#and i made such an incredible new friend and many acquaintances that made the experience fantastic

[i-am-a-hog]

Just talked to this cambridge prof for an hour about mimesis and music and teaching and the world and im. A new person now. My academic zeal has been restored. I've rarely felt so understood in my entire life

[linopls]

kinktober day twenty-seven

sexting felix x fem!reader

warnings: SMUT MINORS DNI, mentions of unprotected sex

1.1k words

routine company meetings were a wide known snooze-fest. it felt like a competition for who could talk the longest and about the most boring aspects of the company. you never understood why you had to be here. you were just a marketing student intern who was helping run stray kids’ social media accounts, it's not like the finances made any sense to you.

unlike your contract had stated, you started to form a liking to one of the members: felix. the two of you quickly became acquainted when you both had to explain a tiktok trend to your supervisor that felix wanted to post. your supervisor never ended up understanding it but felix thanked you for your attempted support by buying you lunch that afternoon.

eventually it became lunch every time felix was in the building. the two of you would rant to each other about working for different sides of the company and all the struggles you faced. it was just two friends hanging out until the day he called you pretty.

it came out so casually. you weren’t dressed any different but he said your hair looked pretty. it took you back for a second before you smiled and said thank you. that day he payed like usual, he insisted every time, but then suggested you guys got lunch somewhere other than the cafeteria, or maybe dinner.

it never became official, and it never could, until the company removed its employee dating restrictions. you two went on dates like boyfriend and girlfriend, texted like boyfriend and girlfriend, and had amazing sex like boyfriend and girlfriend. he was incredible in bed, he claimed he didn’t have that much experience, but he was brilliant.

he even drove you crazy even when his dick wasn’t inside of you. when you were at dinner, all it took was one glance in your direction and if there weren’t so many people in the restaurant, you would let him take you right there. he had such a way with words as well, and he used that to his advantage. 

you see your phone screen light up on the table in front of you. the way the conference room was set up was four rows of tables set in a U-shape. you and your team always sat in the last row to the far left and the stray kids members say in the last row on the far right. this meant when you did not want to pay attention to the current speaker you could look at felix across the room.

you look at the contact photo and name and see that felix sent you a message. you slowly grab your phone and open the message. 

felix: you look good in red ❤️

you’re wearing a red pantsuit today, his favorite color. you smile and look up to him, he’s already looking at you and smiling. he looks back down to his phone and types for a second before looking back up to you. your phone lights up again.

felix: you looked really good in that red dress last night

you blush and try to discreetly cover your face with one of your hands. felix had taken you out to dinner the night prior and you wore a new dress, a similar shade of red to the pantsuit you wore today. when he first picked you up he stared at you, mouth agape. before telling you red was his favorite color.

felix: you also looked really good in the red matching set you wore in bed

his reaction when you slid your dress down your legs to reveal your matching red bra and panty set was a sight you’ll never get out of your head. his eyes glossed over with lust and a very obvious tent formed in his pants.

you: never knew you had such a sexual attraction for the color red… 😏

you look up to see felix subtly roll his eyes before beginning to type a response. you watch changbin look over his shoulder and giggle and felix pulls his phone to his chest. you thank god for your privacy screen protector and the fact you’re sat on the end and the person next to you is also so uninterested in the meeting that they are online shopping.

felix: just for you, in red specifically

felix: i think it's your color~

you: thank you baby🤭

you: i think i’ll wear another red set tonight ;)

you glance up from your phone to his felix’s reaction. his mouth forms a thin line before he bites down on his lips slightly.

felix: yeah?

felix: do you have a picture?

you: horny bastard. 🖕

felix: just want a spoiler 🥺

you: you’ll have to wait and see~~

felix rolls his eyes and sets his phone face down on the table and focuses back on the speaker. you begin to aimlessly scroll through your socials. before long another text from felix pops up and you eagerly click on it.

felix: i want to bend you over one of these tables and fuck you so badly

you: i’m doing great thanks for asking 😐

felix: i don’t even care who watches

felix: i just want you to cum on my cock over and over again

you: lix…

felix: you look so good from behind

felix: and i love that i can see your face in the mirror in my room

felix: the way tears stream down your face when i make you cum for a third or fourth time 😖

you: you’re so good at what you do

you: i’m already soaked just thinking about it 🫣

you adjust yourself awkwardly in your chair. feeling your panties sticking to your folds as felix stares you down from across the room.

felix: i just want to stuff you full of my cum

felix: over and over again

felix: go to the bathroom 😏

you notice he has his legs crossed and his bottom lip is caught between his teeth.

felix: wanna fill you with my cum and watch you sit through this meeting knowing who you belong to

you: it's too obvious if we leave within a couple minutes of each other :( 

you: we’ll get a break soon and i’ll meet you in the bathroom on the floor above 😚

felix: my dick is throbbing thinking about being buried in your sweet pussy

you: we won’t need to waste any time, i’m already dripping for you

“alright everyone,” the speaker claps his hands together. “let’s take a lunch break and come back in an hour?”

as everyone begins to gather their things and leave the room, you quickly throw everything in your bag and streamline to the door. felix is holding the door waiting for you.

“come on, ms. l/n,” felix smiles. “lunch shall we?”

felix probably has mad sexting game

@rockstrhanji @hyunjinhoexxx @mixtape-racha @euphoric-univers @haruharu-egypt @shit-why-what @twiggoblin @kookiesbunny @virgohannie @nataliee10 @ihrtlix @aaasia111 @lolli4me @lilcutieana @changbinsrightboob @hanjisunglover @chansducky10 @elissasimp @boi-bi-ahaha @lilquokka04 @anglerfishiey @sirenscall1031 @might-be-a-rat @jihyun2monster @kpflyn @samsmitty @imwithurmother @meilix @summer3sworld @mysweethannie @kittykattime @linoots @yaorzu-blog @sofiaeli 

@alemi-i @cupidsmoons @yoongles2025 @vixensss @chlooooop @lemontried @idkluvutellme @superiorbrownskinn @ana-stasssiaaa @amayaaseees @ilikecatsanddoritos @alnex05 @esairevmp @greysweaters-blog @sanzusfavgf @jutannies @faraonatojishady @hanniemylovelyquokka @chloeskzboomboom @quinnluvsmoney @burningupp-replies @aisha-md @jo-dinner @jeannie-beannie @httpsimmy @hazneezs @cuffier 

@dvbkie099 @il0v3skz @chrishak@quokkaaah @bex90997 @sheeshhhhfelixsworld @leeknowyah @tumadreposts @hyunniebunni @cipher-ipher @alice630 @jinnies-princess @bangtancultsposts @evrythinghqppened @rebellescauses-blog @juicypebbless @fawnpeaks @the-life-of-stella @lakoya @compersian @seung-mine @mal-lunar-28

[drdemonprince]

to the anon who sent me the message that took them 4 hours to draft.

I think your experience both with organizing and disability has probably provoked you to rethink the entire concept of "success" as our culture has defined it, even if you feel yourself still longing for some of the comfort and ease that capitalistic success can seemingly provide (or that we are conditioned to believe it can provide). im not sure what to say that can match the effort your put into your message, in fact i am galled by the fact that i know that i can't match that effort. i don't know how to make sense of the fact that a person who is finding it incredibly difficult to remain connected and engaged during this time, due to disability, has decided that i was worth that level of effort when they don't have the energy to message people they know. i don't think i am worth that effort. but i also respect that mired in all that you're mired in, it's a meaningful gesture toward engagement and connection to even bother writing such a message. i just think in a lot of ways i am a misplaced target for it, because i am a ridiculously privileged and publicly exposed individual who receives dozens of heartfelt messages that he doesnt find the time to respond to every single day. i think if anything that i've written rubs you the wrong way you'd be right to approach it with cynicism. because what the fuck do i know, banging around on my laptop every day and getting paid for it. how dare i lecture anybody about not unlearning capitalism adequately enough. i am one of capitalisms little milking cows. a massive publishing company makes a weekly profit off of me, off the byproduct of the worst years of my life and my worst traumas, as well as the meaning i've made from the scholarship of others.

i'm so enraged for you that you got a debilitating case of COVID (after several other cases) on an encampment, and that now the community you foster at that encampment is not there for you. i am disgusted at how more seasoned activists and organizations have regarded student protestors as disposable this entire year, selling them out to the cops, cutting bad deals with campus administration, and sending them to yellow and red risk level actions without adequate communication and getting them kettled and beat, or else nullifying their efforts with mealy-mouthed talk about keeping things peaceful. i see so many toothless, neoliberal protests happening here, ones that serve only as fundraisers for massive nonprofit orgs, and i also see literal teenagers being dragged right into paddy wagons by the likes of the PSL or the RCP while the Dems deride them and dance to Brat tracks, not even pretending to care the way they unconvincingly did in say 2020.

It's all making me terribly cynical, wondering where we are headed and whether i can or should encourage people who are younger, stronger, more energetic, more pliable, and more vulnerable to me to give up all that they've got for a cause when it's likely gonna be chewed up and spit out and not met in effort by anyone else. i am mournful of the fact that even i can't match that effort. every time i get a message from a friend or acquaintance who is going through some new awful traumatizing event i want to just curl up and disappear, because i can't even keep up with sending compassionate messages to all of them, let alone actually showing the fuck up and doing anything for them. and so sometimes i slip into the disaffected, blunted feeling that once led me as a younger man into libertarianism, thinking that all i can or should do is look after my own wellbeing, and fuck everybody else. and obviously that is a horrible path that is not by any means moral and certainly didn't help me anyway. it felt like we were on the brink of a great paradigm shift of some kind, a collapse of these evil systems, and now it feels like all of that is as far away as it's ever been, and that there aren't enough people with class consciousness and care for one another to make it happen.

i don't know. i think we all have to abandon our dreams of success, of comfort, of saving the world, the fantasies of everything being fine. i think we need to look to our immediate surroundings and our communities. i think we need to ask for help a whole hell of a lot more than any of us are doing, and to recognize that that is a form of helping. i think we need to get small. and remember we are weak animals. and stop thinking there is anything special or chosen about us. and to remember that nature can often be very cruel and that there is nothing we are owed. disabled people already know this of course, we know life isn't fair. we try to do what we can and yet we wake up feeling even less capable the next day, and it knows no logic and the universe remains indifferent to it. but there are people around us who can care, when we ask them to. and ways that we can just be there alongside one another in the muck of it all. not even necessarily making things better. certainly not being a savior and making the pain go away. maybe just sitting in the muck together.

all of which is to say, i am feeling stuck and overwhelmed and useless myself, anon, and i dont have any more answers than you. but thanks for messaging. im sorry people have taking advantage of you. including in my opinion lots of other activists. looking after yourself and not letting people guilt you doesn't mean turning into a conservative. the kind of anarchy that i am embracing right now is one that goes beyond linear change, beyond making meaning, beyond any idealistic visions of the future, beyond even fighting for some kind of symbolic survival. it's just being. none of it has to mean anything, none of it has to be headed anywhere. it just is. there is plenty for you to be bitter about.

[marvelousbuckley]

Pardon my french!

BuckTommy Positivity Week 2024 - day two

this challenge is so fun, thank you so much @bucktommypositivityweek! and thank you @searching-for-the-moon for the inspiration

Prompt: nicknames and terms of endearment

You can read it on AO3 or down below. Every fic will be posted on AO3 as chapters of the same fic!

-----

“Mon chéri ?”

“No way, it’s how my ex’s mother called him.”

“Ok then, what about mon coeur ?”

“That’s how HE called me.”

“Hard no.”

Evan frowns, wrinkling his nose while he crosses a new line on his list, clipboard steady on his hand like he has been doing this his whole life. How can their friends think it’s annoying? Evan, with a focused face, his cutest than ever.

It’s been five days since the blond man discovered Tommy’s ability to speak French. The pilot knows that, if they had had the possibility to spend every minute of the week together, Evan would have not been able to talk about anything else.

To be fair, Tommy is not the kind of guy who praises himself a lot, nor he is the kind who shows off. But seeing the impact that it had on Evan, he played along the few times they saw each other, for his boyfriend’s pleasure. It started with words now and then, inserting one or two in the middle of a sentence, his smile growing bigger each time it flustered Evan. He played dumb for a while, denying doing it. After that, the next step had been to whispers secret promises in Evan’s ears every time the other man started to fall asleep on his arms, settling him for a night full of dreams, mostly heated ones.

“Je te veux pour toujours.” Was the phrase that he said the most, loving the taste of the last words on his mouth. Pour toujours. Forever. It made Evan shivers even though he didn’t know what it meant.

But now? Now Evan is looking at his list of French pet names, all serious, and Tommy cannot believe his luck. He knows how smitten he his, but he doesn’t care. Doesn’t want to hide his feelings anymore, especially since it his Evan that he loves. Evan who changed his whole world, who offered him the sweetest rom-com life he could have wished for.

Him having spend most of the night reading about French language and vocabulary is just another reason for Tommy to loves him.

Tommy’s dating life hadn’t been all bad. He had had serious partners. Not a lot, but few happy ones. Nicolas had been one of them. Three years, a house, hours and hours of movie nights, an introduction to his pals from the army. A clean break-up, more like fading away from each other really, and the need to find something else for both men.

They still called for Christmas, exchanged text for new year and birthdays. Nicolas had been proud of him when Tommy finally come out, even if it never bothered him to be with a closeted Tommy who could not assume his sexuality while on the job, Gerrard and all. Tommy went to Nicolas’ wedding a few years ago, had a great time with old acquaintances, even hooked up with some sexy guy from the other groom side of the family.

So, French was not a trauma for him. And Evan searching for something cute to call him in this language that fascinates the younger man? It is incredibly, stupidly hot.

“The website also suggested mon chou but apparently it means cabbage?” Evan lets himself fall on the couch next to Tommy and sets his head on the older man’s shoulder. The gesture is comforting, with a sense of habit that gets Tommy all smiley and giddy when he thinks about it too much. They’re accustomed to being together, but it is still a joyful feeling to truly experience it. Tommy can’t help himself but shift a little so he can kiss Evan’s head while his eyes perks at the list. Evan is halfway through it, a disappointed look on his face.

“Why is there so many options? We have sweetheart, dear, love, honey, babe… But them? I understand why it’s called the country of love.” Evan sighs and a light laugh leave Tommy’s lips, pushing him to kiss Evan’s head again. His boyfriend’s hair smells like coconut, a new shampoo that makes Tommy crazy. He always loved coconut cake, now all he wants his to devour the man he loves. One of his hands becomes adventurous, coming to play with the edge of his t-shirt, a finger brushing past it to touch Evan’s skin, caress all the way up to his ribs. He feels Evan’s body tense and then relax, leaning for more before his brain takes the controls back and he straighten himself, shooshing and pushing the adventurous hand before he turns back to Tommy who looks at him with a lazy smile.

“What?” The older man asks.

“This is serious Tommy, I need to know how you feels about mon lapin or ma biche.” Tommy’s face talks by itself, a displeased looks taking possession of his eyes.

“No way, it is not happening. You’ll not call me by an actual animal name.” His reaction has Evan chuckles and crosses another line.

“Knew it.”

Tommy rolls his eyes while Evan continues. Mon homme (“which you are”), mon bébé (“I’am a freaking adult!”), petit cul (“I’m not sure if I’m pronouncing it right”), chouchou (“Hell no”), bébou (“that’s it, I’m leaving you”). It is endearing, but it is also starting to annoy him a little. He would rather do something else, something less cute and with a less lot talking. If he thinks about gagging his boyfriend, well, it’s up to him.

After a little longer he finally moves. His hand grabs Evan’s shin and he turns the man towards him firmly. His lips come crushing Evan’s mouth and he’s happy that his boyfriend was still talking because it allows him to slip his tongue in him, kissing the younger man eagerly and with passion. A kiss that has Evan moans and drops the clipboard, his arms quickly wrapped around Tommy’s neck.

The older man deepens the kiss, grips Evan by the hips and lifts him in one motion, which pulls out a laugh from his boyfriend between their lips. Tommy smiles, his mouth still on Evan’s. He carries him all the way to the bedroom where he swings Evan on the bed. The blond moves in a hurry, letting enough room for Tommy to come lay on top of him, his mouth now really close to Evan’s ear.

“What about trésor ?” He ask, a naughty tone in his voice. It makes Evan shivers with anticipation and want, need even.

“Wha-What does it-it means?” Evan replies, as curious as he his aroused.

“Literally, it means treasure.” Tommy answers before he drops a kiss on his neck. “You could translate it to sweetheart but-” He stops again, this time taking time to kiss Evan’s jaws, a trail that goes from his ear to his shin. “I think it means more in French. It means that you are precious to me and that I want to keep you to myself for ever.” His lips finally go and ravish Evan’s mouth, pulling a deep moan out of him.

Yes, Evan thinks while Tommy’s hands start to unbuckle his pants. Trésor is fine.

----- 

translation: 

- Mon chéri : it is a kind of sweetheart but it's mainly used by old grandma with youngs ones,

- Mon cœur: my heart,

- Je te veux pour toujours : I want you for ever, 

- mon lapin : rabbit, 

- ma biche : doe,

- mon homme : my man, 

- mon bébé : baby, 

- petit cul : small ass, but affectionately. yes, we say it, a lot,

- chouchou : this one is not really translatable ???

- bébou : it's a french web reference lmao,

[tagthescullion]

The Undead Diary of Luke Castellan

Fandom(s): Percy Jackson and the Olympians

Rating: T

Summary: It's not Luke's fault the Underworld is understaffed and some of its doors connecting with the living world are left unattended.

Words: 2929

AO3 link

I’d like to begin this story by saying this wasn’t my fault.

Not completely. Or well, not exactly.

The decision was mine, I guess. Except that it wasn’t a decision. More like an impulsive action that turned out to have big consequences.

But, in my defence —a line I’ve been using a lot these past few years, and, come to think of it, all of my life—, I was left unsupervised.

Let’s go back to the beginning.

I died.

Was it painful? Yes, very. Was it unfortunate? Many would disagree. Did I have it coming? I might have, yeah.

At any rate, my arrival in the Underworld had been most expected (by both the demigods alive and the ones whose deaths I’d had a hand in). All things considered, betrayal to the gods and my old camp-mates and whatnot, I hadn’t exactly hoped for a loving welcome committee. 

If I’m honest, my judgement and the execution of my sentence were far less harsh than I probably deserved.

Hades himself was in charge of my fate, and to my utmost surprise, he vetoed the judges’ decision to let me burn in acid in the Fields of Punishment. Instead, he suggested I made myself useful, to account for all the destruction I’d brought.

“My domain has expanded exponentially in the past century,” Hades had said. “Daedalus has proved a worthy addition to my efforts to keep it organised efficiently, and you will follow his example if you’re smart.”

And for the past year I had done my job well enough to keep the Lord of the Dead content.

Daedalus was grateful for another pair of hands, so to speak, for I’m not entirely sure I really had hands, or if my spirit’s consciousness believed it hard enough to make it feel that way.

The old man was an incredible and astute engineer, but he had trouble controlling his workers. I, on the other hand, had no idea how to even build a bridge with legos, but I had lots of experience in the field of leading reluctant people, monsters, and even minor deities into battle, which meant organising souls into efficient work groups was a piece of cake. And so I did —carefully watched by one of Hades’ Furies, of course—.

At the beginning, I didn’t see any fellow demigods. Not any I knew, anyway. I was sure some of the souls working under me had been demigods in the past century. 

It wasn’t that I didn’t have the time, Hades had given me Wednesdays off —I didn’t really know what day of the week it was, time is an elusive variant in the Underworld, but the Fury was kind enough to remind me—. I just didn’t have the courage to face my old acquaintances just yet.

I kept to the outskirts of Elysium. Souls don’t need to sleep, don't need to eat, don't need to do anything, truly. So I wandered around, looking remarkably like the souls who’d forgotten themselves after so many years. 

One day, I was spotted by Lee Fletcher. 

It felt like a dagger through my unbeating heart. Lee Fletcher had been my best friend and the second person I’d failed to convince to turn to Kronos’ side. I was glad Lee hadn’t joined in the end, but I’d been shattered when I learned of his demise in Zeus’ Fist at camp.

Lee didn’t look particularly surprised, though. 

“I was hoping you’d show your face around eventually,” he’d said. “You deserve a punch in the face and a friend to listen to an explanation.”

I had then offered my old friend a crooked smile. “That’s why I didn’t come round.”

Lee walked with me for a while in silence. I didn’t feel like explaining, and I suppose Lee didn’t feel like forgiving just yet.

After a couple of weeks, it became our Wednesday routine. Lee dared to speak before I did. He told me of what he knew of our respective siblings, and what he knew of everybody else, really. Demigods died and brought news even after the Battle of Manhattan. Obviously, a lot less frequently, but demigod life wasn’t easy in peace times either.

At some point, Lee managed to convince me to meet Silena. 

I assumed if anybody was also wary of our former friends it was her. She’d been a marvellous informant, but that had also made her an incredible traitor.

There was a fraction of a second of tense silence when we stood face to face. Then Silena bursted out into sobs and hugged me tight.

“We fucked up,” she cried. “We fucked up, we fucked up…”

I agreed, of course. Gods, we’d fucked up big time.

Slowly, Lee threw more people my way. 

Traitors at first, all of them filled with guilt and remorse. I imagine if they weren’t, they would’ve been burning in the Fields of Punishment with the acid the judges had wanted for me.

Then, there’d been a couple of kids who’d never joined my side. They were reluctant, I knew, but they clearly respected Lee enough to go along with him. 

Eventually, I got used to the nasty glares, but, more surprisingly, I started getting comments around the lines of, ‘Something had to be done, though’, ‘They really don’t care much about us, do they?’.

Through Lee’s diplomacy and my visible humility and apologetic behaviour —which wasn’t natural to me, but I wasn’t exactly in a position to start defending myself—, my old friends appeared on my Wednesday walks without being coerced. And I even stopped dreading those meetings so much.

That was until spirits started disappearing.

It was rather chaotic at first. There was fear around, which wasn’t common in Elysium. 

But then the fear turned into hope. They didn’t disappear. Rumours said they were going back to life.

My inner curiosity got the best of me, as it always did.

One Wednesday, I led Lee and Silena to Melinoe’s cave. She wasn’t home, which made me wonder whether she was in her father’s castle or just roaming around, scaring the shit out of innocent mortals. 

When Melinoe wasn’t in her cave, there was always Thanatos, I knew, making sure nobody snooped around like we were doing. Thanatos was a rather strict fellow, and a very good ally to Hades. 

In retrospect, it was easy to see he hadn’t been seen around in a long while. But then again, it’s easier to notice those things in hindsight. Time, as I said before, is hard to keep pace of in the Underworld.

“I don’t like this,” Lee said. “I don’t think we should be here.”

“Don’t worry,” I reassured him. “Worst case scenario, they’ll blame me.”

Lee smiled. That had been a thing even before I left camp. Whenever something fishy happened, Chiron was always quick to point at me rather than Apollo’s golden son.

“I’d rather they blamed nobody,” Silena said. “This place feels terrible, let’s go back.”

I stared at my friends. Didn’t they realise? Thanatos wasn’t here, neither was Melinoe, the Furies would need some time to catch us.

“It’s a way out, guys!”

“Out?” Lee’s expression turned uneasy. “Listen, Luke, we shouldn’t mess around with that idea.”

“It’s been done before,” I insisted. “Or almost.”

“I’m with Lee,” Silena said. “What’s happened, happened. We can’t leave. We can’t go back.”

“There’s nobody here!” I took another tentative step into the cave. I felt a pull, pushing me out into the open, but I went further in. “It feels… strange.”

I felt warm and cold at the same time. I hadn’t felt much since I’d died. My spirit had felt a trace of sensation, but it was muted. As if it was a memory rather than the real thing.

Could I possibly go out? Into the living world?

Over the past year I’d pushed down those feelings of incompleteness. There were still so many things I wanted to do. So many apologies. But two in particular. There were two people I’d have given anything to see.

And perhaps, if there was nobody to stop us, we might be able to leave!

“Luke, stop it!”

But Lee’s voice grew dimmer in my ears. 

I could meet them again, my two girls. Explain, tell them how sorry I was. 

The force pushing me back grew stronger with every step, but it was no match for my determination.

Step after step, the sensations enhanced in my chest. Cold and warmth, and even a hint of nausea. The ground sloped down, slowly at first, then steeper as I kept going.

Then I realised I could smell. It didn’t smell like a musty old cave, it was the smell of summer. Of hot wind and freshly cut grass.

It only made my resolve stronger.

It was pitch dark. The light from the entrance of the cave had been lost completely. 

I went another step further. Then another step. And another step.

I took a deep breath. I could breathe. I was breathing!

Another step. Another step. Another step.

The sound of my heartbeat filled my ears. Loud, strong, quick. Deafening.

Another step. Another step. Another step.

The force pushing me back was so strong now, that I almost tripped. But I regained balance and managed to keep going.

Another step… Another step… Another step…

Then the ground disappeared. 

And I fell.

-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z-z

My first sensation when I woke up was warmth in my face. 

A memory stirred in my mind. The smell of ripe strawberries, the laughter of children free for the summer holidays, the rhythmic sound of waves, a towel under my body, and the warmth of the sun hitting my exposed skin. 

It was the sun. The sun! I was feeling the sun on my skin!

Then the feeling disappeared, and the brightness I could see through my closed eyelids banished.

A soft hand patted my cheek carefully.

“Hello?” Said a woman’s voice. “Young man?”

I opened my eyes slowly. Outlined by a halo of sunlight the face of a pretty woman of about thirty hovered around a metre away from me.

I tried to speak but my throat felt like sandpaper. 

“It’s okay,” she said. Her voice held a trace of an accent. “It takes a while to get used to being back.”

Back.

In spite of the burning feeling in my throat, my face split into a grin.

“Back,” I rasped. “I’m back.”

The woman helped me sit up. 

I studied her properly now. Her skirt, blouse, and sweater looked old-fashioned. Her hair was loose, but it curled in that style I’d seen in a thousand WWII movies. She had a warm smile and a clever look.

“I’m Luke,” I said, offering her a hand. “My name’s Luke Castellan.”

“Maria,” she replied. 

She looked at my hand and shook it after a second of hesitation. 

“I keep forgetting Americans shake hands. So impersonal,” she stated with a raised eyebrow. Her tone was teasing though.

“Are you—” I caught myself. “Were you dead too?”

“Right to the point, yes?” She smiled. “Yes, I was dead. I have been for a while. But now I’m here, and I need to find my son.”

“Your son?” I was surprised. 

My perception of ‘mother’ isn’t the best, but this woman didn’t look like a mom to me. She looked like an old time movie star, those that always had perfect make-up, in the black-and-white photos I’d seen in the cinema close to my place in Connecticut. 

“Yes,” she said. “My little boy. He should be an old man by now, I would have expected.”

“But he isn’t?” I wondered.

She shook her head, anger and sorrow transformed her expression.

“My daughter passed away,” she told me. “Not too long ago. She should have been old, but she was still a girl.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I looked down, and when I spoke it was full of bitterness. “Children’s lives should never be at risk.”

And despite what many may think, I do believe that kids shouldn’t be put in the line of fire.

Maria nodded, swallowed, and composed herself so fast I felt a little thread of envy. If only I could’ve put up a cheerful façade that quickly…

“You don’t look old enough to die either,” she decided, giving me a once over.

“I think I deserved it,” I admitted. ‘It was my choice’ sounded a bit too harsh. “Besides, I’m 23, that’s better than dying as a child.”

Maria huffed. “23 is still so young.”

“As opposed to…?” I asked. 

She seemed horrified by my audacity. 

“A lady doesn’t ask nor answer that question,” she said firmly. “And neither should a gentleman.”

I shrugged. She sounded fancy. I guessed in whichever time she came from, old-money people stuck to those ridiculous social rules.

“What do you know of your son?” I wondered. “Do you know where we can find him? Hell, do you know where we are?”

I scanned my surroundings. My eyes were unused to the sun, which made me squint a bit. 

It looked like a meadow. The land was flat, not a hill on sight. The grass was green and soft under me, and far to my right, there was a big house.

“Italy,” she said. “Veneto.”

Holy shit. 

“A bit far from where I expected to be,” I said.

“The Underworld has many exits,” Maria told me. 

My muscles tensed. I had assumed she was a lost mortal, who had followed the path out of the afterlife by accident, but mortals in Italy wouldn’t be likely to call the Underworld by that name. Nor, I guess, would they be likely to have children who were supposed to be old but looked young.

“Oh, I know about all of this,” she smiled. “My children are— were, like you. Demigods. I’m… what’s that term he used? Clear sighted?”

I nodded.

Italian demigods. Did I know Italian demigods? Probably a fair few, but I wasn’t sure if any of the ones I’d met were from Veneto.

And she said she had died ages ago. Whoever her children were they would have been taken out of time. 

It rang a bell in my memory, but my mind wasn’t clear enough yet for me to recall properly. Not to mention I’d known dozens of demigods who had bizarre stories. 

Thalia was a tree for a while, she’d looked younger than she should have been that time she pushed me off that cliff. 

Annabeth and her little gang had been in that Casino thing in Vegas, that had messed up time for them, too. 

And the Sea of Monsters, there were a lot of islands there where children could have been stuck in time for decades.

“Are your—,” I hesitated. “Did your children ever get to camp? Camp Half-Blood, in New York?”

Maria’s expression turned dubious. “I think so. Bianca didn’t explain much, she didn’t stay long. But I reckon wherever my boy is, it’s in America. That’s the last place I saw them.”

That’s where she had died then.

“Then camp’s our best bet,” I said. “He’s alive, he’s likely to have at least crossed paths with somebody from there.”

She nodded. 

She turned and pointed at the house in the distance. “That’s my family’s home. You can stay there for a bit. To rest.”

She stood and offered a hand for me to get up too.

“I— Yeah, thanks,” I said. I felt weak. I’d just come back to life. She was right to say it took some adjustment. I wondered how long she’d been back. “I could use a place to sit for a bit.”

In exchange, I could help her find camp and her son. Assuming the kid was still alive, that was. I wouldn’t go to camp myself. I’d be stoned the moment I set a foot in there. But leading Maria there was the least I could do after she’d been so kind to me.

I just hoped her son wasn’t somebody I knew. That could make things awkward.

We walked for a bit in silence. As we got closer, the house grew bigger and bigger. ‘House’ was an understatement, I thought. The place was huge. 

Balconies, huge floor to ceiling windows, at least four storeys tall. It had a path that led to the main entrance lined with orchard trees, and off to the side there was a less pretentious dirt path that I assumed went to the servant’s entrance.

“I’m sorry,” I said, before I could stop myself, pointing at the immense building in front of us. “But did your family own Italy?”

Maria gave me a funny look. “It’s not such an ostentatious place.”

Perhaps if you are related to the Windsor family, then Maria’s family’s house isn’t ostentatious. If, like me, you come from the US suburbs, then it’s something taken right out of Downton fucking Abbey.

“My father was a marquess,” she explained, when she caught my cynical expression. “Sua grazia, il Signor di Angelo, and all the paraphernalia it came with. The house is all right, but we weren’t…”

But I had stopped listening.

Di Angelo. I did remember that name. Di Angelo was that little kid who’d popped out of nowhere with an army of undead soldiers and his godly father on toe.

But not even I couldn’t be that unlucky. 

“What’s your son’s name?” I asked, as casually as I could.

“Niccolò,” she said with a proud smile. “But everybody always called him Nico.”

Nico. Nico di Angelo.

Well, fuck. To nobody’s surprise, I could be that unlucky.

[my-castles-crumbling]

i’m not straight. 

This has been a month of revelations Cas. A bit before you begun naming your anons (which is smart btw) I sent you an ask. I read it like the day after you answered it and it got me thinking. And now i’ve done a month of thinking and experimenting and I thought I ought to come back and thank you. 

I found the old ask I made, it’s here,

https://www.tumblr.com/my-castles-crumbling/745963519826165760/hi-im-sort-of-new-to-tumblr-i-got-into?source=share

So you might see I wrote in that i’m straight. I have found that… not to be entirely true. 

It’s been a LONG month. Well, month and a half or something idk. 

So, you’ll see you gave me five possible options. For my… feelings. 

The first one was that I wasn’t used to being around queer people, which is fair, since my town doesn’t really have many queer people, however I would say that many of some of them are my friends. So I sort of am used to being around queer people. So that was a no.

The second one was about how I felt watching them. Which very quickly came down to, like I want to throw up all over her girlfriend. Whenever they’re together. Not much beyond that tbh.

The third one was I don’t like the girlfriend as a person. Which would’ve been the perfect excuse had she not been both lovely… and a sort of friend before they started dating, a happy acquaintance to have, you could say (and then she became a less happy acquaintance to have). 

Fourth was, I miss doing platonic buddy things with her. Which I very much did miss. But with the benefit of miraculous hindsight, I know see all the platonic buddy things we did maybe weren’t so platonic buddy like. 

And five was an incredible gentle and sweet way to whack me over the head. You said it was “something to think about”. I’ll be honest, I hadn’t even considered it an option. It’s very easy to go down the path of “well, I could date girls. But i’m not gay. Cause I like men. And I would date a girl. But I can’t. Cause i’m straight. But I would, but i’m not”. Kind of endlessly. 

Anyway, long story short… i’m not straight. I eliminated literally ALL other options, before I let myself think it, but i’ve now reached the conclusion that yes, I may have been slightly jealous of my best friend and her girlfriend, and oddly enough it’s NOT exactly common to be excited and feel warm at the prospect of your friend having a crush on you (like she told me she did before all this- that I said at the start of my other ask) 

So yeah. Long month Cas. This took some thinking. And then some angered thinking. Because it’s thrown a wrench into some of my plans. 

That said however, I may… have told my friend. That figured out, that i’m not straight. I told her a few days ago, and just ended up blabbering everything to her and I told her not to feel pressured and that i’m sure not ready for anything and that I wasn’t coming on to her, I just thought she deserved to know why I was being weird and how I felt. 

She told me she hasn’t really stopped having a crush on me, but she agrees that I need time to figure myself out. 

BUT THEN… then the next day, I kid you not, she broke up with the girlfriend. 

I told her that I hoped she didn’t do that for me cause I wanted her to be happy, even if it was with her girlfriend, and it wasn’t fair for me to ask her to break up with her since i’m not ready for anything. 

And she said she felt like it was lying to her girlfriend because she still felt how she felt about me, but that I shouldn’t feel any pressure cause we can just go back to how we were and play it by ear (she said she missed how we used to be as well). 

And if we don’t work out, so is life sometimes. 

So that’s your update. I guess we’ll see what happens. But I think a weight I didn’t realise was there has been lifted of my shoulders a little now. At least now I know what’s been missing. 

And I don’t know what i’ll do from here, probably nothing drastic until Uni next year (MOVING OUT of this shit town) but either way, I have another step I guess- what level of Not Straight am I? I told my best friend (the one I do not have a crush on and who is also queer so I was cool coming out to her) that I assumed I was bisexual. 

She asked if I felt like I was bisexual. 

To be honest, i’m not sure a label will fit me for a while, so for now bisexual seems to get the message across. For the like three people I got the guts to tell cause I thought they’d be helpful.

There’s not much queer people can do in this town anyway, i’ve known that a while. Tread lightly and go to music festivals- that way if your parents ask, they’ll never know the artist you went to see was the queer one, that’s the bet advice i’ve gotten so far.

Oh also- as I scrolled to find my old ask, I did read some of the others asks you’ve answered. Forgive me if i’m wrong but this Purple Anon, did she tell her friend about your blog- and then her friend ALSO wrote you a separate anon ask 😭 Omg did you get the gossip? You’ve totally adopted all the marauders fans now. 

And is the Purple Anon girl dating her flower girl yet? Cause she clearly should be. Honestly, her parents sound so much like mine. I don’t really like mine though. 

But i’ve gotten sidetracked. My point was, thank you ❤️ I’d have gotten there eventually, but that’s a pretty long eventually to be honest. You were so nice answering me and it really helped me figure stuff out and get this far. 

You are now forever a part of my coming out story- and while typing that now still feels weird, i hope one day it will be a funny story that makes me smile, and it’ll feel normal, and right. 

Hi!!! <3

Wow, that HAS been a long month! Thats a huge thing you figured out, and I'm so proud of you for being brave enough to like...admit that to yourself.

Your friends (both the one you like and the other) sound amazing, and I'm glad you have a bit of a support system to help you figure this all out. I hope things work out with the friend you like! I sending positive vibes!

As for purple anon, as of last I knew, she and daisy went on a "not-date." and yes, I did get a LOT of information from her friend, A, who also wants daisy and purple to end up together. But we'll see! No updates in the last few days!

Keep me updated on your life too! Remember, it's okay to take time to figure out yourself!

I'm naming you realization anon :P

[rice-enjoyer]

Like a puppet controlled by strings ; let's see what your future brings.

a/n: tartaglia hours! emotional about my 2nd favorite war criminal on this cold evening. i wanted him since i've started playing genshin, losing the 50/50 both times on his 2 banners i could wish on. the MOST self-indulgent thing i've written is this. ~0.9k words. one dash ( - ) is time skip. the fic itself is inspired by a song i was listening to, it's mostly sfw.: HMLTD - Satan, Luella & I cw: gn reader, angst to comfort/fluff. extreme jealousy, stalking and depression are mentioned. childe's also incredibly insane, and with that insanity comes how crazy he is for reader, oopsies. some diluc slander lol, actually somewhat proofread wow, sagau/creator reader, not my villain version, just a general soft one. for the most part, he and some others only hear your voice. towards the end, you get reborn in Teyvat, the usual, and it turns into fluff there.

--

He has wondered many times, in every waking moment where he wasn't doing a mission. Every second, minute, day, month, year. Do they feel that same constant whisper of "wantedness" in a similar intensity? It seems that they don't. It's a steep hill, don't let it get to your head, you'll fall down - some would say to him. Being controlled unwillingly is so very awful, nothing could compare. Embracing it, however, makes it a somewhat tolerable experience, even pleasant at times. He did not care for these cautionary tales from his acquaintances. Tartaglia wanted to be possessed by you, even if he could achieve it through unethical means, he'd do anything, even murder came to mind, many many times.

What a cruel play life has made him the helpless puppet of. The first time it happened, he was not too bothered, a little kid with the name Qiqi taking his place seemed to be no big deal, especially how happy you were to get a "healer", whatever that meant. Hearing the creator's laugh through an invisible barrier was all the acolytes wanted, how far they'd go to achieve it was wildly different, depending on where they stood morality-wise. The second time was harsh on him, though. Just seething with hate and envy when Diluc showed up instead of him. How much it amplified when you were so unsatisfied with him. The disappointment in your voice when the Darknight Hero showed up instead of him. How you only started controlling him many months later, made him enraged. Not believing that this feeling could be taken to heights more towering than the peak of Dragonspine, you did voice it to another friendly sacred voice, probably a friend of yours, he'd think, explaining how much you like him. Not the others. Him. How he's your favorite and it saddens you greatly how you can't have him just yet.

He compared this experience to being stuck in the abyss at a young age. Although the battles he had to fight for you were not physical, that's why he couldn't get out of them. This prison of his own making made him so very dull to everything, compared to before hearing your voice. A curse and a blessing at the same time. Light would shine in his eyes when he'd hear you talk about anything relating to him. Or when you'd fight him. He didn't care how you always won. How you used him for "testing", how team after team, he'd fall to his knees quicker and quicker. You unknowingly bewitched him. Your power hidden underneath layers and layers of kindness and tenderness, you managed to become his new, idolized, and majestic monarch to pray to. But the days when you had other matters to attend to, other people to take care of, he was so unbearably lonely. Being stuck in a mindset that would surely hurt him in the long run.

Diluc took the insignias that were for him, it would fill Tartaglia's cold heart with some twisted form of joy when the Darknight Hero seemed so horribly flawed against him, for some reason. You reviving Diluc meant more opportunities to prove himself to you, all the better. Xingqiu jacked the artifacts, that were not his. He was doing all those "big numbers" you were chasing after. He was quite alright with those 4 swords piercing his skin multiple times, since he was supposed to make others feel that pain, therefore it was technically for him, soon to be from him. Mona stole all of the mora and the cleansing hearts that came along with saving for him. Her strength was his, no doubt about it. He will take back all that he was robbed of. Both Amos' bow and the Rust are being used by not their rightful owners, but by that dammed fox Tighnari, and the ridiculous tengu woman, Kujou Sara hoarding what is rightfully his, like greedy beasts he'd want to slain. But he couldn't, since they had his weapon, he was just staring into space, he can't do anything but endure, and he will. Anything for you.

-

But after meeting you in person, being one of the last ones, the gods trying to shield you away from the hostile and immoral Fatui, you two made eye contact in Liyue. You were everything he envisioned and more. He could only follow you around in secret and from afar to a certain degree without being discovered. Never being able to get a good look at you, he was shaking with excitement when he first properly saw you. The sheer warmth of your smile and the inviting wave of your hand made him almost collapse on the spot. All that suffering before this moment was worth it. What irony, that it was Zhongli accompanying you, he was about to get defensive when seeing Tartaglia coming towards you at a steady pace. Dismissing the geo archon's wary remarks, you hold out your hands for the harbinger to hold. "It's lovely to finally meet you, Ajax." Your hands are arguably the softest thing he has ever touched, he looks up to the sky to not start crying. Holding eye contact would be too much right now, he must not show any sign of weakness, now that you two have officially met. "I don't think I can let you go" - his voice cracks, but you seemed to have overlooked it. Probably out of mercy, he assumes. - "metaphorically, of course, uhm. I apologize - " You let go of his hands to embrace him into a hug. "Neither can I, my precious knight."

[cowboyjen68]

I think I'm mostly just venting about this but I also feel like you have some amazing sage wisdom just like you do for everyone.

My best friend of 10 years (highschool onward) and the last friend I have who is cis just dropped me out of nowhere. He claimed it was because I moved and we were "already growing apart" but I can't help but think it was my queerness.

I recently came out to friends and family as a lesbian (about 3 years ago) and came out to friends only as not cis around the same time. It was after this that he stopped talking to me as much and just generally treated me weird.

I've since moved away and we stayed friends until he dropped me out of the blue. I have no more long-term friends now. Nobody from my hometown talks to me after that as all of our mutual acquaintances dropped me too after he did.

I'm sure it's for the best in the end but I feel so lost not having a best friend, a person who knows who I am, around. Especially with how scared I feel to be in queer spaces with rising tensions, I guess I'm just feeling lost.

I am going to come at this from my experience. High school is such a time of growth and change, friendships from that time in our life can be hard to hold on to, especially with a connection as strong as you feel when you are growing up and experiencing things together in similar circumstances. 

Maintaining a friendship between young men and women can be incredibly different as they start to reach maturity since they receive different socialization and information from both the outside world and from the inside changes their bodies are experiencing as puberty does its job.  

It is possibly just a matter of you growing apart as humans and not necessarily due to some judgment of your sexuality on his part. He perhaps just feels less of an ability to connect with you as time has gone on and even because, as a straight man, he just doesn’t have as much in common with you. When we are younger those differences are less important but as we age and have more access to a wider variety of people those differences can be more pronounced. 

I have kept in FB contact with many high school friends and my best friend and I communicate once in a while but in all reality, we rarely see each other, our lives are very different and we don’t share the connection we once had. I will always call her “my best friend” because she was my first best friend and we shared so many life changing moments together. She will always be special to me. When I came out she accepted me and was not surprised because she knew me better than anyone. The fact is, time has made us less close. And that is okay. We had a wonderful childhood together and spent many years making memories. We haven't lost any of those even as our connection faded and we went in separate directions. 

Even IF your friend (friends) have walked away from you because you are a lesbian, maybe because they feel uncomfortable with you know, or maybe because they don’t know how to relate to you or just because life is moving on the end result is the same. 

You might never know and, frankly, it does not matter. It is pretty common for us to find new friends in each stage of life. HIgh school, college, career, middle age, marriage, retirement, or whatever place we are at. Sometimes we hang on to a few over a lifetime but even those friendships can ebb and flow with time. 

You will find new friends who share more in common with you. You will discover others who are a better fit in your life as you are right now. Let those old friendships organically fade and put your energy into finding new people who are worthy of your time and energy. Right now the change is scary and feeling alone is a terrifying feeling. Look for those who share your values and ideas. It is better to be on your own for a while than compromise who you are. 

I often suggest that we seek other lesbians to befriend because they share so much of the same experiences and foundations we have in our lives. Remember, not all lesbians are a good fit. Being a lesbian does not preclude people from being jerks or from being vastly different from you. Don’t discount a friend because she does not share your sexuality. Judge others on how you enjoy their friendship and how they enjoy yours. But seeking lesbian/bi women circles can be a good focus. When you know  2 lesbians they each know 2 more and on and on. You don’t need to go to larger mixed spaces like bars and pride events to meet each other. Look for local zines published by lesbians, FB spaces, meetup app or dating apps with “friendship” options can be a help. Try your library and see if they have lesbian book clubs and if not, start one. Be creative and keep searching.

[wondrousmay]

Hello~ Up for a new scenario? ^^

Suppose the acquaintance in the previous ask becomes an incredibly precious person to you—someone who loves you, respects you, and won't judge you for your differences. Suppose they ask you to recommend anime that *you* personally are very much in love with no matter what other people think or say about the show. What title(s) would you give? (i.e., what is/are anime you love that may not be everyone's favorite but it's yours and is/are anime you'd only ever recommend to someone you trust to the highest degree because you know they'd enjoy it, too?)

(Note: this is entirely for funsies so please feel free to opt out or to take your time! ☺)

Thank you for this thoughtful question! I managed to narrow down 5 shows that shaped my overall anime experience!

Violet Evergarden: I talked about this before but Violet Evergarden was the show that got me back into watching anime. The structure of the show feels episodic but the overall narrative focuses on Violet and her character journey to discover the meaning of “love” as well as to rediscover herself. It’s a wonderful character-driven story with many tearjerker scenes! While movie (which is the final installment in the series) is controversial, I do think Violet’s journey is still worth it.

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu: a wonderful character-driven story focusing on the Japanese art of rakugo. This show has a really well-written and complex cast of characters. It's a sign of wonderful writing when the story made me fall in love with a character slowly as the show progresses. At the beginning, I felt indifferent to Yakumo but by the end of the series, he's now one of my top favourite characters. His character is complex, with layers of contradictions which fascinates me. The rest of the cast were fantastic too. Yakumo, Sukeroku, Miyokichi's stories are deeply entwined with Yotaro and Konatsu's and this generational connection is one of my favourite aspects of the story.

The Twelve Kingdoms: A stand out isekai story that puts a lot of the current isekai to shame! I wrote a review here so check it out for my full thoughts!

Revolutionary Girl Utena: I was reluctant to watch this show because of its reputation as a show full of metaphors and subtext. I’m glad that I gave it a chance because this show is a life-changing experience. It’s the type of show where you will discover something new every time you rewatch it. However, I think this show is not for everyone especially with how it deals with many sensitive topics.

BanG Dream!: This show is really special to me because it led to many wonderful encounters and experiences! The story is a really simple one: it’s about a high school girl starting a band with her friends. The heartfelt character writing captured my heart. I will always recommend this show for people who enjoy a good slice of life/music story!!!

[ashmp3]

Seeing all of your moots and you have such loving online friendships (irl too possibly) makes me wish I had that kind of connection too.

I’ve always been so lonely. Like having friends is all I ever wanted and wished for, even more than romantic relationships… but it just never happens to me. Kinda feel I’m cursed or something. NO MATTER WHAT I DO IM ALWAYS LEFT BEHIND. Even when I try to get to know people I struggle to learn new things just to have something interesting to offer, but I just end up being more awkward and annoying.

im starting to give up now. it pains me that i'll never have someone to call a bestfriend or have fun things to do, and share life with.

so when i see friendships where people actually appreciate and see you for who are and just love you.

i sound so pathetic and sad i know and im not typing all of this out of bitterness, but just feeling sl sad and lonely. anyways y'all are cute and all im trying to say is… i wish i had what y'all have

oh anon where to start where to start….

I really relate to you believe it or not i do. Just in general i am very friendly and extroverted but don’t let people in easily and i’m a very difficult person - resulting in having just few friends and lots of acquaintances. I feel like people on here see me through rose colored glasses sometimes even though i talk about myself quite a lot in a negative but realistic manner.

My heart goes to you because i can feel that your situation is weighing on you - i hope your feeling of hopelessness and loneliness ends soon. Trying hard and feeling like you are not getting the same energy in return is awful and i really applaud you for trying. I really wish that you meet someone that recognizes you for you and you realize that you are worthy of love and appreciation and respect.

i’ve been through few friendship “breakups�� (best friends!) but i am the type of the person that doesn’t dwell on past and i just see them as a part of my life that taught me some valuable lessons and i am grateful for the friendship while it lasted - now i am open for new experiences. I think you should try and think like this too… We change, people change, circumstances change it’s normal part of life.

I don’t know your situation but they say that friendships are made through proximity and frequency - that’s why we are friends with people we go to school or work. So implementing that into adult life would be going to the same cafe, maybe a dance class or some kind of sport, club etc. Making friends as an adult is daunting unless you are meeting your friend’s friends at least for me. But yeah. You don’t sound pathetic you and so sooo so many people are in the same situation (i know that misery loves company is not the best way to deal with this but it is true and feels less isolating when you see it that way).

even online - in my experience all of my friends i made by being very open and honest and talkative… Commenting on their posts, sending asks or messages that’s all small things that will make someone remember you and in no time the same energy is returned. But thank you for saying these sweet words for them i really really appreciate people on here and seeing the energy returned makes me so incredibly happy.

lastly, I really hope you find a friend that appreciates you and doesn’t make you feel like you are left out or trying to be someone you are not just to please them. And then i hope you send me an ask in the future saying “i made a friend!!!”

[publius-library]

What was Burr's and Hamilton's relationship like through the war to politics and then the duel?

The truth is, they didn’t really have much of one. They were likely aware of one another before the war, as they were within the same social circles, so I don’t doubt that they would have knew of one another, or even met some time in 74 or 75.

During the war, they didn’t have many opportunities to meet. I’m a bit rusty on Burr’s timeline, but I do know that he volunteered in Washington’s staff (whether or not that overlapped with Hamilton’s time there, I’m not sure), and participated at the Battle of Monmouth. I can’t remember whether or not he was stationed at Valley Forge. Either way, they weren’t very relevant to one another at the time, and had few opportunities to meet.

After the war, they had much more interaction, as they were both in the upper class of New York, and were both lawyers. They worked on a few case’s together, including the famous murder trial where one of them (probably Burr) gestured at the defendant with candles because it was so dark in the court, claiming he was the murderer. Burr’s household hosted frequent parties, and I don’t doubt that Hamilton attended them. They weren’t close, or even necessarily friends, but they didn’t really dislike each other either, though there was some passive aggression.

During the Washington and Adams Administrations, Burr gained a reputation for being willing to do anything to gain votes, and Hamilton had his infamous financial plan. This is when their views really started to diverge. During the Election of 1800, Burr did cater to the Federalists, but Hamilton didn’t want him to take office. Now, the exact reasons why Hamilton didn’t want Burr to be president vary, but the one that is clear is because he saw Burr as entirely lacking sound morals. He spread a lot of rumors about him, but what made Burr lose the election was Hamilton convincing a Federalist elector to vote for Jefferson, which broke the stalemate. Unlike the musical says (or what Chernow attempts to imply), Hamilton and Burr were never in the same political party, and they were never friends.

The duel happened because Burr heard that Hamilton was the root of a particularly nasty rumor at the time, and Hamilton wouldn’t confirm or deny the allegation. It wasn’t because of the election, since I highly doubt Burr really cared that much. It’s clear from his filibustering expedition that his goal wasn’t to be in power to be a dictator, but because he wanted to have the money and power without having to actually do anything. Hamilton’s animosity for Burr was clearly at it’s peak, and Burr was incredibly frustrated with him because he was being an annoying bitch. And also slandering him I guess.

Both of them had experience with duels (Hamilton didn’t really participate in as many as Burr), so it wasn’t a wild idea for them to settle it through that route. The duel story is a whole other thing and there’s a lot of sides to it, but the general conclusion is that Hamilton and Burr were never more than acquaintances before they were rivals. Thanks for the ask!!

[old-inamys]

Muse

AO3

Rating: G

Pairing: Ezioleo

Wordcount: 4300

Summary: Golden light poured through the high windows, gilding the scene in front of him. Ezio was painted in sunlight. (Or, Leonardo gets to paint his muse)

This is my first time sharing any writing (with anyone other than a close friend and my English teacher), so its pretty nerve-wracking to post this. Also thought it would be good to create a new account for writing stuff cause too many people I know in real life follow my main account for me to be comfortable sharing this. It's incredibly self indulgent, and I spent way too long researching renaissance art, but I had a lot of fun working on it and I hope you enjoy reading it! Please be kind <3

Florence, 1500

It was fascinating, the way light changed someone’s face. The way bright daylight could bring their features into sharp relief, and cast shadows so deep they were almost black. The way a flickering candle could make anyone appear softer, or darken their surroundings until they were a skull poking out of the gloom. Leonardo had always marvelled at this — how light brought otherwise dull surfaces and colours to life. It could create the most wonderful illusions.

As an apprentice he had been almost obsessed with the idea, painting things again and again and again, until he could truly capture the atmosphere. His master had watched him with amusement. Verrocchio had been primarily a sculptor, but he was skilled in the use of brushes and had much to teach Leonardo about colour and form. He’d seen Leonardo’s need to understand and his desperation to learn. So he had encouraged him with fondness and pride disguised in his chastising words.

Looking over his easel at the scene in front of him, his master’s words came rushing back. Beams of light danced through the air from the high windows of his studio. Leonardo had chosen this workshop especially for the windows, and it was days like today that he was reminded why. It bathed the room in soft gold and painted Ezio in sunlight. Gilded, beautiful. It caught in his hair, which glinted with chestnut. Silhouetted in a golden halo, he looked almost divine. More than that, he looked peaceful, happy. 

Ezio had kept his promise. It had taken many more years than either of them could have anticipated — a promise made between boys who had no idea what the future would hold — but Ezio had finally found his peace, and so now he sat to be painted.

The time had aged him — a trimmed beard now covered his cheeks and scars adorned his body like war trophies, but the shine in his eyes was brighter than Leonardo ever remembered it. He’d been hardened by the life he lived, forced to no longer be the boy Leonardo had met in his Florentine workshop all those years ago, but in recent weeks he’d been calmer, an air of hopefulness following him wherever he went. He was finally allowing himself to look towards a future not marred by blood. 

Leonardo thought of their younger selves fondly. Ezio had been but a boy, mind filled with youthful distractions, and Leonardo had been a young artist desperate to make his mark on the world. The ghost of the day they’d met, the people they’d been would always be streaked through their conversations, but he was proud of how far they had both grown. They had been happier in their innocence, but he wouldn’t trade what they had become for their youth. It was for entirely selfish reasons — if he went back to those days he and Ezio would be no more than friendly acquaintances, an artist and his patron.

Ah, his mind had gotten lost in thought again. It was too easy, when Ezio indulged him like this, to get caught in nostalgia. There was no threat, nowhere they needed to be (his commissions could wait), just the two of them and his canvas. It allowed his thoughts to run away from him. 

He turned back to Ezio, and began sketching his features onto the blank canvas. 

Painting a portrait was both an intimate experience and a detached one. The focus required to perfect the sitter’s features was intense — he studied every detail until the shapes and colours were ingrained into his mind — yet the intimacy of that focus was lost in the analytical nature of it. This was true for most of his commissioned works — the face was a puzzle of shapes to be solved. There was a soul of course, hidden behind the contours and the eyes, but they were still all simple shapes that had to be understood. 

Painting Ezio was an entirely different experience.

Things that usually wouldn’t have dazed him were nearly overwhelming. Leonardo could feel his cheeks flush as he studied Ezio’s lips, his heavy brows and his piercing eyes. Leonardo was pinned under his gaze. It was as if Ezio was seeing everything he was, all the layers of him, and looking past them to his beating heart.

Ezio had promised him one painting, but as the sessions of modelling had drawn on, he had indulged Leonardo’s need to capture him on the canvas. Soon drawings of him filled Leonardo’s notebooks, and his eyes stared out from all the unfinished paintings scattered around the workshop. He was the soul of every one of Leonardo’s sketches. Ezio in his assassin robes, eyes obscured in shadow and danger written into every angle of his body. Ezio’s smile, his lips curved into an easy grin. Studies of Ezio’s body, holding pose after pose for Leonardo to draw his muscle forms. Of course, he’d studied anatomy for decades — under Verrocchio and then by dissection, until he could recall muscle movements and bone placements without a second thought — but there was always more to learn, and it did make a difference working from a living model. He could allow himself one more indulgence, and Ezio seemed happy to help him study.

And so the shapes of Ezio had engraved themselves behind Leonardo’s eyes. 

Gentle curving lines making way to harsh angles, soft shadows hiding deadly strength. Leonardo knew Ezio could have a blade to his heart before he’d even noticed a movement, but the curve of his thighs, the deceptive softness of his muscular torso...

During some of their painting sessions Leonardo had even considered taking up sculpting again, just to see if perhaps then he could do Ezio justice.

His muse. 

Leonardo allowed himself a quick glance up at Ezio, and then turned back to his drawing.

Ink coated his fingers from the preparatory sketch, and he hastily wiped them on a piece of cloth before reaching for his brushes. Silverpoint would have been a more refined approach for the drawing, and he certainly would have used it if he was considering finishing the painting, but the speed and freedom of ink was perfect for his current desire to work quickly. Commissioned artworks required a certain level of formality, a standard of grace and posture that had to be adhered to, but in his private work he didn’t have to conform to it. It was freeing to work quickly and messily, capturing motion and soul, and a well enjoyed break from the sometimes stifling requirements of his patrons’ commissions. 

Carefully, Leonardo gathered some paint on his brush, and brought it to the canvas. Thankfully his apprentices had mixed the paints this morning, although he had had to send Alessandro to purchase some more pigments. He’d used the rest of the yellow ochre yesterday afternoon, and he needed it to get the colours of this portrait right. With a careful brushstroke, he began. 

He flicked his gaze back to Ezio. 

He truly was beautiful. Leonardo didn’t think he could ever admit this thought to his friend, but it danced around in his mind as he looked at him. The light glinted in Ezio’s brown eyes like warm honey.

He sat on a chair in the middle of the room. This afternoon he’d forgone his doublet and assassin’s robes, instead wearing a simple linen shirt. Over the years Leonardo had grown so accustomed to his friend appearing as a striking white shadow that it was jarring seeing Ezio wear anything different. He had sometimes wondered if he slept in his robes. To see him now, dressed so casually and obviously relaxed in the warmth of the workshop brought a lump to his throat.

Leonardo turned back to the painting, cheeks warm under Ezio’s piercing gaze.

“You’re very quiet,” he mused at Leonardo

“Am I? When I paint my mind wanders and I tend to forget everything else around me.” No need to tell him where his mind had wandered, he would gladly let Ezio make his own assumptions.

Ezio chuckled. “Whenever I gave you those codex pages you were completely lost to me, so hearing that is no surprise.”

He paused for a moment, in comfortable silence, then asked, “How is life treating you, now that you’ve returned to Florence?”

Leonardo considered his question for a moment. His move back to Florence had been easier than he’d anticipated, but it had been time for a change and he hadn’t really settled in Venice for the brief period he’d returned there that year. Fleeing from conflict in Milan tended to dampen the excitement of arriving in a new city.

“Work is finding me here, which is wonderful, but I’d really hoped for some time to work on my inventions,” he said. Ezio watched him, a smile dancing in his eyes. “The flying machine for example: you flew Ezio, but what if the machine could be adapted to sustain flight without a path of braziers supporting it?”

The possibilities were endless. If he understood how to do that, then he could adapt the machine to sustain longer distances, to fly higher, to transport goods...

He became aware he’d trailed off into thought, and grinned apologetically. “I have been commissioned to paint an artwork for the alterpiece of the Church of Santissima Annunziata. I cannot tell how long it will take, but I hope to be able to do my own work alongside it.”

Ezio nodded. “I’m sure it will be beautiful.” He smiled as he talked, that charming grin that made Leonardo’s knees weak. “What’s taken your interest at the moment, my friend?”

Painting you, Leonardo thought, but he knew he couldn’t say that.

His interests came and went like the tide, always shifting as they had ever since he was a young man. It was one of the joys of being an artist, how his mind flitted from one idea to the next, but also one of the struggles. It often seemed his head was simply too full of ideas, and his inability to work on them all was a constant source of frustration. 

And Ezio… ever since Leonardo had met Ezio something about him had tugged at his mind. In the years that followed, the need to paint Ezio — to sketch him, to somehow capture his soul and put it into an artwork — had grown into an obsession. It itched at his mind like all his other curiosities about the world — about flight, about water — never quite leaving. It haunted him. Now that Leonardo had started painting him, he didn’t think he’d be able to stop. 

“Water,” he answered instead, thinking back to one of his long term fascinations. ‘I’ve recently taken some studies of its movement, and I was wondering about how we could harness its power. I have nothing planned right now of course, I am too busy with my commissioned work, but it’s an idea that has fascinated me for a long time.’

As he spoke he could feel the enthusiasm rising in him, and he gestured wildly. 

“There are so many ideas out there Ezio, just waiting to be thought of, and so many things nature has created that we have yet to understand!” He felt a sudden desire to make Ezio know how deep this interest ran, that these ideas were what he lived and breathed for. “Just think, we have only scratched the surface of possibilities in all the centuries mankind has lived, and before I die I want to— no— I need to understand as many as I can.”

Ezio’s gaze was unbearably fond as he watched Leonardo speak. 

“Ah, I’m rambling again, forgive me.” Leonardo felt a brief pang of guilt, but shoved it away. He often got so caught up in his ideas that it was easy to forget that not everyone thought the same way he did, but Ezio had long since learned and, although he occasionally teased Leonardo about it, he was patient with him.

"Years ago I would have believed your words to be an idealistic dream," he said, chuckling as he spoke, (years ago he had thought that, and told Leonardo as much) “and then you went and showed me that a person could fly. I’ve seen enough of your work to believe that if you think of it you can make it possible.”

The sincerity in Ezio’s voice left a pang in his chest. He always knew the right things to say, and he charmed Leonardo without even realising it.

“Your words mean much to me, especially coming from you.” Leonardo smiled at him widely, “Perhaps, once I have decided what to build, you could test the machine for me!”

Ezio’s eyes widened and he choked on a protest. “Your last machine nearly killed me!” he said indignantly, but humour danced in his eyes, and Leonardo knew that his annoyance was mostly for show.

“You were the madman who volunteered to trial it!” he said, and he couldn’t help but laugh at his friend’s spluttered protest. “Besides, you’re still here to talk about it.”

Ezio flinched in mock hurt and then rolled his eyes. 

Somewhere in their years of friendship they’d eased into a deep sense of comfort with each other. It had been rocky at first, both misunderstanding the other’s intentions and way of thinking and clashing over it, but suddenly it had clicked into place and they’d understood each other. Leonardo couldn’t pinpoint when exactly Ezio had become his closest friend — perhaps that night when he’d first come to him injured, alone and lost — but there was no denying now that they understood each other better than anyone else. 

They lapsed into comfortable silence, and Leonardo looked back down at his canvas. Now that he’d begun to fill in the colour, he could see that Ezio’s face wasn’t quite right. The curve of his nose was at a slightly different angle to where it should be, and even though it mightn’t be noticeable to anyone else he was painfully aware of its wrongness. 

He must have made a face, because Ezio let out a stifled snort of laughter. 

“The painting isn’t working?”

“No,” Leonardo replied, disgruntled, “the angle here is wrong and it’s throwing the proportions out of place.” It wasn’t perfect, and he couldn’t be content with that. For Ezio it needed to be.

“Could you tilt your head?” he said, “To the side— just a little further—” Ezio moved to the left and Leonardo sighed again. He was facing downwards too much. “Oh just let me show you.” 

Ezio turned towards him amused, giving up entirely.

Leonardo laid his paintbrush down then stepped around his canvas towards Ezio. He brought his hands up to Ezio’s jaw and tilted his face slightly to the left. 

There, that was the right angle. 

Ezio had fallen silent, the easy grin disappearing from his face. It was replaced by an unreadable expression. 

“Leonardo?" he asked, voice soft.

Despite his proximity to the man, Leonardo was still startled at being addressed. He’d been so focused on the technical part of the portrait he had almost forgotten who he was painting. 

And that was when the closeness hit him. This wasn’t another patron, this was Ezio.

They were no strangers to closeness. It was what came with years of friendship, of helping with injuries, of keeping deadly secrets for the other, but this time Ezio's presence was almost overwhelming. He was close enough that, if he wanted to, Leonardo could count his eyelashes or kiss the scar that cut through his lip. He pushed that thought away hastily.

“Yes?”

“Forgive me,” Ezio said, and his voice was low, hesitant, barely more than a murmur. The hairs on the back of Leonardo’s neck stood up. “Can— can I kiss you?’

The tentativeness with which he spoke caught Leonardo off guard, and or a moment he was overcome with concern for his friend, before the words sunk in.

Oh.

A dull roaring began to rise in his ears and his mind felt sluggishly slow. That couldn’t be— surely not— did he hear right?

Before he could convince himself not to, before he could think of all the ways this could go wrong, he nodded. 

Ezio’s eyes widened, and then he was reaching up to grip Leonardo’s cheeks and pulling him forward. Lips crashed into his own, soft and pliant and desperate, and Ezio’s fingers tangled through his beard, traced over his cheeks, curled around the back of his neck. Leonardo was dimly aware of his own hands clutching at Ezio’s hair. He wound his fingers through it as Ezio tilted his face up, and he felt himself sigh into Ezio’s mouth.

Leonardo could feel the scar on Ezio’s lips under his own, taste the floral scent of wine on his breath, smell that heavy musky scent that was so distinctly him, no longer tainted with the tang of blood. His beard was rough against Leonardo’s skin, and their noses squished into each other’s cheeks, every sensation deliciously, devastatingly real.

Leonardo knew Ezio loved with fierceness — he’d heard enough about Ezio’s various ‘conquests’ to last him till the end of his days — but this,this was something else entirely.

His heart pounded in his chest, his cheeks flamed, his knees wobbled underneath him and he vaguely wondered how he was staying upright, before Ezio’s hands snaked down from his jaw to his waist and hauled his body forward. Despite the intensity, every one of Ezio’s movements was surprisingly gentle, with practiced care and grace. 

Leonardo stumbled forwards, but Ezio’s firm hands caught him. Mouth never leaving his, he pulled Leonardo down onto the chair with him, positioning him in his lap. 

Have mercy.

Ezio murmured Leonardo’s name against his lips, his tongue wrapping around the letters as if he was savouring the very taste of them. A prayer, a promise.

Leonardo had kissed people before but they had been chaste kisses, hurried and hidden. The denunciations after his brief romance with Jacopo Saltarelli in his youth had only made him more careful, too careful — he’d worked too hard for his career and reputation to risk it for anything, no matter what his heart yearned for.

Wrapped in Ezio’s arms however, his reasoning seemed to make increasingly less sense. 

There was a rush, a need, that could be felt in the urgency of Ezio’s lips, but beneath it all was tenderness. Nothing could compare to this. Nothing would ever compare to this. He didn’t think he’d ever be able to kiss anyone else again.

Lord forgive him. 

Ezio kissed him with the intensity of a drowning man gasping for air, of someone stranded in the desert getting their first sip of water.

And Leonardo kissed him back, as if it could convey more than two decades of emotions, could show Ezio all the love he’d put into every brushstroke of him. 

He felt a gasp escape his lips and he ducked his head away, letting it fall against Ezio’s chest.

His cheeks burned and his whole body thrummed with the racing beat of his heart. Through the linen of his shirt, Ezio’s pounded in unison.

‘My dear Ezio, my dearest Ezio.’

The waves of emotions threatened to consume him. He had spent years watching him from a distance, adoring his company but resigned to the fact that what he wanted could never be. 

And now here he was, sitting is his arms with his mouth bruised from Ezio’s own desperate lips. The taste of him was still on his tongue. It was all too much. 

He stayed there breathing, head bowed against Ezio’s chest and fought for control over his stuttering heart. When Ezio spoke his voice was distant, as if Leonardo was hearing it from the end of a long tunnel. 

“How long?”

“Mm?”

Leonardo pulled away to look at him and the sight of Ezio made his body tingle with warmth. His face was flushed, hair dishevelled with long stands pulled out of their tie and hanging over his face. Parted lips pink and wet. His usually sharp eyes were wide, and peculiarly, he looked nervous.

Ezio, who could charm anyone — even the formidable Caterina Sforza — was nervous of him.

“How long have you felt this?” Ezio looked as dazed as he felt.

“Since—” his voice trailed off, uncertainly. Then again, he’d gone this far, surely there wasn’t anything to fear from telling the truth? He coughed weakly and began again, “Since Florence.”

“That long?” Something crumpled in Ezio’s expression and Leonardo’s heart twisted. “Oh Leo— I’m so sorry for not noticing sooner.”

“You had other things on your mind,” revenge, justice, Cristina, “and anyway, I never expected— I never dared to hope—”

The vulnerability in Ezio’s expression was disarming. “During our time in Venice,” he murmured, answering his own question, “We had just arrived in the city, and a man gave us a tour— you remember?”

Leonardo nodded, the memory as clear in his mind as if it were mere weeks ago instead of years. A fond one, of a time when, although their lives had been fraught with danger, things had been simpler. In between everything that happened those years spent in the city, they’d found moments of peace, of laughter. Venice was where Ezio’s smiles had begun to reach his eyes again. 

“One shop was selling little wooden mannequins,” Ezio continued, “lay figures, and the smile on your face when you saw them… I’d considered you a close friend for a long while before, but I remember in that moment I desperately wanted to give you anything you could ever want.”

If possible Leonardo felt his heart swell even more. He had aged in the time he’d known Ezio, but the man’s words made Leonardo feel like a young man again. He was almost giddy with it.

He hadn’t dared acknowledge this emotion for what it was, in all its fragility, but now, how could it be anything else? Adoration settled deep in his chest, burrowing through his veins to his very heart. Ezio was the warmth and familiarity of coming home to sit in-front of the fire. 

Leonardo’s eyes sought Ezio’s again. The brittleness still hadn’t quite left Ezio’s expression. All those years had built a facade of invulnerability, and to see the mask shattered… it reminded Leonardo of the first time Ezio had come to him injured after a mission, young and afraid and alone. 

Ezio took a shuddering breath, steadying himself to speak, and Leonardo’s heart plummeted. 

“The things I’ve done— I don’t deserve to be loved by someone like you Leo,” he said quietly, “and yet I can’t stop myself from selfishly wanting it.”

The things he’d seen and had to do had broken him, that much was clear for Leonardo to see, and although he was beginning to mend the cracks, deep fissures remained. They would leave scars on him — not all visible but every one just as deep.

But scars could fade. 

The bloodshed and loss of his past would forever be a part of him, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t grow past them. He didn’t have to be condemned by all he had lost.

“Everyone has things they’ve done that they wish they could take back,” Leonardo murmured, taking Ezio’s face in his hands. Ezio’s gaze was piercing, his eyes broken and desperate and hopeful. “You may not tell me everything Ezio, but in all the years I’ve known you, nothing you’ve done would make me think of you as anything less than a good man.”

Gently pulling Ezio forward, he pressed their foreheads together. 

“I love you regardless of the life you lead, regardless of the things you’ve done, regardless of how you see yourself.”

Ezio’s pulled away sharply to stare at him. For a horrible moment Leonardo thought he’d overstepped — a kiss could mean a lot less that what he’d assumed — but then Ezio’s lips twisted into an incredulous smile.

“I love you Ezio, I love you, I love you.”

The words wouldn’t stop flooding out, bubbling out of him uncontrollably, and he couldn’t stop saying them if he tried. Though from Ezio’s reaction, he didn’t know if he wanted to.

Ezio looked slightly dazed, like he couldn’t believe what had happened, as if he didn’t dare believe it was real. 

He was a man who fell in love often, with intensity and fire. Leonardo had watched him go from lover to lover with gut wrenching fondness. Cristina, to Rosa, to Catarina, giving his heart so entirely to each of them and yet he expected so little in return. And now he was giving his love to Leonardo. He didn’t understand why, what he had done to earn such devotion, but he knew that he would try his hardest to to be worthy of it. 

The arms around his waist moved up to curve around his back. Silently, Ezio buried his face in the crook of his neck. Hands clung to the back of his doublet, fisting in the coarse material as if it’d pull him closer. Leonardo wrapped his own arms around Ezio’s shoulders. He let out a sigh at the contact. 

“Ezio?”

His reply was soft, muffled. “Please don’t move, let us stay like this a little longer.”

Leonardo hummed, and in his arms he could feel Ezio’s body relax, reassured. This wasn’t the moment for words, they had time for that later. There was no need to rush any of this. 

The day’s sunlight had begun to fade, but Leonardo thought the world had never looked brighter. 

If the past few years had shown him anything, it was that nothing was certain. Nothing was promised, and opportunities moved as unpredictability as sparrows on a windy summer’s day. Maybe it was naive, overwhelmingly hopeful thinking — encouraged by the warmth of Ezio’s embrace — but more than anything else, this felt like it would last.

Ezio felt like coming home.

[qhedi-blog]

One thing about being an immigrant from a 3rd world country is the experience of disconnect there is between your daily problems and that of your acquaintances in your residence country (especially if it's a Western/ """"developed"""" one).

There are days that I have to go to work after having spent the entire night doomscrolling and witnessing from afar a catastrophic, life-changing, generation defining event. And it is expected (not legally, but socially very much so) that I don't bring these up because it would be a buzzkill for the Europeans. As an example, there have been way too many times that I went to work sleepless because I watched the news all night because some (insert political catastrophe, natural disaster, fucking war here) happened only to endure my colleagues whining all day about a less than comfortable dentist appointment or a rotten apple (this is not a joke or exaggeration btw, a colleague literally whined for A WEEK that her apple was rotten). Meanwhile I'm looking at them all 1000-mile-stared thinking "Yesterday we had an election the results of which probably doomed the next 3 generations" or "My country just had an earthquake that reportedly killed 50,000+ people but it's probably much much more because my country is not necessarily known for its honesty or transparency when it comes to this things." And it's not for lack of trying that I can't connect with these people or their problems, I tried, all the time. As a response they look at me all sheepish and quickly change the subject because it made them uncomfortable.

Some examples from JUST THIS WEEK:

An old friend of mine back home got arrested in the middle of the night for the horrible crime of being a journalist. He's not allowed to talk to a lawyer or anyone for 24 hours. When I told this to a coworker, not unprompted, but as an explanation as to why I'm a bit less than super cheerful and enthusiastic to be at work, he replied "I get it, there were some people who vaped right before getting on the train and I was nauseous from their vape-breath the entire way here". Sidestepping the fuckery here that there is no such thing as a vape-breath here, but even without that, MY DUDE, how are those 2 things equally worrying or frustrating in your mind?!

Second thing, my brother, DESPITE BEING TOLD HIS VISA WOULD GET RENEWED BY THE IMMIGRATION AUTHORITY, got a rejection for his visa application. His options are, 1) find an incredibly high paying job in 7 days (and also somehow do all the paperwork in this snail-speed bureaucracy) or 2) return to the literal hell hole we call home. The response I'll get to this tomorrow at work is, "oh shit that sucks, my kid also has the cold :(((((".

And this is a double-edged sword. Talk about it and you will be labelled "refusing to integrate" because I happen to not care if an apple happens to be rotten OR keep silent and have a lonely as fuck life where you pretend to care about the rotten apple your coworker happened to eat a month ago.

Rant over, Europeans don't come at me, not a good time.

[pooepw]

My life as a human being has led me to an existence without friends. When growing up as a kid, I had friends that shared the same interests as me; we liked to play kingdom hearts. Then, one moved, and eventually the other moved away, too. The first friend moved in my elementary school years and the other in high school. Going back to elementary, I made a friend in the only other person who played a card game I enjoyed, Yu-Gi-Oh! However, I was nothing like other kids who played yugioh. Most players would say that they played yugioh with playground rules and cheated, but I would play real decks and knew all the rules. So when my friend who played yugioh brought his cards functionally in a way similar to having their cards held together with a rubber band and tried to normal summon a synchro, we fell a part as friends. We even became enemies over something, and he eventually moved away. In middle school, I did not usually get to interact with my friend who had not moved away yet since she did not have the same classes as me, so it was a rather lonely experience. But it did not bother me too much at the time. By high school, I still did not have friends that I would hang out with, which made me super awkward, but since I was the smartest student in my class (at least according to gpa), there was a seeming reverence around me. Or at least that was how it felt. I could stumble into any table at lunch and would not cause be a burden to anyone. After my freshman year, the friend I mentioned earlier moved away, leaving me totally friendless once again. The following years would be me being a teacher's pet without even trying to be a teacher's pet. For some reason, many of the teachers were nice to me without me doing anything. Anyway, I ended up finding two friends, who were more akin to acquaintances within my classes. Sometimes, we were more than mere acquaintances, but usually, we were simply in similar classes. After high school, they both moved far away; I only really have contact with one of them. My college years were spent mostly fucked up and alone. Impostor syndrome hit me harder than anyone else, but not in the sense that I felt like I could not do the work like everyone else, but rather that I felt like the people I just walked by made me feel like I did not belong. I would walk past someone, take the smallest peek at their face, and their face would frown. This messed with me psychologically, and now I try not to make eye contact. It did not help that the school staff and workers were leading me astray too by recommending me random classes (which I stupidly took) and practically recommended underage drinking. I would spend the first two years as a shut-in. Then covid hit, forcing everyone to stay home. This would be the nail in the coffin to preventing my ability to interact with others in a meaningful way. Just before covid started, I would at least lead in study groups for the Japanese classes I was taking for major requirements. Please note that I was incredibly depressed from. The impostor syndrome stuff to the point that I spent no time except for filling the void with gaming. Anyway, when covid hit, I moved back with my parents and was relieved that I no longer had to spend money on the stupidly overpriced apartment. I would attend classes online and was actually happy because I no longer had to deal with the impostor syndrome stuff, but a new looming threat appeared in my life in the form of everything around me just sucking. Being a leftist in a conservative state really makes every moment they fuck up another thing that does not affect the status quo in even a modicum of a percent just makes me want to curl up into a ball and do nothing. I would finish college without any connections and jobless yet debt free. And friendless.

[theswarmanthology]

Em, 30s, USA

"i've been part of the fandom since 2004. as much as the band has shaped parts of my life and my outlook on the world, the fandom has as well. i've made wonderful friends, read books i otherwise wouldn't know about, pursued art, and become a better artist in general because of the friends i've made in the community. this community taught me compassion for sex workers (who were also in the fandom at the time) when i was 16 and living in a very conservative household; my friends and acquaintances encouraged my growth and exploration as an artist; and, in adulthood, i've gotten to travel to places i otherwise probably wouldn't have gone just to meet my friends in person. i don't participate in many other fan communities, but this one has, without a doubt, been a formative part of my life."

Fast Facts: How long have you been a fan?: 9+ years Did you get to see MCR live before this tour?: Yes, I saw them before the breakup in 2013 How many shows on this tour did you attend in total?: 2-4 Favorite album: I have more than one favorite album Show experience out of 10: 10 Did you cry at your show?: No

Which date of the tour did you attend? 09/13/22, Little Caesars Arena, Detroit

When did you get your tickets for your show? Was it a struggle, or were they easy to grab? they were gifted to me for free by someone else in the fandom. i'm incredibly grateful.

Did you attend with anyone else? solo

What did you wear? all black + a covid-protection mask

Where were your seats? i was in the seats, but pretty close to the pit, on mikey and frank's side

What was your favorite song(s) from the setlist they played at your show? foundations of decay, give em hell kid, house of wolves, the world is ugly, famous last words

What song were you most hoping to hear? Did you get to hear it? how i disappear - they didn't play it at this show

What was your favorite moment from the show? two favorite moments: 1. gerard's nurse outfit and 2. when they played helena (i almost cried, which was pretty unexpected)

What was the most unexpected moment from the show? almost crying at helena

Did you snag any merch? What pieces? i got the SWARM hoodie

Many fans describe seeing MCR live as feeling like coming home. Did you experience anything like that at your show? it felt more like a continuation of one of the most important parts of my life than it did like 'coming home'. they, and there music, have been part of my life for almost 20 years at this point. there's no nostalgia in it for me, nor did i feel like i was ever 'away' from them. it felt like a new, special chapter, and i'm so grateful i get to add that to my life.

If you could change one thing about your show experience, what would it be? nothing

Has your perspective or opinion about the band changed since seeing them on this tour? If so, in what way? nothing has really changed, so much as i feel like they've grown as people in parallel to me changing as a person. i'm younger than them, but i literally grew up with them and with their music; they've been part of so many important life stages for me from my teen years to my 30s. i'm so grateful they exist, and equally grateful that i fell in love with them when i did.

What advice would you give to people seeing My Chemical Romance in the future? none particularly. enjoy it. talk to the people around you if you want to. you'll have a great time <3

Anything we didn't ask that you feel obliged to share or talk about? i had a moment of trans magic happen at the detroit show. i went by myself and, by happenstance, ended up in a seat next to another trans person around my age. we clocked each other and shared our joy about our queerness, and about MCR, and about getting to see them live again. when i was growing up, and when i came out in my late teenage years, i quite literally had no one who understood what was happening to me, and very very few adults who accepted my transness. like so many people, MCR was crucial to me figuring out how to articulate my transness, i'm very glad to see so many younger people in the fandom find each other and be able to share joy in creating themselves in whatever ways they want to be while sharing a community with other trans and gnc people. it was a much lonelier road for me at the time that i came out. no one that i knew in the fandom was trans, and certainly no one in my immediate life as a teenager was trans. i'm lucky to have had supportive friends both in and out of the fandom, but it felt like a really special blessing to meet someone, by completely random chance, who was both trans and part of my generation, at the show where gerard walked on stage dressed as a nurse. MCR cast some kind of special spell that night, and it gave me a moment of recognition and joy that i'll never forget.

Thanks, Em!

[embermc]

It’s really once again hitting me that c!Fundy has basically no one. He’s surrounded by people, yes, but he’s still incredibly alone. He has absolutely no one, really.

The Butcher Army split up and left him with very few friends. Niki, the person he thought he could run away with, his campaign partner, the person whose pet he fought an entire war for, abandoned society and slipped into a mental health spiral, saying that she no longer trusted him. Schlatt, somebody he looked up to despite eventually not liking, died of a heart attack in front of him. Ranboo, one of his dearest friends, caught Fundy while Fundy was in a mental health spiral and distanced himself for his own safety, not ever really speaking to Fundy again. Wilbur, his father, the man who promised to protect him and at least showed him some form of love, left everyone behind and died. Phil, the last living family member that Fundy has left, disowned him and rarely even wants to associate with him. c!Fundy is painfully, and sadly, completely alone. He has acquaintances, but nobody left to really look out for him, or care for him, or give him the sense of love from an authority figure that he craves. Everyone else has best friends, or even family members. c!Fundy has nobody.

And yes, some of this can somewhat be attributed to Fundy’s own actions, whether intentionally harmful or not. He verbally disowned Wilbur, who was already close to breaking, and this played a large part in Wilbur’s spiral that eventually lead to him hating Fundy (although Fundy didn’t intend for it to). He pretended to do a lot of pretty bad and hurtful things as a spy, and although he had good intentions, he was most likely too young, naive and new to spying to see how this could alienate those he cared about from him. And although he wasn’t doing the best mentally at the time, his speeches and words his about plans freaked out Ranboo a lot, and Ranboo distanced himself for his own safety (which Ranboo is totally justified in doing, just to make clear). But despite all of this, the fact that c!Fundy is so alone is such a tragedy. Yes, he made mistakes, but his relationships were usually destroyed by a large amount of miscommunication rather than anything he did himself, He’s still canonically pretty young, and very naive in nature. He usually wanted what he thought was best for everyone, even if he was often mistaken or incorrect. And he was still failed by a large amount of authority/guardian figures. I don’t want to excuse some of c!Fundy’s more hurtful actions, but regardless of what he did, he was still hurt by many, and he still was abandoned by many.

c!Fundy has barely anybody to rely on, or lean on, now. And we know that c!Fundy is a character who very much craves the support and affection of family or guardian figures. Right now, he thinks that he has nobody there for him.

Which brings me to this point: Since c!Fundy has nobody, he’s going to be actively looking or searching for somebody to lean on, somebody to care about him, somebody to give him external love and support as a friend. And we know that Fundy’s lore is most likely going to be linked to somebody else’s, somebody else who, in the past, has been a friend to Fundy, came to Fundy FIRST about their new Butcher Army plan, and has many shared experiences with Fundy...Quackity. Quackity and Fundy have A LOT of history. They were in Schlatt’s cabinet together, Fundy was the first person Quackity told about the Butcher Army, they were in Tubbo’s cabinet together, and they usually had pretty similar ideologies and goals.

We know that, in the future, c!Fundy is apparently going to be trusting somebody, joining somebody, that he shouldn’t be joining, despite how nice it would initially sound to join them. What if, one day, for whatever reason, Quackity offers Fundy a business deal? A deal that involves them working together, accomplishing a goal together. And, of course, after having nobody for so long, Fundy sees an opportunity to have somebody to trust and to rely on again, to have a companion again. Regardless of whatever nefarious motives said companion may or may not actually have...Fundy has to trust him, after all, he finally has somebody, right?

Just a thought.