#but at the same time I totally understand why many people are upset

[xoxoladyaz]

Deep down, Steve knows that it's only a matter of time until he gets caught.

It feels like he's gone through the five stages of grief, like, twenty times. He can't count how many hours he's spent rationalizing it: what Eddie doesn't know won't hurt him, this is normal, people do it all the time, and besides, Eddie would feel completely betrayed if he knew and their relationship is so new that it's just not worth the risk. The absolute last thing he wants is to upset Eddie and this will just make him upset so really, Steve is doing the honorable thing by just not telling him, by pretending that he's not hiding anything, that everything is fine.

But it's not Eddie that catches him; hell, it isn't even someone in the Party; it's Jeff, Eddie's friend/Hellfire Club member/Corroded Coffin bandmate who shows up too early for D&D at Steve's one day and sees something he shouldn't have.

"This isn't what it looks like."

Jeff walks into the kitchen and frowns, like he's confused by what he's seeing and why Steve is so anxious, why he's sweating like he's just run a marathon. "It looks like you're blending a bunch of veggies together in a blender."

Shit. "Okay, it's exactly what it looks like."

Jeff still looks confused. "And this is a big deal because - "

"Because I haven't told Eddie that the 'special pasta sauce' that I've been using the last three months whenever we have spaghetti and meatballs is actually entirely made of, like, ten different kinds of vegetables," Steve rushes out, and Jeff's face smoothes in understanding.

"Oh, yeah, that makes sense. The dude has a weird vendetta against veggies."

Steve groans, slumping in relief. "Tell me about it. Do you know how hard it is to hide veggies in every single meal that I make for him? Because if I don't, then he's never going to eat them, and I'm worried about his health enough as it is."

Jeff nods. "It's the smoking, right?"

"The smoking, and the drinking, and I know he's sneaking out to smoke with Jon and Argyle, but he doesn't exercise and he only eats highly processed cereal with loads of sugar and I just don't want him to have a heart attack before the age of forty!"

"Hey, hey, Steve, man, your secret's safe with me." Jeff holds his hands up in supplication. "And for the record, I'm on your side. The dude is like a feral raccoon."

"I know," Steve sighs. "But he's my feral raccoon."

That makes Jeff start laughing. "If it makes you feel any better, my mom and I have been doing the same thing for years now. If you want, we could exchange recipes sometime."

"Really?" Steve perks up and now, now he's excited. "That would be great!"

"Sick. Need some help with the meatballs?"

"Please!"

And that is how Eddie and Gareth and Phil and Dustin and Mike and Lucas and Erica and Will find them later, chatting and laughing while Steve tosses his homemade noodles into his now-simmering pasta sauce, Jeff sitting on the kitchen island and drinking a beer.

This time, it's Jeff who looks like he's seen a ghost. "This isn't what it looks like."

"Oh?" Eddie asks, and his voice is totally controlled, which means that Jeff is screwed. "So you're not hanging out with my boyfriend and making him do that cute little blushy giggle that is my cute blushy giggle?"

"Eddie!" Steve scolds, but it's too late, Jeff knows his fate is sealed.

"Okay, it's exactly what it looks like."

(Jeff's rogue is caught in the blast zone when Dustin's ranger kills a large acid toad. Still, he can't feel too mad when he sees Eddie smirk and then lick the veggie sauce out of his pasta bowl.)

[klausysworld]

Hiii I was wondering if you could write a klaus oneshot where the reader is enemies with klaus but klaus finds out she has cancer and is all alone and begins to fall in love with her or something like that.

I totally understand if you don’t want to do or you’re uncomfortable with it.

I’ve Got You

(This is on a very sensitive subject, please don’t read if it will upset you too much and know that if you are suffering or know someone who is, nobody is alone)

Cancer was something that had torn up Y/n’s life. It caused her to push people away all of the time. She didn’t want to be too close to anyone, not when the doctors couldn’t tell her how long she had left.

For a while they thought that the cancer had gone but she didn’t want to risk anything only for it to come back.

So she continued to be closed off, even from her own family.

Being Elena and Jeremy’s sister was hard enough, let alone growing up having cancer. Having two parents who were involved in medical care was both a dream and a nightmare. They made her live according to their timetable and their rules as to what would ‘help’. She knew, even as a child, that her family struggled much like any family would struggle to afford treatment and research and she hated herself for costing them so much.

She was kept separate from her siblings, built little to no bond with them. When her parents died, there was nobody to care for her or at least give her hope. She couldn’t afford hospital bills on her own, she had to seek out other family, like Uncle John and he did help however when he lost his life, she lost the chance of hers.

The people at the hospital knew Y/n well, they wanted to help best they could. She was supplied with medication in the form of pills to at least somewhat control the cancer and they had hope that she would be able to take part in a chemotherapy treatment program that would take place within the next year. That was as much hope as she could have to go on.

And she tried to hold onto that, she would imagine the day that they told her she would be able to live her life full without so much risk.

But at the same time, she didn’t really believe it would happen for her. Not anymore.

Sometimes she wished that a vampire would just kill her, out her out of her misery. Other times she wanted to survive everything her dreadful life threw at her and live a long healthy life to its fullest.

It was why she was so up and down with how she behaved. It was why the way she was around certain people changed so drastically, like Klaus.

Sometimes she wanted to see how many buttons she could push, she wanted to make him kill her so at least it wasn’t cancer that took her out. Other times, she just wish he’d disappear and leave both her and her family alone.

She would wonder if, had no vampires ever turned up to Mystic falls, if she would have been able to connect with her siblings some more, if Jenna would have given her some hope.

Those thoughts made her mad, but also sad. That’s when she would get snappy. Sometimes she didn’t mean to annoy him but she couldn’t help herself.

But unfortunately it made people dislike her which in some cases was a good thing because it meant people wouldn’t miss her if she did die but it also meant that she was even more alone.

Y/n was too young to deal with something so big, it was no surprise she didn’t know how to manage it. The problem was that nobody else knew how to either and so she was forced to try do it herself.

The medication she had been on since young caused an imbalance of hormones and had stunted her growth in areas. It made her hair thin and caused her to become feeble and delicate to an extent. Of course she tried her hardest to build up her strength but she wasn’t stupid, she knew it was much easier for her to become out of breath, to become exhausted or hurt. It was because of this that people like Damon would dismiss her and why she would be cast aside without any explanation. Not that she needed a reason, she already knew.

In some ways, she liked that Klaus didn’t know that she had cancer. He would be boisterous around her, tease and taunt her like he would anyone else. Because to him, she was like everyone else. She wasn’t a delicate little thing that needed to be avoided and fixed.

Sometimes he could go a little far, once he had her by the throat, cutting off her airways as he threatened her. He didn’t know that after he left she was spluttering blood all over the floor as she coughed and wheezed for air. She struggled for it anyway, she didn’t like someone taking it from her. But she never said anything to him, of course she was a little more cautious but she enjoyed pissing him off when she could.

When she was little, kids were cruel. If she wanted to play, they would give her funny looks and say they didn’t want to play with her. They acted like she was contagious, or an alien. She hated it.

So even if Klaus’s attention was ill intended, at least it was directed at her.

————————————————————————

Klaus originally saw her as another inconvenience. He met her when he was in Alarics body, when he went over to the Gilbert’s house to harass Jenna and frightened the others. Turns out their sister Y/n also hadn’t been clued in on who he really was. She had wondered down the stairs still in her pyjamas, smiling subtly at him and going to the cupboard to grab some biscuits. Once she had sat down and began munching, Stefan was storming in and telling her and Jenna to run. At that point Y/n just looked tired and begrudgingly got dragged out the house by a hysterical Jenna.

The next time was at a hospital after he had taken Elena from senior prank night. She was sat in the waiting room, lead across the seats as though she had been there hours. He came and sat beside her, spoke to her and told her to tell Damon to never threaten him again. She agreed without compulsion and kept her trap shut about anything else.

The following few times he saw her, she was less tired and more firey. That’s when he began to take a strange liking to her. She always had something to snap back at him no matter how dark the last thing he said was.

Somehow she seemed to know exactly how to make him tick. Knew how to tease him enough to make him want her to shut up but not enough to physically make her. Though occasionally she went too far and he would break.

Sometimes he felt a weird sensation of guilt swirling inside him, he never knew what to do about that. He didn’t enjoy that.

When she became tired, she was moody and would say things to purposely make him angry. And klaus’s anger management had never been great. He didn’t always mean to react to quick and harshly but he couldn’t help it. Especially when he didn’t understand why she was so angry sometimes.

He knew that she was very much seen as irrelevant when it came to her siblings and the Salvatore’s etc. He couldn’t understand why exactly, she was not less useful than Elena was as far as he could see. Still he didn’t ask or dig on it, it didn’t matter to him if she was apart of the little gang or not. She seemed to hang around him anyway.

He took an amount of joy in their playful banter and teasing nature when around each other. He also liked to push at her buttons the same way she did his. But he wasn’t as good at knowing how far he could go, often she would end up storming off and he’d be left feeling guilty and there’d frustrate which lead to annoyance and anger.

————————————————————————

Klaus hadn’t once guessed that the reason for her mood swings or her pushed to the side nature was due to cancer.

He hadn’t been expecting to see her name on labels of samples of blood.

He was in the hospital for blood obviously, even though he drank mostly straight from the vein, with all his hybrids and his busy schedule sometimes blood bag was easier.

He happened to come across the samples and spotted a familiar name. His curiosity peeked. Of course he originally guessed that it was just normal things like she had given blood or that she had low iron. But something within him told him to look further.

So he began to compel people to get him her files and information. But turns out he didn’t need to, as soon as he said her name the receptionist was yapping on.

“Oh the poor girl, in and out of here since she was just a toddler” she began, sighing and clicking for Y/n’s name on the computer.

“Really?” He questioned, his brows furrowed.

“Uhuh, next appointment is…oh! Tomorrow” she smiled and Klaus nodded pretending to know

“Right for..”

“Collection and a check up” she smiled and turned around to find something, a bag. She placed the paper back infront of him with contained the prescription pills that would control the cancer to some level. He smiled back at her though it didn’t reach his eyes and picked up the packet, reading what they were and what they did.

His heart dropped a little and he hesitantly handed them back to the receptionist. “Thank you, I’d take them to her but if she has a check up tomorrow anyway then I expect it’s easier if she get them herself” he muttered, his voice quiet as he felt a strange sadness forming somewhere inside him.

“Of course” the woman answered “Will you be with her tomorrow?” She asks with the tilt of her head.

“I might be” he replied, unsure and she nodded slightly back

“I’m sure she’d like it if you did, nobodies been with her for a scan for over a year now” she sighed and his heart ached.

He left shortly after and tried to find her. Eventually he found her, much to his surprise, at his house. She was sat on his sofa with a glass of wine and one of his hybrids, chatting about whatever. Without caring he made his way over and grabbed her by the arm.

“Klaus!” She yelped as he began to pull her away from the hybrid.

“He just wants to drain you love, come on upstairs” he murmured, pushing her up the stairs and grabbing the bottle of wine from the table.

“Well he might just be nice” she muttered

“Perhaps but I don’t like the odds” he replied as he pulled her into his room

“Right, because you care if he kills me” she grumbled and his stomach turned uncomfortably. No longer did the joking of her death amuse him like it once did.

When she noticed his silence and the look he had in his eyes, she knew that he knew. It was stupid look of pity that everyone had and that slightly uncomfortable stance because they don’t know how to act around her anymore.

She sighed and glanced to the floor and then him. “Can you not?” She whispered and he frowned confused

“Not what-“

“Oh don’t do that. I know you know. Its fine. I’ve had it forever you don’t have to be weird” she mumbled as she sat on his bed, laying back and staring up at the ceiling tiredly.

“I don’t know what-“

“Cancer Klaus. It’s not a scary word, it’s not Voldemort” she grumbled

“What-?” He questioned confused

“Doesn’t matter it’s not the point” she whispered and he frowned

“You never said anything about it” he muttered as he sat beside her.

“It’s not really the best conversation topic. Plus we’re not that close” she mumbled

“Well…you’re in my bed so I’ve done something right” he joked lightly and she smiled

“I guess so” she whispered.

Klaus laid down beside Y/n quietly. It was a little odd to be so close to her without either of them having ill intentions. He did feel bad though that he made her uncomfortable but he couldn’t help but act a little off. His mind had been replaying every time he had hurt her, he wondered how much it had endangered her life.

It confused him as to why he had this care for her. He couldn’t have cared less about week ago if she had been killed but knowing that she actually, most likely, would die much sooner than expected made him feel something. To know that she was living in pain and fear of when it would catch up to her.

Klaus was a man who liked control, he couldn’t imagine having something like cancer hanging over his life everyday acting as a threat ever time she breathed.

“So you-“

“I don’t wanna talk about it” she mumbled, cutting him off. He fell into silence and sighed softly.

Y/n stared at the ceiling, wishing it would fall on her in this moment. She hated that he knew. Of course she didn’t exactly hide it from him but she also didn’t want him to know. Not because it was something she was embarrassed of, or because she feared he would used it against her. Simply because it meant there was one more person who would look at her like she was incapable and weak. She didn’t want to be stared at like an animal at a zoo by anyone else.

She’d rather he be cruel to her and tell her how pathetic she was just for being a human. She’d rather he scare her and hurt her like he did everyone else in town than look at her like he was now.

She felt her eyes drain of the life that they usually held when around Klaus. With a lump forming in her throat and a heavy weight of disappointment on top of her, she pushed herself up and got off his bed.

“I’m gonna go home” she muttered, ignoring the way he sat up and looked after her with worry.

“Love-“ he called, standing up to follow her as she made her way down his stairs.

“I don’t want to talk, I want to go home” she huffed.

“Sweetheart-“

“Shut up Klaus” she snapped “stop calling me cute little names and looking at me like I’m a three-legged puppy! You don’t like me, I’m annoying and useless to you” she sighed, her voice becoming desperate and she hated how pathetic she sounded.

“You’re dying” he whispered

“Everyone’s dying” she mumbled “I’m just doing it faster” before leaving his house, closing the door behind her.

Klaus left her alone for a little while, and she avoided him also.

He did however go back to the hospital after she had her most recent scan. He compelled the surgeon to show he what was happening, where it was and what that meant. He wanted to know why she wasn’t getting more help, they told him there was very little chance of her surviving even with chemotherapy. Klaus argued they should still try and they informed him of the treatment trial coming up in two months time. Demands were made, he would pay for everything and they would tell her that she qualified to have it free. He didn’t really care what lie they told her just so long as she accepted it.

And she did, Klaus received a phone call telling him so.

Klaus still had no explanation for his sudden change of heart, why he wanted her to get better so badly. He didn’t know why, he just did.

He felt a little sad that she wouldn’t hang around him anymore. Not many people willingly spoke to him, even if it was just some teasing and playful banter. He missed it.

When she had her first dosage of chemo, he found himself in her hospital room. It upset him that nobody had come with her or shown any care at all.

Klaus quietly wondered through the hospital, it was halfway into the night and quiet as he searched for her room. His expression softened when he saw her curled up in a bed, the machine beside her beeping quietly. A singular rose was placed beside her bed as he pulled a chair over to her and leaned down to kiss her cheek softly. It was an odd gesture coming from the hybrid but he tried not to dwell on it as he sat beside her for a while.

Klaus came back during the night as her treatment continued, he would leave her a rose and often a note. He would never know how much it meant to her.

One night he ran his fingers through her hair, only for a handful of strands to come out with his hand. His eyes had enlarged as he quickly put it in the bin and gently lifted to her head to find a clump of hair on her pillow. He didn’t want her to find it in the morning and be upset and so removed it himself.

He didn’t mean to wake her up. She knew it was him without a doubt when she felt her face against someone’s chest. She could hear his soft muttering and the sound of his hand behind her head. It took her a minute to figure out what he was doing and when the realisation hit her she just stared at his chest exhausted. Y/n could remember when all her hair fell out the first time, when she was little and the other kids would poke fun while the parents would tell her how brave she was while staring at her with that helpless, pitiful face. She didn’t want to see it on Klaus’s face as well so she pretended to stay asleep.

After a moment he laid her back down and pulled the blanket back up. “There we go” he murmured softly as he smoothed it over “it’s all going to be just fine” he whispered, stroking her arm gently. She kept her eyes closed and her breathing steady until he left, she couldn’t stop the tears rolling after he was gone. She hated feeling sorry for herself all of the time but it seemed she could never catch a break.

It wasn’t long before she was back home, still on chemo but home. Jeremy was living in Denver and Elena basically lived at the Salvatores so Y/n had the house to herself. She didn’t go out much, she never really had. She only did recently to annoy Klaus but she didn’t want to be around him anymore either so she found that staying inside was better.

However Klaus had different ideas and so wound up on her doorstep, nocking incessantly until she answered.

“Finally love, you and me worried” he sighed and she narrowed her eyes

“What do you want?” She snapped, she was wrapped up in a blanket and wore a hat on her head. Klaud wasn’t sure if it was because she was cold or because she had given in and shaved her head.

“It’s lovely to see you too” he smiled sarcasticly and she glared. “I wanted to see how you were doing” he answered.

“I’m doing fine. How are you doing?” She replied stiffly

“Ah you know…family troubles” he mumbled and she hummed

“Elijah?” She question

“All of them” Klaus muttered “three brothers, a sister and a mother. I can only be glad I’ve already killed my father…though that didn’t stop mother”

Y/n let out a breathy laugh and glance down “I’ll grab my shoes and we’ll talk and walk.” She told him before closing the door. Klaus smiled to himself as he waited a second before she came out ready. She was completely wrapped up, hat gloves coat. Still he didn’t ask, just remained happy to be with her.

They spoke about the sudden arrival of his family and the ball. He said he hoped she would come but her silence wasn’t convincing.

“You don’t have to” he told her “I know you don’t like people and you barely like me enough” he smiled and she returned it weakly.

“I don’t really think it’s a good idea” she mumbled and he nodded, of course he was a little disappointed but he wasn’t exactly surprised either.

“Then perhaps you’ll have to give me a dance another time?” He offered and she shrugged playfully with a smile

“I might be able to come for just one dance, but I go home straight after?” She compromised and he grinned

“Perfect” he whispered and cupped her face. The smile soon vanished from his lips as he felt how hot her skin was to touch “you’re burning” he mumbled before unzipping her coat and pulling her hat off. Immediately she made a sound of upset and grabbed for the hat. His eyes softened as she stared at him with a mixture of emotions.

She wanted to die. That was it. She wanted the cancer to take her in that moment. Stupid Klaus. She wasn’t sure why having no hair made her feel so bad, she had a nice shaped head but her past experience with peoples reactions caused her to hate it.

“Put it back” she whimpered but he shook his head. His hands gently pulled her coat off and then her gloves.

“You have a fever, you’re boiling, I’m taking you home” he told her as he leant down and lifted her up. She looked at him like he was crazy, she didn’t understand what kind of bond they had or what feelings they held for eachother. She didn’t why he would like her of all people. Was it pity? She hoped not, she’d be so pissed off it was.

“Fevers are normal” she mumbled “you don’t gotta worry”

“Normal or not, it’s best we get rid of it so that it doesn’t hurt you” he answered as he carried her towards her house. She couldn’t help but smile a little when he said ‘we’. In a way it reminded her of how her parents would care her and tell her that it was something they would all get through.

He felt her relax a little in his hold and glanced down to see her looking up at him with a lost look in her eye as he approached her door.

“I can’t come in but I trust that you’ll know how to cool off? I can take you to my house otherwise” he told her as he placed her down and passed her things back to her as she got inside.

“I’ll be fine, thank you” she told him with a small smile before closing the door.

Later that day she received a package containing a dress, shoes that matched and a silver necklace with her birthstone hanging from it. She smiled a little and put it somewhere safe ready for the next evening.

Then she continued to settle her fever and take a nap. She woke back up, watched a few films, messaged Klaus to let him know she was okay now, and finally took her meds when she ate her dinner before going to sleep.

In the morning she continued her everyday routine and lounging around until it was only a couple hours before the ball that the mikaelsons were throwing. She had argued with herself all day whether she should go. She knew people would talk, seeing the cancer kid with Klaus Mikaelson. Not that it was date. No no. That would be weird…

Eventually she decided she would go, dance the first dance and then go home. She just hoped that the exhaustion wouldn’t hit her too hard while she was out or that she wouldn’t fall sick until she got back home.

Y/n never got to go to events like Elena and Jeremy did when she was little, but her mother would dress her up when she was in the house sometimes to make her feel happy and pretty for a day. That was the only way she knew what she was doing when it came to her face. She had stolen some from Elena’s room as she only had the basics for herself.

She put on everything he had given her and looked in the mirror. Her hands touched her head with a small sigh before she called a cab that took her to the mansion.

She stood outside it for a few minutes, unsure whether she should just turn around and walk in. Klaud didn’t give her that option when he came wondering outside, his eyes looking around for her hopefully. She smiled a little to herself and began to walk towards him, his gaze met hers halfway and he quickly flashed beside her.

“You came” he whispered, pulling her in for an unexpected hug. He pulled back and cleared his throat “sorry” he muttered awkwardly before grabbing her hand and leading her inside. “You look gorgeous by the way, you always look gorgeous but…not that- “

“Thank you” she cut him off with a smile and squeezed his hand in appreciation. “Am I late? I didn’t mean to stand there for so long” she asked quietly, glancing around and seeing the entire town moving around his home.

“It’s okay, the first dance only just started” he told her, leading her further inside.

“I never really learned to dance” she whispered nervously

“That’s alright” he murmured “I’ve got you” he told her and she believed him.

She let him guide her throughout the dance, she kept her eyes on him and tried to ignore any stares. Klaus kept her close and offered a death glare to anyone who even glanced their way. Time flew, they danced for nearly six full songs before he felt her body go momentarily limp to his. Thankfully his arm was around her waist already so he kept her up. She regained her balance in seconds but it was clear that something was wrong.

“I’m going to take you upstairs, alright love?” He murmured to her but she shook her head

“I can’t do the stairs…I’m dizzy” she whispered and he nodded

“I know, I didn’t expect you to walk up them” he told her before gently tugging her away from the people. They walked straight past Elijah and Elena talking, both turned to face them with looked of confusion and surprise as Klaus told her to let him help her. He kept upright so that nobody would know she was being carried as he supported her weight up each step. Once at the top they walked past Finn and Esther, his mother eyed the girl with that same pity as most and shook her head at Finn in a way that told him to leave them alone as Klaus lead her into his room carefully.

He laid her down on his bed, propping her up with pillows and cupping her face gently. Her eyes focused on his as his cool hands soothed her skin.

“You feel okay love?” He asked softly

“Yeah I’m ok” she nodded as her head began to settle. She felt a little nauseous but less faint. “I should go home” she mumbled, pushing herself up but he shook his head and laid her back down.

“Stay here tonight love, I’ll look after you” he told her

“Can’t, gotta have my meds” she muttered and he nodded

“I’ll go get them okay? You stay in here, find a shirt of mine to wear to bed and I’ll go get your pills.” He decided, standing up

“Klaus…you’re not invited in” she whispered and he sighed

“Then I’ll go to the hospital and get some, I know what you need”

“It’s easier if I go home” she argued

“I want you here” he told her seriously and with a sigh she nodded.He nodded in return and stroked her face, and her smooth head gently. “You can wear whatever you like okay?” He smiled and she nodded, watching as he left.

Klaus quickly made his way out the room, rushing down the stairs and out the house. Stopping for only a second to tell Elijah to keep people downstairs.

Once he was back from the hospital with her medication she was wrapped in his duvet, dressed in his shirt and her panties with no makeup left on her face while scrolling through Netflix on his TV. He smiled at the sight and close the door behind him with a click. Her head lifted to see him and he made his way over with the bottle in one hand and a glass of water in the other.

“Thank you Klaus” she whispered gratefully as she swallowed a pill before handing back the glass which he placed on a coaster on his bedside table.

He grabbed a shirt and some plaid pants before disappearing into his conjoined bathroom. He remerged from the room in a couple minutes ready for sleep. He had a sofa in his room, a mini fridge and everything. Y/n wandered if he ever actually had to leave his room.

Klaus opened a cabinet filled with blankets and pillows and pulled a couple out and setting up a bed on the couch making Y/n frown a little, guilt and confusion swirling.

“You done have to sleep there” she told him “You could sleep here if you want…or I could go on the sofa, I don’t mind” she offered, slipping out of the bed and making her way to the couch but he spun her straight back around and lead her back to bed.

“Under no circumstances will you not be in that bed” he told her, a level of authority in his tone as he put her to bed. “I don’t want to disturb your sleep by stealing half the bed” he teased.

“No it’s okay, I like sharing” she smiled and he raised a brow as he sat down infront of her.

“Oh? Do you share beds often?” He teased with narrowed eyes. Klaus didn’t like the thought of Y/n sleeping with anyone but himself. Even if it was just a nap.

“No” she whispered, her cheeks bushing pink “sometimes when I was sick my mom would sleep with me” she shrugged and he smiled.

“I doubt I’ll be anything like your mother sweetheart” he chuckled and she rolled her eyes

“Oh just come lay down, you know that’s not-“

“I know, I know” he murmured playfully as he laid beside her. She huffed out a breath dramatically and he grinned, pulling her against him. It was strange to be so close to him, teasing and laughing again. She liked it though, and so did he.

Klaus shifted himself under the duvet and pulled it around them. He hadn’t had a girl in his bed for a while, especially the past few months. All he could think of was her so why would he want some other woman? It had been even longer since he had a girl in his bed with no expectations of sex. That hadn’t happened in decades.

Something about it was nice, innocent.

Y/n on the other hand had never shared a bed with a man, never been touched or ever really thought that a guy would want to touch her. She didn’t think Klaus would either, especially not when she looked like she did. She’d lost a lot of weight from the chemo, her stamina was low, she bruised easy and she had no hair which threw most boys off. Boys her own age at least. Not Klaus.

He couldn’t have cared less about something so simplistic. Sure, she had pretty hair at one point but it didn’t define her. He liked her as she was, of course he wanted her to be cancer free and happy but he’d still love her while she wasn’t.

Love. Was it too strong of a word? He wasn’t sure.

Especially not when he was looking at her like he was now. Seeing her so openly vulnerable and curled up against him, sleepy eyes set on the tv and her body hidden under the quilt though he could feel her legs touching his.

It wasn’t long before they were snuggled up and half asleep. She was barely conscious when Elijah’s head popped into the room to check on Niklaus. The brothers had a brief conversation on how the night went, Elijah expressed his caution around their mother Klaus said he couldn’t be bothered with it anymore. Elijah left when Y/n began to stir and Klaus’s focus became her.

He slept with her throughout the night, he woke to find her missing and his heart sank. Thankfully she wondered back in from the bathroom a few minutes later and crawled back to bed with a yawn. Klaus’s lips upturned and he pulled her close again. She looked up at him with a small smile which grew when their eyes met.

“Hi” she whispered and he smiled

“Hi” he uttered back, pulling her as close to his side as he could before she was under him. She glanced to the time, seeing it was still really early. She groaned softly and closed her eyes. Klaus hummed softly and brushed the backs of his fingers across her cheek bones softly. “You look so pretty” he whispered.

Her cheeks tinted red and she rolled onto her side to hide her face from him but it only resulted in him spooning her. He kissed the back of her head making her go redder and her fingers to hold onto the sheets beneath. Klaus pressed close to her, too close. The second she felt something hard against her backside her body went tense and she panicked. Klaus felt her fear and quickly pulled himself away from her but she was already getting out of bed.

“I have to go, I’m sorry” she whispered, heading for the door but he sped infront of her.

“Love-“

“I gotta go”

“Let me drive you, and at least give you something to wear” he mumbled, disappointed with himself for scaring her. She nodded when she realised she was still in just her underwear and his shirt. He sped into Rebekah’s room which was unsurprisingly empty as she had ended up staying the night in Damon Salvatores bed.

He came back and she pulled the jeans on before he drove her home. It was quiet and he hated that he’d ruined the night. He should have thought about it and known she wouldn’t want that, he hadn’t intended to do anything other than sleep but she was so close and he couldn’t help but want. His desire always won though in this case it made him lose big time.

He apologised quietly when she got out the car and she told him it was okay and that she overreacted. Neither of them were particularly pleased with how they responded.

Y/n thought about how the moment could have played out a hundred times over and kicked herself for not just letting him have her. But she knew she would have regretted it.

They both decided to pretend the incident didn’t happen when they saw eachother next. Klaus had turned up on her doorstep that same night, it was clear he had been crying but she mention it. She wrapped her arms around him as he told her that his family had left again and that his mother wanted him dead. She ended up back in his bed, using his chest as a pillow once more.

In fact she ended up in his house, his bed a lot. Especially as her chemo treatment continued, when she wasn’t in hospital he managed to coax her to his house.

“I enjoy our sleepovers” he teased making her bite back a smile and glare playfully.

“Technically you don’t even need sleep” she reminded and he rolled his eyes.

“Well I like sleeping with you” he murmured with a wink and she laughed.

For a little while, things seemed to be getting better. She felt happier and somewhat healthier. She was more confident in herself when Klaus was around, he helped her see her beauty and her worth. For a moment she truly believed that everything would be better.

But things could never just be so simple.

At the end of her chemotherapeutic treatment, she went into the hospital as expected. Klaus didn’t go with her this time, Y/n had told him that the appointment wasn’t for another week because she wanted good news as a surprise.

How she wished it was good news.

She knew as soon as she saw the nurses face. When she told her that the treatment hadn’t worked the way they hoped, she just nodded and asked how much she owed. They shook their heads and reminded her that it was ‘free’ and she went home.

All this had done was just confirm that she wouldn’t live even half of what everyone else would. A quarter if she was lucky.

Vampire blood couldn’t save her, magic couldn’t save her. She just had to accept it and live with it for however long.

That wasn’t even the hard part for her, the hard part was telling Klaus.

After her appointment she went back to his home. He wasn’t in but she went up to his room anyway, besides it was basically her soon now too.

She stared at the bed, god she loved that bed. It was like a cloud and when she had Klaus holding her tight aswell? She only hoped heaven would be similar.

She tapped her fingers against her arm as she thought. With a sigh she went and had a shower, got back out and stared at herself in the full length mirror that Klaus had in his bathroom for whatever reason. She smiled and laughed through her nose at the thought.

Y/n had a lot of clothes at Klaus’s now, she pulled on one of the only actual sets of underwear she owned and sat down on the bed. She adjusted the straps on her bra for a few minutes and fiddled with her panties so they sat how she wanted them to.

Klaus was home shortly after and made his way upstairs to his room. His breath got caught in his throat the second he saw her.

They teased eachother and made little jokes about sex, they both entertained the idea in their heads but he never actually thought she would be the one to make the move.

He didn’t know what the final push was that made her give in but he wouldn’t push it away.

Within seconds he was on that bed, gently pushing her down onto her back and hovering over her. His lips met hers in a deep passion that heated them both. Her legs were nudged apart so he could lay between them. She kissed him back with as much love as should had in an effort to make him understand how much he meant to her.

His hands stroked up her sides gently, holding her waist perfectly. His mouth pressed to hers repeatedly before moving down to her neck. Y/n’s eyes kept shut as she felt the soft tingle of every touch, her hands slid down and unbuckled his belt. She pulled it through the loops with a tug and pushed it aside.

Klaus pulled back and looked down at her hands, he gently took them in his hands and lifted them to his lips, kissing the backs of them. “We don’t need to rush, we have all the time in the world” he whispered, the words made her eyes prick with tears but she held them back.

“I know…I just need you now” she told him quietly making him smile. He leant back down and kissed from her collarbone down. Y/n watched as goosebumps lined her skin and his hands slid her panties down her legs slowly so that she had the option to stop him.

He pressed soft kisses to her knees and then up along her thighs. His hands caressed her legs gently as he pressed an open mouthed kiss to her pussy. Y/n’s body jerked away from his mouth at the unfamiliar feeling and he smiled.

“It’s alright love, I’ve got you” he told her before running his tongue through her folds and up to her clit. Her legs went over his shoulder as her hands went to his hair, feeling the soft curls as her body filled with heat. Klaus rest his head against one of her thighs so he could look up at her as his tongue flicked gently at her little button. Her brows pulled together and a soft sound escaped her as she felt his teasing.

“Klaus” she whispered softly, a slightly tremble in her voice as his fingers made their way up and gently traced her pussy lips. He hummed quietly in response, letting the gentle vibrations tickle her nerves pleasantly. The words ‘I love you’ were on the tip of her tongue but she didn’t utter them, not yet. She worried that he would want to know why she chose now to tell him, why now to give herself to him. And if he did find out why, everything would be ruined.

A shaky breath left her and she put her focus back on him. She pulled at his soft hair gently, telling him to give her more and he eagerly obliged. He slipped a finger into her halfway, moving it slowly to help ease the foreign feeling upon her. His tongue still licked at her clit, though now with a little more pressure.

Her back arched a little and a breathy moan left her lips making him push his finger in so it was knuckle deep before pulling it out with a slight curve. He watched her tighten around nothing as her hips rolled a little to try get his touch back inside her.

“Do you like how it feels love?” He murmured with a kiss to her clit. She nodded and pulled at his curls gently.

“I do” she whispered “I love it” she confirmed and he smirked a little.

“I love it too” he smiled and sucked her clit into his mouth making her squirm and moan his name. She inhaled deeply and leant her head back against the pillows and two fingers began to stretch her open as they pushed in as far as they could’ve.

She took soft but long breaths as her body filled with heat and her hips ground her pussy against his fingers as they curled into her and found her spot. Her back curved off the bed and he smiled to himself, happy to bring her pleasure.

His fingers met the thrusts of her hips and his tongue lay flat against her clit, letting her rub against it as quick as she needed. A soft cry left her and her pussy squeezed his fingers tightly, her thighs squished his head making him chuckle and suck on her softly. He pulled away before she could come undone and pulled her down the bed so her legs were at his hips instead.

He leant down to kiss her lips making her wrinkle her nose and dodge him.

“Sweetheart, you can’t deny my kisses now” he murmured as she wriggled.

“You can’t kiss me after that” she whined and he laughed

“You taste lovely” he teased

“I’m good not knowing” she laughed and he narrowed his eyes before attacking her with kisses all over her face making her squeal and push at his chest playfully. Eventually he caught her lips and had her succumb to the kiss. A soft moan escaped her and he smiled.

“Can I keep going love?” He asked softly as he used one of his hands to undo his jeans. She nodded kissed his jaw softly, her eyes fluttering as she felt his bare legs against hers. Her body tensed for a moment as his cock rest against her thigh and her hand gripped his shoulder. “I’ll be slow” he whispered, “don’t worry Y/n”.

She nodded again and tightened her legs round his waist. Klaus cupped the back of her head with one hand while the other guided his tip into her weeping hole. She whimpered at the stretch and he kissed her cheek, holding her close.

She nuzzled close and clung to him as he pushed another two inches into her and gently rocked in and out of her, getting another inch into her with each thrust until eventually she took all of him. He stayed they for a while, stroking away the little tears that gathered in the corners of her eyes and kissing her lips softly.

“It’s okay love” he told her gently, “you know I’ve got you”

She nodded weakly and kept her face in the crook of his neck as he began to move again. Soft little moans slipped past her lips and vibrated against his throat as he thrust into her slowly. His hips moved perfectly to stroke all the right places inside her.

Y/n’s hands held onto him tightly, so did her pussy.

Klaus kissed her skin gently as he rocked into her, his hand slid down between their bodies and he began to stroke her swollen clit. She let out a little cry and he grunted as his cock was squeezed.

“You’re doing so good sweetheart” he murmured as he began to speed up. His eyes closed as he focused on pleasing her body, he could hear the repeated sound of his skin meeting hers along with the whimpers that tumbled past her mouth. He could feel her body growing tired and knew she wouldn’t be able to go on much more. He stroked her skin soothingly while his other hand rubbed quick circles on her pretty clit.

Her body tensed and she cried his name as her body let go around his. Klaus hugged her close as he thrust into her slowly, his hips came to a stop and she panted softly for air. He kissed her lips softly and pulled out. His hand stroked his cock quickly and he squeezed it tightly until he came onto her stomach. She moaned softly and tugged at him for a kiss.

His lips pressed to hers lovingly and rolled onto his back, pulling her ontop of him. Y/n smiled down at him and caressed his chest gently.

“I love you” she whispered and his heart warmed even more

“I love you too” he told her, wrapping his arms around her waist and sitting up. He stood up with her in his arms and carried her to the bathroom. He turned the shower on and brought them both under the warm water.

“I can stand” she mumbled and he hummed but didn’t put her down. Instead he kept ahold of her as he helped clean them both off. She leant against him, her head in his neck as he wrapped a towel big enough to be a double duvet. He kissed her head and dried them off before setting her back on his bed. He pulled one of his shirts over her head and pulled some panties up her legs. “Thank you” Y/n whispered with a smile.

“Of course” he smiled back and laid beside her in his sleep pants. Klaus held her to him, his lips pulled up in contentment and he closed his eyes. He held her close they slept and woke up early to prepare breakfast.

Klaus wanted this relationship to be right. He wanted to treat her like he knew he could and show that he meant his love for her. So he went downstairs and cooked up some pancakes and bacon for his girl. He plated it up and poured them both drinks, he set the table for them and made his way back upstairs.

His movements faltered for a moment as he heard the sound of gagging. Hurriedly he made his way to the bathroom to see her heaving over the toilet. Quickly he kneeled beside her and caressed her back, her hand reached for tissue as she wiped her mouth, dumping the tissue ontop of her sock and flushing the toilet. He helped her up and wrapped his arms around her waits from behind as she brushed her teeth. She apologised quietly but he shook his head and kissed her cheek.

“I got you something love” he told Y/n softly before leading her downstairs. She looked up at him with a soft look in her eyes as he pulled out her seat at the table. She sat down and smiled as he pushed her in and sat opposite her with his food also.

“You know you didn’t have to?” She whispered softly and Klaus hummed

“Of course I did” he answered “I’ll always look after you”

Y/n’s smile wavered a little but she pulled back together. They ate their food and she helped him clean up. After they got dressed and he started to talk. When Klaus starts talking he doesn’t tend to stop until he absolutely has to.

Usually Y/n didn’t mind his rants and rambles but this time it was about them. He started going on about all the things they could do together and how once her cancer was gone then they would go wherever she wanted and he went on and on. After a while however, Y/n just couldn’t help it.

Her eyes had been watering for a full twenty minutes and as soon as the first tear fell, well it was like a waterfall. Klaus’s face dropped within seconds and his heart sunk. Panic flooded him and he quickly pulled her into his lap. He tried to calm her but had no idea what was wrong to begin with. Well not at first.

She tried to leave, push him away like she knew she should have at the start. He wouldn’t let her though. Not now. He had to block the exit, ended up yelling for her to tell him what was wrong. Instead of an actual answer she told him that she didn’t want to be with him, she began to say hurtful things. She needed him to not love her. Not if there was no hope of living. She didn’t want to leave him missing her, she would rather he hated her and was glad she was gone. Or at least that’s how she thought in that moment.

Klaus was never good when it came to emotions. He didn’t understand the sudden change of heart, the hatred that suddenly blossomed. But he knew something was wrong, she didn’t look angry or disgusted by him like she tried to claim she was. She just looked scared and borderline devastated.

He stared at her for a while and she didn’t dare say anything else. Klaud didn’t want to believe it to begin with. But it was the only thing that made sense. With slight hesitation he stepped to her, he overpowered her shoving hands and forced her into a hug. It only took a moment for her to collapse into it, cries shaking through her without a break.

“I’m gonna take you everywhere” he mumbled softly, kissing her smooth head continuously. She made a sound of distress and she shushed her gently “anywhere you want sweetheart. It doesn’t matter how long we have, I will not have you live it alone and in self-pity” he argued and she shook.

He picked her up and sat down with her on the sofa, he grabbed a world map and brought it over to her. “Come on love, you choose somewhere and I’ll get us in a plane, have you ever flown?” He asked, swallowing any tears or sadness down. Right now he just needed to keep her with him. He would go anywhere, do anything to ensure that she was happy for however long she had to live.

“We can’t just-“

“Yes we can. We will. We don’t even have to pack, I’ll buy you everything new from wherever we go. Just pick a continent, we’ll do a country from each and see how you’re feeling before we go again” he whispered, desperation seeping into his tone.

“You’re making it worse for yourself” she uttered, wiping her tears.

“It’ll be a hundred times worse if I’m not with you” he argued, a tear dropping from his lashes.

They both went quiet and let the situation fully dawn on them for a little while. Finally Y/n glanced to the map. “I’ve always heard Europe was pretty” she mused quietly and Klaus wiped his eyes, pulling a smile onto his face as he pulled her close and kissed the side of her head.

“It’s beautiful. I’ll call for a private jet and we shall leave in a few hours. Would you like to tell your family that you’ll be away?” He asked but she shook her head no. “Then please, just trust me my love?”

“I do…and I’m sorry for-“

“Don’t be. Just know that I love you and that I will always have you no matter what” he told her, a kiss to her lips to seal the promise.

“I love you” she uttered, they repeated it back to one another as she made her way into his lap and rest her face in his neck.

Everything else was forgotten.

The doppelgänger, hybrids, Salvatore’s, Mikaelsons. They would all have to wait.

[erwinsmithsmissingleftarm]

Do you think Reiner likes wearing condoms during sex?

TITLE | Condoms

NOTE | Oh my fucking god I wanted that request for ages but here we go now!

WARNINGS | smutty as always, postwar!Reiner

SMUT TAGS | breeding kink, creampie mentionned, vanilla sex

REQUESTS BOX | open

Condoms. Who honestly invented that?

Reiner hates them, they feels just so oily and sticky. They have NOTHING in common with the spongy and warm walls of your pussy. Okay fine, he understands that preservatifs are a good way to avoid unwanted pregnancy or STD's but why the creator made them so... gross? Okay, he knows that he has no problems with giving you cunnis which is also considered gross by many people but condoms are honestly worst! No?

"Reiner... you forgot to put the condom on."

You can literally hear him letting out a whine mixed with a grunt when he is about to push his dick inside you and you stop him. Your legs close by automatism, not allowing him the access to your private part.

"But baby... they are so gross! Can't you take the plan B pill once, please?"

He is looking at you with those puppy eyes that he mastered over the time with you. How could you refuse him? Don't you want his precious cum to coat your walls white? However, you know that trick and shake your head in disapproval.

"I already took it the three last time, I'm tired of it."

These words are just like a stab to his heart. He knows that he should not be upset or sad as your decision is totally normal and understandable but he can't. His face immediately turns into a pout as he let a little sigh. Fine, you won this time.

Reiner reaches for the drawer where your intimate stuff is usually disposed before grabbing a condom and ripping the small package with his teeth. He then rolls it quickly on his shaft before looking at you.

"Happy?"

Your boyfriend asks and your legs spread again in respond. A smile stretches his lips anyway as he slides carefully inside you, his dick wrapped more than usual and making him feel even warmer. That's okay, next time he will find a way to fuck you without that stupid rubber. Maybe you will even be the one to ask him to fuck you raw, who knows?

Reiner is just a bit disappointed that he won't have the opportunity to breed you, to make him his again. It is in his dreams to impregnate you, he wants you to carry his child. Your lover wants to make the perfect family. With you.

With those thoughts, he starts to thrust into you harder and faster, soon making you both cum at the same time. His face crunches into discomfort as the condom is now full of his seed. Seeing his face like that make you laugh.

"Alright Braun, remove that thing and transform me into a fucking creampie, will you?"

[oreoov]

HIHII POOKIE!! IM INLOVE W YOUR WRITING SO I RLLY WANNA REQ!

Imagine like you were shipping bestfriend!kazuha/xiao (pick whichever!) with someone else, but he likes you and gets abit frustrated when he keeps giving you hints but their so subtle you don't notice em?

FEEL FREE TO PICK HOW YOU WANNA END IT, MWAH!!

☆ ─ 𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐓 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐒𝐄𝐄? 𝐈 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔, 𝐍𝐎𝐓 𝐇𝐄𝐑 .. .ᐟ

bestfriend!xiao x gn!reader / angst (?) & fluff / modern au <3

note ; bye i screamed when i saw this BUT OFFCCCC, i was gonna do kazuha because likes hes just so hdidjdisidi but i haven't done xiao in a while so YEAHHH, BTW ILYY TYSM FOR REQUESTING <33

synopsis ; xiao kept giving you subtle hints that he likes you ... but you never seemed to noticed them, and even started shipping him with someone else ..?

the bell finally rang after what felt like hours on end ... you and xiao were making your way to the cafeteria together, right before some girl bumped into xiao as she was in a hurry.

the sudden crash had caused her to drop all her books, and like what any person would do, xiao helped pick them up and returned it to who it belonged to. he even gave her a subtle smile as she thanked him before leaving.

"oooohh!! was that a smile i saw? hmm?" you teased him as you both resumed your walk to the cafeteria.

xiao gave you a confused look as he didn't understand why it was a big deal to you. "you're the one who told me to smile more ..?"

"okay well─ umm─ thats different!! you dont usually smile at people ... or .. YOU LIKE HER? is that it?!" you were literally onto nothing ...

from a confused look, he turned into a 'wtf?' look ... "what? i smile a lot more with you anyways ..." xiao mumbled the last part as he thought it was quite embarassing to say, he just hoped you would catch on already.

but you completely ignored what he said and started feeding your delusions to him again!

"its okay to admit that you were kinda into her xiao, you guys made eye contact for like 0.2 seconds ... like, dude she literally wants you so bad .."

"???"

"it's okay xiao we know you're new to all this."

"no i dont like her─"

"shhh ... i dont wanna hear it!"

but he likes you, not some random girl he crashed into, and might've thought that you would already notice .. maybe he needs to make it more obvious?

the next day as you were both passing the lockers in the hallway, you couldn't help but notice the girl that crashed into xiao yesterday.

"omg, thats the girl from yesterday!! you should totally talk to her right now, this is literally your chance!" you said as you nudge xiaos elbow.

but he didn't want to. he wasn't interested at her at all, especially when there's someone way better right beside him after all.

"how many times do i have to tell you? im not interested in her whatsoever." xiao groaned as you kept insisting to.

"but why notttt? you guys would look cute together .. plus shes super pretty too ..."

"no, even you look better than that?" xiao looked at you, just for him to turn away again as his gaze meets yours. you're the prettiest one in his eyes and no one else! was it that hard for you to understand?

xiao was laced with frustration as you kept babbling nonsense about xiao and that oh, so, pretty girl and how cute they would be together.

you probably didn't even seem to notice that he basically just called you pretty ...

he was on the verge of confessing to you right then and there. but at the same time, he couldn't. what if you didn't feel the same way? what if you were just purposely ignoring the hints he gave you as a sign of rejection? he would never know.

meanwhile, you noticed that xiao has gone quite. has he grown upset? "heyy .. alright im sorry! i didn't know you'd get that upset ... ill stop now i promise!" you mumbled with a pile full of guilt.

"if i were really to be with her, how would you feel?" xiao unexpectedly blurted out, he was even surprised at his own words. but still, he wanted to know.

"uhh .. wha- what do you mean?" you were bewildered by the sudden question. it was unsual for xiao to ask such things, especially with his cold demeanor.

"if i were to be with her, wouldn't that mean most of my time with you would be taken away?"

the thought of that had never came across your head. it actually doesn't feel right anymore. in simple words, the thought of another girl taking xiao away from you? hell no ...

there was an awkward silence between the two of you before you finally spoke up. "i dont know ..."

xiao sighed as he set his eyes on you. "good, cause i don't know what I'll do if you were with someone else either." xiao mumbled out quitely, barely even audible.

but you heard it. you heard all of it, is he trying to say that he ...

"huh?"

xiao huffed as he still needed to explain it to your slow brain. "archons, how oblivious are you? i like you. was that not clear from the start?"

you didn't know why, but you felt like you had to chuckled a bit at his frustration. "okayy, okay im sorry!! okay but i swear i noticed a bit but i wasn't sure alright??"

"and yet you were so sure that i liked that other girl when i don't even know her name .."

"IM SORRY!!! but i guess i like you too by the way ... hehe .."

even that was enough to leave xiao completely flustered.

extra notes : HELP THE ENDING WAS KINDA SCUFFED IM SO BAD AT WRITING CONFESSION STUFF SORRY LMAOO also this was not meant to be that sad 😭

─ masterlist.

[yzy-dragon]

I absolutely ADORED S2E9 "Three Stories" of Link Click and was a bit surprised to see the discontent here on Tumblr, and I totally understand the reasons why people didn't like it, especially in the context of the pacing of the rest of S2 (which I also have some opinions on but I won't talk about that here), but I also felt the need to just get my heart out why I love it so much. A bit of background, I'm Chinese American but have lived in and visited China numerous times.

Music and theater. As a western classical musician and an amateur Chinese opera singer enthusiast (I saw someone else post about the possible inspo this episode got from Chinese opera), I VIBED with the artistic direction of this episode SO much. The three-part structure was almost like a sonata/symphony (and remember that one scene where Qian Jin was air-conducting in a previous episode!!) or scene changes in a Chinese opera. Nothing needs to be said about the animation style that hasn't been said already, but I like how scenes from the three individual "stories" were interwoven and reused like leitmotifs. Especially that crazy, tortured laughter. Idk if any of the parallels were intentional on the part of the director, but it's what I got from it due to my personal experiences. I know that's a highly subjective takeaway though, which brings me to my next point....

Qian Jin's "tragic" backstory. I know a lot of people were upset that the extent of Qian Jin's tragic backstory was "oh his wife cheated on him", but I think the "basicness" of his struggles was the whole point (by the way, this segment displayed various attitudes towards work, family, marriage, individual pride, and life in mainland China so subtly but so well!). I also don't think sympathy was the main thing we were supposed to feel for him, although of course there is some. The whole "tragicomedy" aspect of Qian Jin's story is that it's not some horrible, terrible, rare thing that happened to him, but a common problem faced by so many hardworking but busy married men trying to provide for their families: infidelity. But Qian Jin sees himself as the main character of an elaborate play that rivals the great dramatic classics (which, funnily enough, often depicted very DRAMATIZED versions of a rather basic series of events). And his viewpoint is validated when....

Qian Jin meets the twins. That segment is still largely from Qian Jin's perspective, because we still don't really know how LTC and LTX even feel about him. But for Qian Jin, it's a stroke of fate and fortune that could only possibly happen in theater. He's very far removed from reality at this point. Reality is that a cop whose job it is to investigate violent crime comes across two kids who are the victims of a violent crime. Again, nothing particularly special or even coincidential. It's comical like that.

The fairy tale section.  Unlike the first two, I think this segment is from Xixi’s perspective, which not only justifies the cartoony artstyle but also makes it heartbreaking, due to her childlike innocence.  Like Qian Jin, she also perceives her reality as something it’s not, but unlike him, she doesn’t have delusions of grandeur of being a tragic protagonist.  It’s just a little fox trying to survive in a forest full of predators and hunters.  

All that tortured laughter. I’ve actually noticed in a lot of Chinese media that they like to use laughter as a way of signifying a person’s complete mental breakdown due to the tragedies they’ve suffered.  It’s a very internal thing that has people on the outside going, “WTF?”  In this episode we have a lot of characters crazily laughing together at the same time and it seems like they’re relating to each other, but in reality they’re all trapped in their own nightmarish hells and motivated by selfish purposes. 

Back to the topic of Qian Jin, even though he (innaccurately) may see himself as the hero of his own story, it's not enough for him. He wants to use Cheng Xiaoshi to change the past. He wants to become the director of the play.

I know a lot of people were disappointed this episode didn't advance the plot, especially in regard to Cheng Xioashi and Lu Guang's storylines, but I was actually prepared for a backstory episode and couldn't have been more satisfied. Again, I have other opinions on the rest of S2 but at least standalone, I think this episode was nearly perfect. And I really wasn't expecting this, but it's really elevated Qian Jin to one of my top characters.

[the-record]

when emma falls in love

synopsis: ellie might be in love with you, and you might just be in love with her too… if only you could admit it

pairing: college!ellie x fem!reader

warnings: too many tlou references, food, not proofread!!!!! also using angel in place of y/n bc it makes me cringe a little!

a/n: lets play a game called “how many references can kate make in her fics?”

‘IM JUST PRETTY GREAT WITH MY FINGERS’

when emma falls in love, she paces the floor closes the blinds and locks the door when emma falls in love, she calls up her mom jokes about the ways that this one could go wrong

ellie couldn’t keep up.

she felt like every time dina came over, there was someone new in your life, and she couldn’t understand how. you were perfectly nice and even prettier.

but here she was, yet again in her dorm, listening to dina rant about the latest endeavor.

“and he was just a total dick! like, how are you going to say you’re busy tonight with family and then go to a party? like are you stupid?” dina sighed. “i love her, but god does she picks some idiotic ones. you remember the beach girl?”

oh she remembered the beach girl.

on an annual beach trip over spring break, some blonde had caught your eye, and you caught hers. you had invited her to join them for dinner, and how could anyone say no to you?

you hit it off with the blonde, abby, and she spent the next couple days with the group, constantly flirting with you. ellie had felt a sort of dread fill her stomach. why her? she was obviously playing in to what you wanted and she knew you were smart enough to see that.

the trip wrapped up and you made plans with abby, excited she only live a town over. but when the time came, you spent 3 hours at the park waiting for her, only to receive a text saying she wouldn’t be able to make it.

you were upset and crashed at dina’s, and ellie had heard about it all the night.

“yes, god, i remember her. what a douche.” she rolled her eyes, standing up to grab her bag for class. “i’ve gotta go, but are we all still going out tonight?” dina nodded with a smile. “cool. don’t do anything stupid. and lock my door before you leave, please.”

“says you. and i’ll think about it!”

shes walking out the door when she hits something, or someone.

“shit.”

“fuck, sorry my bad.”

when she focuses back, she sees you. “hey, what are you doing here?”

“oh, dina told me to come over. are you going?” you leaned in the doorway. “dina, come on, stop invading people’s space. lets go!”

she groaned, “but ellie said we could smoke here!” she got up nonetheless, heading to join you. “thanks anyways els, have fun in class!”

“bye ellie!”

she sighs as she watches you two walk away. why does air fill her head whenever shes around you?

she waits and takes her time ‘cause little miss sunshine always thinks its gonna rain when emma falls in love, i know that boy will never be the same

“so, angel, how’s it going with you and that girl?” jesse felt a kick at his leg and turned to dina. “what? am i not allowed to ask questions?”

“no, no, it’s fine. we didnt work out, but thats okay!” you smiled brightly at the table. “i think im gonna take a break anyways. im kinda sick of it.”

they all shared a knowing look. “hey, no! i promise, this is for real.”

“hun, its not that we don’t believe you.” ellie started. “iits just that… we dont believe you!” you groaned and stole a fry from her plate. “look, we’ve just heard that a lot, and we dont wanna see you get hurt.”

“but im not going to! because im taking a break.” you kicked ellie. “you dont have to believe me, but can you at least pretend to?” they gave in and cheered for you. “thanks, now who wants to share a brownie?”

“okay, so its c minor sharp, f sharp, b, e, repeat?” you and ellie sat on the dorm room floor, her guitars in both of your laps.

“yea exactly, just on the third repeat, its a g sharp minor instead of a b.” you nodded at her and plucked the chord. “exactly. and i pluck for it so just… just watch?”

she played the song slowly, speaking her pattern as she went along. you nodded at her when she finished, figuring you knew it well enough. “okay, play it together?”

“yep!”

she counted down before starting, making you smile.

“talking away, i dont know what im to say. ill say it anyway, todays another day to find you shying away. ill be coming for your love, okay.” you hummed a harmony as ellie sang the words.

“are you sure you don’t usually play? youre a total natural at this.” ellie marveled as you let the last chord hum out.

“i guess im just pretty good with my fingers.” you felt your cheeks blaze as you heard back what you said.

dina chuckled, “damn right!” she stood up, going for the door. “gonna grab a bottle of water. play more for us beautiful ladies!”

ellie taught you the rest of the song, both of you more awkward than usual. you really came along it so fast, ellie was amazed.

“okay, seriously, you have to be messing with me because you are way to good at this.”

“i promise! i only took piano lessons.”

‘cause shes the kind of book that you cant put down like if cleopatra grew up in a small town and all the bad boys would be good boys if they only had the chance to love her and to tell you the truth sometimes i wish i was her

ellie had a thought that she might be, maybe, just could be a little in love with you.

she couldnt be though. right?

sure, she knew all of your favorite foods, and knew the words to your favorite song, knew your favorite books like the back of her hand, could tell anyone how you took your coffee.

but that was friendly. you guys were friendly. friends.

she guessed you guys hung out a lot, but thats because they always hung out as a group. she might’ve gotten excited when you joined, but that doesnt mean anything.

and of course she had noticed you were pretty. gorgeous, even. but so had everyone else. its not like she had purposefully memorized your features. every line and mark.

she could draw jesse from memory perfectly, its not like she liked him.

it was normal.

totally normal.

fuck.

“where’s angel?” ellie asked, looking to dina.

“not coming.” she sighed, digging around her purse for a pack of gum. “said she was busy, but she wouldn’t say why.”

“i think we all know why,” jesse teased. they all gave him a look, but he leveled them with one of his own. “im not insulting her. its just that, this isn’t exactly out of her nature. i mean seriously, who actually took her promise seriously?”

ellie excused herself to the bathroom, dialing you before she even reached the door.

“hello?”

“hey, where are you?” she picked at the already chipping nail polish she had on.

“uhm, im out.” you sighed. “look, im kind of busy. did you need somet-“

she had to cut to the chase. “are you on a date?”

“excuse me?”

“are you on a date?”

“thats none of your business.”

“oh fuck off, you know it very much is. so. are you?”

“fine, yea i am. now can i get back to it?”

“we are talking later.”

she joined the group back at their table, but couldnt focus back in on the conversation.

“you okay, ellie?” she looked up at dina, nodding with a hum.

“yea, sorry, got lost for a second.”

when emma falls apart, its when shes alone she takes on the pain and bears it on her own ‘cause when emma falls in love, she’s in it for keeps she wont walk away unless she knows she absolutely has to leave

she didnt even bother to knock, just walked straight through your dorm room door.

“ellie, what the hell?” you were in bed, a book in hand and music playing from a speaker. “what happened to knocking?”

ellie b-lined for your bed, taking a seat at the foot of it. “why were you on a date?”

“dude, seriously, what if i was naked? so not okay!” you placed a bookmark on your page and set the book to the side.

“okay, fine im sorry!” she groaned and found your eyes. “now why were you on a date? what happened to taking a break?”

“what do you want me to say, els?” you exhaled and looked down at your hands. “that i cant keep anything? that i cant keep promises or partners?” ellie felt bad as she saw your eyes were glossy and the frown on your face. “im sorry im such a screwup and that i cant do anything right. anything else?”

ellie ran her fingers through her hair. “im sorry.” she crossed her legs on your bed and looked at you. “really im sorry, this was so uncalled for. youre right, its not my business. im really sorry. i just wan-“

she froze.

surely you couldnt be kissing her right now.

before she could even think to reciprocate, you pulled away, a deer in headlights look on your face.

“im so sorry.” you whispered moving away from her. “god, im so so sorry. you should go. im sorry.” she opened her mouth to try and say anything, but you beat her to it. “ellie, please, just go.”

she saw the tears well and felt compelled to stay. but her body went against her, forcing her feet to walk out the door to her own room.

e: you cant ignore me forever. read

e: please angel, just talk to me. read

e: you kissed me, not the other way around. stop making this my fault. read

e: millers, noon? just coffee, i promise. read

a: im sorry.

ellie tossed her phone at her bed.

“whats up with you?” dina probed. “youve been… peeved this week. whats up?”

“who the hell says peeved?” she tried to joke but was met with dinas serious face. “im fine! seriously!” god that face made her break. “okay fine, just… dont tell anyone.”

dina nodded excitedly and sat down infront of her.

“angel kissed me, and then she freaked out and made me leave, and now she wont even talk to me!” ellie fell back onto her bed.

“SHE KISSED YOU?” dina squealed. “OH MY GOD, HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME SOONER!”

“did you hear nothing else that i said?”

and shes the kind of book that you cant put down like if cleopatra grew up in a small town and all the bad boys would be good boys if they only had the chance to love her and to tell you the truth sometimes i wish i was her

e: please, im begging you, just talk to me. read

a: what do you want me to say ellie?

e: literally anything. read

a: i messed up els, okay?

a: i shouldn’t have kissed you. im sorry.

e: but you should have. and you did. read

a: what?

e: meet me at millers? read

a: ellie…

e: please. read

a: omw.

e: thank you omg. read

a coffee was waiting on the table for you when you arrived. you sat across from ellie, hesitantly taking the drink. “you wanted to talk.” you talk a sip, finding it tasted like your usual order. “so talk.”

“okay look… i’m just as confused and nervous as you are.” she laughed nervously and fiddled with her own cup. “but, im glad you kissed me.”

“what?”

“yea i know.” she took a deep breath before continuing. “i only recently, like very recently, realized my feelings were misplaced. i really dont wanna be friends.”

you groaned, “and you couldnt have just texted me that?”

“fucks sake, just let me finish!” she pleaded, picking back up when you sat back into your chair. “i like you. like, a crazy lot, and it freaks me out. so please, let me at least take you on one date. if not, its fine, we just cant be friends. i wouldnt be able to stand it.”

you chewed at a nail as you took in what she had said.

“say something.”

a beat of silence before.

“okay.”

“okay?” she whispered.

“yea, okay. you can take me on a date.”

well, shes so new york when shes in l.a. she wont lose herself in love the way that i did ‘cause she’ll call you out she’ll put you in your place when emma falls in love, im learning

“hey, hurry up, im waiting downstairs for you.”

ellies voice rang through your room as you placed her on speaker.

“nuh uh, im not done. you asked me out, now deal with the consequences. ill be down when im ready.” you pulled out your outfit, throwing it on as you spoke. “just scroll on insta or something if you’re that bored.”

“fine.”

she hung up and you couldn’t help but laugh. you had been so nervous in the days leading up to this, but suddenly felt much better as she yelled at you like normal.

you finally met her at her car, hopping in the passenger seat and connecting your phone.

“the hell are you doing?” ellie squealed.

you scoffed and rolled your eyes. “passengers princess gets aux. suck it up loser.” you queued up songs as she pulled out and onto the main road. “where are we going anyways?”

“you’ll see.”

“god you are so annoying.”

and yet you smiled at her.

“an arcade? really?” you looked at her with eyebrows raised.

she shrugged and unbuckled, opening her door to get out. you shook your head, shocked still you were on a date with ellie williams. at the arcade.

she pulled you through the maze of a place to some own machine. “mortal kombat? what even is this?”

she smiled so bright, you couldnt help but smile back. “just wait, its so fun.”

emma met a boy with eyes like a man turns out her heart fits in the palm of his hand now he’ll be her shelter when it rains little does he know, his whole world’s about to change

“it was totally fun right? c’mon, you can admit it!” she pushed your shoulder, seeing your smiling face.

“okay yes, fine it was fun, i had fun!” you laughed, staring at her face. “i never really noticed you had this many freckles.”

you traced a finger across her cheeks. down the slope of her nose. across her eyebrow, stopping to poke the scar running through the left one.

“you’re pretty.” you whispered.

she blushed. “i think you’re gorgeous.” she whispered back.

her eyes were so pretty.

“can i kiss you?”

‘cause shes the kind of book that you cant put down like if cleopatra grew up in a small town and all the bad boys would be good boys if they only had the chance to love her and to tell you the truth sometimes i wish i was her

“please.”

yeah, between me and you sometimes i wish i was her

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

In Defense of Marinette

I like Marinette. While there are many valid criticisms of her writing, the same can be said for literally every other character and she's actually doing pretty well given that she's the main character. After all, in a show where consistent characterization is an ongoing issue, the one with the most screen time will probably be the one who's the biggest victim of the issue.

This is heavily exacerbated by the rule that supposedly governs Miraculous. Namely that, in each story, Marinette must make a mistake. Or, at least, so says the head writer:

I really do not care what this guy says on Twitter or anywhere else. I only care about what's in the show because, if you have to go outside the text to understand the text, then you have no idea how to tell a good story.

However, unlike many of the tweets that I've seen, this one isn't some BS bit of lore. It's a writing rule and it has substantial backing in the text. It's extremely rare to have an episode where Marinette comes out smelling like roses and that's a problem because Miraculous has over 100 episodes. In other words, to follow this rule, the writers have to come up with over 100 ways for Marinette to be wrong so of course she's going to come across poorly. Why would you do this to your main character?

It's extremely common for kids shows to have a "lesson of the day" element to them. Someone always needs to learn something, but I've never seen a show misunderstand the assignment so badly. Learning a lesson is not the same as doing something wrong.

It's been a while since I watched the 2010 version of My Little Pony, but it really leaned into that whole "lesson of the day" thing and it actually knew what it was doing, so I'm going to talk about it briefly to discuss things that Miraculous should have done.

The first thing to note is that MLP had an unambiguous main character - Twilight Sparkle - but Twilight was not the one who learned all of the lessons. She had a pet dragon and a crew of five friends who would, occasionally, be the ones to learn the lesson because there were lots of lessons that simply didn't fit Twilight's character. Instead of warping Twilight to make the idea work (cough cough Ikari Gozen cough), the writers just let someone else have the spotlight for a bit.

This is an excellent way to build out your cast and Miraculous had plenty of opportunities to do it. For example, Lila should not have been Marinette's issue. The fact that Lila hates Marinette could have certainly stuck around, but the one who takes her down and learns to investigate her sources? That should have been Alya. A liar is the perfect enemy for an investigative journalist, but a poor enemy for someone who shines as a battlefield commander and overthinks when she's given too much time.

Another way that MLP would teach lessons was to have someone other than Twilight or the main crew cause the issue that they then had to deal with. This leads to one of the best moments in children's television:

And, frankly? Marinette deserves a moment like this. That poor girl has been through hell and is never allowed to make the right call when it really matters. The show will even completely rewrite its lore to make her fail (see: Strike Back). That is such an awful thing to do to your lead! Shows about female empowerment should include women feeling powerful and, no, Lila and Chloe don't count!

Also, the show is literally about Gabriel taking advantage of people who are upset. You don't need to have Marinette make a mistake to shoehorn in a life lesson. Akumas are life lesson fodder and season 1 actually seemed to get this. I'm not sure why they switched gears to "Marinette is the star and, therefore, must always be wrong."

The final way that MLP taught lessons was to have Twilight do something wrong because having your main character do something wrong is a totally valid way to teach lessons. It just shouldn't be your only way because you know who is always wrong in children's media?

Villains.

They wrote Marinette like a villain.

And a large part of the fandom hates her for it because of course they do.

You're not supposed to like villains.

[genericpuff]

Sorry for the racist anon

I dunno how it works for Native Americans, but In Australia, those with Indigenous bloodlines are considered First Nations, no matter their skin tone of ethnic features.

This is largely due to ethnic genocide and colonisation, which I’m guessing Native Americans also experienced(of course), so to see a Indigenous person cry that someone’s “too white” to be First Nations is sickeningly ignorant.

aha I appreciate that <3

And I actually can totally relate to that because my bloodline falls under First Nations labelling! Except instead of being Australian, I'm Canadian haha I don't know if it was the same in Australia but it was practiced for a long time here (I think up until the 80's?) that if you were a First Nations woman who married a non-First Nations man, you'd lose your status as a First Nations woman. So my grandmother, who was raised in a residential school from a very young age, lost her legal status after marrying a French man and that passed on to her children and even her grandchildren. So I actually wasn't legally considered First Nations until around my preteens/teenage years when we were able to contest our status and bloodline with the government and get it back. Colonization unfortunately runs very deep in my family across the generations going back to my grandmother, much of my father's side of the family are strictly Christian (like, I'm talking "women aren't allowed to wear pants" type Christian) and I was raised as someone who was visibly different in a community of predominantly French/Irish people, but no one had the tools or resources to tell me why I was different without giving me an extremely whitewashed version of events. It makes me really upset for past me because being different really alienated me from a culture I didn't understand and didn't want to bother understanding at the time - I didn't want to be First Nations, because being First Nations was "weird" and "different" and I wanted to fit in.

Thankfully now I'm an adult and I've learned that my culture isn't something to be ashamed of, but proud of. Sometimes it makes me a little sad to feel like a foreigner to my own peers, where I'm learning about traditions and norms that many already had from childhood, but it's been a fun learning experience and it brings me so much joy to reconnect to a history and culture that was almost wiped out with my grandmother. I'm glad I learned about my culture and what was almost taken from me before it was too late.

It's frankly why it really shocked me in that previous ask, hearing "eh, you're not brown enough to be Indigenous and you should stfu" because I was literally picked on and singled out - even by my own white-passing family members - for being brown and "the odd one out" growing up. Being called a "cracker" was definitely a new one for me, I've been called every other manner of name for being darker-skinned and having visibly native features but never a name for not being dark-skinned enough ?? Like man, that's wild. Unlocking some whole new side content right here LMAO

[thebeesareback]

The big Robert Baratheon thoughts

There are several characters within the ASOIAF universe who could comfortably be the protagonist of their own book/series, and GRRM has spoken about how, when writing a character, he tries to see all the major events through their eyes and how it would have affected their lives. Dany and Oberyn are good examples of this, and a shorter book/series could comfortably have either one of them as the main character. If a fic writer is looking for any inspiration, I think a lot could be drawn from Dany in Vaes Toloro.

Another of them is a character who almost seems like a false protagonist in GOT: King Robert Baratheon. The people who don't know him think he's amazing, the people who do know him despise him. He has a fleshed-out backstory, character and the power to influence the plot in many different ways. Yet he's killed off quickly, and I think the fan community often overlooks him as a simple drunken idiot. So I'd like to dig a little deeper.

Robert's life can easily be sectioned into three parts: pre-rebellion era, the rebellion era and the post-rebellion era. Most of what we see comes from Ned Stark, and later we have flashbacks from Cersei which show a much darker and thoroughly rotten man.

To start: Robert is the first born son of House Baratheon, a clan with significant power and influence. He's exactly the kind of young man the Westerosi patriarchal "might makes right" system rewards -- the sort of son Randyl Tarly would love to have. He's an excellent fighter, charming, good looking ("muscled like a maiden's fantasy", oh Ned). There's also a kindness there. When he's fostered at the Eeire he sends for a gift of oranges for Jon Arryn, and although the fruit goes bad, he's not upset and instead plays with the other teenagers. It's silly and funny and the most childish we ever see him.

He isn't always lovely, of course. In Stannis' memory, Robert is unpleasant. He mocks Stannis' falcon and, therefore, Stannis himself. However, Stannis is a miserable shit, and this comment comes after they've spent years disliking each other, so there's obvious bias. Robert seemed to be happy to be away from his family, and so some alienation from his brothers does make sense. Robert and Stannis go through the ordeal of watching their parents die, and it's understandable that this would cause issues in their relationship. Perhaps that's why they pushed each other away. Having a walking, whining reminder of that trauma can't have been pleasant, and the desire to pretend that everything is ok and ignore problems gets more persistent as the years go on.

The third thing we hear about from Robert's pre-rebellion era is his relationship with Mya Stone. I'm not totally clear on the timeline, so I don't know if it's 1. parents' death > 2. Mya's birth > 3. the rebellion or if 1 and 2 are the other way around. Either way, Robert seems to adore his daughter. Ned thinks about how frequently they visited her, and how much Robert enjoyed spending time with her. In a kinder story, Robert would have always been close to Mya. Then the rebellion starts.

There are, of course, lots of things which lead to the rebellion. I don't think Tywin was going to put up with the Mad King for much longer, and Rhaegar felt the same way. Then you have the coalition between the Starks, Baratheons, Tullys and Arryns, and at some point Varys and "Young Griff" would have popped up. For Robert, though, things were straightforward: he wanted Lyanna, and Rhaegar took her away. He remarks to Ned that "Seven Kingdoms couldn't fill the whole she left". It's clear that he didn't actually know Lyanna that well, and it could easily be argued that the reason he worshipped her memory was a mix of affection for Ned and a desire to return to a time where he wasn't traumatised.

Obviously, war is traumatic. That's kind of the point of the series. Everyone who fought in Robert's Rebellion is changed in some way and the scars, literal and metaphorical, run deep. Stannis broods over his "rewards". Ned misses his sister, brother and father. Catelyn is aware of the loss of her betrothed, and Lady Dustin crystalises her rage. Jamie is ostracised and bitter. Jon Connington promises more violence. The list goes on. The things Robert sees during the campaign clearly change him, and this brings us back to Mya.

One of the key themes of the series, most prominently in the first book, is the idea that the innocent should not be sacrificed. That's why Ned works so hard to protect Jon and why he resigns his handship when Robert wants to kill Dany. Something happened to Robert during the rebellion, where his hatred of the Targaryens solidifies so much that it becomes the only thing he really wants. Other things, like his love of his daughter or the belief that children should be protected, all go and he's left with Tywin Lannister and the corpses of Rhaenys and Aegon.

Robert doesn't have to make peace with the Lannisters. In fact, lots of people (the Starks, the Dornish and the people of King's Landing) would be much happier if he didn't. Tywin ordered a horrific thing, and Robert rewarded him. For me, this is where Robert becomes the man we meet in Game of Thrones. He's so broken inside that he does nothing, and tries to pretend that he's still the person he was as a teenager.

After the rebellion, Robert goes on to have plenty more children. If he loved Mya and wanted to see her all the time, after the rebellion he forgets her. And she's the lucky one! Robert must know that Cersei has his twins drowned, he ignores Barra and Gendry, and he only acknowledges Edric Storm because he has to. Then there are the kids who are legally "his", even if biologically they're not. I don't think we ever see him interact with Tommen or Myrecella, and his relationship with Joffrey isn't good. Sure, Joffrey is a little shit, but you could argue that it's partially because of Robert's treatment. Stannis thinks, at one point, that Robert might have killed Joffrey because he hit him so hard.

Why does Robert detach? Well, there's the trauma, the general depression, the loneliness, the disconnect between *conceiving* children and *the actual children*. I think, as well, there's the knowledge that, by allowing Tywin to get away with the murder of the Targaryen children, he's set a precedent whereby the same thing could easily happen to his own kids. If someone needed to get rid of Robert -- and there are people who would like him gone -- they would come after Joffrey, Tommen and Myrecella, and perhaps his bastards, too. He can't protect them, and it shames his chivalric ideals, so he disconnects, doesn't care, and drinks excessively. It might be a way of dealing with guilt, or a way he protects himself from losing anyone else. Ultimately, Joffrey, Tommen and Myrecella are doomed; Edric only escaped sacrifice because of Pylos and Davos, and might well get mixed up in a Varys/"Young Griff" scheme; all of the bastards in King's Landing are killed; and if Gendry survives, it's because of plot armour. Nobody cares about Mya, really.

There's plenty to say about the Robert/Cersei match. Firstly, I'd like to mention how much I enjoy the show-only scene where the two discuss their marriage. It's heartbreaking, well written and beautifully acted, and gives some depth which makes the experience richer.

None of the Lannisters like Robert, with the exception of Tyrion. Tyrion likes Robert because Cersei doesn't, but their creepy and destructive bond is a whole other issue. Ned thinks that Robert was a man with "big appetites", and a clear desire to be loved. It probably means he wasn't ever going to be a good husband, which Lyanna points out (in a line which I cannot imagine a 14-year old ever saying, but I digress). Robert loved the thrill of the chase and the first few weeks of a relationship, but wasn't willing to really emotionally attach to anyone. Perhaps it's because, like with his children, he had to keep people away in case he lost them, like Lyanna.

Cersei is her own woman and, to be honest, not a very good wife. Robert thinks he would have been happy with Lyanna, Cersei thinks she would have been happy with Rhaegar: both are wrong. She starts her wedding day by having sex with her brother; she regularly cuckolds her husband, and then she finishes off by murdering her husband. You could argue that her behaviour is driven by Robert's physical and sexual abuse, and his emotional distance and obvious disdain. I don't think that's incorrect, per se, I just think there's a nasty mix with the two of them. They're bad alone and worse together. They're a toxic, unhappy, traumatised mix, and a solid argument for Westerosi divorce.

Finally, there's Robert's alcoholism and his love of food. There are a number of reasons for this -- the genre's enthusiasm for descriptions of feasts; parallels with Henry VIII of England; possibly GRRM simply likes adding his favourite meals, similar to how he created House Estermont so there could be turtles, because he had pet turtles. Obesity is the sort of thing that's pretty common in middle age men who used to be very physically active, because they had to eat lots to make up their calorie deficit, and when the exercise stopped, the food continued. As for alcohol, it gives Robert an opportunity to forget his (admittedly plentiful) responsibilities and woes, makes him feel like a hero, and gives him an excuse for his abuse of Cersei. He rapes her, and when she brings it up, he says "it was not me, but the wine", then REACHES FOR A BEER. I'm certainly not qualified to talk about addiction and trauma, so if anyone has thoughts on this, please add a comment.

In Shakespeare's Macbeth, the eponymous character snatches the crown at his wife's goading, and then finds that things disintegrate around him. There's a scene in the play where two servants talk about what's going on in Scotland, and one says that two horses fought, and one ate the other. When a monarch is usurped, in literature, nature goes against itself. In real life, revolutions are messy and complicated and difficult. Robert Baratheon fought a rebellion to get his fiance back, whilst others used him and worked alongside him for their own reasons. He was left holding a rotten crown. Abused and abuser, surrounded by toxicity and exuding his own hatred, one could easily create a novel about his disillusionment.

[laineystein]

I know that the media would have you believing that war is constant and ruthless but sometimes it’s a lot of sitting around and waiting for orders. And a lot of talking. Really introspective talking. And the things that people say when there’s a very real chance that they might die, are probably the most poignant and well said. So here’s a conversation my unit had in a million different ways with a million different words:

We love beings Jews. We love being Israeli. We can’t imagine being anything else or belonging to any other group. But this statistic that we are 0.2% of the worlds population has been so much more than a statistic lately. We all feel it. We feel how so much of the world has turned their backs on us — how the same people that posted those stupid blue squares on instagram are now using language that calls for our genocide and the destruction of our homeland. We know that for so many people we are pawns in their political game. We know that so many people think we are sub-human and therefore deserving of less respect than any other person. We don’t need anyone to tell us what they think of us because so many people are showing us by what they’re doing or not doing. And that’s okay. We’re used to it. We’ve always been alone. We’ve always fought (and won) our own battles. We’ll win this one without any of you. It’s fine. But it makes me think about how the same people that alienate us are the ones that critique how we live in insular communities (like the neighborhood I grew up in Crown Heights) and how our religion is closed and how we don’t need a place (read: Israel) where we all live together (assumedly because no other group has such a place — which is just a total lie). And there’s this thought amongst many Jews that communities like the one I grew up in in Brooklyn exist as a result of the persecution we faced. Just like there’s this thought that Israel exists because of the Holocaust. The survivors of the worst thing that can happen to a group decided to live together and close out the outside world. Now I’d argue that we certainly haven’t closed anyone out in Israel - I’m currently serving with Israelis that are Arab and Druze. But is our country very Jew-centric? Absolutely. Just like Crown Heights is very Jew-centric. Goyim can/do live and visit Crown Heights but it is a place that caters to what is otherwise considered a counter-culture in America. Just like Israel caters to Jews in an area of the world where all of us were expelled. We are fine living in these places. We have created these communities and curated them to our Jewish way of life. But people wonder why we close ourselves off and why we need special spaces - and that same ignorance is the answer. Sure, our diets are different and we have laws about how we go to school and work and pray that make it very difficult to live in a non-Jewish world but there’s a very real truth that so many people are scared to say aloud so I will: We don’t trust goyim. Goyim have never stood up for us or protected us. Only we can keep ourselves safe. Only we truly care about our wellbeing. We do not feel safe around goyim. And I think we have every right to be distrustful. We have every right to think that our survival and security rests solely in our fellow Jew. So while this has all proven that the Jewish people are amazing and loving and stronger than even we knew, it’s also only cemented this idea that we absolutely need our own world. And it’s clear that we’ve essentially lived in our own world all this time anyway - our world view is not your world view. Our experiences are so incredibly different than the goy experience. If you’re not Jewish and especially if you’re not an Israeli Jew, you can’t possibly understand any of this. And that’s fine! But don’t get angry when, in the absence of your support, we’ve figured it out. And don’t be upset when your Jewish friends - Israeli or not - have pushed you away because you didn’t show up in the way they’d hoped. You’ve merely proven us right. We do not need you. Our communities are enough. Our country is enough. Together, we will outlive you.

[misfithive]

Thank you for the way you handled that ask about Wille's and Simon's drama. Because that sentence 'On the other hand, Simon needs to have a bit of more drama thrown at him' made me so furious. It was so insensitive! The fact that he suffers in silence and alone in his room not to bother other people doesn't mean he doesn't suffer enough and needs some more! The fact that he didn't jump on the table or say he feels like dying doesn't make his experience any less traumatic than Wille's. What he needs is to process his trauma rather than brushing it aside, not to get some more.

Once again thank you, you put it all beautifully.

Yes 😭 this is a very common hope for Simon to get pushed to the point of a breakdown but it’s like .. at what cost?😩 He has been thru enough trauma for a lifetime and a half. And the thing is, most people cannot actually stop and process the trauma if they are constantly being hit with more. I think we are more likely to get simon opening up if he is able to find safety which he did not really have. he is expected to be the strong one by everyone in his life. His friends try their best but still, telling him to rebound is the same message him mother gives him of “you are strong”. Bc they dont want him to sit with his feelings and cry (it’s uncomfortable and not the norm for them), they want him to forget about the Prince and move on. Up until s3 he has not had someone to cry to- thats why he writes his songs and holds wille’s sweater. Even when he is talking to Rosh and Ayub in the kitchen if he was actually crying to them i feel they would show it- it appears he probably cried on the way home before they came (this is my hc if yall think he cried to them u can believe that if u want)

i think Simon’s character is very accurate to what a lot of men, people socialized as men, and also people of color experience and how we deal with our emotions. I get that for a lot of people it is cathartic to sob but for many of us, crying like that especially in front of someone else is terrifying. we are conditioned that letting other people see u in that vulnerable state is a weakness (puts you in danger or will be used against you & that anger is safer). I know some men who have not cried since they were children and told me they dont even remember what it feels like to cry or how to actually let the tears fall from their eyes. It is messed up. Is that fair? No. Is it true that it is a weakness? No. But not everyone learns that. The patriarchy sucks and harms us all lol i wish people would understand that and have empathy for the deep sadness that simon is carrying and hiding whether he lets it out or not.

Not to mention everyone deals with their trauma differently and i think it is cool that the show is realistic and shows people dealing with things in different ways. Simons character is relatable bc of this and instead of people saying “it’s not fair that Wille gets to express himself in this way and Simon doesn’t” i want people to think about WHY Simon is not be able to. I know wanting simon to cry comes from a good place but it does upset me a little bit bc even if he doesnt have a breakdown s3, that doesnt mean that the writers hate him and arent doing his story justice which is what people say abt s2. At the same time, if he does have a break down, that would be totally warranted. i'm just saying that if it doesn't happen that's valid too.

THAT BEING SAID. I think s3 is a great opportunity for Simon to hear from Wille that he doesnt always have to be strong and that Wille can be a reliable safe space. I think Wille’s tenderness is something that Simon sees and now that they are on good terms and Wille has worked to rebuild the trust, I hope Simon will turn to Wille for emotional support however that looks.

Ermmmn I’m very sorry that this turned into a dump but i had to get it off my chest.(made a few edits for clarity and spelling mistakes bc i posted this in the middle of the night)

[lovelies-dream]

Can I ask how would Hideaki, Elliot, and Maeve react to Reader who is touch starved?

Affection headcanons (Hideaki, Elliot, Maeve).

This turned into general affection headcanons with touch starved reader sprinkled in.

read this to learn about my oc's

---

Hideaki

Hideaki is equally as touched starved as he is touched. His parent's never put in even effort to show him physical affection, so it's something he's both scared of but also craves. Because of this, if you enter a relationship with him and are also touched starved, then it's gonna be a while before anything happens, sorry. 

He really wants to do all the cute coupley stuff, but he doesn't have a point of reference. He grew up in a cold, unloving home where he was taught that you don't get things you don't deserve, and so that's why he assumed he never got love. It's the same in all his past relationships, he blocks himself off from receiving any love or affection, and then blames the person he's with for not loving him enough. You're different though. 

Unlike his past partners, you don't purposely try to break down his walls. You don't force yourself to hold his hand in public, or kiss him on the cheek in front of paparazzi. You don't get into arguments with him about why he's so distant, you understand him, and in a way that does more to break down his walls than any one has ever done. 

Slowly, he starts opening up to you, about his family, about his past. It's a genuine moment where he is extremely vulnerable, and he confesses to you that he wants to be there for you too, he just doesn't know how. So, affection starts off slowly. 

There are days when he feels terrible, because he feels as though he's not providing you something you need/want. During times like this, he reverts to his childish ways where he deludes himself into believing that you hate him and that you're waiting for your opportunity to leave. This either leads to him begging you to stay with him, or him getting upset at you for something you didn't do. Either way, it usually ends up with you talking together and him crying in your arms. 

Hideaki is so used to putting on this persona for people, whether it's for the cameras or for people he so desperately wanted to love him. But with you, you understand him. You crave that love in the same way he does, and eventually, he learns to take what is given to him. Eventually, he's basically glued to you. As a yandere, he's very attached to you, and some days you'll even hear him talk about how he feels as though you two share the same soul, and that you can never be separated. 

It's strange, seeing someone go from rejecting every form of affection because of his own self image issues to texting you non stop because you left for work before he woke up so he didn't get a goodbye kiss. Honestly, you don't know what's worse. 

---

Elliot: 

Elliot is one of those people that is naturally affectionate. He grew up with a big family, six siblings in total, and has very extreme family values. Not in the traditional sort of way, but in the sense that the people close to you are your family so you treat them right. He grew up attending many family gatherings where he'd spend time with his cousins, aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, and none of them were shy with showing affection, so he wasn't either. 

That translates a lot to his relationship with you. He wastes no time early in the relationship giving you hugs, kisses, holding you, it was never something he felt the need to build up too. This also translates to how his family treats you. From the very first time you met them they were basically your parents. They hugged you, cooked you tons of food, gifted you things, it was very overwhelming. But to them, being with Elliot means that you're part of the family, so they treat you as such. 

Elliot won't know you're touched starved unless you tell him, and once you do he immediately starts thinking that it's his fault. He assumes that he must've not shown you enough attention, maybe he was working too much and everything just got away from him, but he really does feel bad. 

Once some explaining is done, and he realizes that it isn't his fault, he tries his best to learn about what type of affection you like the most and are comfortable with before doing anything. He doesn't want to hurt you in any way, so he pulls back a little bit in order to keep you happy. It hurts him a bit, because he wants to be affectionate with you, but he also wants to take things slow. 

Eventually, after some time, things will go back to the way things were before, but this time he's always making sure that you're always comfortable. He might be a little more reserved, always worried about what might hurt you, but he always puts your feelings before his. However, this does sometimes lead to a little bit of manipulation, where he'll talk about how his younger nieces and nephews miss you, or how his parents are talking about you and wondering when they can see you again. You both know that if you met up with family again it might be overwhelming, but a small part of him just wishes for things to go back to normal, as bad as that sounds. 

---

Maeve: 

Maeve sees the world in you, and so he wholeheartedly believes in worshiping you accordingly. He's like Elliot, where he's very affectionate; however, unlike Elliot, Maeve believes it's his duty to love you in a way that is up to your standards. Maeve is the definition of an obsessive lover, even if he wasn't a yandere. He wants to show you all the love possible, so he might not even notice that you're touch starved. 

Maeve takes any second he can to express his love for you, to the point where it's annoying to everyone but him. He's been in interviews where he's asked a general question and he's somehow spun it around to be about you, he's not subtle at all. And why should he, he loves you, he doesn't see a point in hiding it. 

At least in my head, being in a relationship with Meave leads to lots of insecurities. He's a multimillionaire who owns one the most famous fashion brands and modeling agencies. He's considered one of the most beautiful people on earth, and here he is, slaving away at yet another piece dedicated to you. 

Honestly, Maeve wouldn't understand at first why you are touched starved, isn't he giving you enough attention already? But the more Maeve thinks about it, the more he's reminded of his own childhood. I touched on this a bit in my introduction post, but Maeve grew up with his parents and his grandfather, and while his parents were his favorite people ever, his grandfather was incredibly abusive. As a child he found himself craving his grandfather's love, even though he knew his grandfather would never love him. When he passed, years after he left home, he didn't attend the funeral, and he was happy to see the man gone, but some small part of him was still wishing he would've just loved him at least once.

He assumes you're similar in a way, craving a love you don't fully understand. In that moment he feels as though he understands you more and he finds himself becoming softer around you. His love was already soft, but now it's even more so. He loves taking care of you, loves picking out your clothing in the morning, brushing your hair and styling it. He wants to show you affection that goes beyond just physical, he wants you to know that you're loved, even if you don't believe it. 

As a yandere, Maeve doesn't let you for a moment forget how much he loves you, and that can lead to him unknowingly playing into a lot of insecurities I mentioned previously. Like imagine watching on the T.V. in his dressing room as he mentions for the fifth time how inspired he is by you, all while his P.R. team is going insane because this interview is supposed to be about his new show coming up. You just honestly don't know what to do with him at this point.

[evansbby]

POYT 5 - My thoughts & commentary

MAJOR SPOILERS below the cut! Only proceed if you've read POYT 5.

Also, I will be answering all feedback this weekend! I wanted to give it a week so that more people would read it and because the feedback will contain spoilers.

Anyways, here are my thoughts (warning, this is long lmao)

Hey everyone

First off, I just want to say how thankful I am for the support for this fic. I never thought I’d finish it and to see it finished more than a year after the first chapter was posted and to see how many of you stuck around and didn’t give up on it is truly heartwarming! Thank you for letting me tell my story, thank you for supporting me, thank you for egging me on to finish it, thank you for sharing your thoughts and words of encouragement, thank you, thank you, thank you! I know sometimes I may come across as unthankful. And I’ll be so honest with you guys, a few days following the posting of POYT 5, I was so, so emotional and on edge and kind of upset because I thought the fic was not getting as much feedback as I thought it would. Which is crazy to think since we got it to 1000 notes in 24 hours!!

But I understand that people take time to read something so long, and it’s so much content that people need time to gather their thoughts. I get that. I’m just a very emotional person, which is why it may have seemed like I got upset. I poured my heart and soul into this fic for the past six months, so I will be emotional about it. That being said, I really want to stress on the fact that I AM super thankful towards the people who supported me and sent in amazing feedback, or reblogged and wrote their feedback down! I’ve read every single feedback so far maybe about three times!! I can’t wait to answer it so we can fully have an in-depth discussion about the story!

ALSO. And this is so important. POYT IS A DARK FIC. Steve, no matter what redemption I gave him, is a whole ass red flag in real life. He’s still a dark character, he is still someone that would totally be a villain in real life. POYT is a work of complete fiction, so please don’t think that because she ended up living happily ever after with Steve, that I condone that in real life. I think we are all old enough to understand that this is just me exploring a dark relationship in FICTION. In real life, this would be considered toxic and abusive. PLEASE remember that. Do not be with a poyt!Steve in real life. Please.

Now, to the fic itself. I’ll explain more when I answer the asks but let me just share my main thought-process behind it. I know a lot of people expected Peter to take Omega away and for Omega and Steve to be apart for a chunk of the story. I NEVER wanted to do anything like that. I believe I’ve mentioned it a few times but I don’t really love it when this happens in stories I read, and I always skip to the part where the reader and her man are back together. So I knew I didn’t want to do this.

There WAS an early iteration of the story where Peter takes Omega back to his apartment and she spends the night in his guest-room (she doesn’t want to sleep in the same room as him, she doesn’t hate him or anything but it feels wrong to her). Peter would have made her block Steve’s number and told her to just sleep on it. But she would’ve cried all night and missed Steve so much that she would’ve unblocked him. Of course, her phone would be flooded with calls and texts from Steve, ranging from angry to sad to demanding to know where she is to blaming Peter to blaming Omega. Really erratic texts like  “I told you I loved you and you left me,” to “fuck you, I will never forgive you,” to “sorry I didn’t mean that please come back, baby, I miss you.” And she would have called him back but hung up quickly before he could alpha-command her into telling him where she is (she wouldn’t want to endanger Peter). And then Omega herself would’ve left and gone back to Steve.

I didn’t do this because, honestly, Peter would never “kidnap” Omega. I know a lot of people used the word kidnap but honestly that’s not what was going on. Peter thought he was saving her, but she had already decided in Part 4 that it was Steve she couldn’t live without. In Part 4, she says she could live without her mom and without Peter, but not without Steve. She’s already said yes to his proposal, there was no doubt she was going to stay with Steve. Maybe a little bit because Steve had only promised to be better at that point, and he had not proven it. But we all know Omega always saw the best in Steve, always wanted him to be better, always wanted him deep down. It wouldn’t make sense for her to stay quiet and let Peter take her all the way back to his apartment. I know she’s always been confused and indecisive, but I wanted her to be firm in that moment. Because she has chosen to be with Steve. At that moment, she doesn’t know why and she’s still confused about her feelings for Steve, but she knows she can’t live without him. So she chooses to stay with him within the first few sentences of the fic.

I remember a few months ago I received an ask saying that they expected Omega and Steve to stay apart for about 10k words of POYT 5, and I read that thinking “OMG is this what people are expecting???” because PERSONALLY, I would skip the fuck out of those 10k words if reader wasn’t with her love interest for 10k whole words. That’s just me personally, everyone has a different opinion but yeah. I tried to stay as true to MYSELF in this fic as possible, and ultimately, this is how I wanted it to play out.

I wanted POYT 5 to be about Steve and Omega and their interactions with each other. Because if you look back at the four parts before this… why exactly are we rooting for this couple? Have they had any sweet or romantic moments? They have, but very few and far between. Have they even had normal conversations? I needed their relationship to grow and evolve so that it would GENUINELY be a happy ending. I wanted the over-arching theme to be their interactions evolving, and Steve saying he loves her and her being unable to say it back. Which is why, if you noticed, almost every time Steve would say he loved her, he’d wait expectantly for her to say it back, and withdraw when she didn’t.

I’d say my biggest struggle was writing Steve (as it always is). I wanted his character development to be believable. But I think people need to remember that he had already turned a new leaf in POYT 4. And so POYT 5 was more about him demonstrating how he’d change, and keeping true to the promises he made to her in the previous part. I really hope you recognised that I tried to do it gradually, and that he’s trying to be better but still struggling with it.

For example: when he steps away from fighting Peter, you can tell he’s fighting with himself and this manifests through his literal physical features. How his face contorts before bouncing back then contorting again. I focused a LOT on describing Steve’s physical features in that part (so much so that I had to cut out whole paragraphs that just focused on describing his expression changing).

And then his panic attack. I got a message saying that was very out of character for Steve (I’ll respond to that message, don’t you worry, anon). But I really do not think it was OOC. Look, in fics this long, characters need to evolve. And Steve has been cold, calculated, strong, put-together for the whole of POYT so it honestly makes sense that he would lose it. To me, it does. He already lost it a few times in POYT 4, so it would make sense that he’d lose it some more. I know a lot of people enjoy reading him as this all-powerful alpha male and I was like that too, but I had to write this because it felt right to me. Steve is very emotionally volatile, and I think it was fitting that he had a panic attack. It shows another side of him, and I was proud of that scene. I’ll elaborate on this more when I answer that anon. But let me just say this: usually, when Steve got angry in the past – he’d resort to physical violence or some form of twisted, calculated revenge. He cannot do that to Peter, because he knows now that omega won’t forgive him if he did. So, in that moment, he kind of just… breaks. He doesn’t know how to process his emotions properly, so he panics. He’s seen his omega kiss someone else, and then he’s had to listen to that same person call him out in front of everyone and basically told him no one would ever love him. We KNOW Steve is insecure deep down, and so it’s honestly not very surprising that he had a panic attack. Villainous, macho characters can have panic attacks too, anon. They aren’t just reserved for the good characters.

Anyways, this is getting too long but moving on. I really hoped I captured Steve’s growth in a gradual, somewhat realistic way. Like how he blurts out that her mother won’t care about her getting married before he cuts himself off (him being tactful when before, he’d manipulated her and said this VERY thing). In the road trip scene, his communication still isn’t the best but at least he is TRYING, with that “game” that he plays just so he can ask her questions about her feelings. Like, he couldn’t straight up ask her and he had to make it into a game but like… it’s poyt!Steve after all so what do you expect haha. And when they’re at her childhood home, he’s still that guy who goes through all her stuff and pokes fun at her… but the difference is that it’s now turned into gentle teasing and not mean teasing, like how it was in the first few chapters.

Speaking of them going back to omega’s childhood home, I hope you guys caught on that omega realises her mom has left the moment she opens her mom’s bedroom door and sees the bed stripped and dresser empty. That’s why she gasps. But she doesn’t want to accept it, which is why she refuses to believe it. I’m sure everyone caught on to that but I’m just explaining anyways because why not. I’ll also say that writing this part made me cry so hard, I don’t know why. I have a very good relationship with my mother, she’s my whole entire life and she’s the best woman I know. So, to write a character who just does not have that… I don’t know why but it really affected me. And every time I reread this part to edit it, I cried. Every time. Especially the part where she talks about the ghost of her younger self playing in the garden. Like I’m tearing up now… Oh God!!! Also, when she breaks down and starts screaming at her mom’s door, I remember I wrote a part where she takes off her shoe and throws it at the door. I cut it out but I wish I’d kept it in in hindsight, just to show how raw and hurt she felt.

Anyways, as a lot of you messaged me saying this, you’re right, this was the moment where something snaps in Steve and he changes. It’s like he realises everything she’s been through and is still going through, and all the hurt and grief HE caused her. It’s never explicitly mentioned, but since the bathtub scene, Steve is afraid she’s going to kill herself. Like, that’s just a very real thing in his head, he’s just afraid she’s going to do that and he’d have been the main driving factor behind it. And so he realises he HAS to change. It’s in the way he doesn’t get mad at her when she tells him to fuck off, when she makes that dig at him and says he doesn’t have hardworking parents who work long hours. I wanted to convey that in that moment, her mental well-being just becomes his number one priority and he realises he could lose her. Maybe not physically, but he could still lose her. Which is why he gets so desperate in the end, and pleads with her to stay with him.

WHICH IS WHY, from then on, we see Steve being very communicative all of a sudden. And it’s ironic, because he’s not communicative about his own shit but he wants omega to voice all her concerns. That is why we get so much of “baby, tell me how you’re feeling.” Simply put, he’s afraid she’ll kill herself, and he also wants to be more communicative in order to improve their relationship and be better for her. Which is why he kind of throws himself into this new persona of this ultra communicative, ultra vocal about his love type of boyfriend. Like, he really lays it on thick, but he means it… and it also comes from a place of desperation, like he NEEDS her to get better. He knows deep down he’s about to lose his mother, but he cannot lose omega too. So if some of you thought it was OOC for him being SO SO SO vocal about his declarations of love and all his sweet little speeches, well, this is why I did it.

Speaking of Mrs. Rogers, she was a big talking point amongst all of you in the feedback I got! Like, overwhelmingly so! All I’ll say is, the whole cancer thing is something I pictured for her for a long time. But there WAS an early iteration of Steve’s parents where we would’ve met them in POYT 4 during Steve’s graduation and they would’ve been snooty and not approved of Omega. But somewhere along the way, that all changed. But I do want to stress that I did not mean to give the impression that Steve’s mom having cancer is the reason why he’s a bully. He was a bully alpha way before his mother got sick. Maybe it contributed a little bit but it does not excuse his behaviour at all and I never meant for it to! Honestly, it was more about exploring just how delusional and scared Steve really is, deep down. Like, his inability to accept that his mother is dying is very similar to omega refusing at first to accept that her mom left her. It’s more about how both the main characters push their problems aside and are often unable to accept them head on. It also added another facet to Steve’s character, and made things that little bit more heartbreaking, which was my intention.

Oh my fucking God, this is already 2.4k words??? Anyways, I really want to talk about the Rogers’ family mansion. So, since I was a child, I was obsessed with this author called VC Andrews who wrote Flowers in the Attic. When I say obsessed, I mean that I read each of her books like six or seven times and I still reread them till this day. To the point where my writing is influenced by her. Anyways, her stories were often rags-to-riches, and the heroine always describes a mansion. I was entranced reading about Foxworth Hall from FitA and Farthingale Manor from Heaven (if you guys haven’t read these books, please do. They are so, so good. I write the way I write because I read these books). So when I wrote the scene of Steve’s mansion, I wanted it to have that gothic horror family saga type feel, and so there were a lot of descriptions of just how big his house was, how his family literally had a ballroom and used to host galas, I really just wanted to paint a full picture of that. And then amongst all those riches, is Steve’s mom, a woman who is sick, whose husband is always away, whose son is too scared to come see her anymore. The sadness and secrets in all the wealth, that’s what I wanted to capture. If you guys have read Flowers in the Attic, you’d maybe understand what I mean. I deviated a bit from the usual style of POYT for these few scenes in Steve’s mansion, but I enjoyed writing them immensely.

More on Steve’s character: at this point I wanted to show that he was changing but that he wasn’t perfect and change doesn’t happen overnight. Which is why he lashes out at her for not saying she loves him back (right after sex, mind you, when she’s feeling extra vulnerable). It was a mean thing to do, but again, nobody is perfect and least of all him. Also, idk if anyone caught this bc no one has commented on it as of yet, but she almost slipped in the shower because she was trying to chase after him :// POYT 5 could’ve been a lot sadder just then… but I decided not to go there. Anyways, I wanted to show that Steve was still impulsive, quick to get angry. But the key difference is HE CAME BACK. And comforted her. I just wanted to show his gradual growth there.

I feel like I’m doing too much now so let me speed through the rest. I really tried to sprinkle in a lot of moments where Steve was being his cocky self, because he still is that and always will be. He’s still got his rules, and he’s being lax about them but at the end of the day he’s still an alpha. What I’m trying to say is, in the future, he’s not going to be the manipulative, childish, toxic fuckboy that he was before. But he WILL ultimately still be the misogynistic alpha that he always was, albeit a lot less intense and mean than before.

The scene with Bucky was always, always going to happen. All that Bucky stuff was leading up to something, and I always planned to do this. But when I actually got to writing it and realised how lame this man sounded when he was listing his problems “Steve always got the better car” etc, I knew I had to have omega comment on how dumb his problems were compared to hers. Because they are!!! It was ridiculous at the end of the day. I know a lot of people expected a fight with Peter and Steve, but that was never going to happen in full. It was always Steve vs Bucky to me. They have more history, they’re both more evenly matched in physical strength. Also, I want to clarify that at this point, Bucky did not have any feelings for omega, she was just an object to him that he could not have, and it was the last straw for him. I left Bucky’s fate as open-ended, maybe one day I’ll go back to that.

The final scene was ALWAYS meant to be omega marking Steve and finally telling him she loves him too. Like, I had this pictured since day one. This was always, always going to be the ending.

In terms of her and Peter, I really struggled with what type of ending I could give them. Because realistically, if I was Peter, I’d still be angry. I’d still be in disbelief over my best friend being with a man who is just… Not Good. And I do think Peter deep down still feels that way, but he also knows he cannot persuade omega, and so he has to move on. He sent her a wedding card but, in my head, they do not keep in touch. Steve doesn’t want her to keep in touch with him, and honestly, there isn’t much for Peter and omega to say to each other anymore. Which I think is realistic. It’s sad but it’s realistic.

One of the hardest parts for me was making sure to tie up every single loose end. Like for example, Sharon. In an earlier iteration, I had originally planned for Steve to somehow sabotage Sharon and keep her from graduating as revenge for her being mean to omega. In the end, I decided against this. Sharon is not important to Steve, she is not that important to the story either, and honestly, she wouldn’t have deserved that at all. So, I left her alone. I hope she’s doing well.

Same with other tiny loose ends, like who fixed Steve Junior? Originally, I genuinely DID mean that Steve simply paid someone else to fix her. But A LOT of you sent me messages asking if it was Steve himself who fixed him… and it just made so much sense! Because the stitching is done lowkey badly and unevenly, so of course it was Steve! I added that part in right at the end! Also the sketchbook part, where Steve sketches his mom. That was added like, on the day of me posting the fic. I was so paranoid I missed something, but I don’t think I did??

Mr. Rogers wasn’t meant to be in the fic at all. I wanted to keep him mysterious. But in the end, I decided to add him in last second. And I liked that he and his wife are so in love, but I feel like he’s still a mysterious character – especially in his relationship towards his son.

Lastly, Steve was ALWAYS gonna be a girl dad. That was never a question. Like… come on. We all saw that one coming!!!

Now all I can say is that Steve (the one on my blog who answers questions) is going to be SO smug that he got his omega back (after like two minutes of him losing her lmao). LIKE?? He proved all of you wrong hahahaha. The whole time y'all were talking about him sitting at home, heartbroken bc his omega got taken... HE HAD HER THE WHOLE TIME. just a funny thought lol.

ANYWAYS, if you have any questions about the fic, any more deleted scenes you wanna know about, any other things you want to say in response to this? please send them in!!!

[krash-and-co]

hey krash, i wanted to reach out and say that i'm so sorry that you got such a hurtful reaction from one of the l&co servers for speaking up about something that genuinely needed to be addressed. i won't badmouth anyone in particular but this is not the first time this fandom has dogpiled someone over a misunderstanding, and when it happened to me i had severe anxiety over it for about a week even after it was resolved, and eventually left because of it. it left a pretty bad taste in my mouth for the fandom in general, so i mostly just stick to my small group of mutuals now lol. i wish this fandom truly was different from other fandoms, but this kind of thing is unfortunately inevitable once something reaches a certain level of popularity. but that certainly doesn't make it okay, and you didn't do anything to deserve the reaction you got. i hope you can feel peace about it soon, and i'm sorry again that it happened at all. 🫂

(please don't feel pressured to answer this if you'd rather the matter be left alone, i totally understand. i just wanted to send you an ask because i didn't know if you're comfortable with dms.)

hi im so sorry i forgot to answer!!! thank you so much this means so much to me. 💙💙💙 i read this for the first time when i was feeling pretty attacked and it really cheered me up <3

hmm other people have been telling me about how they got attacked in this fandom too. and maybe this shouldn't have surprised me as much as it did. but it's something fans never talk about and claim doesn’t exist, so i thought it didn’t. i was horribly fooled lol. as, uh, i am about to rant about; do you mind? u don’t have to read it, i won’t be offended, but halfway thru answering this ask it turned into a rant i wanted to release into the world lol, so sorry about that 😭😭😭

very important disclaimer!!! this is NOT about everyone. ABSOLUTELY NOT. most of you are absolutely amazing people, and i assure you if ur worried this is about you, it’s prob not lol

ANYWAYS!!!

im kind of feeling i was betrayed?? ig? i rlly believed everyone was so kind, and look what i know now. it genuinely seems like people are gaslighting themselves. how else do they only see our ‘harm?’ yeah, our fandom is known for being passionate, but saying we’re known for kindness is starting to make me sick. maybe we were, i know a lot of us still are, but throwing that out there in the middle of your hypocritical hate post seems like justification for the shit things people have been saying. you can say no wrong so long as you’re here. only people who don’t agree with you. so yeah, fuck krash and ljc and anyone else who doesn't agree!!! that totally shows how kind you are and how much you loved the fandom before we messed it up. nobodys visibly mad, cuz we're too scared to say shit!!!

i’ve seen too many examples of the contrary from the “victims,” wailing about how cruel we are the second they disagree with someone. (in a highly hypocritical manner, at that.) “everyone was so happy before this!” no, they weren’t, that’s why i brought it up. “stop bringing hate to this fandom! now let me fucking berate you!” do you even hear yourself? “nobody even cared before, we were all content!” we weren’t all content, we were just silent. it sometimes looks the same.

someone even declared they were leaving the fandom because ‘one person wanted to stop show saving efforts entirely because it traumatized them, and this is no longer a safe place.’ like, what? where did you even get that? for one, there were at least two of us posting together, and that’s just barely knowing anything about what’s happening. thats not even touching on how one of us (idk who the op of that post was talking about, it’s a 50/50 lol) made the fandom an unsafe place for our personal gain. what?

hella kind. hella safe on their part.

another said they saw only old fans agreeing about this so it’s just us being pissed about change. it’s us hating the show. me and ljc being upset about not being the only “big blogs” any more. our fandom is only for the elite, etc. fuck us. yet ljc is getting blackmailed. we’re getting hate replies. friends that try and help get attacked. misinformation spread. how did that even happen? we never once tried to hurt anyone; thank you to those who understand.

but to some, WE’RE the ones in the wrong.

do they SEE themselves? how hypocritical all of this is? or are their heads that far up in the ass of their petition and beloved fake idea of this fandom that they care about more than all of us?

now, this is where i add another “not everyone” message. not everyone is like this, this is not me saying i hate the petition or people who support it. hell, i signed the petition. twice. and once more from my mothers email.

i don’t regret the i love you posts i made, because i still do love this fandom, i am still absolutely here for the rest of yall. but DAMN if we weren’t hiding something under happy Save The Show, I Love Locknation! messages. perfectly smiling faces until they bite. i was surprised to see how many people did.

as if our previous problems weren’t enough, now it turned into this lol. no, that’s a lie, it didn’t. it already was, and i HATE THAT.

ig im kinda spoiled, i never really experienced hate like this from this fandom before. but now i know it happened BEFORE too, and that just pisses me off. it hurts coming from a group who says they love us. genuinely wacko (not the fun kind) behavior :[

i know this isn’t everyone’s experience, but it is mine, and enough others to make me wanna say this. and this is ofc me and @lucy-j-carlyle 's brand of hate, not yours. but it does happen and the constant chant that IT DOESN'T IT DOESNT IT DOESN'T isn't helping anyone. and now I know.

idk what im even saying anymore lol, sorry for ranting. what i mean to say is, thank you, and i wish things were better. and i love you kind people. im happy it’s most of you.

[roe-and-memory]

Cal headcanons maybe??? :3333

ANON, WE’RE BEST FRIENDS NOW. THANK YOU

cal is my boy, my son, my shining star, my silly, and many more.. allow us to fucking ruin his life (the favourite character treatment, if you will)

i hope u enjoy these 💥🔥

- hes deaf! this is my favourite hc ever i came up with it myself. hes Deaf and uses hearing aids - this was caused by the crash his parents died in (as he was in the vehicle with them if it wasnt obvious)

- he was 13 when his parents died

- he grew up watching his uncle race. he was a STAPLE in the dinoco pit box and when he was 11 or 12 he was strips crew chief for a race (strip won it too)

- strip taught him how to drive in one of the fields at their house - he mowed a track around it with a tractor, made cal get in the drivers seat, and told him to just Drive. (he was taught using Lynda’s old derby car because as strip expected, the very traumatized 14 year old he put behind the wheel DID in fact crash into the corn stalks and strip had to chase after him and pull him out of the car)

- he is probably the most careful driver you will ever meet. its the trauma, dare i say, but the probability of him crashing is much less than the Other Two. bobby and lightning poke fun at him for being so careful behind the wheel because “he doesnt have fun”, and whenever he gets serious behind the wheel they both giggle and quietly make fun of him (its like when you turn on the light in the car and your dad yells at you, white knuckling the steering wheel staring straight ahead and u dont understand why its so serious)

- cal’s the oldest of the three as well, hes a little less than a year older than lightning, so they’d both be the same age for like a 4 month period, bobby is the youngest and gets relentlessly bullied for it.

- i dont think cal ever learnt extensive sign language after the accident. his aunt and uncle didnt know it, and they were cautious of the situation so they found ways to communicate that they could all understand - he only learnt it after meeting red, because he was curious, and it wasn’t that hard.. plus it was a bonus that he could say things to lmq and bobby that they didn’t understand

- hes the only member of the trio with a consistent brain cell. hes the Reason, but hes also silly as hell which puts him barely a brain cell level higher than his friends

- he doesnt trust other people driving him places, he will ALWAYS volunteer to drive

- cal has a lot of his old, early racing days/pre-racing days memories on one of those old, handheld film cameras. he records a lot of stuff on it when theyre all running around the infield being silly

- his silly ass is so socially awkward its AWFUL. hes great in front of cameras but as soon as someone normal asks him a question or starts a conversation hes like. erm. Um. sure? (it was not a yes or no question)

- adhd

- hearing issues also comes with auditory processing issues, he’ll ask someone to repeat themselves and then realize halfway through their repetition what they said and be like OH YEAH TOTALLY!

- after the accident he went through a phase of being Terrified that strip and lynda were trying to replace his parents. he acted out, he hated every minute of their care and affection for a while, and finally he couldnt handle Not telling them why he was acting the way he was. they were both forgiving of course, they told him they understood he was scared and this was all New and they would NEVER try to replace his parents. that Helped.

- cal is short for calamari, full name calamari weather's (roe)

- hes blonde! he and strip are both blonde - and people HAVE mistaken strip for his dad instead of his uncle, but in reality cal just looks a Lot like his mother (who was strips sister)

- adding onto above: cal being upset makes strip think of his Sister and it fucking tears him apart every time. that kid looks so much like his mother its awful.

- when he was finally old enough to drink, he won the race, got to hold the champagne bottle and pop it open but it was so horribly hot outside that he fainted while on top of the car in victory lane, fell off, shattered the champagne bottle and smelt like berries for almost a week because it WOULDNT GET OUT OF HIS HAIR. he scraped up his elbows and tore the back of his t-shirt but there was nothing worse than smelling like alcohol for six days.

- he has a baby face and its his worst enemy.

- when he was a kid and a teenager he was obsessed with picking up small animals he found in the forest behind strip and lyndas house, and hes GOOD AT IT TOO. he once brought in a whole opossum into the house shortly after the accident, totally out of it on pain medications, and told his aunt and uncle that he wanted to keep this cat he saved from the garbage can down the side of the house. they were more shocked he got outside? how did he even..?

- he also picked up a habit of eating random berries he found in the woods? hes regretted it on multiple occasions and lynda has continuously told him to stop, but what made him really stop was accidentally grabbing blueberries that just so happened to be surrounded by poison ivy. he had it up and down his arms and all over his hands for three weeks.

- boy loves bugs, every bug ever he could identify and pick up with no issue whatsoever

- he had a marine biology phase and still LOVES the aquarium

- escape artist essentially

THIS IS SO MANY thats enough for now.. I HOPE YOU ENJOYED i love him so much. i hope none of this comes off as me woobifying him because i will lose my mind 💀

[spaceorphan18]

Have you read the latest script of K&J's podcast about the Michael episode? I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts. They were talking about Jenna acting out and being forced to take time off. And they mentioned being upset because other people were acting out and getting storylines or being given time off to do other things. The later one is def about D since he went to do the musical but I can't believe he would act out for that, it's like totally OOC.

Same anon as before as I was just finishing to read the script. They did indeed talk about Darren being written off and I'm debating if I should listen this time because the way it's written they seem very jealous of him. I'm getting upset by just reading this. So I'm still very curious about your thoughts about it if and when you have the chance to read/listen to it.

I actually figured you guys were all tired of my opinions, lol.

Yes, I did kind of skim the transcript this morning because I saw people talking about it and was curious. And, I have a lot of complicated feelings about the whole thing.

First of all, though, I say this with love to all the Blaine and Darren fans out there -- Kevin and Jenna are never going to be able to be objective when doing this podcast. I keep thinking about all the other rewatch podcasts I listen to, and how all of them - even when discussing things that were hard to go through and/or things that weren't that great with the show - have a level of decorum that Kevin and Jenna just do not have. I do not know why they began this podcast, but digging into the show on a media analysis level just is not where their talents lie.

(Also, I don't think they love Glee the way those other podcasters genuinely love their show and that just colors how they see things. I'll get more into this in a moment...)

And I get that it's frustrating. Believe me, I do. There are plenty of Kurt things they do not talk about that drive me nuts. But at the same time, I feel like the 'recaps' have boiled down to praising Naya, Amber, and themselves; commentating on whatever BTS stuff comes up, and discussing shit on TikTok. I'm not sure why they're even bothering with the 'recaps', tbh.

But guys - if this podcast is upsetting you, if you're finding yourself this anxious or mad or whatever -- it's time to stop. They're not going to change how they do things, and at this point, I'm not entirely sure what you're waiting for from them? Maybe it's time to stop hate listening <3 <3

***

As for the acting out -- I think a lot of the cast probably did. I'm sure Lea was a terror to work with at times. I'm sure Mark probably wasn't easy either. I know Naya spoke up on a lot of things -- though the producers didn't take as much issue with her until the Season 5 drama. Chris was pretty vocal about choices with his character. I can imagine Amber being just as frustrated with Mercedes' lack of anything to do. Didn't Heather say she kept it all inward? And what about Diana who really seems to not ever want to talk about Glee again?

So - who knows what acting out means, tbh.

Keeping all of this in context -- this cast was very tired by the time Season 3 came around. There were too many characters to service, they keep adding ones in, and they were all very young. (And for those of you who are experiencing your early 20s right now? I hate to say this to you -- but you are all still very young.) Added on the fact that the producers clearly did not understand their mental health needs (as evident about how apologetic Ryan Murphy seems to be about all of it) you get a lot of young people expressing their frustration in a lot of different ways over a lot of different things.

I think that Jenna has some very, very complicated feelings about the show -- and in particular about this era because this is where she had a rather big break down. You know what, I do feel for her, because I can see where she's coming from. I can't imagine - feeling like you're tied to a job where everyone around you seems to be getting a better deal than you, and you're trying to be the nice one, and eventually, holding all of that inwardly will make you crack. I'm glad she went to therapy. I kinda hope she's still going to therapy because it seems as though a lot of this is still bothering her.

And I don't really think that Darren, specifically, is ultimately what led to Jenna's breakdown. I think it was a lot of things compounding on each other and Darren on Broadway might have been the last straw that caused her to crack.

I will say (again with all the love to Darren, I adore the guy) there was underground talk that when Darren first got there - he didn't exactly handle his newfound fame in the most eloquent of ways -- in that he was a little on the pompous side. But again, that was age, and by the time Season 4 came around, by all accounts that I came across, he was friends with everyone.

That said - none of this is Darren's fault. It's not Darren's fault that Ryan Murphy handled his young cast and their mental health very badly. It's not Darren's fault that he jumped on opportunities when they arose. It's not Darren's fault that through his natural talents Blaine became a way more popular character than half the original cast. And it's not Darren's fault that Jenna has her own shit to deal with.

***

So, yeah...

I guess those are my thoughts.

And I'm still here enjoying Kurt, Blaine, Chris, and Darren -- and believe it or not, a lot of the show in general. And I don't really listen to Kevin and Jenna's podcast anymore because they just don't care about the things I do -- and that's fine.