#but abed is part of what made me question why i relate so heavily to the whole tism thing

[gayandloveableperidot]

watching community with allistic people is weird cuz like. what do you mean you wouldnt die for abed in an instant because hes the first tv representation that you really truly related to in a way that made you feel truly seen

seriously how do you watch community without having that level of relation to abed? who do you relate to instead??

[kyouka-supremacy]

Hey! I recently read your post on, ahem, 'Female Characters in BSD And Their Portrayals' (to paraphrase)

I thought it was really interesting actually!! Thank you for writing that!

Another point is how Yosano's quirk had gotten sexualized in the anime, whilst in the manga, it's much more eery? That was weird.

I had a question: How Is Dazai Sexist?

Not in a 'pRoVE iT to ME!!' manner, but a, 'i can genuinely see that and I'm curious about your perspective' manner!

I read No Longer Human about, two months ago? And Dazai Osamu, the author, had a niche perspective on women, I suppose. He humanized them, but also dismissed them, but also heavily related to them? Of course, with historical context it's probably the average view of the time.

But I'm genuinely curious!!

My “Female Characters in BSD And Their Portrayals”

Thank you for giving the post a read! I was low-key nervous when I posted it, I don't really like being the killjoy, so I found people's positive responses to it very reassuring (╥﹏╥)

About Yosano's ability being sexualized in the anime. I know right,,,, it's part of the bigger picture issue, it's nearly impossible to find anime without fanservice. The difference in female portrayal between the bsd manga and anime is actually something very interesting to ponder on, because they're actually quite different: the manga is sexist, but it never visually sexualizes its female character (the Gaiden manga being an exception). The anime is more low-key in the blatant sexism, but there's female fanservice that the manga lacks that... Idk feels almost a given at this point, like animation studios just CAN'T not do it (I don't even know what to say? Something something *through gritted tits* 57th prime minister of Japan Shinzo Abe). On a different note, this ask came as some sort of epiphany for me because it made me realize that the reason there's so many people missing on the sexism in bsd which leaves me so often baffled is because people probably reason fanservice = sexism → lack of fanservice = lack of sexism, but it really doesn't have to work that way? Of course fanservice is for the vast majority sexist because more often than not it comes with the objectification of female body, but I wouldn't say there's a direct correlation between the two things: I hope I was exhaustive enough on why bsd is sexist although it never sexualizes its female characters, and I think same can be said for the other way round? Kill la Kill is my favorite anime of them all and the most female empowering anime (and overall media??? Idk I love klk with everything I've got) I've ever seen, but it'd definitely be a wide stretch to say it lacks fanservice.

On why I said Dazai is sexist: for one, I trust Chuuya's word

This is a joke, but funny enough, that's exactly the panel I was thinking about when writing the post– I was negatively surprised by how a main character could reportedly be called womanizer, and that is just kind of there, like being sexist was just another weird little characteristic of bandage man, nothing strange there. You see the problem here?

I remember when I watched the bsd anime for the first time, I used to think Dazai was sexist a lot– but in retrospect, I don't have that much a strong opinion on the matter anymore. When I watched it, it would bother me how Dazai would objectify women a lot, using them as mindless pawns even more of how he already does with every character he encounters; it would bother me how he's so fixated on committing a double suicide with a beautiful woman, like... You do realize that is wishing for another person, and that person needing to be a woman specifically, to die, right? Not to mention the “beautiful” part only adds to the objectification if you ask me. But all taken into account, I don't feel for it as strongly as I used to– don't get me wrong, it's still disturbing, but I don't think it's an issue of Dazai specifically as much of the work in its entirety having a fucked up view of women. It hit me today rewatching the bit at the end of episode 5, Dazai explaining Ranpo's deductions to Atsushi: “she wasn't dressed for work, she had no make-up on”. Now, if you say anything like this to me irl, I WILL punch you in the face. But can you sense how it doesn't really come from Dazai in particular and is more expression of an overall worldview of women that necessary transpires through the characters, an underlying pattern I couldn't really perceive on my first time watching the anime? So, I feel like it's less of a case of “Dazai being sexist” than it is of “Dazai is a character with a lot of lines in a fundamentally sexist franchise”. The point isn't about Dazai's being sexist, because ALL the characters are in a way or the other, but about the author writing them as such; that's what I meant by saying “Dazai is openly sexist and it’s just kind of there never to be addressed”– he's reportedly sexist IN CANON, the thing is it's never portrayed as something strange or worth to be addressed.

[waitimcomingtoo]

Where We Start Again - 5

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader

Synopsis: how do you fake date someone you have real feelings for?

Series Masterlist and Regular Masterlist

Playlist by @tiny-friggin-human

“Put these on the counter for me.” You asked of Peter as you handed him a stack of bowls. “Where do you think flour is kept?”

Back at your house now, you were preparing to go to the party together. The domesticity of it all brought a smile to Peters face as he put the bowls on your counter.

“Try your cabinet. Bottom shelf because it’s heavy.” Peter suggested. You opened your cabinet and gave him a proud smile when you found the flour.

“What are you doing?” He wondered as you struggled to lift the bag of flour. He didn’t help you, knowing his super strength would be given away when he lifted it with ease.

“We can’t show up to the party empty handed. We’re gonna make cookies.” You punctuated your sentence by dropped the large bag of flour on the table. “From scratch.”

Your turned your back to Peter as you got the eggs, milk and sugar out, so you didn’t see the adoring smile on his face. It was a simple gesture to show you had listened when he told you about his mother, but it meant the world to him. You preheated the overnight and dropped the bag of chocolate chips on the counter, finally looking at him and catching his smile.

“They’re just cookies, babe.” You nudged him with your elbow playfully. “You don’t have to look that excited.”

He knew you knew how much he appreciated it, and that only made him happier. He wrapped his arms around your waist from behind as you measured out the ingredients.

“I like it when you show affection.” You said quietly as you added the sugar into the bowl. Peter rested his chin on your shoulder and took in the scent of your shampoo.

“I don’t show it often in case you don’t want it.” He explained. To Peters surprise, you turned around in his arms and rested your hands on his chest. You looked up at him with a look in your eyes he had never seen before.

“I always want you.” You spoke softly.

I always want it.

You had meant to say you always want it. But his close proximity and the heavily way his cologne smelled made you tell a little more than you intended to.

An instinct Peter didn’t know he possessed kicked in and he began to lean in. Your eyes fluttered shut and his did the same. Before your lips could connect, your front door opened and you both jumped. Peter let go and you quickly turned around, hastily stirring the contents of the bowl. A woman walked into the kitchen and grabbed a water bottle from the fridge without looking at you.

“Hey, mom.” You said and Peter could hear a sadness in your voice.

“Oh, hi Y/n.” Your Mother was startled to see you. Her eyes went to Peter and she gave him a tight smile. “Who’s this?”

“This is my boyfriend, Peter. I told you about him, remember?” You asked but from the look on your mothers face, she didn’t remember. And from the look on your face, you looked like you expected as much.

“Nice to meet you Peter.” She nodded curtly. “I’m sorry, I have a work call. If you’ll excuse me.”

Your mother left the room as quickly as she came in and Peter let out a sigh of relief that the impromptu meeting didn’t go poorly.

“Is she gonna be mad that I didn’t shake her hand?” He asked you, breaking the awkward silence that had settled in the kitchen.

“No. You don’t have to worry about that with her. If it’s not work related, it doesn’t concern her.” You said as you angrily cracked an egg into the bowl. Peter got started on the wet ingredients, not blind to the look of distraught on your face.

“Oh. You don’t really look like her. Like either of your parents, actually.” He commented, having seen family pictures around the house.

“Yeah, well, foster children don’t tend to look like their foster parents.” You laughed humorlessly. Peter stopped what he was doing and looked at you.

“I didn’t know you were a foster kid.” He said softly. His gentle tone seemed to calm you down and you stopped stirring the ingredients.

“No one does.” You shrugged and looked up at him. “It’s strange. Everyone at school knows who I am but they know absolutely nothing about me.”

“Do your friends know?” He came beside you and poured the wet ingredients into your bowl. You were quiet for a moment as you mixed everything together.

“I told you, Peter.” You said as you got out a cookie sheet. “I don’t have friends. Not ones I can talk to about personal things, at least.”

“That sounds really lonely.” Peter said and instantly regretted it. “I’m sorry, that was rude.”

“No. It’s true.” You laughed sadly. “I am surrounded by people all the time but I feel completely alone. It is lonely.”

“You don’t have to be alone anymore. I’ve been told I’m very persistent.” Peter joked as he began to roll the dough into balls.

“Persistence is a good thing. You have a good head on your shoulders Peter. And a good face.” You grinned and wiped flour on the tip of his nose.

“Hey.” He moved away and wiped his face on the back of his hand. “My face is not a cookie sheet.”

“Okay.” You mocked him and put the cookies in the oven. He began to wipe down the counter with a wet paper towel as you put the ingredients away. Peter mulled something over in his head before pulling you by the elbow over to him. You stumbled towards Peter and stopped in front of him, looking at him with a puzzled expression.

“You called me your boyfriend before.” He brought up as he wiped some flour off your face with his thumb.

“Well the people of the science fair needed to know you were in a serious relationship with your fake girlfriend.” You replied sarcastically as you wrapped your arms around his neck.

“Not at the science fair, I mean.” He shook his head and rested his hands on the small of your back. “You said it your mother.”

“Did I?” You said through a coy smile. You knew you had, you just didn’t know he caught it.

“Yeah. I don’t know how I feel about it, though.” He scrunched his nose. “I’d hate for people to know I’m slumming it with you.”

You laughed loudly at his joke and rested your forehead against his.

“You’re my sanity, Peter.” You told him and he stuck out his bottom lip. “But you can’t go to the party with flour on your shirt.”

“Are you sure?” He asked as he looked down at his shirt. “I think it’ll really help with my popularity.”

“Come on. You can borrow the hoodie you gave me.” You took his hand and led him to your bedroom for the second time that week.

“I can borrow my own hoodie? You’re too kind.” Peter teased as he shut the door behind him.

“And that’s why you love me.” You cooed and tossed the hoodie at him.

“Yeah, I do.” He said too seriously for a fake relationship. “I fake love you so much.”

“Well I’ll let you get changed.” You told him and left the room. Peter slipped his shift off and dropped it in your hamper, his attention getting caught by a piece of paper on your desk. He picked it up and saw a penciled sketch of himself drawn on it. It was a candid from decathlon practice, he could tell from the posters behind him. The part that stood out to him was the date written at the bottom, dated two weeks before you started fake dating. The door opening startled him and made him put the paper down. He turned and saw you looking with a very red face stationed in the doorway.

“Oh, sorry.” You squeaked. You turned on your heel so leave but he stopped you.

“It’s fine. We’ve seen each other now so we’re even.” He said as he threw the hoodie on. You nodded stiffly and sat down on your bed, all while avoided eye contact.

And ab contact.

Peter sat next to you and reveled in the awkward silence.

“So.” You gulped and stared off blankly. “You have abs.”

“Yeah. I guess so.” Peter chuckled shyly.

“That’s cool.” You nodded. “Where did you get them?”

“May picked them up for me at H&M when they had that sale.” He replied and you rolled your eyes.

“Okay, fine. It was a dumb question.” You admitted and the awkwardness melted away. “I just didn’t expect you to be ripped.”

“I like to keep people guessing.” He laughed and the silence settled back in.

“Peter?” You said to break the silence.

“Yeah?”

“You’re hot.” You stated and he looked at you in shock. Your face was deadly seriously and he gave you an appreciative smile.

“That’s a first.” He told you honestly.

“I knew it would be. No offense.” You quickly followed up. “I just felt like someone had to say it.”

“Well I’m glad that someone was you.” He said pointedly. You pushed him slightly and leaned against his body.

“I’m not just saying this because my heart hasn’t kickstarted yet since I saw you shirtless.” You told him. “I’ve always thought you were cute.”

“Always? You’ve only known I existed for 5 days.” He reminded you.

“That’s not true.” You shook your head. “You’ve always been in my lunch and I see you after school when I’m at volunteer club. I’ve always known you existed. You used to wear those glasses freshman year with the gold rims that were way too big for your face.”

“I remember those. They were my dads. They weren’t even my prescription.” Peter shook his head as he reminisced. He stopped wearing them following the spider bite and didn’t even know you knew about them.

“Well I thought they were cute.” You said as you rested a hand on his knee.

“Thanks.” He said sheepishly, the instinct to lean in kicking in again. Before he could kiss you, you phone dinged and you jumped back. You sighed and picked up your phone to check the message.

“It’s Naomi. She’s wondering where we are.” You read the text out loud.

“We should probably get going.” Peter cleared his throat and got off your bed. You tried to wipe the disappointment off your face before you got up too.

“Yeah.” You faked a smile. “Can you take the cookies out of the oven? I’ll be right out.”

“Sure thing daisy.” He shot you a smile before leaving the room. You let out a frustrated sigh and went to your closet to pick out an outfit. In the kitchen, Peter was putting extra chocolate chips on the cookies, like his mother used to. You joined him in the kitchen and rested your hands on his back.

“Ready?” You asked before stealing a cookie. He took the cookie from you after you had a bite and bit it himself.

“Ready.”

~

“You came!” Naomi cheered when she opened the door. Her face quickly fell when her eyes landed on Peter. “And you brought someone. Is this your cousin?”

“Naomi, this is Peter.” You put your arm on Peters shoulder. “Peter, Naomi.”

“Nice to meet you.” Peter held out his hand and Naomi looked at it in disgust.

“Why’s he here?” She asked you as if Peter wasn’t there.

“Because I wanted him to be.” You said slowly. “And he can hear you.”

“Are you doing like a charity thing where you give nerds a taste of the popular life? That’s so deep and unique of you.” Naomi gushed. “I’ll tell the other girls to do the same.”

“No, I’m not doing that.” You shut her down. “Peters my date.”

Naomi looked at Peter with judging eyes as he gave her a weak smile.

“Fun!” Naomi said through a fake smile. “Okay well drinks are outside and bathrooms are upstairs. And Fallon is in the living room, wink wink.”

She winked at you and disappeared into the house.

“Jimmy Fallon is here? You guys have Jimmy Fallon at your parties?” Peter asked you in shock.

“Fallon Kennedy.” You corrected him. “He used to sit next to me at lunch. Naomi thinks he’s into me.”

“Is he?” Peter asked, jealously seeping I’m at the thought of another boy competing for your attention.

“I don’t know, maybe?” You shrugged in dismissal. “We don’t really talk much.”

Before Peter could respond, a sandy blonde guy twice his size came up to you.

“Y/n! I knew you’d come.” He clapped his hands together and rubbed them. “You brought cookies? Sweet. I love a woman who bakes. So this is the crib. My parents are away for the weekend and we’re totally gonna lose our deposit.” He covered his mouth as he bellowed loudly. “I don’t care though. I work at CVS part time, so, you know. I’m on my grind or whatever. Saving up for a lambo. But I’d call it a ghini because lambo is so basic. You drive? Cool. I like to go real fast sometimes and think about my childhood and stuff. You hear I was looking for you? Awesome. Can I get you a drink? Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

“He seems nice.” Peter lied once he walked away.

“I love it when he answers my questions for me. Really takes away the hard part.” You said sarcastically as you set the cookies down on a table.

“I wouldn’t drink whatever he brings you.” Peter warned you and you shook your head.

“I don’t drink.” You laughed shortly. “We better move before he comes back.”

You took Peter deeper into the house and found a quiet spot in the hallway to talk. While the rest of the house enjoyed the party, you and Peter enjoyed each other’s company. Now get wasn’t blind to the looks you were getting, but it didn’t seem to bother you. He tried to ignore it and focus on the fact that he was at his first high school party with the girl of his dreams.

“We should be safe over here for a while unless they want to play spin the bottle. That never ends well.” You rolled your eyes at the memories.

“Do we have to play?” Peter asked nervously. “I’ve never actually kissed anyone. In a hot way.”

“I never play. And you’ve never kissed anyone?” You asked. It explained the two missed kisses from earlier. You made a mental note that if the kiss was ever gonna happen, you were gonna have to initiate it. Before Peter could respond, his phone lit up with Neds contact.

“I’m so sorry, I have to take this.” He apologized to you. “He might be stuck to something again.”

“Take your time. I’ll wait here.”

Peter walked away to answer the call, his spot immediately occupied by Fallon.

“Dude, where are you?” Ned asked as soon as Peter picked up. “The bank on 34th street is being held up.”

“Shoot. I’m at a party with Y/n.” Peter looked back at you, face falling when he saw Fallon talking to you.

“Theres hostages Peter.” Ned continued. “The police can’t even get in.”

Peter looked at you one last time and sighed. The job had to come first, no matter how much he wanted to stay.

“Okay.” He reluctantly agreed. “I’ll be right there.”

Peter pocketed his phone and left the party without saying goodbye to you. He didn’t have time to explain why he had to go when there were hostages lives at stake.

Besides, you looked fine talking to Fallon.

“I’m so glad you came.” Fallon repeated as he stroked your hair. “Enjoying the party?”

“Yeah.” You swatted his hand away. “Your house is really nice.”

“I know.” He boasted. “You can come over anytime you want.”

“Thanks.” You said through a fake smile and looked around for Peter. Unbeknownst to you, Peter was already on his way out. As he put his hand on the doorknob to leave, he heard Naomis voice.

“You guys, I just saw Fallon and Y/n in the hallway and they were totally flirting. They would be so cute together.” She beamed. “Can you imagine how gorgeous their babies would be?”

“I’m so happy for her. She deserves this. Fallon is like, so hot.” Another girl chimed in. Peter looked at the group and saw them all nodding, making his stomach fall.

“So hot.” Someone agreed. At that point, Peter had heard enough. You were where you belonged, and he wasn’t.

“I’m really glad you came tonight. Naomi told me you were ditching me for the math fair or something.” Fallon snorted and took a swig of his drink.

“Can’t really ditch something you were never planning on going to.” You laughed awkwardly. “It was Peters idea to come. And It was the science fair. Peter won it so we-“

“Cool, cool, cool.” He cut you off. “You look really good in this dress, by the way. You’re definitely the hottest girl at this party.”

“Thanks.” You scrunched your nose at him. You didn’t really have an interest in being compared to other girls, especially if it was at the expense of the other girls.

“You know, I’ve been meaning to get closer to you.” Fallon leaned in closer. “You’re mad hot.”

“Don’t know how much closer you can get.” You faked a laugh as you scooted away from him.

“So you feel it too. I knew you would.” He shrugged smugly. “I know we don’t talk much, but I feel like I know you. Like, better than I know anyone.”

That was the last straw for you. He was practically a stranger to you, and hey he was claiming he knew you. After Peter showed you what real friendship looked like, you couldn’t entertain a fake one. You backed away from Fallon and folded your arms.

“What’s my last name?” You questioned him.

“I don’t know.” He laughed like it was absurd you’d even ask. “It can be Kennedy if you’re lucky.”

“Lucky enough to be a teen bride.” You said sarcastically. “I have to go find my date, if you’ll excuse me.”

You walked away from Fallon and checked in every room for Peter. When you couldn’t find him, you went and found Naomi in the living room with a red solo cup in her hand.

“Naomi. Have you seen Peter?” You asked her.

“Who?”

“The boy I came with.” You grumbled in annoyance.

“Oh, him.” She said flatly. “He left.”

“Left? We just got here.” You figured she had to be wrong. Peter would never leave you without saying anything.

“Oh, Y/n.” Naomi sighed. “There’s a reason people like him don’t get invited to these things. What are you doing parading around with a nerd on your arm? You’re committing social suicide.”

“That’s not a thing! That is physically not a thing.” You snapped before quieting down. “He didn’t even say goodbye.” You mumbled.

“He probably saw you with Fallon and realized he’d never have a chance.” She shrugged and your eyes widened. “All the girls are talking about it. You really shouldn’t have given him hope, Y/n. You’re our leader and if the other girls see you with nerds, they might think they have to do it too. Or worse, nerds will think it’s okay to starting talking to us. You should really try to set a better example.”

You stared at her for a moment as what she said registered with you. You almost couldn’t believe what you had heard.

“I don’t want to be friends anymore.” You said suddenly. “If we ever were.”

“What?” She laughed. “I’m your best friend.”

“What’s my favorite flower?” You tested, on a hot streak now with cutting off toxic relationships.

“Who has a favorite flower?” She scoffed.

“What are my hobbies, my favorite book, my passions in life? Can you name anything about me?” You asked her, already knowing she couldn’t.

“You’re acting crazy.” She eyed you curiously. “Why would I know those things? It’s not like you know those things about me.”

“Because that’s what a best friends does. They take the time to learn the answers to your questions. I have to go.” You walked away from her and went to the door. Before you left, you went back to where Naomi was standing with a dropped jaw.

“You like roses because your favorite color is red. You don’t have a favorite book because you hate reading because of your dyslexia but you loved The Outsiders in 7th grade. You think you’re dumb but you’re actually really smart and want to be teacher after college. And you can be. You’d be great at it.” You told her. “I know these things because I listen. You never have.”

You left for real that time, a shining smile plastered on your face as you took your freedom with you.

~

Peter snuck into his apartment with a hoodie and sweatpants covering his suit. He tiptoed past May, who was fast asleep on the couch, and carefully shut his bedroom door behind him. As soon as he turned on his light, he saw you standing in the middle of his room with your arms crossed.

“Y/n?” He whispered in shock. The last thing he expected was to see you in his room.

He definitely never expected to see you this angry.

“You know, I was actually excited to spend some time with you. I know parties aren’t your crowd and everything but you didn’t even stay for a full hour.” You whispered angrily. Peter approached you carefully and rested his hands on your shoulders.

“I’m- I’m sorry.” He stammered and you pushed him away.

“I didn’t even want to go. This was your idea. I just wanted to hang out with you. But clearly, you had other plans.” You continued. After yelling at Fallon and Naomi, you weren’t holding anything back. Peter had hurt you, and he needed to know.

“Something came up.” He offered weekly and you didn’t look amused.

“And this something was so important that you had to leave without saying goodbye?” You asked. “You were my date and you ditched me. Everyone saw.”

You were mad. You were very mad. And Peter had no idea how to handle a mad girl. He had just gotten his ass beat by an armed bank robber, but you were so much scarier.

“I thought you didn’t care what people thought.” He mumbled as he looked down.

“I don’t care what people thought. I care how it made me feel.” You said at full volume and Peter finally understood. “You just left me there, Peter. We spend a whole day together and you tell me you’re my friend and then you abandon me without a goodbye. What am I supposed to think?”

“I can explain.” He reached for you again, accidentally making his hood fall off. You could finally see his bruised face in the light and gasped.

“What happened to you?” You whispered. “Who did this?”

“I actually can’t explain.” He said apologetically, knowing it’s make the situation worse. “I’m sorry. But I would never leave you without a damn good excuse and I promise you, I have one. I just can’t tell it to you.” He took your hands and this time, you let him. “I wanted to stay so badly. I swear I did. I hate parties, but I like you.”

You smiled softly and it encouraged Peter to go on.

“I only left because I absolutely had to. Please just trust me on this and say you believe me.” He pleaded quietly.

“I believe you.” You said simply.

“You do?” Peter asked in surprise.

“Should I not?” You pulled away a little.

“No, you should.” He nodded as he pulled you back. “I just didn’t expect you to.”

“If you say you had a good excuse, I believe you.” You repeated. “You don’t have to tell me what happened. I just care that you’re safe.”

Peter sighed in relief and scooped you up in a grateful hug.

“Thank you. I’ll make it up to you, I swear.” He mumbled into your ear. You held him tighter and rested your head against his heartbeat.

“Don’t worry about it. Just don’t do it again.” You replied. You let go of Peter and took a pair of sweatpants out his his dresser, as well as a sleep shirt.

“What are you doing?” He asked as you went into his bathroom to change. You came out shortly after, looking angelic in his clothing.

“I’m staying with you tonight.” You said like it was obvious and got into his bed. Peters jaw slacked at the sight of you in his clothing, in his bed. He began to wonder how hard the robber had hit him.

“What about your parents?” Peter asked once he collected himself. He went into the bathroom himself and hide his suit in the shower.

“They won’t notice I’m gone.” You replied as you stretched your limbs.

“How do you know?” He asked, turning off the light and hesitantly joining you by sitting on his bed. He stayed as far away from you as possible to give you your space as you sat up.

“They’ve never noticed before.” You shrugged. He could tell it bothered you so he didn’t want to push the topic. He gave you a gentle nod and squeezed your hand to show he cared.

“Are you sure it’s okay if you-“

“Look, I had a bad night. And judging by the looks of it, so did you. If you want me to leave, I’ll go but”, you sighed, “I don’t really want to be alone tonight.”

“Stay.” Peter stated assertively and you smiled at him. “I want you to stay.”

“Lay down.” You said suddenly. A million thoughts went through Peters head as his eyebrows came together.

“What?”

“Just lay down.” You repeated and he obeyed. He slowly laid down and stared at you expectantly. You pushed him over on his side and wrapped your arms around his waist.

You were spooning him.

He had ditched you at a party and now you were spooning him.

“I was worried about you.” You mumbled into his ear as you nuzzled your face into his neck. “I searched that whole house trying to find you. I was scared something happened.”

“Nothing happened.” He assured you.

“You have a black eye.” You said pointedly. He could feel your lips against the back of his neck as you spoke and it sent a chill down his spin.

“Something minor happened.” He corrected, making your body shake against his as you laughed. You quieted down and the room fell into a silence.

“I care about you.” You said after a minute. “I care whether or not you come home.”

“If you’re what I have to come home to,” he began, “then I’ll always make it back.”

Tag list 🏷

@a-villain-vying-for-attention​ @wendaiii​ @dorbiksbitch​ @t-monosapiens-h​ @badhollandfluff​ @silteplaittais-toi​ @thisisthebiplace​​ @seasidecrowbar​​ @spideygirl2003​ @5-seconds-of-mendes​ @bitchylittleredhead​ @oh-whatabeautiful-parker​ @everydaymj​ @write-from-the-heart​ @blackpetalsmeandeath​ @electraheart-3174​ @shawni-h​ @peterparkoure​ @sleepythighsweat​ @steebbb​ @traveleraroundsworld​ @averyfosterthoughts​ @bralessandflawless​ @viwihere​ @eridanuswave​ @the-greatt-perhaps​ @spidey-lillies​

[wolpertinger-prince]

Tagged by @queenevac

Who are my top 5 comfort characters?

I mean, they interchange depending on my current hyperfixation, but...

1) Ratchet (Transformers, particularly Bayverse): I love the grumpy old medibot that’s allowed to be Not Nice while still clearly being a good guy. But I love him in Bayverse the most for how while that could still be present, it’s not the main focus of his character; he’s implied to be a lot more kindly or at least polite than other incarnations. Sure, the actual films don’t really go into his character much, but I’ve fallen in love with what we’ve got of him nonetheless. Just this worn-torn and tired old man mech that remains kind in spite of everything, values life, and makes the most out of his new home on Earth by enjoying its beauty. And also he’s handsome. I mean that unironically. Not only is he physically handsome, but god his voice...

2) Gordon (Catscratch): Gordon has been with me since I was probably 9 years old. I always adored him for his courage, his sense of justice, and his kindness. Also, much like him, I love to eat. I kinda connected to him since I saw the promos for the show before the first episode debuted. So much so that getting inside the house and down the basement on time to catch the premiere was an event for me. But anyway, of all the hyperfixations on cartoons I had as a kid, Catscratch is the one that stuck with me. Probably because it came out during a weird time in my life, when I kinda started to notice that I wasn’t like my peers. So, during that confusing time, I had Gordon; I’ll always cherish him for that.

3) Stranger (Oddworld: Stranger’s Wrath): Stranger is me. From his being sort of socially inept despite his intimidating demeanor to his isolation to the fact that he’s constantly disguising himself both for his own safety and because he doesn’t think he deserves to present as what he really is to him being mostly self-serving... Yep. Stranger is me. His story resonates with me the way so few main characters in any media do. Like yeah, I relate to Abe from the same franchise, too, but Stranger is like Oddworld Inhabitants made an allegory for my life, made it into a video game, and made me a cool cowboy centaur creature. But the question remains: do I relate to Stranger’s journey of self-acceptance as an autistic person, as an nonbinary person, or as a person that’s both aspec and arospec? The answer is yes.

4) Cookie (Rayman: The Animated Series): Cookie is both me and what I wish I could allow myself to be. Simply put: Cookie sucks. He’s cranky, complains constantly, and is full of anxiety that holds him back from truly embracing his freedom after escaping captivity at the circus. It’s not that he sucks: it’s that he’s allowed to suck. And that sounds like a weird reason to like a character, especially since that’s the exact reason why many other people that have viewed this obscure little cartoon find him really annoying. However, as an autistic person that didn’t get diagnosed until later in life and therefore feels the need to mask constantly, it’s kind of important for me to see that and analyze what it means to me. Cookie isn’t adventurous like the rest of the main crew are, and that’s something he and the others have to deal with. His friends may get upset with him for his constant complaining, but he still says what’s on his mind and allows himself to feel, all while still clearly being a competent adult with a skillset that his friends are heavily reliant on.

5) Hunch (Rock-A-Doodle): Possibly being an even stranger choice for a comfort character than Cookie, Hunch came at a point in my life where I knew I was probably mentally ill, but didn’t bother bringing it up with my parents because I knew they weren’t going to do anything about it. I was about to turn 15 when curiosity got the better of me one quiet morning and made me sit through Rock-A-Doodle in like 15 parts on YouTube (yes, really). I had watched the Nostalgia Critic review of it, but the critic never mentioned this manic little dude. So I got attached to him right away because it was like I discovered him myself. And I’m not sure if I liked him at the time because he made for a good projection of my own anxiety, depression, and god knows what else, or just because he was a funny little owl that sucked at being evil. Either way, he’s the reason why I have a soft spot for obscure-ish, non-threatening evil henchmen today, like the weasel guardsmen from Conker’s Bad Fur Day or Killer from All Dogs Go to Heaven. Either of those characters could be in this same spot, but something about Hunch’s cackling, manic nature puts him above the rest for me. Or it could be the fact that he suffers abuse at the hands of a family member that he spends the duration of the film trying to impress, and then at the end gets to chase that same abusive family member away into the sunrise and presumably eats him. Aaaah, karma.

Tagging: @tragischehagelslag @kid-mera @the-little-animals @x-de-con-struct-ed-x @groovy-rat-man

[belliesandburps]

Quick-Fic:  Hot-n-Cold (Aidan x Isole Post-Stuffing Fic)

I’ve been busy with writing the interactive fic, patreon pieces as well as some of my remaining commissions.  And it’s been a good hot minute since I’ve written anything for my OC’s, so I thought I’d write a really short quickie featuring my kinky fire-n-ice duo, Aidan and Isole.  :P

“BRRREEEEEUUUUURRRRAAAAAAPH!!!!!” 

Isole's soft, ghostly white face grew several shades pinker upon watching his boyfriend slump back on the couch and belch heavily.

The boyfriend in question, Aidan, sighed contently and gave his taut, bloated belly a couple of hearty pats of satisfaction, each pat giving off this satisfied thumping sound, like slapping a big, ripe watermelon.  “Gruuh...fuck, I’m stuffed...” Aidan growled, running his hand up and down his bare swollen stomach.  It stuck out by a little over a foot.  His normally tight and concave abs had been incredibly thinned out, now barely visible over the very noticeably distended middle.

His bloated stomach emitted a deep gurgle.  Feeling another burp coming on, Aidan smacked his chest and threw his head back, letting loose another big, throaty burp that sent a small plume of fire spewing out of his mouth for almost three seconds.  Isole’s blush grew brighter at that crude display, especially the fiery part...

“Excuse you,” he teased in his youthful yet calming voice, before sliding over to Aidan nestling up against him.

Aidan blew smoke out of his mouth and right into Isole’s face, smirking a fang-filled, cocky smirk at his younger boyfriend, muttering, “Tch, y’know ya love it...”

Isole fanned the smoke away from his small nose and coughed slightly, blushing...a little more brazenly, and responded with, “Am I complaining?”

To emphasize his point, Isole placed his small, chilly palms directly over Aidan’s taut, burbling gut.  The young cryomancer slowly ran his right palm up and down that firm, watermelon-sized belly, listening as it burbled pleasantly with the sensation.  His hand reached the upper crest of Aidan’s distended stomach, then glided down to his tight underbelly, stroking its smooth surface from side to side.

Aidan shuddered at the feeling, moaning shamelessly as he slumped back and made his bloated stomach push out a little more.  “Ohhhhh gods...” Aidan groaned, smoke spewing from his maw as his boyfriend continued tending to his middle.  “Dude, yer hands are like magic sometimes, I swear to the fuckin’ sun gods...”

“So you’ve said,” Isole teased, patting Aidan’s belly and shuddering at how good each thump felt against his palm and how much better it sounded.

Isole leaned down a little, resting his head against Aidan’s bulging belly.  The intense warmth radiating from Aidan’s flesh contrasted Isole’s ice cold body, becoming this relaxing, almost inviting kind of warmth.  And the gurgling emanating from Aidan’s overstuffed stomach was music to Isole’s ears.  He could hear that powerful organ breaking down a meal large enough to more than comfortably feed a dozen or so people. 

The churning was so rich and intense that Isole could practically envision himself inside of Aidan’s belly.  It would be such a tight fit, hotter than the desert sun, and reeking of brimstone.  He could picture the fleshy yet slimy organ all around him, rippling as it churned heavily, pleased with its meal.

Isole wasn’t sure why his mind always went there, but it never failed to leave him shuddering in a pleased sort of way.  He lovingly traced his finger across the center of Aidan’s belly, circling across his shallow navel.  Aidan bit his lower lip and groaned with pleasure at the feeling.  His navel was always especially sensitive, and the feeling of that cool index finger sliding inside of his bellybutton and tracing around inside of it never failed to rile Aidan up.

“Fffffuck, that’s good...” Aidan growled, gripping at the couch as Isole played around with his navel.  That pleased growl intensified when Isole’s chilly lips pressed down against Aidan’s bellybutton with a loving kiss.

After pulling his finger out, Isole was leaning against Aidan’s lap at this point, using both hands to knead into Aidan’s taut stomach.  His hands groped that warm, bulging belly while his fingers dug into that drum tight flesh.

The kneading caused Aidan’s stomach to burble and churn heavily.

In response, Aidan threw his head back and released a deep, brassy belch.

“BRRRAAAAAAUUUUURRRRRAAAAAAAAAPH!!!!!!!!!”

A small cloud of smoke spewed out of Aidan’s mouth along with his stomach gases.  Isole subtly sniffed at the brimstone-scented eructation and blushed, pressing down into Aidan’s belly even harder...

“HOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUUUUURRRR-UUUUUUUURRRLLLOOOOORRRPH!!!!!!!”

A massive, HEFTY-sounding belch rolled out of Aidan’s maw, causing more smoke to spew out from his throat as that deep burp blasted past his fang-filled maw.  The crass eruption hitched in Aidan’s throat halfway in before the rest of the smoke-laden gas poured out of him with a greater deal of rumble, thanks to the way Isole pushed his knuckles into Aidan’s belly mid-burp.

Aidan gasped when it ended and glared down at Isole with a growl.

“Tch, lil punk...”

“You have to admit, those probably DID feel good to get outta your tummy, wouldn’t you say?”  Isole asked with an innocent, albeit flustered sort of smile.  Just to emphasize his point, his palm pushed down against Aidan’s jam-packed gut firmly.

Aidan grimaced and brought a fist to his mouth, muffling a HUGE burp in his mouth, one which rumbled in his cheeks for a good few seconds and had Aidan squinting hard from the sheer volume of gas rolling up his throat all at once.  When it passed, he breezily blew a considerable amount of smoke past his lips.  Aidan huffed, then thumped his chest, letting loose a deep afterburp, then rolled his eyes.   “...Ugh, don’t fuckin’ say ‘tummy’, dude.  What are ya, six...?”

“Would a six year old do this?”  Isole asked with a sly smirk on his face before leaning down and slowly running his tongue across Aidan’s navel, licking his bellybutton firmly and shamelessly.

Aidan’s grumpy expression immediately shifted as he bit his lower lip and moaned.

“Ngh...that’s not fuckin’ fair, ya punk...”

Isole smacked his lips and grins a flirtatious sort of grin up at his boyfriend, drumming his fingers across Aidan’s tightly stuffed stomach, adding, “Is it my fault I know all your buttons?”  He tapped his index finger over Aidan’s bellybutton a few times to punctuate his point.

“I’mma pay ya back fer that, ya kinky lil fucker...”

“Don’t tease me with a good time,” Isole responded, eager for any kink-related retaliation...

[idreamofplaid]

Walker 1 x 04 Reaction

I’m late with this one. I didn’t see last week’s episode until last night. It was a rough personal week, but this is a rest episode. I’m so ready for episode 5 tonight!

This is the best episode of Walker yet. The case is strong, and it’s well balanced with the personal interactions. There is a theme here about trust and the complexity of relationships. I’m interested to see how it’s going to develop.

Walker is making a real effort to bond with Micki and cement their partnership, emphasizing the importance of trust with her, and he is so very cute doing it. He wants to know her middle name, saying little details might be important to them. Hmmm. That’s undercover stuff, right there. 

He finds out what he can about her by using his “investigative” skills. Walker learns her favorite foods, what she likes to drink, and also her middle name. He wants the kind of relationship with her that she had with the officers she worked with in APD, but she tells him that she doesn’t want to trust him because she needs to be careful. Being a Texas Ranger for her is an opportunity, and she doesn’t want to “mess it up”.

The single father vibes are strong in this one. I adore Cordell being a good father. I’m going to say that a lot in these reviews. He’s moving into the farmhouse on the ranch with his kids. I still love that house. I want to live there. First, the bunker, and now this. It’s rustic, and it’s cozy at the same time.

Stella wants to paint her room, and Cordell looking at the paint chip color she wants is just heart melting. It’s so very normal. He’s talking about ordering pizza with them and unpacking. 

Here’s where the problem comes in because August finds a box he shouldn’t find. It’s full of things related to when Walker was working undercover, including a camera that has pictures on it of his father with another woman and a phone with all Walker’s contacts from his undercover time.

In a parallel, Walker finds some letters that another man wrote to his mother. By the end of the episode, Cordell confronts his mother; August confronts his father. They both ask questions. Cordell’s mother refuses to answer his questions saying they are still the parents and points out to him that she’s sure he and Emily didn’t share everything with the kids. He’s quick to answer, “No, we didn’t.”

Well, he still isn’t. August asks his father why he looks so happy in the picture he found and why there aren’t any pictures like that of Cordell with his mother. Just like his own mother, Walker deflects. He tosses the picture to the side and says “that was a job” echoing his mother’s words “That’s in the past.”

Adding to the infidelity thread, the case Walker and Micki are working also has an affair that factors heavily in it. I’m not saying Walker had an affair, but maybe he did or something like it. Could have been an emotional affair, or something born out of complicated emotions he had surrounding this woman “on his undercover team” because he had to trust her to keep him alive. 

There is so much in this episode. It looks like we’ve gotten to the part in the series where the setup is starting to move into something much deeper. Stella meets a boy, Trevor, at the stables where she is doing community service. Trevor’s father is in prison. This is going to get complicated because Stella clearly likes this boy. No doubt his father is somehow connected to what Walker’s been doing undercover. There are also questions about Captain James. Liam finds out he’s been reviewing the border footage related to Emily’s murder that he wants Walker to stay away from. Is James dirty?

In contrast, the relationship between Micki and Trey is solid. I was so happy to see Trey back in this episode. I love his energy. He has a smile that beams, and his abs certainly aren’t bad either. He looks like Jared did in the early seasons of Supernatural when his muscles were so defined, they didn’t even look real. 

Let’s talk about what a perfect boyfriend Trey is for a minute. He pays attention to the little things that are important to Micki and supports her. She’s an artist. I’m enjoying these little bits of character development, and I’m really beginning to like some of these characters. 

Trey finds a drawing Micki made of a superhero when she was a girl. He is precious about this and wears a blanket like a cape, but the sweetest thing ever is when he takes that picture, gets it framed, wraps it up and gives it to her. He tells her she “drew a superhero when she needed one and then she became one.” Well, damn. Just swoon. We should all be lucky enough to have a partner like that. 

It’s all about to get very interesting. I’m excited for Episode 5. We’re about to find out much more about who Walker really is, what he’s done, and how it’s affected him.

Miscellaneous notes: 

Walker became a clearly defined character for me in this episode. I epted him without wanting him to be partly Sam.

Walker’s middle name is Beauregard. It’s cute when Micki calls him Beau. There’s a baby name for a future Walker fic. 

Jared’s hair may be shorter, but it still curls around his neck.

Walker Peeps: @lovealways-j​ @sams-sass​ @thinkinghardhardlythinking​ @girl-next-door-writes​

I’d love to hear what you guys thought about this ep! 

I’ll definitely be writing some more Walker fics. My Taglist for everything Walker related is open.

[twdmusicboxmystery]

Hints of Beth and the CRM War in 5x09

So, after I re-watched 6x08 and 6x09, which I posted last week, I also decided to re-watch 5x09. I did so for various reasons, including a comment I received on an old theory. But mostly, I’d been wanting to rewatch this episode for a while. I had a hunch that there might be hints toward the CRM war in it that we couldn’t possibly have known about or recognized back in S5. I was not disappointed.

Tyreese, Lizzie & Mica:

So, in this new comment I got, this commenter said she thought Ty was likening the twin boys to Lizzie and Mica. And I’m sure this has been discussed in some iteration, but I sat and thought about it in a way I hadn’t before. I know I’ve discussed that it seems, from the photos, that there seemed to be a “good” and “evil” twin, and obviously that has ties to Lizzie and Mica. But just think about it this way. Ty was obviously present for the Lizzie/Mica tragedy. Then, he’s killed by one of these twins as a walker.

A random line from 5x04, 4 Walls and a Roof, came to my mind. After Abe and co get on the short bus to go to D.C., Ty is digging graves (for the Termites they killed) and Rick goes to help him. Rick asks him something about what happened on his way to Terminus or something like that (can’t remember the exact question) and Ty answers that what happened “killed me.” Rick, looking a little annoyed, says, “No, it didn’t.” And that’s it.

 But it occurred to me that Ty’s line is a foreshadow. He was speaking about Lizzie and Mica, saying that their deaths killed him (emotionally) but it was a foreshadow that another set of siblings would actually kill him a few episodes later. I don’t have a whole lot more to say about this particular thing, though I’m going to talk more about Ty in a minute.  

The thing is, I really don’t think we understand the point of Lizzie and Mica, yet. We’ve had lots of theories, talked about how they impacted Carol, the ways in which they could be Beth proxies. But I don’t think we understand their significance in the grand scheme of things, and I’ve never quite known what to do with them symbolically. But given that they’re in Ty’s hallucination WITH BETH tells me we will probably figure it out when she returns.

Hints of the CRM in 5x09:

Several years back (like during S6) I tried so hard to figure out what the radio messages in 5x09 pointed to, and couldn’t really come to any solid conclusion about them. Of course, back then we knew absolutely nothing of the helicopter people, so how could I?

We’ve definitely seen some of the things they talk about come to pass, both before and after this episode. They mention prisons (prison fell before this) and setting people on fire (Carol did that both in S9 and also to Karen and David in S4) and of course they mention machetes (Red Machete). All important symbols.

But these messages also tell a story. Look at what they say:

“At least 68 citizens of the Republic have been killed in four deadly attacks along the main coastal district. The group has continued their campaign of random violence, moving across the countryside unfettered, with the Republic’s military forces in disarray.”

Okay, so I’m assuming the “republic” is the CRM. This suggests a different group performing guerilla warfare against them. Think about all the symbols these lines encompass. We have a group of rebels attacking the CRM, the COASTAL district, and of course the CRM itself. So it’s talking about some rebel group that will be fighting against the CRM.

I think that’s super significant, especially because of the TWB template. Remember that we saw a group of rebels, perhaps led by Will, though it’s a little unclear as yet, who is Beth’s proxy in that template. And they’re outside the CRM and, presumably, because they saw the slaughter at the college, going to fight against it. So I’m seeing this as a huge hint for Beth’s return.

The other thing to bring into the mix here is the Wolves. Because all of this in 5x09 definitely foreshadowed the wolves, and it’s where we first saw their “WOLVES NOT FAR” signs. And where did we see TONS of Beth symbolism: around the wolves.

Second message: “…then terrorizing the village by night, carrying out revenge attacks which include hacking innocents with machetes, and in some cases setting them on fire.”

Okay, so I get that this isn’t flattering for Beth or her group if she’s with the rebels, but it is really hard to know what they’re talking about here, since we don’t get the full sentence. The point is, these are acts of war, and even if this is talking about the rebel group doing this (and I think it probably is, given that wolves did all of these things a few episodes later in 6x02) it’s no worse than what we’ve already seen the CRM do.

But I can also see that if Beth is with or leading this group, this is a very Grady-like issue to be dealing with. Are we killing these people for the greater good, because the war needs to be won? You can see how Grady could easily have been a setup for what she’d be dealing with later on. And maybe she’s the “new sheriff” because she has to police her own people and not let them get too blood thirsty. Or maybe I’m reading into this WAY too much and the point is simply that there will be a violent war. ;D

There’s only one more message that comes out of the radio. So we had the first one, talking about the CRM war and a rebel group attacking the CRM. Then talk of wartime violence.

The third message is Beth singing her song. That’s super on-the-nose, if you ask me. No more clear way to say that Beth will be part of the conflict the radio voice was just talking about. See why that made me happy?

Tyreese…Again:

I’m gonna make a sweeping claim, here. I think the themes around Ty’s death are pretty much the point of the entire series. Yes, I know that’s a tall order. Let me explain. It does tie heavily into Beth’s return, but it encompasses other things as well, and I think it’s a huge part of the current Negan/Maggie/forgiveness story line.

So, when I first went to watch 5x09, I pulled up S5 on Amazon and it shows all the episodes, the first one, of course, being 5x01. And the little picture it had for that episode was Ty in the cabin with baby Judith. I sat and thought about that and that there’s the picture of a cabin in 5x09 that gets blood on it and it occurred to me that those two things are probably related.

So I watched 5x01 after watching 5x09. I’ll admit I didn’t see tons of smoking guns that haven’t already been discussed at length in 5x01. The biggest thing is simply that it was a setup for Ty’s death themes in 5x09, and I definitely need to revisit my cabin theories. ;D

So, if we look at the people Ty hallucinated, there’s the Gov, Lizzie, Mica, Beth, Bob, and Martin, right? These are all obviously people and events Ty feels guilty about. Bob’s death, because he lied about Martin and that sent the Termites after them. He feels guilty about being duped by the Gov and not realizing what a bad guy he was. Lizzie and Mica for obvious reasons. And Beth.

I honestly don’t think Tyreese did anything to feel guilty about with Beth. Not in the same way we think Sasha might have (Sasha/Tyreese Theory). But based on what the Martin hallucination says, I think he’s just really broken up about it and wondering if he could have done anything to change it. Just my opinion, though.

So, if you listen carefully to who is saying what in the hallucination, we have two different representations of good and evil. There’s 1) Bob vs. Martin and 2) Beth/Lizzie/Mica vs. the Gov. In each case, they’re like good and evil angels sitting on Ty’s shoulder and they’re arguing.

So, for example, Martin says the thing about Ty lying about his death and how, maybe somehow, if Bob hadn’t died, it would have changed things with Beth. Domino shit. And then Bob says [paraphrasing] “No, that’s bullshit. I got bit at the food bank. It went the way it had to. The way it was always going to.”

And we have the same thing going on with the Gov. He’ll basically tell Tyreese what an idiot he is, and then one of the three (Beth/Lizzie/Mica) will say, “No. It’s all right. It’s better now.”

So, you can see that Ty is really at war with himself internally.

It’s important to note that one big thing that’s mentioned is that he forgave Carol for Karen’s death. The Gov actually says that Ty is weak and ridiculous because he sat across the table from a woman that murdered someone he loved, and he actually forgave her. The Gov really razzed him about that.

And this is one of the things I mean about over-arching themes. Carol killed Karen and David in S4, which we all know was one great big foreshadow of arcs to come, and Ty forgave her.

I really think this was probably meant to be a foreshadow of Negan. Negan’s story, killing Glenn, was a way bigger deal and way more front and center, mostly because no one really knew Karen except for an episode or two and Glenn was such a beloved character.

Now, we have this redemption arc for Negan and Maggie is going to have to decide if she’ll forgive him, moving forward. We could apply this to plenty of other story lines where Rick took the violent route or forgiveness wasn’t had, and it leads to trouble and death. So, I think this is pretty huge for the overall show.

And I really think it points to Negan doing something to save TF in some way. Because they forgive him and he’s allowed to live, that will save lives. We’ve talked about this with Daryl showing Dwight mercy as well.

My Biggest Beth Takeaway:

As the episode progresses, before Rick and Michonne come to get him, Tyreese does finally stand up to the Governor. He says that the Gov was a bad guy, and that wasn’t his (Ty’s) fault. He says what he talked about with Noah: that he never turned off the radio. He always faced it, and did what he could to help. He said he forgave Carol specifically because “it’s not over.” Which I take to mean that he has hope for the world’s future, and forgiveness is the only way forward. Being angry and holding a grudge only brings death.

And then he said the thing that jumped out at me most: 

“People like me CAN live.”

Okay, so what does he mean by ‘people like me?’ Because obviously Ty didn’t live, so this doesn’t apply to him directly. Or if it does, he means that he’ll die, but people like him CAN live under some circumstances.

To figure this out, we have to go back to his cabin in 5x01. During that entire scene in No Sanctuary, Martin was giving him crap about being a “good” guy. Ty answers, “you don’t know what I’ve done.” And Martin looks at baby Judith and says, “no, you’re a good guy. You save babies. That’s a little like saving an anchor when you’re without a boat in the middle of the ocean.” (Total boat/water reference.)

So, when Ty says “people like me,” he means those who choose to be good. Who choose to be hopeful and moral, rather than violent. There’s a long-running theme in the show that Chris Hardwick mentions a lot, that people who function as the moral compass of the group often die. And that’s true.

But here, Ty says, “people like me” (meaning the moral compasses) CAN live.

And Beth is in the room with him when he says that.

She’s looking at the clock radio that simultaneously reads 5:10 (music box) and also 8:22 (Resurrection).

The skeptic might argue that all these other people are in the room too, and how can we be sure he means her? Well, putting all the mountains of TD evidence aside, they do have a point. After all, all the “good” characters Ty hallucinates (Bob, Beth, Mica) are moral compasses and fit the criteria. There are plenty of others not represented here (Hershel, Dale, Glenn, Denise, even Abraham to an extent) but these are the ones Ty felt particularly guilty about.

But I would argue that we only heard one person’s voice come through the radio: Beth’s.

So once again, look at this from a bird’s eye view. Talk of the CRM and a coming war. Then Beth’s voice comes through that same radio, suggesting she’ll be part of it. And later on, “people like me CAN live.”

See what I mean? As I told my fellow theorists, this episode really had all we needed to predict Beth’s return. We just couldn’t have understood the meanings back then.

And honestly, this may be the explanation for the Lizzie/Mica thing I mentioned above. It’s a representation of the evil killing the good, which is super traumatizing and messes everyone up because as humans, we’re hard-wired to believe good will win out.

So, we had Lizzie/Mica, Noah’s brothers, and then the good vs evil hallucinations I already talked about. And we might even have a representation of this at Grady because of evil officer Bob.

We had good Bob who died in 5x04, and then Evil Officer Bob, who directly led to them only having two prisoners, which directly led to Beth getting shot. And I remember when it aired, the show brought a lot of attention to it by doing clickbait articles about why there were “two Bobs.”

So, it’s something they wanted us to notice. And then we see Bob in Ty’s hallucination here. I gotta think that Sasha and Ty’s sibling relationship plays into this in some way as well.

Okay, I’ll shut up, now. But re-watching this gave me tons of hope. We can’t say for sure that we’ll see her in the bonus episodes (though obviously I hope we will) but I’m more sure than ever that she’ll be part of the CRM war. And we’re kind of on the cusp of that. We just have to sit back and wait. ;D

[thatsaweirdwaytospellundead]

Mankai’s 5th Mixed Troupe Play: Yin Yang Midnight 1/ 3

This story takes place during the Heian era-- The extravagant culture and lifestyles of the wealthy elite are coming to an end as murmurings of a mysterious Onryo begin to spread through the court.

Then suddenly, an unexplained plague begins to sweep through the streets of the city. The epidemic moves swiftly through the royal court until the emperor himself falls ill.

Characters

Sakyo as Abe no Seimei

Azuma as Kou

Citron as Geppaku

Guy as Hisui

Explanation of terms

This story is heavily based on traditional Japanese religious practices and thus some Japanese terms will be left to preserve the meaning of the story. I have also included links to wikipedia artists explaining the terms if you would like to read more.

Heian Period: Japanese era that lasted between 794 - 1185 AD.

Onmyouji: A person who practices “Onmyoudo”, a spiritual practice common in Japan during the Heian Period. Onmyouji were responsible for keeping track of calendars, performing rituals, etc. 

Onmyouji Bureau: An official department in the royal court made up of Onmyouji who served the emperor. 

Onryo: A vengeful spirit that returns after death to cause chaos.

Shikigami: A spirit companion that is summoned by an Onmyouji to help with tasks. They can possess animals and use magic, however it takes a lot of strength from the Onmyouji to control their Shikigami properly.

Due to the length of this play, I will be posting it in 3 parts

[ Part 1 ] [ Part 2 ] [ Part 3 ]

Onmyouji Chief

Seimei, you heard about the disease that is spreading through the city, right?

Seimei

I have.

Onmyouji Chief

Well there’s only one other person who knows this but...

The Emperor has fallen ill.

Seimei

--!

Onmyouji Chief

But if this got out to the rest of the imperial court, it would definitely incite a bunch of useless panic.

There would probably be a power struggle if this news got out that the emperor is in critical condition.

So, let’s pray he recovers from this.

You should go perform a purification ritual immediately.

Seimei

Understood.

Seimei

Cleanse the heart, cleanse the body

Kou

Leaving all the grunt work to you again? Tch.. Typical.

Despite your efforts, you know they are just looking for someone to scapegoat, right?

Seimei

Don’t say such things, Kou!

Kou

Yah, yah, whatever.

Seimei

--

Kou

..... Something’s coming.

Seimei

Make haste, follow my command! 

Kou

Too bad, he got away.

Seimei

..... What’s the meaning of this?

Kou

Were you even listening to me? This is all just busy work.

Seimei

The Emperor’s life is in danger.

We must hurry!

Onmyouji Chief

It’s an Onyro you say? Don’t be ridiculous.

There are no gaps in the boundary of the imperial court.

If that were the case it would mean one of our fellow onmyouji has turned on the great emperor himself. 

Completely impossible.

Seimei

Well...

Onmyouji Chief

Seimei.

Was this your plan all along? To put the blame on some so-called Onryo as an excuse for why you couldn’t complete the purification ritual?

No matter how hard you try, you’re still as conceited as ever.

Seimei

-- I wasn’t trying to make excuses for--

Onmyouji Chief

Then step down!

Let someone else handle the ritual.

Seimei

...

The Onmyouji Bureau tasks Abeno Seimei in charge of holding the purification ceremony in order to cure the emperor. However, during the ritual, Seimei encounters a troubling sign that convinces him that the plague sweeping through the imperial court is the work of an onryo. Seimei then sets out to find a way to exterminate the spirit from the court.

Seimei brings his findings to the head of the Onmyouji Chief and is met with laughter. Without the support of the Onmyouji Bureau, Seimei struggles to continue his investigation.

Kou

You don’t need those shitheads. They’re gonna realise they were wrong sooner or later.

Seimei

I doubt it.

If we don’t take action now the damage is only going to get worse.

Kou

But those higher-ups at the Onmyouji Bureau got their eyes on you so there’s no way you can just move around freely.

Seimei

But Kou....

I can’t just sit back and watch!

Kou

You work too hard. Hope you don’t regret it.

Seimei

I don’t care about all that nonsense, just tell me what you found.

Kou

I told you already. The barrier surrounding the imperial court is pretty strong, so strong I doubt even we could break through. An onryo could never slip through.

Seimei

.... That’s just like what the Onmyouji Chief said... Right?

Geppaku

Master Seimei.

Seimei

-- Geppaku? You came back!?

Geppaku

I got here yesterday. Sorry I didn’t write you sooner.

Seimei

I see, long time no see!

Geppaku

You look happy as ever, I’m glad!

Seimei

Same for you, Geppaku.

You look just as healthy as I imagined.

Geppaku

Thank you so much!

Even far from the city I caught wind of some rumors.

Seimei

Guess even I couldn’t stop that.

Geppaku

What’s with that blank expression? Did something happen?

Seimei

You didn’t happen to hear about a mysterious plague sweeping through the city, did you?

Geppaku

Yes, I heard no one knows where it came from.

Seimei

I’m afraid it is the work of an onryo.

Sadly I just couldn’t catch it myself....

Geppaku

Perhaps maybe I could lend you a hand?

Seimei

Really?

Geppaku

I don’t really know if I could do much, but I’ll do whatever I can to help, please let me try.

Seimei

What a lifesaver!

With you at my side, Geppaku, there is nothing we can’t do!

-- Kou.

Kou

You called?

Seimei

Please enlighten Geppaku on the curse of the vengeful spirit.

Kou

Ehh, I’m kinda not feeling it right now.

Seimei 

Excuse me, this is not a question of whether you want to do it or not.

Kou

Fine, whatever.

Geppaku

Hehe, what a quirky shikigami you got there.

Seimei

I don’t know how I put up with him, really.

Geppaku

On the flip side, he definitely seems pretty strong!

That’s the Seimei I know!

Seimei

You too, Geppaku.

How goes your training? You have to tell me all about it later.

Geppaku

I can’t say I am as nearly as adept as you, Master Seimei.

Seimei

What are you saying? Surely by now our skill levels are almost even.

Seimei is at a loss of what to do when an old student of his, Geppaku, appears. Geppaku is a foreign boy and because of that, despite his strength, was unable to enter the ranks of the Onmyouji. Geppaku returns to Seimei after he had left the city to continue his training.

Geppaku volunteers to help Seimei and from there the two begin their investigation into the cause of the epidemic. However, Seimei’s shikigami, Kou, does not seem to like Geppaku much and acts coldly toward him. Seimei does not seem to notice this, however. Towards the end of their research, the pair hear of another happening outside of the town that could be related to the so-called onryo. The duo make haste to the scene.

Seimei

So this is where all that commotion about that onryo was coming from?

Kou

This is right about where the first case broke out.

And also around the same time of day.

Seimei

I don’t really know if there’s any relation, but it’s definitely something to look into.

Villager

’s there somethin’ I can help ya with?

Seimei

You didn’t happen to hear anything about an onryo sighting here, have you?

Villager

Ah well ya see...

I was pretttyyy drunk one night,

‘nd I saw it riiiight here. A big ol’ ball ‘o fire flew up and I tripped at this ‘ere stone and whaddya know a will-o-wisp came flyin’ out!

It had some kinda creepy glow.

I got quite a shock and nearly poo’d my pants.

I dun remember a thin’ after dat though.

Seimei

A rock, huh... Seems like such a childish prank for a ghost...

It makes me kinda worried.

I have never heard of anything like this before, let’s look it up, Kou.

Kou

Hey hey, isn’t that something a little heavy for a Shikigami?

Seimei hears about a sighting of the spirit from a villager who encountered it during a drunken evening. Intrigued by the story, Seimei tasks Kou to see if there are any similar stories from inside the city.

After looking into it, Seimei realises this spirit is not just a simple prankster, but in fact a strong force that could even penetrate the safeguards placed around the city’s borders.

To be continued... Read part 2 here!

[orihara-infobroker]

Ranty rant rant about stuff because this cat just needs to vent.

So I've mentioned this before a few times though I don't really talk about it all that much. One of my on-and-off hobbies is role-playing. Tabletop, live-action, or narrative writing, I pretty much enjoy them all. For similar reasons to why I love writing stories. I like creating characters and worlds. In writing I do all the heavy lifting but role-playing has the unique experience of collaborative storytelling and that adds an element that can be very fun. Also, sometimes it's just fun to play in someone else's sandbox for a change.

Some time ago, a friend invited me to check out a Harry Potter rp site. The site itself is pretty decently setup and it seemed like it could be interesting. I'm not a huge Potter nerd but I've seen the movies and I'm a sucker for fantasy settings. But this isn't the first time I've dipped my toes in the HP universe so I thought that instead of doing the standard Eurocentric character, I'd try something different.

I admit, I'd been working pretty heavily on Shadow and Light at the time so that was strongly influencing my mood insofar as what I wanted to play with. So I submitted the idea of a Japanese character who had grown up in Japan but recently moved to London (thus why I'd be attending Hogwarts). The character's parents were onmyoji, part of a branch family of the Tsuchimikado clan. This clan is somewhat famous for its relation to Abe no Seimei who is arguably the most famous onmyoji in Japanese folklore. I also requested that the character be a metamorph which is a wizard who can change their features. Basically a kind of shape-shifting. Tonks was a metamorph, for reference. In requesting this, I was asked to explain why my family had a metamorph. So I wrote a piece where the character's mom told him the story of Abe no Seimei's mom being a fox that his Dad saved and that there had been stories told of how Abe no Seimei could change his appearance. (Not into a fox. Just change his appearance.) And how sometimes people in the clan would be born with the same ability.

Note that everything I incorporated into this character's backstory is based off actual Japanese mythology and not Harry Potter universe. Harry Potter universe doesn't actually address anything about how magic is done in the East. (And if Rowling ever comes up with anything it'll probably be hideously racist anyway but I digress.)

All of this is important, I promise.

So I was a Japanese pureblood kid raised to become an onmyoji only to end up at Hogwarts by pure misfortune. I thought this would be fun to play, basically a foreign exchange student completely out of his element, not understanding how Western magic works, struggling with having to learn English on top of magic, etc.

Well.

Apparently my idea set all sorts of fires under the admin staff of this site. They were opposed because:

1. They didn't think I knew what I was talking about when I suggested being onmyoji (wherein I proved that I actually know more about onmyoji and Japanese mythology than them.)

2. They didn't have lore on the East therefore they didn't want me making stuff up because it might not mesh with what they might eventually get around to creating somewhere down the road. Even though they had no current plans to develop the Eastern setting. (Yeah. You read that right. I was told... in a role play game... not to make stuff up... which is ironic given that I didn't actually make anything up, just liberally stole from actual Japanese mythology. Further, my character was going to Hogwarts so all of this was just backstory and flavour.)

3. I CANNOT BE RELATED TO ABE NO SEIMEI HE IS LIKE THE JAPANESE MERLIN!!!!!!! (Oh yes. Please. Make more ignorant racist comments at me. From now on I shall refer to Merlin as the English Abe no Seimei. -_- Abe no Seimei, while unlikely to be as mystical as he was made out to be in the stories, was a real person. Merlin was never real. He was always a fictional creation. Further, I never claimed to be related to Abe no Seimei. I claimed to be a branch family of the Tsuchimikado Clan to whom Abe no Seimei was either a member of or the founder of, depending on varying stories. So. Apparently they don't understand how Japanese clans work? Or branch families? No? OK, great. GREAT.)

4. They claimed that my story about the kitsune wasn't appropriate because kitsune were a type of mythical creature and metamorphs are completely human so I can't be "half-fox". Further, one of them claimed I wanted to be "half-demon". (Which is both a grave misinterpretation of what I wrote *and* a completely incorrect assumption on what kitsune are. They are not any kind of demon. And I didn't want to be any kind of half demon or even half fox. It was a story told from a mother to a child, using a classic myth to convey a possible reason why their family sometimes had metamorphs. That's it. Which, if they had understand that whole BRANCH FAMILY thing, they should have definitely realized. But apparently I wasn't clear enough? Ok. Fine, maybe I was too fucking subtle. Still never asked to be half fucking anything. Asked to be a metamorph. That's it.)

5. Labeled me as a problem because of all of this. Which occurred over the course of two conversations and a handful of days. Yeah. YEAH. I'M A FUCKING PROBLEM BECAUSE I TRIED TO BE FUCKING CREATIVE IN THEIR FUCKING SANDBOX AND HAPPENED TO ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT THE FUCK I WAS TALKING ABOUT WHICH TURNED OUT TO BE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE THAN THEM.

And it's so frustrating because I was looking forward to playing with my friend on this site and I genuinely felt like they were targeting me because I didn't choose a basic bitch character and I had the nerve to ask questions when they tried to contest it. Like, it wasn't a genuine conversation where two sides explained their opinions. It was literally me trying to propose something and being treated like a child when I was repeatedly trying to explain where they were misinterpreting the things I had written because they didn't know Japanese history/mythology.

I've been a gamemaster/storyteller for games before. Over the course of my time role-playing, I've run four Larps, a handful of tabletops and hosted a couple online rps. My Discord server is technically a role play server that I moderate ( currently its mostly just chatting, not a lit of rp but it was designed to be rp lol). I know how these things work. And that just makes this more frustrating because my impulse, as a storyteller, has always been to work together with players to create engaging stories. I've always been willing to accept the potential of new ideas because the whole point of fucking role-playing is getting to exercise your imagination and tell stories together. So from my perspective, I'd be more than happy to work with them on this. I'd be more than happy to share what I know and talk about what could work or not work. But they don't seem to want to engage in that way and it makes me sad, frustrated, disappointed. Especially because I had really been looking forward to playing with my friend and now it seems that this whole thing is doomed to failure.

All because I got creative and asked questions. :/

[desiringparadise]

Hi, I know this gonna sound weird but I'm here thanks to A03, I read "It's A Terrible Love And I'm Walking With Spiders" again (idk why), Let me tell you something: It's fantastic. But I realized that you haven't update for four or five years, well I'm not gonna ask you to do it, that's in you, but I'd like to ask something, could you tell me what was the plan with tha fic, and how will it end, just a summary because I'm dying in my curiosity, well only few words left, so thanks and be careful

Omgggg thank you!!! It isn’t weird at all, I sometimes re-read old unfinished fics too because they stuck with me for some odd reason. I was at a bad mental space when I wrote this story and I feel like my issues manifested in the atmosphere of the story. Maybe readers can relate to some of it?

As to how the story was supposed to end. I didn’t remember and I actually had to look through my old notebook lol. I actually found the unfinished fifth chapter in my folders, so I’ll post it here.

Keep in mind that I wrote this in November 2016 and I never finished editing it. I didn’t post it because I was unsatisfied with the result. I’d rate it T/M.

Chapter 5

Miserable, Stiles focused on the silhouette of naked feet, his eyes never straying any higher. Luckily, the shower glass was milky, so even if he couldn’t have resisted satisfying his own curiosity, he wouldn’t actually have seen much.

After the Sheriff had left, Theo had asked to take a shower. Stiles had let him under the condition that the door would remain open and Theo under Stiles’ scrutiny. Under no circumstances would he have let the other boy roam around in his house without checking what he was up to. There were meds in the cupboard, something he wouldn’t risk leaving him alone with.

Unsurprisingly, Theo hadn’t objected. “Be my guest,” he’d said instead, an extra smarmy grin on his face.

That’s why Stiles was sitting against the wall, knees drawn to his chest while trying not to fall asleep. The sound of water spraying had become lulling white noise, making it hard to keep his eyes open. Maybe he should take some Adderall to shake off the drowsiness. It wasn’t like he would get any sleep tonight anyway. Not while knowing that Theo Raeken was under the same roof as him.

He was pulled out of his thoughts when the spray of water stopped, the shower door opened, and Theo stepped out without an ounce of hesitation. You’d think he’d at least pretend to be a little embarrassed about showing his naked body.

Not that Theo should be ashamed, Stiles realized. He had known before that the other boy was built, but the naked view of him - well, he couldn’t lie, it was a sight to behold. Perfect, unreal. The shoulders, the arms, the chest – everything about him was broad without being too bulky. His flawless skin only added to the look of a retouched Men’s Health cover shoot. Stiles felt entranced to follow his abs, down to the wonderfully defined V of his hips, before stopping himself. Yeah, he had just seen Theo’s dick, it had been kinda inevitable, but there was no reason to scrutinize it any further. None.

Quickly, he moved his gaze up to look at Theo’s face instead, the usual smirk somehow looking even more smarmy than usual.

“Like what you see?”

The question was so cliché, just like this whole goddamn scenario, that Stiles felt the desperate need to break the spell.

“I prefer chest hair.”

For the first time since Theo had arrived in Beacon Hills, he was dumbfounded. It left Stiles feeling satisfied, before his face froze, his heartbeat quickening. Did he just seriously tell Theo that he was interested in men? He resisted the urge to smack his palm against his face.

Theo did the unexpected and actually came up with an answer.

“I could let it grow, if you wanted me to.”

Stiles squinted. “What the hell would you do that for?”

Theo shrugged his broad shoulder, still unperturbed by his own nudity. “Just trying to win you over, that’s all.”

Stiles rolled his eyes, finally rising up and to look at Theo’s face and ignore everything that was going on below. “Well, your lack of chest hair wasn’t the deciding factor that kept me on the other side. Why don’t you put on a towel?”

“Don’t have one,” Theo answered with an innocent smile.

Stiles sighed and motioned for the other boy to follow as he walked to his room. When he opened the door, he felt uncomfortable letting a naked Theo into his personal space. Hurriedly, he drew the curtains and searched for a large towel in the cupboard. When he found one, he threw it over to Theo without sparing him another look.

“Can you borrow me some clothes?”

Stiles was inclined to say no, let Theo sleep in his uncomfortable jeans instead. There was something strange about giving Theo his clothes to wear. But he wasn’t sure when his father would return from the station. When the man arrived, he would go through the living room and see Theo who’d be sleeping on the coach.

He sighed and searched his closet for something that’d fit. Theo wasn’t taller, but much broader than him. (Un)fortunately, Stiles usually wore clothes that were a few sizes too big anyway. He found some sweats. He was painfully reminded that Theo wouldn’t be wearing underwear underneath. No way he’d be wearing those pants before washing them at least five times.

“Long or short sleeves?”

“Don’t need a shirt.”

Stiles frowned, pulling his too long sleeves even further down. “It’s freezing.”

Theo grinned. “I’m running hot. Want to see it for yourself?”

Stiles rolled his eyes and walked past him. “Whatever, I’ll be fixing you the coach.”

Theo followed him in an easy stride. He didn’t even seem a little uncomfortable to casually stroll through a stranger’s home without a shirt on. Completely relaxed, he sunk into the coach and watched Stiles as he spread clean sheets over the sofa.

“Do your parents know you’re staying over?” Stiles couldn’t even remember the Raekens’ faces anymore.

“Sent them a text.”

Stiles nodded, too tired to investigate any further.

.

Except he was unable to fall asleep. For about roughly an hour he had been tossing and turning, his anxiety back at it again although he had forewent his Adderall. Then, for a couple of minutes, he stayed still, not moving a muscle while waiting to hear any sounds come from downstairs.

But there was only silence.

About half an hour ago, his eyes started tearing up from exhaustion. It was annoying. He wasn’t really crying, but the stream of tears didn’t stop. Now his eyes were swollen and aching.

He was unable to come to rest. He took a deep breath. Maybe if he’d open the door and take a proper listen, he’d finally relax. Feeling ridiculous, left the warmth of his bed and softly padded towards his door. But he was only met with frustratingly familiar silence.

He sighed and returned to bed when- Wait, was that a sound? He froze and listened, eyes wide open as if waiting for an assault. Looking down, he noticed that he had stepped on a creaking floor board. The noise could have come from him. But what if it hadn’t?

He shook his head. He was being paranoid, utterly ridiculous… Yet, what if there had been something? He took a deep breath and held it, wanting his heart beat to slow. Okay, he’d go outside again, just this once, and take a look around house, and most importantly, check whether Theo was doing something sketchy.

He left his room, slowly descending the stairs. From here, Theo’s form was still, he seemed to be sleeping. Just to be sure, he told himself as he gradually closed the distance between them. He stopped just before the sofa and leaned down to inspect his face. His eyes were closed and his breathing was calm. Everything about him indicated to be asleep.

But the ugly voice of his paranoia ordered him to look more closely, check whether Theo wasn’t faking it.

Suddenly Theo’s eyes were wide open, an unnatural light shining in them. Stiles startled. He stumbled backwards, his feet hit agianst the coffee table, and he fell on his ass.

“Stiles?” Theo blinked, the strange light in his eyes gone. Had he imagined it? He must have, there was no other explanation for it. He was going crazy. “Why are you up? Did something happen?” His voice was groggy from asleep, but otherwise he seemed alert.

Stiles felt ridiculous. His thought process hadn’t made any sense to begin with, spoken out loud, they’d sound like he’d lost his mind. This paranoia, it wasn’t normal. He liked to tell himself that it was the Adderall, the ADHD, but when he was honest with himself, he knew it was him. He was fucking crazy. No wonder he didn’t have any friends, no wonder Erica had ditched him the first chance she got. He wouldn’t be his own friend either. There was nothing to gain from this cynical, insecure, anxious mess that he was.

His uneven breath catch in his throat, the last drop for his straying nerves. His mind collapsed in itself and he pathetically started to cry.

If Theo hadn’t been awake then, he probably was now. He stumbled out of the sheets and approached Stiles, putting both hands on his shoulders. His eyes were wide with concern. “Hey- hey, Stiles, come on. What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

Stiles shook his head, his chest heaving with sobs. He was such a goddamn mess. The more he wanted to force himself to calm down, the more he worked himself up. The rational part of his mind told him that this wouldn’t pass until he calmed down. But he was too upset and Theo’s presence made everything worse. He wanted to crawl into a hole and wait till the panic was over.

But he knew that wasn’t possible. “I can’t sleep,” he managed to ground out between the ugly sniffing and sobbing.

“Did you have a nightmare?”

Stiles snorted, as if Theo’s suggestion had been completely ridiculous. Actually, it wasn’t that far off the truth though. He had nightmares, more often so recently. To some of them he woke up silently, heavily breathing, the panic constrained in his chest, but without a sound. Sometimes he screamed. But only his father knew that.

“No. I just – I can’t sleep with you here, not knowing what you’re doing.”

He expected Theo to be confused, demand an explanation, maybe even laugh. Instead he said, “I could go.”

“What?” He shook his head. “No.” How would he explain that to his father? He wouldn’t be able to stand another discussion with him about seeing a professional about his problems. Yes, he had problems, he knew that – but none some shrink could help him with. The only thing he had going for him was that he wasn’t labeled crazy by the public yet. “You’re staying,” he said with finality.

For a while, there was silence. Theo must be put off by Stiles acting like a freaking lunatic. Any normal person would’ve left by now. Hell, he would’ve ran out the house if the roles were reversed. Instead Theo asked, “Do you have any handcuffs?”

For a few seconds, Stiles didn’t say a word. But when he had finally gathered himself- “What the fuck?”

“Real ones,” the other boy recuperated nonchalantly.

“Why in the hell would you-“

“Because, obviously, I’m kinky, if you haven’t guessed it by now,” Theo answered rolling his eyes. Stiles wasn’t sure whether that had been a joke. “”You wanna sleep or what? Go get me some handcuffs.”

Normally, he wouldn’t have obeyed simply on principle, but he was curious where this would go. And as he rummaged through the drawer, where he knew his father kept a spare pair of handcuffs, he realized that the suffocating panic in his chest was gone.

“Now I’ll go outside and you hide the keys somewhere,” Theo ordered. Stiles wanted to question him, but before he could, Theo had already left the house, still shirtless in the cold night. Not knowing what else to do, Stiles went up to his room and hid the little key in his pill bottle.

When he opened the door for Theo to enter, he didn’t seem affected by the freezing weather. There weren’t even any goosebumps on his skin.

“All done?” Theo asked, the blue-green eyes open and honest. Stiles nodded.

Unceremoniously, Theo cuffed his own wrists together.

Stiles stared. “Okay… What is this about?”

The boy shook his wrist, the metal of the cuffs making clinking sounds. “See? I won’t be able to do much without you hearing. No need to worry about what I’m doing. So are we taking the bed or the couch?”

Stiles should be horrified, but frankly, the plan made sense. It could actually work. And really? It was some crazy shit that he would’ve come up with. The sort of solution that people would raise their brows at but that would actually work. “How do I know you won’t do anything to me while I sleep?”

Theo rolled his eyes. “Stiles, no offense, but if I wanted to harm you, I wouldn’t have to wait until you’re asleep. You’re not exactly what I’d call a physical challenge.”

Fair enough...

“There is no way we’d fit on the couch.”

.

Stiles had ordered Theo to lay on the side of the bed that faced the wall so that there would be no chance of leaving the bed without alerting Stiles. Theo was happy to lie on his side and watch the other boy’s peaceful face. For once, his breathing was even, but he was still twitching and moving in his sleep, restless, even in his most relaxed moments.

When they had first lain down, Theo had feigned sleep. He knew that Stiles wouldn’t have been able to calm down if Theo had openly watched him. Now though, he stare at him to his heart’s content. He’d watched Stiles without his knowledge before. There were some perfect angles from the outside from which you could see Stiles rummaging in the kitchen. Sometimes he forgot to draw the curtains and Theo could catch glimpses of his sleeping form.

But in never had been like this. Stiles, only an arm’s length away, the ever-present scent of anxiousness enveloping him.

He mumbled something in his sleep, tossed and turned and eventually scooted closer to Theo. It probably was due to Stiles’ weird sleeping positions and the unconscious urge to scoot towards warmth, but nonetheless, Thep was elated when the boy’s head almost touched his chest. He could feel his breath on his naked skin.

Theo wondered whether he could get away with stroking his hair, just running his fingers through the dark hair for once, but he refrained. He still was desperately trying to get Stiles to trust him.

At first glance, Stiles seemed like easy prey. He was isolated and defenseless. He should’ve soaked up all of Theo’s affections and begged for more. But Theo had underestimated him vastly. Stiles wasn’t playing hard to get, he simply was too smart to fall for something as simple as charm.

It only made Theo want him even more. Stiles would be the perfect person to stand by his side. Clever, loyal, and absolutely ruthless.

But he had to get Stiles to trust him first. The boy couldn’t see it yet, but once all circumstances molded to Theo’s wishes, Stiles would find himself in a much happier place. Theo just had to give him a nudge into the right direction and make him realize how much of a glorious team they could be under Theo’s rule.

His father was the only important person in Stile’s life. Eventually, Theo would insert himself as a part of his life. Stiles was his centre already, now he had to make himself Stiles’ centre.

.

This is were this document ended. I think I planned to end this chapter at this point. I hadn’t planned the future chapters in every detail, but here’s how I planned for the story to roughly go:

Stiles and Theo were supposed to get closer, Theo eventually gaining Stiles’ trust and helping him over his issues with anxiety. They’d slowly become friends, but their relationship would always have a sexual undertone because it’d always been clear that Theo wanted to be more than friends. The sexual tension would escalate and they’d hook up and become an official item.

They would share a toxic dynamic. While Theo is devoted to Stiles, he’s also extremely controlling and possessive. He would watch Stiles, trying to keep constant tabs on what he was doing, going through his phone, getting pissed when Stiles was acting friendly with anyone. They would have big fights over this in which Theo would tell Stiles that he cares too much for him to just let him be.

While Stiles would know that this is an extremely unhealthy relationship that can’t end well, some part of him (the part that had been ignored by the people around him for all his life and was starving for a semblance of affection) loved that he was this important to Theo. And while his relationship was anything but normal, he liked that he got to experience something as normal as having a boyfriend, something he’d never envisioned before.

So they’d have fights, Theo would apologize with some grand gesture, and Stiles wouldn’t be able to stay mad (because some part of him wasn’t actually mad at all). This pattern would repeat itself.

Meanwhile, Scott and his friends would try to make Stiles see reason. By now, they would’ve noticed Theo’s and Stiles’ dynamic because of how explosive Theo can get in public once his jealousy is triggered. Stiles, however, can’t stand Scott and his friends to begin with. He thinks that nobody but his father and Theo, in his own twisted way, cares about him and that they’re only trying to provoke Theo through Stiles.

I don’t think the whole Dread-Doctors thing had been all the way revealed when I was plotting this, so they wouldn’t have been included in this story. But eventually, some danger would befall Beacon Hills again. Amidst everything, everyone’s supernatural identity would be revealed to Stiles. He’d feel vindicated to have his suspicions finally confirmed. He and Theo would work together on overcoming whatever enemy they’d be facing off against. 

At some point during all of this, Theo’s behaviour would escalate and would cause something disastrous to happen. Someone would be killed. Stiles can finally no longer ignore Theo’s issues as he fights his desire to stay with Theo against his morals. He’d tell Theo that they needed a break.

Theo would beg him not to break it off, promise to change, and confess his love. Though Stiles would know that Theo wouldn’t really change because of the numerous times he’s promised before, he’d be too moved by Theo’s confession to resist. Eventually, he’d decide be selfish and put his own wants before the needs of others. He’d decide that he’d rather have his toxic, obsessive, passionate relationship with Theo, than to return to the bleak void that he was in before Theo entered his life.

Eventually, they’d graduate and move away to live in some big city like L.A. or NYC. 

The End.

[callboxkat]

(Un)Broken - part 6

Author’s note: Sorry for the wait! I hope you guys like this one.

Warnings: food mention, headache mention, kinda implied racism?, Remy being an angsty boy

Word count: 1106

Look for the masterpost in the notes!

...

That afternoon, Virgil had a shift at the record shop he worked at; so, it was rather late by the time he made it back to the crummy apartment complex he called home.

He entered his apartment and shut the door behind him as silently as the hinges allowed. All the lights in the apartment were off, including those in Remy’s room—the door was half-open—but Virgil could see a bluish glow within, roughly where Remy’s bed was. Probably from either his laptop or his phone.

Remy didn’t call out a greeting, and Virgil just crept past, not wanting to get yelled at like he had the day before. One of the floorboards creaked under his foot, but Remy still didn’t acknowledge him.

Virgil wondered what was going on with him. They’d gotten the insomnia thing sorted out months before, hadn’t they? And it was spring, so the odds were that it wasn’t related to his seasonal depression. Something must have happened on Monday.

Should he try to ask? Or would he just get yelled at again? Virgil honestly had no idea.

He ended up settling for spending the rest of the evening hanging out in the main room, rather than in his bedroom, in case Remy decided that he wanted to talk.

Even so, Virgil was surprised when, a few hours later, he heard shuffling footsteps coming up behind the couch. He turned his head to look, and there was his roommate: he had a blanket tugged around his shoulders, his sunglasses on crooked, and his hair hanging down in loose tangles. Virgil silently moved his feet so there’d be room for him to sit down.

Remy did so, sighing heavily. For several long minutes, neither of them said anything, just watching the television, which was playing a rerun of an old game show.

“Sorry,” Remy said, breaking the silence. His voice cracked in a way that sounded almost painful. Had… had he been crying?

“Hm?”

“Sorry,” Remy repeated. He cleared his throat. “For yelling at ya earlier.”

“You mean yesterday?”

Remy was silent for a second. “Right,” he commented absently.

“I mean…” Virgil sighed. “It’s fine, I guess.” Part of him wanted to be more upset about having been told to ‘f--- off’, but Remy looked pretty rough. “Are you okay?”

“Hmm.” Remy leaned the back of his head against the couch. “Nah, girl,” he admitted, shutting his eyes.

“’Nah’?” Virgil echoed. “What’s going on?”

There was another long silence. Virgil was starting to wonder if his roommate had fallen asleep, when Remy suddenly moved, pushing himself up from the couch in one quick movement.

“Good night,” he muttered, shuffling off back towards his room. Virgil stared after him.

…

“So,” Virgil asked conversationally at lunch the next day, glancing at Roman. “Can I ask you something?”

The three friends—Virgil, Roman, and Patton—were all sitting together in the cafeteria. Logan still wasn’t there. None of them had seen him that day, and he hadn’t responded to a text that Patton had sent asking if he was coming.

Patton seemed agitated, pushing around his food with his fork without making any move to take a bite. Virgil himself was growing increasingly uneasy, too, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. He needed to create some sort of distraction, anything to keep him and the others from their worry. He’d have preferred to talk with Patton directly, but he wasn’t sure that Patton would actually answer him.

“Certainly,” Roman said, setting down his own fork.

“Why’d you only start learning Spanish when you were four? Your mom’s a native speaker, isn’t she? Or did you just say that so I’d feel better about you helping me with my paper?”

Roman grinned. “Well, first of all, that was three questions,” he joked, holding up his pointer finger. “But, that was true. And both of my parents were native speakers, actually.”

Virgil gave him a baffled look.

“I think they wanted not to speak Spanish,” Roman shrugged. “They changed their mind when Emilio was born, though.”

“Why wouldn’t they want you to speak Spanish?” Patton asked, finally looking up from his stir fry. He blinked in confusion.

Roman looked thoughtful. “You know, I don’t know. Maybe they though English was more American.”

Virgil snorted.

“I think it’s cool you speak Spanish,” Patton mumbled, going back to poking at his food.

“Thanks, Padre,” Roman said, smiling.

Virgil was trying to figure out what to say next when he saw someone walking up to the table out of the corner of his eye. He turned to look.

“Logan!” Roman cried in delighted surprise. Patton’s head shot up. His mouth fell slightly open.

Logan, who looked perfectly normal, set down a textbook on the table and pulled out the chair next to Virgil. “Greetings,” he said, as if he hadn’t just been gone for two days.

“You! You’re back!” Patton said, stating the obvious. He was sitting up straight, staring at Logan like he couldn’t quite believe he was there.

“I am,” Logan confirmed. “I apologize for my tardiness. One of my professors wanted to discuss my recent absences.”

“I’ll fight them,” Patton promised.

“It was nothing bad,” Logan said. “She just wanted to find a time to schedule a test that I missed.”

Virgil, who had been about to take a bite of his sandwich, paused.

“Wait,” Roman suddenly said, appearing to surprise even himself with the volume of the word. “You missed a test?”

Logan adjusted his glasses. “Yes, well….”

“Are your headaches getting worse?” Patton asked in a small voice.

Logan sighed. “No,” he said. “No, I promise, they’re not. But they’re also….”

“Not getting better?” Virgil finished uncertainly.

Logan nodded once.

“Oh, Logan,” Patton said softly.

“Couldn’t they still get better?” Roman asked. “It hasn’t been that long.”

“They could,” Logan said. “My doctor, however, does not seem overly optimistic. In any case, I have to deal with them now, so the uncertainty of the future is not pertinent to my current situation.”

“Hm,” was Roman’s only reply.

Still, that sucks, Virgil thought. He glanced over at the clock. They were running a little short on time.

“Want half my sandwich?” Virgil offered, waving it temptingly. Logan didn’t have any lunch yet, and the line was rather long. Patton would probably pout if Logan left them again before their free period was over.

“That’s quite alright, Virgil,” Logan said. “I can simply—.” He broke off, apparently catching sight of Patton’s expression. He sighed. “Very well. I shall compensate you tomorrow.”

“Sure,” Virgil said. Logan accepted the sandwich.

“So,” he said, inspecting the sandwich like he was looking for the best place to bite. “Have I missed anything while I was gone?”

Roman perked up. “Well, there is this play that I’ve been meaning to tell you guys about….”

...

Tag list: @patton-loves-coloring @starryfirefliesbloggo @purplesoul-at-hogwarts  @gaylotusthatexists @quoth-the-sparrow @awesomelissawho @amuthefunperson @faithfreedom @heck-im-lost @gayfandomsaremything @jemthebookworm @opaque-puppet @bunny222 @syndianites @astraastro @momolinia @captainswan618 @hamilin-manuel-miranda @goldenkiddos @afilhadehades-blog @virgeofselfdestruction @theresneverenoughfandoms @iris-sanders-athena @super-magical-wizard @rainbow-sides @thefallendog @fanficptsd @zodiac-awesome @lookitsthatquietgirl @nerd-in-space @pearls-of-patton @ab-artist @angered-turtle @im-so-infinitesimal @raygelkitty @dr-gloom @whats-going-on-kiddos @the-dumbster @oh-star-how-the-mighty-fall @fillyourteacup @kittiebrick @youtuberswithalex

[forthesapphicsonly]

I just invade your office to suggest you self-defense classes… (Part 2)

Part 1

This is a little big, so there will be a third and last part :3

i'm gonna tag who asked for a continuation:  @therandomblogger07 @scajess @rebornpoet @becka107

Lena sighed for what would be the umpteenth time

That was a bad idea, right?

She was being stupid. What good was an IQ of more than 170 if she could not even make confident decisions for herself?

"I should just turn around and get back to L-Corp" she murmured to herself as she surveyed the shed a few feet away.

She was actually considering finding a stranger (who, don’t forget, just broke into her office) to really consider the idea of ​​some defense classes?

How old was she? Five?

Oh boy, what would your mother say if she saw you now?

"As if it really matters, all she wants is to see me dead" she murmured again, pausing for a second to close her eyes and take a deep breath.

Okay, she could do that. What if everything went wrong?!

Well, she could always count on good luck and a certain superhero to save the day ...

Wait, that's just the kind of thought that proves the point of the reason for it to be there.

Lena snapped her tongue and decided that she would get it over with, closing the remaining path to the shed. It was large and she could say that it had been recently renovated. But it was discreet and certainly the kind of place you might not risk going by yourself if you didn’t know exactly what was inside

Which was exactly what she was doing now.

Oh, that doesn’t get any better, does it?

The first thing she noticed when she entered the doors was that the interior was definitely more inviting than outside. The place was clean, bright and the equipment certainly new.

She took a few steps to the inside watching her around and assimilating the environment when her eyes landed on you.

In casual wear

On a salmon ladder

And oh, was that an abs?

A well defined abs

and .. she was too gay to stand it now

you heard a small choking sound and turned his head in Lena's direction, startling and dropping the bar.

And if it were not for your good reflexes, you would have just passed through the greatest tale in history

"Miss Luthor" you greeted, cursing yourself mentally when your voice came out one octave higher "I didn't hear you come in ..." you walked a little closer

You noticed that Lena didn't look directly into your eyes, staring at the surroundings, the ceiling, the floor, everything but you

"Er .. it's a good place" she commented and you smiled lightly, nodding. You were quite proud of the gym you held.

"Yeah, it's taken a while but it's perfect now" you were silent for a few seconds until you scratched your throat and smiled uncomfortably. "I really didn't expect you to come ..."

Lena finally turned her eyes to you raising one eyebrow well an acquisitive look.

"Well, you made the invitation" she seemed to remind you. Her tone was not accusatory. Would you say fun and a little curious maybe?

"Yes, well ... I invaded your heavily guarded building. I've been waiting for the cops to come in here all week" you folded your arms across your chest in a way to try to hide your embarrassment

Lena smiled amused, it was good to see your embarrassment, it took her focus from your sweaty inviting abs

"Is well. It was not like you showed up there in an attempt to kill me or something, right? "You almost cringed over the intense green eyes pointed at you.

"R-Right. It's the opposite, actually. "You turned on your heels and called you to sit down.

"Yeah, I've been up all week with that in my head. And I didn’t come here to accept the proposal, not yet. Not until I knew why" and there it was ...

The serious tone of a business woman, suspicious, sharp, ready for anything.

You gave a small smile and noted an empty spot for a second or two

"Is it hard to believe anyone wants the safety of a Luthor?" You turned your attention to her.

Lena looked surprised, but only for a second.

"You can't blame me, can you?"

You laughed, what really bewildered her for a moment, because ..

A person should not sound like angels while laughing, right?

"Yeah, I figured you'd tell me that. The point here, Miss Luthor, is that I identified with you. With your situation ... "you pursed your lips, thinking of a better way.

"A mother and brother psychopaths and murderers?" Lena teased, but you could feel the pain in her voice.

"Something like that" lowered Luthor's guard a little and made her more curious.

"I'm going to need more than that, you broke into my office, remember?"

"You're not going to let me forget that, are you?" Lena just grinned.

And you wondered what it would be like if she smiled at you.

Turning those thoughts away, you crossed your ankles and leaned on your arms, thinking about how to summarize your story.

History that no one knew, unknown to anyone but you

"See, I had to learn to defend myself early enough to deal with the shit my father left for me"

Lena leaned back, looking for a more comfortable position and stared at nothing, deciding not to focus her eyes on you to give her some privacy.

"He was a mobster. A big and important Mafioso "you made a face, scratching your nose" I didn’t know until his death, when his henchmen came to me looking for something I could not give them "

"Debts?" Lena supposed

"A lot of them" you started playing with your fingers "Every week someone would come to me. They thought I would take the lead after his death. Some expected me to pay them, and others ... well, they just wanted me dead" Lena narrowed her eyes at the story.

She could relate to the feeling.

Take on Lex Corp, deal with all the shit left by your brother. be targeted imminent for that.

"I started to live by running away. I barely knew how to punch someone, how would I deal with armed people?" You narrowed your eyes at the memory. Of a thin frail girl, clumsy and disorderly. Yeah, that was you.

"So I met a guy" you smirked at the memory and Lena's gaze turned to you. She caught the smile. "He was a close friend of my father and he had sworn to protect me" you snorted but Lena could feel the affection as you spoke. "I told him that just like my father, he would get killed and I would be unprotected again. That if he wanted to help me, he would help me by training. And okay, I'll admit that maybe asking a Russian mobster to train you was not the smartest decision to make" Lena held her grin against her and you shrugged.

"He taught me everything he knew. And when he ... " you paused, taking a deep breath" ... and when he died, I joined the local police as an informant. I destabilized and destroyed all that mafia inside. That taught me a thing or two" you joked.

Lena looked away. She felt that she should not be here hearing this story but still, she could not find the strength to leave.

"Sounds like a bad action movie story, doesn't it?" Her comment finally snatched a little laugh from the brunette.

"I can relate to this"

"The question, Miss Luthor. It's just that I understand the feeling of being accused and attacked by something I didn’t do. Pay for my family's mistakes. And that I felt much better when I came to take control of the situation and learned to fight back. You strike me as an incredible and intelligent woman and certainly face more battles in one day than the entire national city in a month, I just want you to learn how to fight back. That when you are in danger, you don’t have to wait for a ransom. Well, making sure you don’t do anything stupid. Supergirl is awesome, but hey, if you don’t need a prince on a white horse, you certainly don’t need a hero on a cover. Not when you can be that hero. "

Lena blinked. She could feel them filling with water.

No one ever cared about her safety, and the few who did it seemed to treat her like glass. She remembered very well what Kara had said: "Be your own hero" and yet, Supergirl was always there to rescue her again.

And oh, don’t misunderstand,she was really grateful to Kara for that (and yes, she knew Kara was supergirl, damn), but Kara had a whole city to save and it was selfish and wrong to have a part of her friend's attention (who cares so much about her well-being) to be there for her all the time.

She needed to learn to take better care of herself.

Something that didn’t depend on a pepper spray and a stun gun.

"Um, you don’t have to say anything now. Take your time, you know where to ... "Lena interrupted you immediately.

"I want to" her voice was steady even with the crying in his throat.

You gave a small smile.

"Ok Miss Luthor, it's time to show the claws you have"

"Lena. Call me Lena "

[eleanorfenyxwrites]

Patater Soulmate AU Pt. 3

((Hey y’all! This is the last main part of the story but I’ll post an epilogue :) Here’s Parts 1 and 2. Enjoy!))

Kent glared at the phone like it had somehow offended him by laying innocently under the coffee table where he’d dropped it. Of course it wasn’t the phone’s fault that he’d gotten drunk last night and called Alexei in tears, but it felt nice to blame something besides his own weaknesses.

Still. He’d done enough morning after damage controls that he just sighed heavily and picked up the phone with a little groan. His head hurt and his mouth felt like he’d snacked on a bucket of sand straight out of the desert, but he knew he needed to get this conversation over with before he did anything else. He cleared his throat a few times as he meticulously tapped through several screens until he could click the little icon next to Alexei’s name, pressing the phone to his ear with a heavy sigh.

Alexei answered as soon as he saw it was Kent.

“Little Parse. You have water? Medicine? Need to eat too, da? Don’t let hangover make you stay in bed.”

“Well good morning to you, too.” Kent winced at the sound of his own voice. He realized after he’d finished that he could practically feel Mashkov’s smug smirk through the phone and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah okay I’ll get some water in a minute, calm down with the smirking over there.”

“Not smirking, just smile really loud,” Alexei snickered and Kent had to roll his eyes again.

“Whatever man. I was just calling to tell you I’m sorry about last night. I was just...well. I’ve been in a bad spot for the past couple uh..y’know, weeks. So. Sorry man.”

Kent waited impatiently for Alexei to say something back, anything. But for a few long, heart-stopping seconds there was nothing but silence. Kent actually pulled his phone away to make sure the call hadn’t dropped.

“You not having to apologize to anybody, Little Kent. Especially me. I do this thing to you, and I am sorry. You don’t know how bad it make me feel, telling you no. How much I hate not being for you. I…”

Kent actually held his breath as he waited for Alexei to finish his thought, his heart physically aching at the promise Kent swore to himself he could hear in the other man’s voice. Thankfully Alexei continued before he could fully form that train of thought and then send it crashing into a brick wall of pessimism.

“I am thinking of what you asked last night. Of trying being with you, no matter what name I have. And...I am thinking you have good idea. It hurt me to send you away, and it hurt to not talk to you so long. Am thinking...maybe we can make work? We can try, da? And if fail, all we lose is possible future together. Is no worse than now, I feel. I know you say when drunk but…can we try?”

Kent felt like the world had been lifted off his shoulders. He felt like a million bucks, like a new man, like any other number of cliches that suddenly seemed to make a lot more sense. He felt like he wasn’t really completely whole yet, there were still pieces of him that were jagged and unsatisfied, but he could feel the potential. He could feel the balm being applied, so to speak, and he could tell that he could and would heal. If they could hold out and make this work.

“Kent?”

“Oh fuck, sorry! Yes. Yes Alexei, we can try. Hell yes. God I was just going to apologize when I called, I didn’t expect you to...you know that right? That I didn’t expect this? I’m not trying to manipulate you, I swear.”

Kent calmed down when Alexei chuckled quietly and shushed him in a way that oddly didn’t sound at all patronizing. Just...fond.

“Russian mind too strong for American head games. You not manipulating me.”

“Is that right?” Kent asked with a grin and he chuckled. “Well Mr Brainiac, answer this question then: how are we going to do this across the country?”

------

“Alexei!!”

Alexei grinned immediately when he turned and saw Kent heading towards him through the crowded airport and he hurried toward him to take Kit’s carrier and toy bag from his hand and shoulder so the man could better maneuver his suitcase.

“Kotehok! I give proper hello in car,” he promised as he reached over to ruffle Kent’s hair with outwardly platonic affection.

The pair hurried through the airport as quickly as they could, chatting amiably about the flight and some of their (innocent) plans for how they were going to spend the off-season together. This was the first time they were seeing each other in person since that fateful phone call a month and a half ago, but their relationship felt as easy in person as it did over Skype and text and date-night phone calls, for which Alexei was grateful. And it just made him even happier that they were going to get the whole summer together to enjoy it.

They reached the car eventually and Alexei carefully slipped Kit’s carrier into the backseat and belted her in before folding himself into the driver’s seat, Kent joining him seconds later. The windows on Alexei’s car were heavily tinted, and he’d made sure to park in the dim garage facing a cement wall just so he could have the satisfaction of what came next.

As soon as Kent’s door was closed Alexei reached out to put his hands on either side of Ken’ts face even as the man tugged at the front of his shirt greedily, the needy groping of their hands secondary only to the hunger of their kiss. They kept kissing and kissing and kissing until finally Alexei pulled away sharply only to lean in and rest his forehead against Kent’s, his eyes still closed.

“Kotehok…”

“Mm..take me home, Alyosha.”

-----

Kent was sprawled out carelessly on top of Alexei, the two of them perfectly mellow and languid in a post-orgasmic haze.

Kent’s hand was wandering aimlessly over what he could reach of Alexei’s chest and abs and his fingers toyed at the edge of the fabric that covered Alexei’s ribs. It was a specially designed wrap, made of thin breathable fabric. One strap went up over Alexei’s shoulder to hold the rest of it in place where it circled his ribs. It was made for athletes to cover a soulmark - an item in high demand, to be sure.

“Hey babe?” Kent felt Alexei tense at the caution in his tone, but Alexei didn’t comment on it so Kent didn’t either.

“Da?”

“Can I see it?”

Alexei hesitated for a few long minutes, but didn’t bother ask what ‘it’ was. He was honestly just surprised it had taken Kent this long to ask to see who was meant for him. But it wasn’t like he could hide it forever, and he figured Kent had a right to know. So he sat up carefully and slipped the straps of elastic cloth over his head to drop it over the side of the bed. He laid back down on his opposite side a bit so Kent could see the whole mark at the same time and he glanced at Kent’s face when the man sucked in a breath at the sight.

“Alexei Mashkov you gorgeous fucker - that’s my signature!!” Kent spluttered and Alexei’s eyes went wider than he’d thought possible.

“WHAT?!”

“Sorry sorry sorry,” Alexei gasped quickly; he’d sat up so quickly he’d knocked Kent right on his ass, almost pushing him off the bed. “Kotehok, what you mean, is your signature?” he demanded once he’d helped Kent right himself.

“Exactly what I said!! That’s my signature, Alexei, why the fuck did you tell me it wasn’t?”

Alexei felt panic crash through him at the look of betrayal on Kent’s face and he was quick to reach out and run his hands through Kent’s hair and down his arms to try to get him to relax.

“Kotehok I see you sign things for fans all the time, is not same as my mark! I can’t read it, how could I know??”

Thankfully Kent seemed to relax a little after that, though he still looked a little shellshocked, which Alexei could definitely relate to.

“Okay..Okay Alyosha, don’t panic, I’m fine,” Kent mumbled as he clumsily patted Alexei’s shoulder before flopping down onto his back on the bed. “I...When I was first drafted I figured if I was going to be signing people’s abs and boobs and hats and shit that I probably shouldn’t use my actual signature, you know? I don’t know, it made sense at the time, so I just started doing my initials with the star at the end. But when I sign like, documents or whatever, I..do what’s on your ribs.”

Alexei laid down slowly next to Kent and slowly intertwined their fingers as he stared at the ceiling and let everything sort of settle in his mind.

“So we are soulmates. And I hurt you for weeks with no reason.”

Kent shushed Alexei softly and turned his head to kiss his shoulder, trailing his kisses up to his jaw.

“Shh, Alyosha. You...you were going to stay with me, even when you thought I wasn’t yours to have. And yes, at first I was hurt, of course I was. But we were going to make it work even without cosmic intervention, you know? And that felt just as good to me, that you would still choose me. I’m not upset. I’m actually pretty fuckin’ overjoyed right now.”

Alexei grinned at that and turned his head to catch Kent’s lips in a rough kiss. “You are happy being stuck for rest of life with me?”

“Damn right I am, baby.”

[dorianpchgrx-blog]

Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography can seem quite broad because it assesses different lines of questioning within my project. I took the liberty to add titles and connecting notes to the different items so that the logic chain is more clear to the reader.

Music psychology and philosophy

1) Emotion and Meaning in Music Meyer, L. B. Univ. Chicago Press, Chicago, 1956.

This is the core of my research, Meyer’s stance is so elegant that it still makes for the authority in the field.

He begins by dismissing previous debates on the subject. Meyer argues that the two different ways the brain forms thoughts (phenomenological and reflective) are two sides of the same psychological process, so they are not contradictory (as we previously debated about) but complementary.

What is elegant about his work is that he presents a modern theory of emotion and applies it to music. His central thesis states that emotion is stimulated when a desire is prevented. Emotion in music lies in the structural building of tension and release, so in that sense, it can be universal.

This new way of redefining music certainly impacts on how I perceive it. It also changes how I think about how my brain works and that was unexpected.

2) Music and Emotion: Theory and Research Juslin, P. N., and Sloboda J. A. (Eds.) Series in affective science, New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Music and Emotion: Theory and Research is the modern update of Meyer's work. It presents how Meyer reflected in different works during the years, what other authors with similar objectives wrote, and confirms its authority. It expands and challenges the knowledge of the 50s with modern experiments.

The book seeks a wider perspective by presenting approaches in different fields (philosophy, musicology, psychology, anthropology, biology...) delivered in chapters written by one expert in each field. There are so many different points in those approaches that I certainly could have used each chapter as a different source in my bibliography.

Juslin and Sloboda helped me have a wider point of view on what is written on music and emotion, which work stands out the most, and where are we researching now. They address criticisms that were very welcome for this bibliography.

3) The Language of Music Cooke, D. New York: Oxford University Press, 1959.

Deryck Cooke attempted to do exactly what I wanted my research to conclude on. His thesis is that composers have used similar musical parameters to express similar emotions, so we can deduct a language, a lexicon, a dictionary of music. His assumption is that no matter the instrumentation, the emotions expressed stay the same, thus, we can link expressed emotions with text in vocal works with their associated melodies in instrumental versions. He bases the lexicon expressivity in tonality, each interval of the scale has an associated meaning.

However, Cooke's method is heavily based on extramusical aspects, it does not consider a potential emotional quality inherent in music. It does not take into consideration the musical context around those intervals he talks about, which can completely modify their meaning. Additionally, music significance may not be as fixed as language significance.

4) Analysing Popular Music: Theory, Method and Practice Tagg, P. Popular Music, Vol. 2, Theory and Method (1982), pp. 37-67 Cambridge University Press, 1982.

Within the same range of ideas than Cooke’s (i.e. decode music with language theories), Philip Tagg brings the term of "musemes" to label musical parameters used to express specific emotions. He raises two methods to test musemes effective reality: by confirming that the emotion and meaning expressed have been exactly identically comprehended by two different listeners (inter-subjective comparison); by comparing every association between the musical parameters studied and its meaning expressed in extra-musical ways (inter-objective comparison).

Same criticisms can be applied to both Cooke and Tagg approaches. However, reading about their theories and their limits taught me a better understanding of what music really is and isn’t. It changed my mind about the possibility of building a lexicon of music.

Along with the philosophical approach, I wanted to know what science had recently found on the subject of music in the brain.

Music and neurology

5) Music, the food of neuroscience? Zatorre, R. Nature 434, 312-315 (17 March 2005). Available from: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7031/full/434312a.html

Zatorre made me realize that the neurological approach is by no means less complex than the philosophical approach. We know which parts of the brain are associated with musical skills but we don't know how they work essentially. The article also taught me that music recognition was surprisingly innate, this is important to identify the importance of music to humans.

Evidence of psychological mood changes and physiological changes caused by music are mentioned. One hypothesis to what brain responses can explain those effects is that we tend to imitate the behaviour of the music we listen to. To scientists, it is surprising to see how deep human's response to music is compared to how little it is useful to survival.

6) Exploring the Musical Brain Leutwyler, K. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (22 January 2001). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exploring-the-musical-bra/

The difficulty with the lack of research on the subject is that many articles relate the same piece of information between each other. I will focus on the differences.

Leutwyler assesses the importance of music and how deep it is implemented in nature. In the human world, music seems to predates farming, but it also exists in the animal realm as well (e.g. birds, whale), thus it is not an ability specifically human but rather an intricate part of life. What is most surprising is that animals share a lot of musical preferences with humans.

This article also relays the famous assumption that dissonance seems unpleasant and consonance seems pleasant with scientific evidence.

Leutwyler ends by presenting the debate about music purpose between S. Pinker who thinks that music is nothing more than an "auditory cheesecake", an accident in speech evolution, and D.J. Levitin who believes that something that has such profound effect on emotions must have an important purpose. Levitin best suggestion is that music is an aspect of our cognitive tendency to make order out of disorder.

7) Music And The Brain Weinberger, N. M. Scientific American, a division of Nature America, Inc. (1 September 2006). Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/music-and-the-brain-2006-09/

Weinberger's article seems to be the continuation of Leutwyler's article, as it begins with the debate between Pinker and Levitin.

Here we have the first occurrence of what has been widely researched on recently: Brain damaged patients seems to unexpectedly recover long lost brain functions thanks to music, suggesting that music runs even more deeply than others cognitive skills.

The article then presents the path of music from the ear to the brain, which is what I primarily started my research on. Weinberger studies confirm philosophical intuitions, such as we interpret tones differently according to context.

Supported by many studies, the article goes on about how musicians are better at playing and listening to music than non-musicians. However, I think this is an expected result of cognitive training and as we can't conclude on musicians having better brains than non-musicians.

Those neurological approaches draw a map of what music can expect to produce in the brain of the audience, supported by scientific evidence. We even have a new line of questioning about how old is music and what is its purpose.

Thoughts on film scoring

8) Sound Design is the New Score Kulezic-Wilson, D. Music, Sound, and the Moving Image, Vol.2, Issue 2, 127-131, 2008. Liverpool University Press. Available from: http://online.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/abs/10.3828/msmi.2.2.5

The content of this article develops the approach of my master course on a quite different topic than previously covered yet very relevant to my project. Kulezic’s main idea is to get out of the traditional way of making music for films which have become too predictable and too heavily sentimental and lean progressively into sound design which is much more suggestive and discrete. The article illustrates with a range of examples from directors Aronofsky (for a hip-hop inspired editing style) and Gus Van Sant (for using musique concrète instead of traditional music).

My research with Meyer's book taught me the distinction between music that gives meaning via itself and music that gives meaning via extra-musical references. I believe that in film scoring, music always uses the latter. In that regard, this article suggests using the very powerful denotative and connotative potency of sound design to express extra-musical meaning.

9) In The Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing Murch, W. Silman-James Press, 2001

I believe it is an essential part of the composer’s job to understand film mechanics, especially editing.

Water Murch provides a hierarchy of importance of factors in editing decisions, emotion being the most important factor. What is so stunning about his work is that he allies editing with technology and neurology, albeit keeping a very easy to read style of writing. It doesn't feel like he is imposing manifestos, he writes like he shares orally his personal finding so that we can actually follow his train of thoughts.

One of his most insightful findings is that the moment we naturally blink is a great moment to cut, because the action of blinking is a consequence of the way we comprehend the world.

Walter Murch is also the inventor of the term of sound design. Those reasons are why I couldn't avoid to put him in my bibliography.

Research specific to the live project

10) Stress Recovery during Exposure to Nature Sound and Environmental Noise Alvarsson, J. J., Wiens, S., and Nilsson M. E. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2010, 7(3), 1036-1046. Available from: http://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/7/3/1036/htm

Linking the power of sound denotation with supporting scientific evidence, this study proves that nature sound helps recover from psychological stress better than a noisy environment. The study also assesses previous research in the area which focused on the effect of nature visuals. Conclusions are that the idea and projections of nature relieve human beings.

There is a part of my live project where I wish the audience to be relieved from stress as much as possible and I was looking for the best way to emulate it. I plan on using nature sounds and visuals to achieve such results.

11) A Comprehensive Review of the Psychological Effects Of Brainwave Entertainment Huang, T. L., and Charyton, C. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine; Aliso Viejo Vol. 14, Iss. 5,  (Sep/Oct 2008): 38-50. Available from: http://www.machineswww.mindmodulations.com/resources/STUDY-ComprehensiveEntrainment.pdf

Still with the objective to find the best way to relax an audience, this article gathers various studies rigorously selected which suggest that brainwave entertainment (BWE) benefits people suffering from a list of different negative disorders such as stress, anxiety, mood and behavioural problems.

BWE consists of presenting auditory or visual repetitive stimulation - such as a pulsing tones or lights - to the patient whose brainwave will resonate with the frequency. Brainwave frequencies are associated with states of alertness, it goes gradually from delta frequencies (1-4 Hz) associated with deep sleep, to high beta frequencies (20-32 Hz) associated with intensity or anxiety, going through alpha frequencies (8-12 Hz) which are associated with conscious calmness.

I could use this therapeutic tool to lower the audience's brainwave frequencies and thus progressively ease them down. Now I just have to found speakers that goes below 20 Hz.

12) The efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy Shedler, J. American Psychologist, 65(2), 98-109, 2010. Available from: http://psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/2010-02208-012.html

This article gathers empirical findings that support the efficacy of psychodynamic psychotherapy. I wish my live project to be based as much as possible on scientifically supported methods. This is why the first part of the narrative structure of my live project follows the psychodynamic psychotherapy.

Like in therapy, we would begin by focusing on expressing emotions and labelling feelings, before exploring the attempts of the mind to flee unpleasant thoughts and feelings. The goal is to identify recurring themes and patterns of avoidance. We would talk about how past experiences and interpersonal relations could be themes and causes of patterns.

We may have to skip the part of the therapy where it focuses on the relationship between the patient and the therapist as it would take a widely different form in the live show.

Once negative thoughts are externalized, we would then encourage the positive thoughts, which is the second part of the live project.

13) Differential effects of mindful breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, and loving-kindness meditation on decentering and negative reactions to repetitive thoughts Feldman, G., Greeson, J., and Senville, J. Behaviour Research and Therapy Vol.48, Issue 10, October 2010, 1002-1011. Available from: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0005796710001324

The second part of the live project would consist of proposing the audience to engage in stress-reducing methods accompanied by sounds and visuals. This article compares a well-known method (mindful breathing) with two alternative stress management techniques (progressive muscle relaxation and loving-kindness meditation) and provides further evidence towards the superior efficiency of the first method.

The objective of mindful breathing is to clear the mind of repetitive thoughts in observing internal sensations caused by breathing without controlling or judging them.

The article also gives us the notion of decentering which will be the main theme of the second part of the narrative structure of my project. The idea of decentering resides in learning to view thoughts as events in the mind rather than necessarily being reflections of reality or accurate self-view.