is alive or dead.

Hell, we even have plenty of discourse and toxic stuff in this here fandom, too. More of that when there's nothing else to do, I think, which is unfortunate, but also kinda... just part of fandom.

And all of this is just how it is on Tumblr. I know there are active Obey Me communities on Twitter/X and Instagram, too. I'm just too old and tired to maintain that many socials. I actually have accounts on both of those apps but I rarely use them.

And lastly, I'm a big proponent of being involved in fandom no matter how active the community is. By this I mean, if I still have an Obey Me hyperfixation in ten years when the apps are closed down and nearly everybody else has moved on, I will still be here posting fic. Because I won't leave a fandom until I am ready to move on from it, dead or not. (Sometimes this can mean you are one of the few people still creating for said fandom, but you might be surprised at how many people will still enjoy what you create.)

[tacomanarrows]

Between the Sea and the Sky!

Hi everybody! Meet the TWO new guys I made between last night and today! Their names are Tarmac (an Aeromorph dog) and Soda (a pooltoy fox), and they've filled a desire for these two specific kinds of OCs I've had in mind for MONTHS lol. They were super fun to design and draw and I'm super excited to do more with them soon!! This piece is relatively simple but more so serves as their introduction hehe

See more about them, including refs and some additional pieces/information below the cut :] (it kind of turns into a huge braindump lmao)

Tarmac is an aeromorph, although a bit more towards the furry side of things rather than the plane side lol. His design is influenced primarily by the Concorde and the Space Shuttle! I couldn't decide for the life of me which of those two things I wanted to use so I thought "why not use both?" and here we are lol. I'm super happy with his design, with the black/dark gray markings mean to emulate the look of the Space Shuttle's thermal insulation tiles and then I really like how the red and blue stand out against the gray. I really like his icon too! I wanted to make it look like a stylized depiction of a plane (mainly a Concorde hehe) breaking through the sound barrier with a sonic boon! In terms of personality, I don't have a whole lot in mind yet. Mostly that he'd be the brave, adventurous type and since he can fly both in the air and through space, he's gonna be friends with Astro too :3

Soda is a pooltoy fox! I have wanted to make a pooltoy OC FOREVER (blame my mutuals for always posting/reblogging so many cool pooltoy OCs hehe). I finally got brave enough to actually give it a shot, and I love how he came out! I was mainly just thinking about summery themes and as I was just trying out different colors and stuff, I thought about orange soda, and that's the direction I ended up going! He's got a big stupid tail [affectionate] and can have either rounded bappy hands or have actual fingers, you're free to stylize that either way! I've only ever drawn a pooltoy character once ever before, so this was something way out of my realm of familiarity, but I'm so happy with how he came out! He's so shaped I love him so much already <33

So those are my two new guys! Making two new OCs at the same time is already a rarity for me lol. The only time it's happened before was when I made Rye and Pumpernickel back in August of 2021. And then making these guys when I had only gotten Astro about two and a half weeks ago means this is an exceedingly rare event for me lmao. My friends know how infrequently I make/get new OCs, so this just goes to show how much these guys have been bouncing around in my brain lately lol.

They are definitely gonna have some sort of connection to each other, but I'm not sure how I wanna go about that yet. Since I made them back to back, they are already connected in my brain, but I'm not sure how I wanna express that in a meaningful way. I don't wanna make them siblings bc, well, they're obv very different from each other lol, but they're kinda parallels (with one being in the sky and the other being in the water yknow), so as of right now they're definitely good friends with each other. I might upgrade that to bfs at some point in the future, but we'll see how things go hehe.

Anyways huge braindump of a post lmao, thank u for reading if u did! I'd love to hear your thoughts on these guys since they're so different from all my other characters! Also if anyone may wanna do an art trade of either of these guys (or Astro as well! I'd like to get more art of him too!) let me know hehe

[papermonkeyism]

Poking at the dinosaur project thingy, this time with some production technicalities point of view.

Here be musings.

I originally thought of the project as a calendar, then a series of calendars that could be collected into an art book once enough art had been made for it, and at some point I thought of just skipping the calendar part and going straight for art books.

I've been going back and forth between those options multiple times over the years, and it's still kinda open. Like on one hand a simple calendar with just thirteen illustrations (twelve months plus cover) is the easiest and cheapest option, though pretty limited (what to do once the year presented in the calendar ends, and you still got unsold leftover stock?), and the other hand art books are big projects requiring lots of work, even more money, but be a lasting and very satisfying thing to have.

Maybe I should take a middle road and make a zine instead?

Maybe.

Though, this is where the shape of the actual project comes in.

I've always planned the project as having a slice of life style format, with little story and more focus in exploring the setting. Kinda just looking in and enjoying the view while you go. But I've noticed that keeping the "narration" as illustrations kinda keeps the immersion at arm's length too. While that is fine and dandy for a calendar where the space for any narrative would be very limited anyway, if I was going to do more with the setting, I kinda need something deeper. Even if the audience is fine just looking at pretty pictures, with ADHD it would be better to have something deeper to help keep me personally invested enough to actually plan, plot and produce the materials needed.

Should I make an actual story, with plot and stuff? Feels kinda unnecessary for a thing focusing on just illustrations, and I don't know if I really "click" with a text heavy picture book format. I kinda feel it would make comic as the best option, though that has its own downsides. I've always wanted to do full colour paintings of the dinosaurs, yet going comic it would have to simplify a lot and make it grayscale just to keep me sane. And, as someone who has done well over 250 pages of a long form comic, that's still a HUGE commitment I don't think I have the resources - mental, physical nor financial - to pull off.

I also kinda feel having a plot story would sort of detract from the "exploring the world" aspect and put more heavy focus on characters, which. Well, it's not *bad* exactly, just not quite what I want.

(Also I am aware the dinosaur clan I have has a kid character, and I don't want to make her the point of view character for the story. I have no interest doing a childrens' book. I mean, I am perfectly fine if kids do eventually end up liking my stuff, but I don't consider them my target audience. My target audience is me, an adult person in their later 30s, and a handful of nerds I consider friends and/or mutuals.)

Another option I've been toying with is kind of a double edged sword.

Those who got the Almost Real speculative evolution zine volume 5 got a bit of a taste of this, as I kinda tried it out there.

So... I've gone to pretty great lengths as a layperson to work in the setting of the project thingy. It's always bothered me when dinosaurs get just dumped into a story with no regards to when and where they actually lived, making for an anachronistic hodgepodge of what's popular forming into a mismatched fantasy setting, usually with throwing humans into the mix. I don't like that. I'm more interested in seeing the actual animals as they were, when they were and where they were, where the focus is in the dinosaurs themselves. Thus the limit to Two Medicine formation (with some of the surrounding areas included too, though still keeping to the same time period).

I do not want humans in my dinosaur stories. Period.

But what if...

So, imagine a research journal. There's a scientist visiting the clan of Singing People the project focuses on, with the mission of studying them, their life and their world. The book or zine or whatever could be a story of the dinosaur clan introducing themselves and their life to this person. An outsider point of view to excuse learning about them by them teaching this POV person how their world works. There could be some interaction and maybe interviews, and of course illustrations because you need to document your subjects after all.

Like, I'm kinda excited about the idea. It would let me get into the details I want to picture without getting too into the heads of the characters to limit the chances of artistic exploration. You gotta document the surroundings your study subjects live in after all! But you'd still get to know the characters because it's the job of the POV person to learn about them. Win win!

It's just that I don't want to put too much attention on this hypothetical scientist. Like I said before I don't want to mix my settings. The dinosaur project thingy's world IS Laramidia in the Campanian period of late Cretaceous, it's not meant to be a scifi setting, nor do I want to have any focus on any time travel.

Wonder if it would be possible to leave the scientist character vague enough to never actually get explained? They're just nameless outsider from undetermined time and place who's interviewing some dinosaurs. Maybe with some peronal opinions or musings but no anecdotes about their own life or themself. And whenever there's interactions between the scientist and any of the Singing People it just gets handwaved away. (Of course the Singing People are curious about them too, but that's not the point of the study so it just doesn't get documented or something?)

I don't know. Could that work?

[hiiragi7]

I've been realizing these past few months how final fusion, for me, can be described as making sense of my identity and who I'd like to be... I have all of the parts of me, of my life, my experiences, and they've largely been connected up to each other and pieced together - however, now is the part where I sit with it and make sense of what it all means to me and what I want to do with it. If the progress leading up to final fusion was me learning about where I came from, my past, what made me 'me' - then what comes after is making sense of who I will be going forward.

I've realized that I've limited myself a lot in the ways I have allowed myself to explore my identity up until now, and I think that's in part because it felt overwhelming to explore what these things mean for me as a whole until now. I was always fine when individual parts of myself identified this way or that way, but something about it feels a lot bigger and more real when I consider those same identities again as a fully fused person.

In a way, it gives me even more appreciation for my parts, for allowing me to begin gently exploring these different aspects of myself at arms length back when I was not yet ready to hold them close to myself and embrace what it means for me as a whole... I feel that it is only fair to myself and my parts for me to continue that work and to explore those aspects of myself that they showed me in further depth.

That's not to say it's become easy, though - especially when it regards aspects of myself inherently tangled up with my experiences with oppression, identifying with these aspects can be rather anxiety-inducing. I am, however, more prepared to tackle it than ever, and it's exciting. I have all the support I could ever ask for, and I'm excited to see where this road takes me.

[charliehoennam]

hero's homestead

A/N: just a lil blurb I've had stuck on my mind and had to frigging get out since watching Road House

Pairing: Elwood Dalton x f!reader

Warnings: physical injuries, jealousy, kissing, mentions of grief and death

SHARING IS CARING, SO PLEASE REBLOG

Growing up in Glass Key made your face quite familiar around these parts. Everyone knew you, not because you were popular or from a rich family. Lord knows you wish you were.

But because the island was just so small, like a little fishbowl with too many sharks circling around their prey, everyone knew each other around here. However, the small island was full of a strong sense of community.

Your friendship with Charlie started while you were in high school. You were just a freshman and Charlie was six when Stephen and his wife would very often ask you to baby-sit.

Saying no to them was nearly impossible. Not only did they pay you well, but they always offered you a ride home and made you sure you had dinner before leaving. They really treated you like you were part of the family and helping one another in the community was just so normal.

They always treated you with welcoming kindness and respect so, if there was anything you could do to help them, you did it. Aside from baby-sitting Charlie, this included working at their book store.

You were around there most of the time. If you weren't at home or at school, you were at Glass Books.

As you got older, you started to spend less and less time there in order to focus on your own personal and professional life.

That didn't mean you were never around anymore. You still made your frequent stop to buy the new read of the week.

"Why don't you just get all the books you want for the month, so you don't have to keep coming back?" Charlie questioned genuinely curious.

"Nah, I like coming here. I like the service. And besides, you'd miss me too much, kid" you chuckled watching the young teenage ring your book up at the register.

When Stephen told you about his wife's illness, it really took you by surprise. She could've easily been voted the happiest woman of Glass Key. The aura she possessed could make the dullest room become the brightest. Her sense of humor would have even the most no-nonsense person cracking a smile. She was an amazing woman and a motherly figure to most.

The entire community mourned her loss. The blue sky and the tropical environment wasn't enough to brighten the day for your neighborhood's residents. The heavy rains that followed that entire week led you to believe that even the island was weeping for her absence.

Between medical expenses, funeral costs and a growing teenager, Stephen had to learn to be a single father quite fast. And that meant working a full-time job to make end's meet.

He asked you to help out with the store and you happily agreed. Glass Books was his wife's dream. She loved spending her days there, in the cozy little bookstore she'd built with the love of her life.

Although you know Stephen has a lot on his plate, you can't help but wonder if he wants to avoid the store and her memory altogether.

You refused to accept money for it, knowing the shop didn't make so much money. Even so, Stephen would still transfer you a small amount whenever he could and would often bring you breakfast, lunch or dinner because he felt it was the least he could do.

All you wanted to do was help.

He was more than grateful, especially when he saw how you could make Charlie laugh by putting on music and dancing in the middle of the store with her.

He could see her slipping into a dark place after the death of her mother. Dealing with his own pain, he did his best. But, you were the best friend she needed. A feminine figure she could go to talk about more embarrassing situations or just to get her mind off of the loss.

Gradually, it seemed like their small family was beginning to heal. Although the loss was a still a fresh wound, and Stephen would often find Charlie clutching a small portrait of her mother asleep in bed, they were managing to keep the pain at bay.

You understand how important this store to them. It represents so much more than being just a simple local book store. It represents her.

The store was just as special to you as it was to Charlie and Stephen.

It had always been your refuge, but now, it was always the place where you met him.

Charlie, with her overly friendly nature that she inherited from her mother, struck up a conversation with the then stranger just outside the bookstore.

Her overprotective father was soon outside within seconds. Although the friendly streak ran deep within him too, he knew these parts were full of men with bad intentions.

Once he realized the stranger wasn't from around, he felt a little more at ease.

Although you remained inside the shop, you could overhear their conversation as you inched towards the door and opened it to stand in the doorway, eyeing the stranger with caution.

Stephen was surprised to know he'd come out of town to work at the Road House. To be honest, neither of you expected him to last very long. At that place, security never does.

The bouncer turnover never ceased with the riots that broke out there almost every night. So, you didn't bother getting your hopes up.

However, Dalton kept coming back. Every other day, he came in with the excuse of using the computer or buying a book just to strike up a conversation with you and lay down his flirtatious charm.

Charlie was the first to notice he would always come around when you were there and, if you weren't, he'd always make sure to ask when you were.

She had quite a bit of fun poking fun at you, telling you he had a crush on you or mocking the unconscious change in your voice you had when talking to him.

It didn't long take for feelings to develop between you and him. There was no doubt in either of you. Although unspoken, the magnetic attraction was undeniably present.

Some of those talks were deep and you felt you could confide in him to share things you hadn't shared with anyone at all. He, in turn, told you about the night on the train tracks and how the last fight he had in the ring haunted him every night.

There was no denying the bond you were forming. However, the rumors that were spreading around the island about the closeness between Ellie and him made you hesitant to make the first move.

When you casually brought it up into conversation, he shook his head and told you it wasn't anything serious and that she'd took him on a date once. You wanted to ask him if he had feelings for her, but that would be too much.

"So what's the deal with you and Dalton?" Charlie curiously asked, having picked up on the constant courtship that you two refused to act on.

"There is no deal. We're just friends. Hardly that."

"I may be young, but I'm no fool. I know there's something going on between you two."

"Sorry to disappoint you, kid, but there isn't. Besides, I hear he's got a sort of a girlfriend" you replied without looking up at her from the book in your hand.

You were both sat in fold-out beach chairs placed in front of the store, enjoying a couple of white cherry slushies, hoping the ice cold drink could soothe the hot, humid weather.

"How do you have a 'sort of girlfriend'? Either she is or isn't."

"Those things are complicated. I guess they're getting to know each other," you shrugged wishing you could avoid the topic.

"Like you guys are?"

"There is nothing going on. Sure, he's cute and funny and all, but he's seeing someone else. He's not interested in me, Charlie."

"So, you are interested in him?"

"It doesn't matter if I am. She's a doctor, she's smart and she's really pretty and drives a nice car. I know I don't stand a chance, so I'd rather not get my hopes up," you rambled, failing to read anything on the page you were stuck on. "Can we please drop this now?"

"Oh my god," she smirked staring at you. "You're jealous."

You scoffed at her ridiculous accusation and shook your head as you closed the book and set it in your lap.

"I am not jealous. I do not get jealous."

"Yes, you are! You totally are!"

"I am not! I just don't want to talk about this anymore, alright? So can we drop it?"

"Alright, alright. Sorry I brought it up."

She couldn't stop smiling as you opened your book to continue reading. Although you weren't her parents, her mind couldn't stop thinking of a way to parent-trap you into getting together.

However, her plans were brought to a halt when Brandt's lackeys invaded the shop just a few days later.

You tried your best to stand your ground and defend the shop along with Stephen. He told you to leave, but you refused.

After the beatdown you both received unwillingly, a fire had been set and the cruel men left. The adrenaline that surged through your bodies was enough to numb the pain in order to get you both quickly back on your feet to put out the fire.

Between the blood loss and the resurfacing pain, the billowing smoke got stronger and stronger. The flames became too strong too quickly and had engulfed the entire wall across the front counter.

Light-headed and dizzy, Stephen tried to save whatever he could from the store. As you rushed back and forth, you realized that the fire had grown too much and swallowed the front entrance.

The heat of it shattered the glass windows. The open air only fueled the fire more. Coughing from the heavy smoke, both you and Stephen got down on the floor to avoid the unbreathable air and attempted to crawl to the back exit.

Everything went dark after that and melded into one huge blur.

You don't remember when you actually blacked out, but you do remember feeling relieved once you heard the fire department's arrival.

The time you spent in the hospital was short - only a couple of days - but it was enough to make you reflect on your life.

An overwhelming sense of regret washed over you as you thought about Dalton.

You'd only known each other for a few weeks, but what if you could've had something special? What if Charlie's jokes were true and he actually ended up to be your soulmate?

She could be wrong too, but the fact that you could've died and never found out if you ever really did stand a chance ate at your mind.

You hadn't fully realized the extent of your attachment until a couple days later.

You show up at the store with a limp from the beatdown you'd received a couple days ago.

Stephan tries to assure you they're fine, that you need to rest and recover, but you argue that you'll go insane if you stay at home with nothing to do, high on pain meds.

Helping the owners clean and salvage whatever they can, Charlie casually mentions that Dalton and left her and her father a suitcase full of money to rebuild the store before he got on a greyhound bus destined to leave Glass Key.

The same regret you'd felt in the hospital strikes you again and secretly consumes you.

You try to play it off and instruct her to not to tell anyone about the money. You barely understand what she said after that. All you can think about for the rest of that morning is that he left and didn't even say goodbye.

When Charlie and her father invite you to get some lunch with them, you politely refuse, opting to stay back and keep yourself busy. You lie and tell them you had a big breakfast beforehand just so they won't worry.

You promised you wouldn't get your hopes up. You knew better than that. Bouncers never last at the Road House. You know this just as well as any of the other residents of Glass Key.

He's gone now.

You just want to be alone for a bit to process it.

The door opens and the bell above it rings as you sweep away at the shattered glass, forcing you to look back over your shoulder.

The sight you see has you frozen in surprise.

His face is impossible to forget. You could never forget those big blue doe eyes, even with the dark skin that circles his right eye.

You groan lightly at the shooting pain from your broken rib as you straighten and turn to face him, holding the broom by your side as you stand next to it.

Dalton closes the glassless door behind him as he greets you with a silent but friendly smile until the cut on your lip and the black eye remind him of the damage he caused.

He doesn't look too different from you. His eye is still a little swollen but mostly black now, his lip busted and the stitches on his eyebrow are all evidence that business has been handled at the Road House.

"So, the Glass Key hero returns" you smile at him, ignoring the sting on your bottom lip. "Charlie said you were riding off into the sunset. You forget something?"

"I'm not a hero and, no, I didn't" he starts, looking around the burned down shop trying to swallow his guilt.

"Changed your mind?"

"Someone kinda changed it for me, actually. A very wise person told me that heroes don't always have to ride off into the sunset. They can stay and make a homestead instead."

Joy bursts within you like fireworks on new years. You try to fight back the smile that creeps onto you lips.

"Thought you weren't a hero."

"I'm not."

You nod biting the inside of your cheek to mask your excitement. You take the second broom that Charlie had been using earlier and left leaning against the wall by the front door.

"This homestead could use a hand" you smile and offer him the broom.

He takes it with a happy grin, feeling finally accepted as if he finally found somewhere he belongs.

"There's, uh, one more thing" he says in a soft voice.

His hand raises to your chin, tilting your head up as he cranes his neck to kiss you in the most tender of ways.

Unable to forget about Ellie, you place a hand on his chest and gently push to stop the kiss.

Dalton's face contorts with confusion. He doesn't notice the breath he's holding, anxiety settling in as he fears that you'll ask him to stop. Maybe he got the wrong signals and you don't like him that way. He'd respect it, if that's the case, but it doesn't mean his heart won't be crushed.

"I thought you were seeing Ellie?"

He blinks slightly surprised. That's not what he had expected to hear, but it makes him kind of happy that you're not asking him to stop.

"She took me on a date and we kissed, but that was it."

"So, you are dating her?"

"What, are you jealous?"

"Why does everyone keep saying that? I'm not jealous."

"You sound a little jealous" he smirks.

"I'm not. I just... I don't wanna get my hopes up."

"I'm not dating her," he says gently stroking your bruised cheek. "I told her there's someone else for me, someone that I really wanna date."

He gazes into your eyes as you smile up at him and let him continue his kiss. You let his lips linger on yours and smile when you feel them stretch into a grin.

The cuts on your mouths hurt, but neither of you bother to pull away.

His kiss gradually intensifies. His tongue flicks over your bottom lip, politely asking for entrance. His free hand reaches for your waist as the other sets against your cheek, leaving the broom tucked in his arm.

You let his tongue slip past your defenses. The gentle way his hand cradles your face has you holding onto his strong forearm and the other broom for balance as the room spins around you from his vertiginous kiss.

Your chest presses against his as you moan softly into his mouth. It takes him every ounce of his self-control to not pin you against the wall.

The bell rings again, alerting you both of another's presence so you quickly pull apart, trying to quickly compose yourselves. Your eyes shoot to the door along with Dalton's.

You realize who it is, so he shyly lets his eyes wander around what's left of the store and sweeps the ashy floor.

"Hope I'm not interrupting anything," Charlie smirks sipping her juice from a straw as she stands in the doorway.

"No, no," you reply nervously as heat pools in your cheeks. "Dalton and I were just, uh, cleaning up."

"Cleaning what? The floor or each other's throats?"

Dalton snickers at her candor, glancing at you until she continues.

"Good to see you're back though. And if you ask me, it's about time."

[byslantedlight]

Hello OFMD Tumblr thingie, and all the amazing people who are out there, and especially the ones who've been making all the posts that have made me so happy over the last few months. 💖💖💖 First and most importantly, thank you, thank you, thank you, to anyone who sees this!

This is my first post to Tumblr (probably pretty obvious from my huge lack of Tumblr sophistication! And the length of this post...) If you don't count reblogging things that I wanted to be able to find again. I've braved up to comment thank you to people a couple of times, but that's been it so far. I must admit it all looks a bit scary from this side of the glass, even though I can also see how friendly people mostly are.

But OFMD fandom is big! And you've been here a long time! I loved Series 1 when I watched it, and knew I wanted to watch out for Series 2, but it wasn't until I re-watched it when the Series 2 trailer came out on BBC iPlayer that I fell veeeery in love with it! And by then you were already here, and there was a language and debates about things I'd barely even noticed, and it's mostly me staring with big eyes thinking wow, and sometimes huh? and... well, you know. Plus there's trying to work out Tumblr, which I definitely haven't actually managed to do yet, and possibly never will, so... I decided to just jump in and post summat. Even just rambling, which is a bit of a specialty of mine... I mean - what's the worst that can happen, right? 😬

So... how come now? Well, I can't make art or gorgeous screenshots or gifs. I do write, but I'm still hanging out to get the right voices in my keyboard... I know them when I hear them, but you've gotta get the right rhythm going, and I'm not quite there yet, I don't think. Although really, I should probably just sit down and try (and stop waiting for work to shut up and give me time - I should be a pirate and take it!)

Anyway (told you about the rambling...) what I'm mostly doing apart from rewatching the eps on a constant loop is reading the fic. I'm picking it according to kudos on AO3, and according to recs that I see on Tumblr, and it's occured to me that alot of the stories I'm loving must have been recced looong ago, and that newbies like me totally missed them, and so maybe I could do my own recs, even if they are of older stories, and someone might find them useful. You know, if I work out how anyone else might ever see my posts. 😁 And if people aren't put off by my probably age-revealing use of emojis. (But I am entirely age-appropriate for Ed and Stede, and if I had to look up what zaddy meant too, well, that just means I matched Rhys Darby's expression in the bts, right? 🤨)

So it's not much, but I'd like to contribute even just a tiny bit to OFMD fandom in return for everything it gives me, so... yeah. That's my plan. I'll start in a bit, but this post is probably already too long since it's just rambling. And kind of dull. I should probably have said tl:dr at the top, shouldn't I, but then maybe anyone who actually saw this wouldn't, so... See, I kind of live in hope. 😊

Okay. Tags next, right? ... ack ... why won't it let me create new tags instead of just using ones from the drop down...? Well, those will have to do for now... maybe someone who sees this will have mercy and tell me how? I'll just be over here being a slight failure at Tumblr... And if you've made it this far (how long is an acceptable post over here?! Not this long, I don't think...) - thank you hugely for just that, and may your dreams be OFMD and joyous!

[yinorathedragontamer]

Wings? [Charles Rowland x fem! alive! supernatural! reader]

a/n: this is quite the long oneshot, longer than expected, but i really enjoyed writing this! i hope you guys enjoy, and feel free to request fics such as these whenever you'd like <3

word count: around 2k.

"Here, this will be your room, rent is weekly and that is your roommate [name]" Jenny says as she hands Crystal the keys to the room, and gestures a little vaguely at the girl standing infront of them both. "hey Jenny, i thought you said i'd get one roommate, not three?" you ask as you glance at the two boys standing behind who you now know as Crystal, one of them looking intrigued and the other mainly just confused, and Crystal tilts her head a little as if she just made a new discovery "did you forget to take your meds again [name]? there's just Crystal" Jenny rolls her eyes and turns around to leave, saying something about why she even lets you stay here as she walks back to the front of the shop. "so, uh, you can see us?" one of the boys asks, and you take a step back from the sudden startle "oh, sorry mate, didn't mean to startle you, i'm Charles, and this is Edwin" he gives you a charming smile, and you quickly look at Crystal, who, hopefully gently, jabs him in the ribs with her elbow. "Sorry about that, don't worry, i see them too, as you heard from Jenny, my name's Crystal" she holds out a hand to shake, which you slightly hesitantly take "i'm [name]..." "so, are you a psychic like Crystal or have you had a near-death experience?" the one who you heard was called Edwin asks as he takes out a notebook and a pen to write down your answer, and you notice Charles giving him a look that says 'really dude?'. "uh, well, i'm not really sure? strange things have been happening since i was a child, doctors gave me meds for it but they didn't exactly work" you answer. "hm, what kind of strange things? we're the dead boy detectives, me and Charles, i suppose Crystal here joined us recently, but we solve supernatural cases" "yeah, my demon ex-boyfriend stole my memories so, yeah, i'm trying to get them back" Crystal adds. "dead boy detectives? are you two ghosts?" you ask. "yeah, you got that right" Charles says with a bright smile, the type that you would instantly think about if you had to think about him. "right, okay, in that case..." you start to tell your story. "for as long as i can remember, i've been seeing things that others never seemed to notice, the earliest memory i have was that i went to a museum, i was quite young, and i saw someone staring at a wall, and when i got closer i saw that his entire face was cut up, like, something had mauled him, i ran away crying, but my mom said it was all in my head" you continue. "another time was a few years later, i was on the school playground, and since people said i was weird, other kids refused to play with me. i saw this dog, a real sweetheart, and started playing with it, it was only when a teacher came to ask me what i was doing that i was told there was nothing there, and when i looked back at the dog, it dissappeared". "any more recent things? something that doesn't include seeing ghosts? because that would indicate you probably just had a near death experience that you didn't realize, such as getting run over by a, what was it called Charles? a car?" Edwin asks, "jeez, when did you die?" you say with clear disbelief that he forgot what exactly a car was for a second. "he died in the edwardian era, then spent like, 70 years in hell before he got out, i died in the 80's, and stuck around with him" Charles says with a slight shrug. "oh shit, okay, so to answer your question, it was like, eight months ago, i woke up, and i had this" you take off your shirt, Edwin instantly averts his eyes to the floor, meanwhile Charles looks at Edwin instead. you turn around, and show them the tattoo of two bug-like wings going from your shoulderblades down your back. "damn, those are.... really cool"

Crystal says with a nod, and Edwin quickly writes it down. "and what's so strange about that? isn't it just a cool tattoo?" he inquires, not quite getting the strange thing about them yet. "well, i never got a tattoo before in my life, i never got these willingly, and sometimes, i have this nearly painful ache on my back, and when i do it's the worst where the tattoo begins, on my shoulder blades" you answer as you put your shirt back on, much to Edwin's relief as he really wasn't used to seeing stuff like that out of nowhere.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

that first meeting? that was a few weeks ago, and you have become close friends with all of them.

Crystal has become like a sister to you, Niko has joined the team now too after you guys saved her, and even Edwin has been more kind to you, he has his charms sometimes.

and Charles? oh, where to begin.

you two are like two peas in a pod, and at first, Edwin did NOT like that, but he's been more than kind about it now.

at this point, he practically ALWAYS tells you two to go together for cases, and as close as you two are, you hate it.

why? you've fallen, and not even a little.

those smiles he gives you, the way his first concern was you when he got out of that loop in the haunted house, the way he always offers to put your stuff in his infinite bag, the accent, the looks he gives you sometimes, and it's terrible!

you swear its unnatural, to fall for a person who's been dead for decades, to have fallen for someone who probably doesn't love you that way.

nah, you're reading into things, atleast, thats what you tell yourself.

he however? he's the exact same.

the reason why Edwin keeps pairing you two up is because he figured out that Charles likes you, a lot, to the point where Charles had to make a deal with Niko for her to shut up about it too, before you found out.

no way you'd like a person who's already dead right?

when he thought of you, he thought about you making fun of his accent, your wing tattoos, the way you tried to keep his focus on solving the case and on you instead of the murderous scene when you guys were in that house, the way your grin was to die for as you asked about what the 80's were like, the way you hugged him and told him to never do that again as soon as he was out of that dreaded loop, he could swear he saw tears of relief in those gorgeous eyes of yours.

"hey Edwin, i saw 12 cats in total outside, just so you know" you say as you walk in with the groceries for the week, since you and Crystal did still have to eat. Edwin nods and quietly thanks you for helping him count all the cats, Charles walks through the wall into your bedroom before you can say anything, he wanted to tell you how he feels but, was it worth the risk? it would be rather awkward since you'd still have to talk to eachother nearly constantly.

you notice it, though, and you quickly take off your jacket before going into your room too.

"hey Charles, i need to talk to you about something" you say a little nervously, were you really going to do this? really?

"ofcourse mate, what's up?" he tries to sound relaxed, but you don't seem to notice as you quickly ramble on about something he only understands half of.

"yeahsoireallylikeyoulikemorethanafriendandicantreallyhandlehidingitanymoreandireallyloveyoursmileandialwaysendupthinkingaboutyouwhenevericantsleepandihadtopayNikooffusingmanga'stoconvincehertokeepquietbutyeahthatsallpleasedonthateme-" Charles looks at you with confusion, and you take a deep breath.

"okay, so, long story short, summery of that ramble, i really like you, i don't know how, since like, i'm alive and you're dead- wait was that rude? i didn't mean-" before you can finish, you feel his hands on your cheeks as he kisses you, and ofcourse you kiss back.

he pulls away, and look you in the eyes with a loving smile, one you have never seen before "i like you too, so don't even worry about it"

"we'll figure everything out together, yeah?" all you can do is nod as a grin finds its way on you face.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

you woke up with a scream.

your back hurts like hell, and you can feel blood coming down onto the sheets.

in a panic, you quickly go to the bathroom, rushing right past a just woken up Crystal who looks worried.

once in the bathroom, you take off your shirt, though not without struggle as the pain on your back makes it extremely painful to lift your arms so high.

as you take off your shirt, your eyes widen in even more panic as you see the blood that seeped onto it, and you turn around infront of the mirror, seeing blood trickling down your back from your shoulder blades, and... two wings, covered in that same blood, they look exactly like the tattoo you had, but then real.

before you can do any more panicking you hear a knock on the door.

"[name]? you in there? what's wrong?" it's Crystal, though before you can say anything you hear more voices.

"Love? you alright? i'm coming in there if you don't answer, you sounded like you were in pain" Charles. oh no.

he can't see this?! what would he think? you look disgusting, with a bedhead and a bloody back.

"no! no, please just let Edwin in, i can't let you two see me like this.." you say as a few tears roll down your face, apparently your voice sounded like it too as Charles was ready to barge in through the wall anyway if Crystal didn't keep a hold on his arm.

less than a minute later, Edwin comes in, and his eyes widen as he sees the state you are in, and he quickly leaves again.

you stare at yourself in the bathroom mirror as he comes back with a book on... fairy's?

"it's not just about fairy's, it's also about fairy type blessings that they might give to people who went through a lot of negetivity in their life, and what type of blessings they give, clearly we need to figure out yours." he explains before you can question him.

"here it says it's a blessing of the ignored, given to someone who got ignored and waved away whenever they tried to say or convince someone of anything, and the wings were bound to sprout when you feel like you're ready for it, even though you aren't aware of what you're ready for" he explains, and he takes a good look at the 'instructions' of how to atleast clean them up.

"right, i'd say, take a hot shower, put on something like a... backless top or dress? i believe you have those? and we can show Charles, Crystal and Niko and we'll figure out what to do"

all you can do it nod as he leaves again, and you hear some light arguing between him and Charles before you hear Crystal interrupting them and convincing Charles to just sit down at the table and wait.

you took a good, warm shower, though you could instantly tell your wings were sensitive, but tough at the same time.

you put a towel around yourself, and luckily you have a door straight to your bedroom, which Crystal uses aswell, as then she doesn't have to walk past Charles and Edwin when she has showered.

you put on a backless top that you got a year back, but never got to wear as it's usually too cold for it, and some simple jeans and shoes.

you walk out, and see Charles instantly looking relieved as he gets up, though he can tell there's something going on as it's much too cold for that top, and Crystal walks past you in awe as she comes out of her room too, Niko also just walked in from the door with Edwin, and he nods to you to turn around.

and you do.

at first your'e nervous, but then you hear the gasps of awe and you feel Charles gently touch one of them, which makes it twitch a little.

"i did more research when you were showering, turns out the first times are most painful, but you can control wether or not they are as a tattoo or as usable wings, though obviously you must train to do anything with them at all, such as flying. i reccomend that you get more backless tops or tanktops that leave the shoulderblades free, so if we're on a case you could simply take off your shirt and free those wings incase it's needed"

you nod, and before you do anything else, you turn back around, and you spread them.

you look at the floor, but Charles lifts your head back up to meet his eyes, full of wonder. "those are awesome, yeah? we'll help you figure everything out, as always"

"i believe we've gotten a new case, huh?" Crystal says with a slight smile, and you smile back.

you let your wings relax, and without even thinking too much of it, they go back to their tattoo form.

"i suppose we do" Edwin replies.

[whentherewerebicycles]

ok obviously because i am myself i have to journal through some Big Feelings!!!!

here are some of my feelings:

i feel an immense sense of relief. i have been in so much pain for so long with no solutions and no clear endpoint. i feel like i've been slowly losing my mind for weeks. it is just not good for your brain to experience that much pain or to feel that much raw despair every night for so long. i can have my baby and then i can have the surgeries and then i can get PT and then i can recover normal motor functions and not be in excruciating agony. i feel like i've been so deep in the despair pit that i've started losing sight of the fact that i'm genuinely excited to have a baby. i've started losing sight of the fact that there's going to be a baby, period. it's felt like this would just last forever and ever and ever. but it won't. it might last another month or two but from sunday onwards i will be moving in the direction of less pain.

i feel an immense sense of guilt. i know i should wait until 39-40 weeks for his health/well-being but also i know many people who were induced early and their babies are fine. i was born at 38 weeks and he'll be born at 37.5 weeks and i have had no lasting health issues. and they will keep a close eye on him and we will be able to manage anything that happens. i am trying not to let myself be swallowed up by the fear that i am being hugely selfish by prioritizing an end to my own pain over his well-being. i love him so much and i want him to be healthy but i also have to trust that my health and well-being matters and is important to his health and well-being. like i guess start as you mean to go on, you know, and i want to try to be a parent who can make decisions that take care of my kid but also honor my own needs.

i feel frustrated. as my sister pointed out if people had felt a greater sense of urgency about the pain earlier i probably could have gotten to "clear evidence of nerve damage" sooner and then had time to prepare for an early term induction instead of making it feel so rushed. also maybe i wouldn't have done so much damage to my hands in the meantime. i mean maybe everything would've played out exactly the same way and that's fine but it is still a little frustrating to tell people that you are in the worst pain you've ever experienced and to have them be like aw i'm sorry but that seems normal. but it's fine! it's fine.

i feel kind of proud of myself. one of my goals for pregnancy esp after the pregnancy loss over the summer was to get better at medical self-advocacy. i tend to be really cowed by doctors and to downplay symptoms or to assume that if i am a bit more forceful in asking for things i'll be labeled a difficult patient. but i think over the last couple months i have done a good job of nicely but firmly being like, this is not normal. this is not normal. this is not normal. i know you are saying this is normal but this is not and cannot be normal. and i feel like saying that repeatedly and showing up to the ED and calling all the time finally made people be like hm maybe this isn't normal, and then i was able to get objective confirmation that my hands were sooo fucked up, and now things are happening that are moving me towards a future without this pain.

i feel stressed about work but also in some ways i've moved so far beyond that i don't feel that stressed. like i just don't have time to care about my boss yelling at me or being passive-aggressive towards me for leaving early. i'm about to do something that is so, so, so, so, SO immensely more important and meaningful and life-affirming than like, figuring out who's going to cover tabling events or run an application workshop in the fall. like come on. i am not going to expend a single ounce of energy on that in this last week. i will wrap up everything to the very best of my ability and then i will leave it. nothing is life or death in this job, and i have done a good job already of preparing my team for the transition.

i feel panicky!!!!!! i'm going to have a baby in less than a week. i thought i had more time although like what was i even going to do with that time given the fact that i can barely perform household chores or type for more than 30 min at a time or sleep. i feel panicky just because it feels so sudden, but also like, i have everything i need to bring him home, and i've read all the books and done all the pre-baby prep work and i've spent nine months getting ready for this moment. i have a bunch of chores and errands i want to take care of before sunday, but then i want to really dedicate saturday to reflection and journaling and taking long walks and just like, experiencing the last day of being just me.

i feel grief!!!! a whole part of my life - the part where i'm not a parent - is ending. i wish i had more time to honor that transition and to reflect on what it meant. i will definitely carve out time this week to do that and will try to not fritter away the next five days with errands... i think it's much more important to spend time getting myself emotionally ready.

this is a little dumb but i must voice it aloud: i feel weirdly sad about ending the part of my life where my dogs were my most important companions & beloved creatures. i know they will continue to be my beloved creatures! my best little guy and my sweet scruffy little girl! but the time when we were just a little family unit of three is ending and everything will be different now even if it will also be better and richer in a whole host of ways. i have already done a lot of crying and forcibly snuggling a disgruntled Pip and i anticipate there is a lot more of that in my future this week lol. but we will take lots of good long walks and i'll snuggle them so much and i will just trust that it might take a little time for us to settle back into our new normal but we'll get there.

i feel grief, too, at the thought of not being pregnant anymore. in some ways i'm SO ready... my whole body just feels so heavy and so uncomfortable and so swollen, and of course, as you might have heard, my hands hurt so much i think about cutting my fingers off at least once a night. but for the most part, up until this last stretch of pain, i've really, really loved being pregnant. i love feeling him kick and stretch and roll over inside of me. i love rubbing the outside of my stomach and feeling him press against the inside in response, like we're talking to each other, like we're making contact. my baby!! my little guy i've carried inside of me for nine months. i did expect to have more time to savor the end of pregnancy and to honor the experience (even the painful parts) in ways that felt meaningful to me. i feel real grief about not being sure if i'll ever get to do this again! and i wish, idk, i wish i could've paced myself through the end of it differently and had time away from the distractions of work to really have this experience of being in my very pregnant body, connected to my baby in a way I'll never be again, in a way that has felt really deeply meaningful to me. i'll do my best to make that time this week, and i know it's ok, i know that the next chapter will be so good too, but i can grieve not getting to have the ending to pregnancy i wanted.

i feel ready to be changed forever. the rush at the end is not what i wanted for myself, just in terms of getting my head on straight before he arrived, but on some deeper level i've been ready for this for so long, and i'm so, so ready. i want to meet my baby. i can't believe he's going to be my kid for the rest of my life. i can't believe how lucky i am that i got to choose this for myself and that i get to live the life i wanted. i'm so ready. i'm so ready. i can't wait to meet my kid and i can't wait to meet my new self on the other side of this big, big, big, forever-life-altering change.

[afyrian]

ch. 10 - april 30 masterlist

    "i'm going to tell him, i am this time."

  "you're finally going to tell him?"

  "yeah, it's just a couple months until we'd be getting divorced. and honestly i'd rather just renew our vows," you lean back in hitoka's bed, holding a pillow close to you. 

  she laughs to herself, wondering when you got so corny. the way you talk about him now rivals anything you would say just a year ago. with shallow breaths, you boast about the things he does for you, the ways he cares for you. it's become so much more real for you than just a friendship or a crush that couldn't rear its marvelous head. 

  now you lay down on her bed, cheeks warm, heart pumping quickly at even the thought of him. and at this point you don't care if it's embarrassing. or if people want to laugh at your antics, because you've been waiting more than enough time, "you're truly a romantic now..."

  "rin makes it easy to be," you sit up so that you can be facing her, your arms still clinging to the large stuffed frog, "like i mean he's the best guy i've ever known. and even if i have to die of embarrassment to tell him and potentially ruin our friendship..."

  your voice trails off, reality kicking in and the hope of a happy relationship diminishing. you can hope and dream of a relationship with rintarō all you want, but ultimately, you have no idea what his feelings are. despite all of his kind actions and the love in his eyes that you interpret, you can't depict what his feelings are. 

  hitoka reaches over to touch your hand, grabbing ahold of your fingers. she knows when you spiral. and while she hasn't known you all of your life, she can most definitely see when you're stuck in your own mind, "y/n, babe, don't do that to yourself. i never would've connected with asuka if it weren't for me going out of my comfort zone."

  "yeah but she was so clearly in love with you, oh my gosh."

  "not to me dumbass! just like it's not obvious to you! y/n, you can't let fear control you, especially from falling in love with someone who loves you equally," she gives you a soft smile, eyes flickering between yours. 

  your eyebrows furrow as she calls you 'dumbass', something she rarely does. but her truthfulness does send a shiver up your spine, a hope that you'd begun to lack. "i love you, you know? i probably would never tell him if i couldn't talk to you," your eyes tear up slightly, you realizing that you do have the best friends you could ever ask for. 

  "don't cry! because if you do, then i will too! and i love you too. i want you to have every opportunity that i or kiyoko have, because you deserve it," hitoka drops the stuffed animal she's holding and reaches over, wrapping her arms around you, "and he does too, so don't break his heart."

 "oh my gosh, trust me, i will definitely not be breaking his heart," you laugh into her shoulder, hands gripping onto her large sweatshirt.

  as the two of you are holding each other for a little too long, the door opens. there stands kiyoko, a tray of popcorn and other snacks sprawled around it. in little bowls are sets of candy that range from chocolate to fruity chews. her eyes look between the two of you, a tad bit confused, “you guys doing okay in here?”

  you separate, hand reaching up to wipe the tears from your eyes. “yeah..” you laugh a little, “i was just telling hitoka that i think i’m going to tell rin.”

  “tell suna what?”

  “well that i’m in love with him!”

  “ooooh right, that. oh that’s exciting! oh congrats y/n, you deserve so much happiness oh wow,” kiyoko hurries over to the bed, setting the tray aside as she reaches you.

  “thanks ki! i was pretty worried about it, but enough about me and this crazy relationship i’m going through. we’re going to have fun tonight, watch the worst movies known to man, and sing terribly to karaoke,” you grab a chip from the tray, smiling to your two closest friends besides rintarō.

  now, the only thing you really need to do is get over the throbbing heart in your chest and your blood pressure raising…

a/n: i’m veeeery excited for the next chapter

[krirebr]

Hello my friends!

As you may know, 2024 has been a rough mental health year for me. Depression and anxiety are an ongoing struggle. And unfortunately, that's bled into my life here.

I've realized recently that I put a lot of pressure on myself in how I interact with people. Everywhere, but here too. I really love it here, and I love all of you! I want to stay here as long as possible!! But that means I'm going to have to change some things in order to make that sustainable. Because right now, wanting to be able to do everything and not being able to has kind of made me just freeze and not be able to do anything. And then I feel awful. This is absolutely a me problem. You're all so great and what I'm going to outline below are probably obvious boundaries to all of you. But I'm saying it in writing to hopefully alleviate a little of the guilt I will inevitably feel when I start enacting them.

First and foremost, it's ok if I take breaks from writing every once in a while. If I don't produce anything new in a month, I need to trust that I won't lose all of my friends and followers. Because tumblr isn't a job and I need to stop treating it like it is. And not every idea needs to be expanded on, not every one-shot needs to become an au. Some ideas might just live in a series of little riffs or answers to asks and that's ok! That's great! It's ok to keep things short, sweet, and fun when that's what I need.

I'm also going to start forgiving myself when I can't read and comment on every single incredible work you all post. This refers to time limits, obviously, but content too. There are times, for example, when reading smut is just not what I want to do. And that's ok! I know that you know that, but I don't always know that. So I'm going to start giving myself a lot more grace when I get behind in my reading or skip something someone I love has written because the content just isn't for me. So if you start seeing me in your notes a little bit less, that's why. I still love you.

I think I'm going to clear out my ask box and start fresh. I'm sorry. I love you and I'm so happy whenever you want to interact with me. But trying to be perfect in how I answer these means that when I don't answer them right away, they just build up and start haunting me and that makes answering the new ones even harder, because I feel like I need to answer the old ones first. There are a couple that I'll probably try to get out before I purge, but not in a full drabble or what I feel like I should be doing. I need to understand that I can do quick, off the cuff, brief answers to these things. Nothing here needs to be perfect.

Ok, I think those are the major things right now. I hope this wasn't too weird and/or embarrassing. I just wanted to share where my head is at. I'll say it again and I'll keep saying it: I love you. You're great. I'm so so lucky to have made the friends here that I have. I appreciate each of you so much. And if, in the future, you see me getting super stressed out about what is supposed to be a fun hobby and community, please point me back here and make me read this again. 💜💜💜💜💜

[bestworstcase]

Hi again. I've continued to read through... well, whatever the almighty algorithim feels like suggesting (searching here is hard even when you have an idea where to start, which I don't), and my mental state can be best represented by this little gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZWK5IBuVMM&t=298s (Is this necessary? No. Do I think it's funny and worth sharing? Yes, and to an extent that's kinda what this site is all about)

Anyway, a pretty common thread I've noticed in your theories is "Summer is an up-to-now-offscreen agent of Salem by choice." While you definitely make a good case even from the limited amount I've seen, I have to ask: when and where did these thoughts originate from in the first place? I mean, I can *kinda* see where you connected some of the dots, but it's still a huge leap compared to the initially perfectly sensible conclusion of her being dead or otherwise incapacitated.

(Oh, and if this could be answered similarly to my last question, then I can at least say that I have loose plans for a thorough notepad-and-magnifying-glass rewatch of the whole series over the imminent summer after a warmup with Spirited Away, so we'll see how that goes. Maybe I'll look back at myself a few months from now and laugh at my relatively foolish ways; wouldn't be the first time, anyway)

i’d joke that it’s about the Vibes TM but what it comes down to really is the way rwby handles foreshadowing. as for the "when and where" part i couldn’t remember so i went looking.

let me take you on a little journey

these messages on 7/27 are my first direct reference to the idea of summer joining salem but i think (based on my phrasing) that i must have had it in mind for a while prior, which given that this was eight whole days after i’d finished watching the show at all. well. if i had to guess i’d say i probably went "okay so yes but also no" after ruby went "that’s what happened to mom" in 8.11

and the reason for that is pretty simple:

there is a lot of build up in v1-8 to summer’s fate being a Big Fucking Deal; this, in combination with the careful phrasing the narrative always uses regarding her disappearance—she "never came back” or she was "taken," it’s never said that she died—means she’s still alive.

salem met summer rose 12-14 years ago. the hound is a novelty to everyone, including salem’s own inner circle, and salem herself describes him as an "experiment." ruby jumps to a conclusion that doesn’t add up with information the audience knows that she doesn’t.

but, it’s unlikely that ruby is entirely wrong: think about tyrian waxing poetic about his "goddess" and ruby with no hesitation saying "cinder." she was both incorrect (his "goddess" is salem) but partially right (cinder is salem’s protégée and tyrian is here at all because cinder asked salem to deal with ruby).

in v4 we get a look at salem’s evil boardroom (there are two seats conspicuously left empty) and then see salem receiving a seer call from someone stationed at beacon, after it’s been firmly established that none of the agents we know about is there. we don’t see who is on the other end of this call, and we only hear salem’s side (note the incongruity with how seer calls are depicted in every other case; the identity of the beacon agent is withheld from the audience deliberately).

in v5 raven is so scornful of summer rose that she decides "you sound just like your mother" deserves an immediate fireball from cinder fall to the face. in v9 she was big goofy grins at summer. SOMETHING REALLY BAD HAPPENED. and i don’t think this dramatic change is explicable by raven simply watching summer fail and die or be captured; else she’d just be calling summer a fool the same way she does qrow and tai. that says betrayal.

so we know that summer met salem. we know that she did not die and cannot have been made into a hound-like creature (because he’s a new experiment). summer being alive probably rules out her being a ‘failed’ experiment, since that would undoubtedly have been fatal. ruby’s assumption that summer was twisted into a grimm-thrall by salem is incorrect but likely not too far off from the truth, and we know SOMETHING happened during that last mission that shattered raven’s trust in summer, and the simplest answer there is that summer is with salem but willingly.

and salem has a Mystery Lieutenant who’s been stationed at beacon since it fell. math! to my mind the only real questions are why and if summer might have been partially grimmed a la cinder, because in v8 the narrative starts telegraphing "summer is with salem in some not-enslaved-or-imprisoned capacity" without any subtlety at all.

now if we add in to the mix certain things v9 did ("an invincible monster who took your mother!" OH BOY) ("she lied, she left with raven! why would she–?" OH BOY!!!), there’s a clear narrative trajectory developing in the direction of summer rose not having been the Perfect Martyred Fairytale Paragon that everyone has put on a pedestal for the last 12-14 years; like anyone else she was a real person with flaws, and narratively the strongest way to drive that point home is to present to us (and to the characters who’ve been mythologizing summer as a flawless hero for more than a decade) a summer rose who decided that siding with salem was the right thing to do and then exploring why she did it.

summer being with salem of her own volition also makes it a lot easier to get to the narrative turning point of negotiating with salem; summer is the bridge, someone who has people she cares about on both sides. it is much harder to form a truce with salem if she tortured two of the main characters’ mother to death and/or enslaved and/or imprisoned her (because then you need to have an arc about saving the mother and that pushes further down the dead-end road of trying to defeat salem, who can’t be meaningfully defeated). but if summer chose to side with salem she can open that door to "maybe we can reason with salem."

so thinking about it just from a writer perspective… if i were the one writing this story and making these creative decisions with regard to the summer rose mystery, the reason i would set things up in this specific way is to develop toward a twist that summer freely chose to join salem with the intention that this precipitates the negotiation. that was true in v1-8 and then v9 ticked off literally every box on my mental checklist of things i would expect v9 to do if this was the direction they were headed—another hint about salem "taking" summer in conjunction with a reminder that salem is "invincible," surfacing ruby’s self-identification with The Idea of summer rose and how very harmful this is, a peek through the looking glass at The Person summer rose who is flawed in ways that shock and distress ruby, and an explicitly-stated "who knows why?" in reference to summer’s flaws and her final mission.

shrug. it’s just the explanation that makes the most sense taking into account all the clues that we have.

as a further point of interest, neither summer nor tai have an obvious ozian allusion (in contrast to qrow and raven who are the scareqrow and the woggle bug respectively)… which by process of elimination with the cast of marvelous land of oz, probably makes them general jinjur and jellia jamb. jinjur conquers the emerald city and occupies it for most of the story; jellia is a serving girl in the emerald city’s palace who remains with jinjur until very near the end when she gets roped into mombi’s schemes. which tracks with the idea that summer is holding beacon on salem’s behalf and tai is…there.

and i am kicking myself for not clocking tai-as-jellia until B4 dropped because it’s so. obvious. in hindsight. lol

(bonus first time reaction to 7.2

because it made me snort)