#its not a fucking reach for me to say you emotionally abused me and its definitely

[viovio]

ohhhh ok i get my problem now. i don't cry often at anything because I'm so emotional i can't talk honestly how i really feel around people i trust and what they deserve like my siblings and that's why I don't talk back to my parents when they treat them like shit because they never listen to me and tell me how I'd like if i took care of the house myself. and if i speak this out loud i get the overwhelming urge to cry

[quietthoughtsandmusings]

Depth of Devotion

First post! This is just a little fantasy I've decided to put down to share with yall about our favorite Austrian. Feedback is appreciated and if you have any suggestions for anymore I'd love to hear them! Be gentle with me I will cry.

Part of a longer story? 🤔

Minors DO NOT INTERACT

Mention of she/her pronouns

By this time König knew your scent by heart. He could pick it out from a crowd like a bloodhound and after your unfortunate mishap with your purchases the other day he now finally knew what lotion you used, as the contents of your ripped grocery bag sent the bottle of lotion rolling to his front door on the floor of the apartment building you shared. Therefore it was only right that he went out and purchased the same kind that day. König closed the door of his apartment and leaned against it. Back shoved against the cheap wood. “God,” he thought “I feel like a teenager again.” Dropping the shopping bag he fumbled with his pants, desperate to set his painful erection free from its confines. König tugs the hem of his t shirt up and places it between his teeth mainly to get it out of his way and to stiffle him moans since the walls were thin.   As his cock sprung from his boxers he reached his hand down into the shopping bag and fished out his new purchase. Pumping some of the lotion into his hand he was immediately hit with that oh so familiar smell, making his painfully hard cock twitch with arousal. Closing his eyes as the smell of you filled the air around him, he began to stroke his cock, smearing the lotion all over it. Mixing you and him together. He imagined you were in the room with him doing his best to imagine it was your hand and not his own. He shivers at the thought and his breath comes out shakily through his nose. One could say he was depraved, sick for jacking off with the same lotion you used but at this point he needed something, anything to keep him from taking you every time he saw you. He was desperate for you, feral for you, but he was not a creep he would wait for you to come to him. To tell him that you needed him and all that he could give you. As König stroked himself he imagined it was you sliding up and down on him. Your wet pussy gripping him, reciprocating his desperation for release. Swallowing him physically and emotionally. He imagined your tits bouncing with every slam of your hips glistening with sweat and his spit. He imagined what your moans would sound like. God, he hoped you were loud so all the neighbors would know not to come near you for you were his. Would you say his name? Tell him how good he felt inside of you? Beg him to cum inside you? As all these thoughts coursed through his mind, his breath quickened, his moans getting harder to choke back. He could feel the sweat beading at his temples as he worked himself. “Show me how you play with it, show me.” He panted, he was close. The fire in his belly burning brighter. Grunting König imagined you picking up your pace chasing your own orgasm. He works himself closer and closer to the edge. Pumping his hips into the twisting of his hand “That's a good girl, that's a good fucking girl.” saying the last part through gritted teeth he feels his cock twitch and throb as he cums. The pleasure numbing his mind to anything else that could have been happening at that moment. Yes. This is what he needed, for now. Though it would only hold him over for so long. He slowly opens his eyes to sees the thick ropes of cum on the floor of his apartment. What a waste he thinks. Wishing it was buried deep within your pussy. Leaking out from your abused hole only for him to scoop it up with his fingers and shove it back inside you. Marking you as his. The most intimate of tasks. He cleans himself and his mess, not bothering to wash the smell of you off him. To him this is how he shows the world he belongs to you even if you don't know the depth of his devotion, yet. 

[aihoshiino]

half formed and maybe incoherent thought honestly but akane puts it well: ayumi is simply a failed mother who was left alone due to her own terrible treatment of her daughter. she can blame no one but herself (and her ew fiance) but she _still_ ping pongs between victimizing herself and then blaming herself for ai's horrible treatment, as if trying to get rid of the weight of her own actions, while also putting herself at fault, but the blame runs hollow because its just so apparent she never thought of ai as her child as she continously shifts any culpability to ai

side note, about adultification of ai, she was twenty (close to it) when she died but she had been treated like she was twenty her whole life and thats. fuck.

have a good day!

"HAVE A GOOD DAY" SHE SAYS AFTER HITTING ME WITH AN EMOTIONAL GRENADE LIKE THIS </3

tbh I have mixed feelings on Akane's line there. on the one hand, I think @gallantblade's read of it is really good - Akane responding to Ayumi's renouncement of agency in her own abuse of Ai by putting that agency back in Ai's hand, empowering her and disempowering Ayumi. That's an interesting read but I also... don't know that it's Akane's call to make?

(Belatedly realized after typing all the below that this looks like I'm ragging on their take or analysis here which is absolutely not the case!! They drop baller Oshi no Ko takes and I love reading their thoughts, the below is my perspective on that line and its place in the scene in general and not gallantblade's reading of it)

Like, at the end of the day, Ayumi abandoned her daughter. That's unavoidable fact. That abandonment was deeply traumatic for Ai and I don't love the idea of Ai not going out of her way to contact a person who was violently physically abusive towards her and almost certainly emotionally abusive and neglectful in myriad other ways as Ai 'abandoning' her mother. Ai already clearly held a lot of guilt and self directed blame for the fallout of that relationship so I don't think making her at all culpable in their separation is the way to go. An abused child who was abandoned by their parent is not the one with the responsibility to reach back out to mend those fences, especially given that Ai believed – with very good reason!!! – that her mom hated her and did not want Ai in her life.

My most charitable reading of the line & the one I'm choosing to go with to not make my head explode is that Akane is talking about what Ayumi's perspective of the situation is – that Ayumi views herself as a mother who mistreated her daughter and ended up abandoned because of it. That certainly lines up with her, as you put it, ping ponging between self blame and flagellation and then still choosing to put blame on Ai's shoulders regardless.

Anyway, here's a fun note to end on: Do you ever think about how Ai was literally never allowed to be an actual adult in the public eye, in a very literal sense? The infantilization of idols is a process of preserving the illusion of them as eternally pure, eternally childlike, eternally juvenile, virginial and unthreatening and Ai was this as a minor to an absolute T.

The instant she became an adult – on her 20th birthday, just before her first public appearance as a legal adult – she was immediately killed and frozen in time as an eternal child who will never poison her virginial femininity by growing into an adult woman.

FROM COMEDY MANGA WRITER, AKA AKASAKA, EVERYBODY!!!

[softly-potter]

Once

Summary: After deciding breaking up is the best option, Blake says her goodbyes to Adam. College!AU

Pairing: Blake x Adam

Word Count: 601

Warning: tones of an emotionally abusive relationship, nothing explicit.

A/N inspired by the quote from ASOIAF;

"I loved you once."

"Once." he said, so bitterly it made her shudder.

-

The final click of her suitcase made Blake shudder. As she straightens, placing it by the door, she half turns her body, eyeing Adam as he sits on the couch. Chin in his hand, he stares at the tv, its volume low, and she knows he’s not actually watching it, not really.

“Adam.” She says, her voice stronger than she actually feels. He doesn’t move, his eyes trained on the tv, the glow from the screen bouncing along the bumps and ridges of his scarred eye.

“What.” His tone is flat, uninterested. Blake bites her tongue, shifting. She doesn't need to egg him on anymore than necessary.

“I’m all packed.” She tries, taking a few steps so that she’s standing beside the tv, willing him to look at her.

He nods but his eyes don’t leave the screen. “Okay.”

She waits a beat, nothing but the quiet hum of the tv engulfing the silence between them. After another moment she sighs, rocks her keys in between her hands.

“This isn't easy for me.” She says, and the sentence seems to snap him out of his trance. His eyes narrow as he finally looks at her for the first time that day.

“Oh?” he replies, his voice coiled like a snake. “You’ve made it seem like a walk in the fucking park.”

Blake’s brows draw together. “I-it isn't. I thought, really hard about this decision.”

“Would've been nice if you had clued me in,” he seethes, standing up and Blake grips her keys tightly. “Being as I am your partner and all.”

“Were my partner.” Blake corrects in a hard voice and Adam rolls his eyes at the technicality. They’re quiet again and he looks away, folds his arms. Blake looks down at her feet, worn-in converses that he had bought for her at a campus garage sale.

“We weren’t working.” Blake says quietly. Adam makes a growling sound from the back of his throat, and she straightens her posture. “You know that. All we did was fight and argue. It wasn't healthy.”

“Everyone goes through ups and downs.” Adam spits, turning his angry eyes back on her and she shakes her head defiantly.

“Not like us,” she replies. “I shouldn't have been scared of you.”

His mouth forms a thin line, doubt scattering across his features like a blush. He takes a step forward, his arms loosening from around one another.

“Are you still scared?”

Blake looks at him, takes in his blue eye and red hair and crisscrossed scar. And then she shakes her head.

“No,” she says quietly. “Not anymore.”

Adam shuffles his feet, sucks in a breath. “Good. I never… wanted you to be. I didn't mean to… do that.”

Blake feels her heart pang, and she places a hand on his arm. “I know.”

He glances at her hand, raises a brow before looking away. Blake drops her hand and takes a few steps to the front door, slipping her keys into her coat pocket. Gripping her suitcase, she reaches for the door knob but looks at him once more.

Adam is watching her with clouded eyes, his forehead knitted in frustration. Blake frowns, looks at the door knob and then back at him.

“I loved you once.” she says quietly. Adam lets out a soft breath, opens his mouth and lets it hang open for a few moments. Then his face shifts, becoming dark like a storm cloud, resentment crossing his features.

“Once.” he repeats, so bitterly that it makes Blake shudder, and when she opens the front door and walks out, she doesn't look back.

[moonshine999]

The Crows as Taylor Swift albums (pt.1)

because why would we have a sane method of characterisation

Kaz Brekker : Midnights 

♟️”And I wake up with your memory over me // That’s a real fucking legacy to leave” - Maroon 

♟️”Did you hear my covert narcissism I disguise as altruism // Like some kind of congressman? (Tale as old as time) // I wake up screaming from dreaming // One day I’ll watch as you’re leaving and life will lose all its meaning” - Anti-hero 

♟️”And the touch of a hand lit the fuse  // Of a chain reaction of countermoves // To assess the equation of you // Checkmate, I couldn’t lose” - Mastermind

♟️”Do you wish you could still touch…her? // It’s just a question” - Question…? 

♟️”Uh oh, I’m falling in love // Oh no, I’m falling in love again // Oh, I falling in love” - Labyrinth 

♟️”Spider-boy, king of thieves // Weave your little webs of opacity// My pennies made your crown” - Karma 

♟️”Passing by unbeknownst to me // Life is emotionally abusive// And time can’t stop me quite like you did” - Snow on the Beach 

♟️”All that bloodshed, crimson clover // uh-uh, sweet dream was over // my hand was the one you reached for // All throughout the Great War // Always remember// Uh-uh tears on the letter // I vowed not to cry anymore // if we survived the Great War” - The Great War

♟️”I drew curtains closed, drank my poison all alone // You said I have to trust more freely // But diesel is desire, you were playing with fire” - The Great War

♟️”Every single thing I touch becomes sick with sadness // ‘Cause it’s all over now, all out to sea” - Bigger than the whole sky

♟️”If I was some paint, did it splatter // On a promising grown man? // And if I was a child, did it matter // If you got to wash your hands?”- Would’ve could’ve should’ve

♟️”And now that I’m grown, I’m scared of ghosts // Memories feel like weapons” - Would’ve could’ve should’ve

♟️”Dear reader // Burn all the files, desert all your past lives // And I’d you don’t recognise yourself // That means you did it right “ - Dear Reader

♟️”Dear reader // The greatest of luxuries is your secrets // Dear reader // When you aim at the devil, make sure you don’t miss” - Dear Reader

Inej Ghafa : Speak Now

🪷”Left yourself in your warpath // Lost your balance on a tightrope // Lost your mind tryin' to get it back” - Innocent  

🪷”Oh, who you are is not where you’ve been // you’re still an innocent” - Innocent

🪷”My mind forgets to remind me you're a bad idea // You touch me once and it's really something “- Sparks Fly 

🪷”Maybe this is wishful thinkin' // Probably mindless dreamin'” - Back To December 

🪷”Miscommunications lead to fall out // So many things that I wish you knew // So many walls up I can't break through” - The Story Of Us

🪷”The battle's in your hands now // But I would lay my armor down // If you'd say you'd rather love than fight “- The Story of Us 

🪷”But I never thought I'd live to see it break // It's getting dark and it's all too quiet // And I can't trust anything now” - Haunted 

🪷”but Sophistication isn't what you wear, or who you know” - Better Than Revenge 

🪷”The playful conversation starts // Counter all your quick remarks // Like passing notes in secrecy” - Enchanted 

🪷“same old tired, lonely place // walls of insincerity, shifting eyes and vacancy // vanished when I saw your face // All I can say is, it was enchanting to meet you” - Enchanted

🪷”The crowds in stands went wild // We were the kings and the queens// And they read off our names” - Long Live 

🪷”And the cynics were outraged // Screaming, "This is absurd" // ‘Cause for a moment // a band of thieves In ripped up jeans got to rule the world” - Long Live 

🪷”Don't you think I was too young to be messed with?” - Dear John 

🪷”Well maybe it’s me // And my blind optimism to blame // Or maybe it’s you and your sick need // to give love and then take it away” - Dear John

🪷”Memorise what it sounded like when your dad gets home // Remember the footsteps // Remember the words said // And all of your little brother’s favourite songs” - Never Grow Up

(Nina, Matthias, Jesper and Wylan are already posted)

[sunsetkerr]

dont wanna be depressing, but how do you deal with parenting your dad?

- 💛 (anon who parents both parents)

hi my love, welcome 💛

I’m more than happy to dive into this, but it's gonna be longggg so I will put this under the cut so I don’t get too sad on main lol, but- quick tw beforehand: heavy drug addiction, anxiety disorder, smoking, drinking, infidelity, parenting your parents, absent father and mentions of suicidal thoughts.

quick backstory! my parents were very on and off throughout my entire childhood. my dad cheated on my mum a total of 13 times, what a guy! my mum? literally the most girl boss, resilient woman I have ever met. worked 3 jobs whilst she was pregnant because my dad was on meth and ice at the time.

so my parents finally broke up for the last time when I was eight.

I saw my dad once a week, until he blew up on me for wanting to call my mum to say goodnight, on the night of my 10th birthday. he went ballistic at me and after that, I didn't leave the house apart from school for a year because I would have panic attacks every time I went somewhere.

my dad is very embarrassing. he's not just emotionally abusive to me, but to his mum, sister and my cousins (without realising the extent of his actions). he is very 'poor me, I'm the vicitm' which is something I have noticed recently.

I really am the only person that my dad has. he now realises that because I'm an adult now, he cannot treat me like a little kid, because I will leave. I dont tolerate that behaviour, I am not as forgiving as my mother.

last year, my dad blew up on my grandad who is 81 and has dementia. my grandma and him haven't spoken since. a few nights ago, my dad rang me around 8pm, and I instantly thought 'what does he want now?'. because he only calls me when needs/wants something.

my dad is on the phone drunk and ends up getting onto the topic of my grandma not speaking to him. he's crying on the phone to me, tells me how he was going to k*ll himself when I was a kid, but that I was the only thing keeping him alive. very fucked, a lot to put on your 20 year old daughter.

he says that he needs my help to repair his relationship with my grandma, and everyone else. that he knows he can always count on me.

it's a sad thing to have to parent your 51 year old father, and have those big hurtful conversations about what he's done wrong and trying to keep him in check. but it's the reality for lots of us! know that you're completely not alone in this. I am really lucky that I have the best mum in the world, she is my best friend and I would definitely be a different person if I didn't have her to rely on.

so to hear that you have to parent both of your parents is really upsetting and im so sorry. im sorry you've had to grow up so quickly, because that is mostly the case in these scenarios. my biggest tip would be to look after you. it's okay to break down, I did the other night for the first time in a while.

its really hard to talk to people about it, because lots of people dont get it. my boyfriend grew up with a classic white-picket fence family and has no idea how to handle the things that I say to him about my dad, but he's trying.

as long as you are getting some kind of support, you will be okay. and if you're not, make time to support yourself. remember, you are the only person that you have forever. you start your life with your parents, but your life doesn't end with them- your life ends with you, so take care of you.

im really sorry that this is reality for you. im sending you so much love, and if you ever need someone to vent to about parenting your parents (or anything else) I'm here <3 thank you for feeling comfortable enough to reach out to me.

[coolcoelacanth]

shoutout to my ex, who broke my heart when i was 19 then continued to drag me thru the mud for two more years. i really put him on a pedestal, because he was someone who treated me better than others, which is not saying much considering my background. i watched my dad tolerate bullshit for years, then i did the exact same thing w my ex. i thought he was my person, i thought we had a special connection. and he took advantage of that. he took advantage of my kindness, my patience, my empathy, and my trauma. he made me feel like a loser, even though i am a beautiful, intelligent, hardworking woman getting her doctorate in one year. he made me feel ugly and small. he made me feel helpless and pathetic. all because he would come over and smother me in love, then turn around the next day and tell me i wasnt the one for him and that he didnt like me. he never complimented me, he made me feel like i was a loser bc i "didn't have any hobbies", he told me about all the girls he had had flings with during the gaps in our timeline then would accuse me of having hickies even tho i was technically single by his definition. when my pet died i had to beg him, sobbing on the phone, to come over and console me because he was busy going to his friends house he had known since they were 12. he got annoyed with me if i ever called him in a panic, he never reached for my hand in public, he only bought me flowers once after i had asked him to. he would fall asleep immediately and leave me crying next to him in bed, he would complain about being bored if i didn't plan an elaborate date for him every weekend while i was in graduate school, he never planned any dates. he would look at his phone while i was talking to him, and play video games while we were on the phone, and i would keep talking and pretend it didnt bother me that he wasn't listening to a word i said. the only time i felt like he was truly mine was when we were having sex and it made me more sexual than i am naturally bc it was the only time he ever made me feel loved and special. i never knew when he was going to tell me he never wanted to see me again, i would have several breakdowns a week but i would always blame it on myself, not because i was always waiting for the other shoe to drop. i think of all this things and it makes me feel sick to my stomach, because i truly trusted him. i thought if i was patient and loving enough, he would come back to the man he used to be. i really believed in his character, but he betrayed me over and over and emotionally abused me then used me for sex. i thought he was different from the other boys, but he was exactly the same. i dont have to restrain myself from reaching out to call him anymore, because even the thought of him brings an overwhelming sense of doom. then, after all that, not even two months after i finally said i had enough, he had found another girl. she was pretty too. after everything, everything, he still chooses to disrespect me over and over again. he chooses to shatter my heart on the ground and keep smashing it like its a game to him. i just want to say, FUCK you nic. NEVER will i EVER let ANYONE make me feel like that EVER again. he taught me the lesson of self love and respect, he taught me that love cannot fix everything, he taught me that you cannot force someone to respect you. i hope hes as miserable as he made me and i hope they both go to hell. i cannot believe i ever let someone make me feel so terribly about myself. i didnt even want to look in mirrors anymore. he tore me down to his level, he made me as insecure as he is inside. i hope you feel good about yourself, destroying someone who loved you and supported you so unconditionally. because i would have never done this to you, any of this. you are not as good of a person as you make yourself out to be, you're just like the rest of them and i hope you realize that everyday when you look at yourself in the mirror.

[menalez]

I need some advice. I recently was broken up with and I'm reeling from it. We met when i was 19 and he was 32 and we ended up hooking up 6 years ago. He didn't tell me until after we hooked up that he had a wife which started a crazy feud, but he eventually divorced his wife and convinced me to be in a relationship with him. The relationship was pretty rocky at first because he was very emotionally abusive. Like he would constantly reprimand me for doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing and would lecture me for hours and not let me sleep until I agreed with him. I used to live with him sometimes because my mom got evicted and i couldn't hold down a stable job because I had an untreated learning disability and he would pick fights with me every day when I would say/ do the wrong thing and sometimes he would even kick me out.

While he did all this its v confusing bc he was also very good to me at the same time?? He helped me out when I was evicted and let me live rent free with him. He helped me get my diagnosis and helped me look for a job. He helped me get over some of my insecurities and would urge me to go to therapy and helped me get my driver's license. The last 2 years he started becoming more spiritual and became a lot nicer to me (He would still reprimand me but not as often) and urged me to do yoga and meditation. He started getting serious and during that time he was throwing ideas around of leaving everything behind and going to a yoga center etc. I was so drained atp from the constant mistreatment and feeling like I wasn't a priority so I went outside the relationship to explore my options. i met a guy that I was going to meet for dinner and just talk to, but I was drugged and assaulted. I felt so guilty that I told my boyfriend and he broke up with me. This was a year ago. Since then, we've been on and off because he would come back but couldn't commit because he couldnt trust me. Early this year he moved to a different state and he reached out to me to ask if I wanted to visit him out there in the summer. I was cautious but I agreed because I missed him. We started calling and texting every day and he started hinting that he wanted a relationship with me again. I started catching feelings again and was grateful for the opportunity to make things right because I fucked up. I bought the plane tickets and two days after I bought them he told me that he was getting women flirting with him out there and that he wanted to explore his options. I was so upset and I asked him why we couldnt work things out, he told me he still couldnt trust me after what happened. He told me it's best if I get a refund on the tix and just stay home. I felt so crushed, I felt like I was lead on and I feel so ashamed and guilty over what I did. The worst part is I felt like I ruined everything and it's my fault that the relationship ended the way it did. What do I do???? I have no friends and no one to talk to.

oh my god anon the second u said 'we met when i was 19 and he was 32' i knew this was gonna be bad.

anon, dump this man and do not look back. he literally broke up with you for BEING RAPED. he made u feel guilty and like ur not trustworthy for being R A P E D. he would kick u out and utilise ur homelessness. he keeps confusing u. he literally is over a decade older than u, u were a teenager and hes nearing middle-aged!!!!!!!!!!! hes a creep!!!!!! he was using u and continues to and u NEED to put ur foot down n realise u deserve better than this

[mitskiesques]

i love the way you talk about daemyra and i would like to hear more!!!

well this is surprising i dont think i've spoken much about daemyra but lets begin by saying my #daemyra gothic tag 1) is 100% inspired by benjicotblackwood’s targ gothic tag and 2) functions similarly to an epithet for hellenistic greek god worshipping. it's an ‘aphrodite pandemos/aphrodite urania’ situation. am i shipping daemyra? perhaps. in which capacity? in a genderfuckery incestuous codependant mutually destructively enabling one.

now well. most of this will be rambling bc i only have Ideas but not a single coherent analysis to make but that's okay because i am simply talking about it which is what anon asked for. peace & love <3

THE most fucked up hotd dynamic by far and i think its very interesting to see it and analyze it beyond the framing they receive bc its quite. lukewarm? everyone involved is aware that this is not a healthy or functional romantic relationship for obvious reasons but they all also seem to be too scared of targfanatics to outright say it or portray it clearly.

but looking at the text and the dynamic as it is their relationship has very interesting but classic gothic vibes, through a narrative of abuse in which ultimately the abuser (daemon) is nothing without the victim (rhaenyra) bc the victim holds a certain sort of unchangable power over them, and whats more the same abuse they give, reveals the abuser to have little to no real power over the victim at all. that's daemon choking rhaenyra after she tells him of the prophecy and grooming her to get the throne/restore 'targaryen greatness' whatever that is. rhaenyra is the key bc she is the heir and the one that was chosen by viserys (whom they are both sort of obsessed with lmao). she didn't have to keep choosing and make him consort and give him a part of her power, or a tangent of her power, but she did. which is not to say daemon doesn't hold her down to some degree — he does. he is A Man in A Society and she's not. he holds her down politically socially emotionally etc that's what grooming and the patriarchy is about. the point is it's extremely nuanced bc he can't do any of that. he's not Allowed. it's crazy.

and speaking of viserys it's fascinating to think of the implications of daemon being so obsessed with rhaenyra and the question → is it because of viserys? is it more because of viserys (house targ) than it is about the throne itself, or to rhaenyra herself? this family is already beyond saving morally speaking and daemon being psychosexually obsessed with/in love with his brother wouldn't sound strange to me personally. arthur/guinevere/lancelot situation but 10 times more fucked up. but what do i know right.

i also think it's interesting to see of their relationship through trans lens. rhaenyra is in all levels except physical, a son. the REAL aegon ii. the king's beloved firstborn and heir who was treated with every bit of spoiling and unconditional forgiveness a son would've been granted with. rhaenyra wasn't just chosen as viserys’ heir she was also chosen as viserys’ firstborn son, and that gives her a closeness to him that daemon could never reach bc he didn't have credibility among court (albeit bc of all his politically unsavvy decisions but this is about the Implications), whose place was entirely skipped within the succesion line, who was married off against his will to someone he hates (and kills. oh well), who wields visenya’s sword, etc etc my point is. if daemyra is m/f it's because rhaenyra is the (m) and daemon is the (f). truly the world's worst t4t couple.

i think daemon resents her a whole lot. for being the heir and viserys’ favorite and all that. he also wants to control her and regain the power and status her mere existence took from him. (hey this is almost like rhaenyra's perception of aegon ii what do u know). i also think daemon adores her and wants to burn the world down with her bc he sees her as the clearest mirror image of what he considers himself to be/wants to be. i think rhaenyra is the only woman ever he cares about even if he doesn't entirely respect her as a woman nor his niece or wife — just as his future queen. as a fellow targaryen.

that's another thing. they're both very firm believers on targ supremacy and i think the only reason daemon had children with laena was bc she had targ blood/was a velaryon LMAO he doesn't want to taint his precious old valyrian blood. rhaenyra of course is an enabler bc she is just as much of a targfanatic as daemon is she just also happens to be into women. also it would be very interesting if daemon didn't like jace and luke also bc they aren't inbred enough for him. but since teamblack's internal dynamics are shrouded in Compartmentalization And Repression of years and years they're a bit more difficult for me to dissect.

anyway here's some of my favorite daemyra gothic posts/how i mostly perceive their dynamic to be: x x x X x X X x

[rf-times]

I need some advice. I recently was broken up with and I'm reeling from it. We met when i was 19 and he was 32 and we ended up hooking up 6 years ago. He didn't tell me until after we hooked up that he had a wife which started a crazy feud, but he eventually divorced his wife and convinced me to be in a relationship with him. The relationship was pretty rocky at first because he was very emotionally abusive. Like he would constantly reprimand me for doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing and would lecture me for hours and not let me sleep until I agreed with him. I used to live with him sometimes because my mom got evicted and i couldn't hold down a stable job because I had an untreated learning disability and he would pick fights with me every day when I would say/ do the wrong thing and sometimes he would even kick me out.

While he did all this its v confusing bc he was also very good to me at the same time?? He helped me out when I was evicted and let me live rent free with him. He helped me get my diagnosis and helped me look for a job. He helped me get over some of my insecurities and would urge me to go to therapy and helped me get my driver's license. The last 2 years he started becoming more spiritual and became a lot nicer to me (He would still reprimand me but not as often) and urged me to do yoga and meditation. He started getting serious and during that time he was throwing ideas around of leaving everything behind and going to a yoga center etc. I was so drained atp from the constant mistreatment and feeling like I wasn't a priority so I went outside the relationship to explore my options. i met a guy that I was going to meet for dinner and just talk to, but I was drugged and assaulted. I felt so guilty that I told my boyfriend and he broke up with me. This was a year ago. Since then, we've been on and off because he would come back but couldn't commit because he couldnt trust me. Early this year he moved to a different state and he reached out to me to ask if I wanted to visit him out there in the summer. I was cautious but I agreed because I missed him. We started calling and texting every day and he started hinting that he wanted a relationship with me again. I started catching feelings again and was grateful for the opportunity to make things right because I fucked up. I bought the plane tickets and two days after I bought them he told me that he was getting women flirting with him out there and that he wanted to explore his options. I was so upset and I asked him why we couldnt work things out, he told me he still couldnt trust me after what happened. He told me it's best if I get a refund on the tix and just stay home. I felt so crushed, I felt like I was lead on and I feel so ashamed and guilty over what I did. The worst part is I felt like I ruined everything and it's my fault that the relationship ended the way it did. What do I do???? I have no friends and no one to talk to.

Jesus Christ, he's nearly twice your age, he constantly criticised you, kept you dependent on him for housing and threatened to make you homeless, blamed you when you were assaulted, and has essentially isolated you from your friends and family and then led you on that you would get back together on. You haven't done anything wrong. He sounds like bad news giving you bread crumbs to keep you under his thumb. You didn't ruin a thing. Wishing you health, friends and happiness. Focus on your career, try to find more friends and focus on yourself. He will only keep you down.

[fairy25]

I need some advice. I recently was broken up with and I'm reeling from it. We met when i was 19 and he was 32 and we ended up hooking up 6 years ago. He didn't tell me until after we hooked up that he had a wife which started a crazy feud, but he eventually divorced his wife and convinced me to be in a relationship with him. The relationship was pretty rocky at first because he was very emotionally abusive. Like he would constantly reprimand me for doing the wrong thing and saying the wrong thing and would lecture me for hours and not let me sleep until I agreed with him. I used to live with him sometimes because my mom got evicted and i couldn't hold down a stable job because I had an untreated learning disability and he would pick fights with me every day when I would say/ do the wrong thing and sometimes he would even kick me out.

While he did all this its v confusing bc he was also very good to me at the same time?? He helped me out when I was evicted and let me live rent free with him. He helped me get my diagnosis and helped me look for a job. He helped me get over some of my insecurities and would urge me to go to therapy and helped me get my driver's license. The last 2 years he started becoming more spiritual and became a lot nicer to me (He would still reprimand me but not as often) and urged me to do yoga and meditation. He started getting serious and during that time he was throwing ideas around of leaving everything behind and going to a yoga center etc. I was so drained atp from the constant mistreatment and feeling like I wasn't a priority so I went outside the relationship to explore my options. i met a guy that I was going to meet for dinner and just talk to, but I was drugged and assaulted. I felt so guilty that I told my boyfriend and he broke up with me. This was a year ago. Since then, we've been on and off because he would come back but couldn't commit because he couldnt trust me. Early this year he moved to a different state and he reached out to me to ask if I wanted to visit him out there in the summer. I was cautious but I agreed because I missed him. We started calling and texting every day and he started hinting that he wanted a relationship with me again. I started catching feelings again and was grateful for the opportunity to make things right because I fucked up. I bought the plane tickets and two days after I bought them he told me that he was getting women flirting with him out there and that he wanted to explore his options. I was so upset and I asked him why we couldnt work things out, he told me he still couldnt trust me after what happened. He told me it's best if I get a refund on the tix and just stay home. I felt so crushed, I felt like I was lead on and I feel so ashamed and guilty over what I did. The worst part is I felt like I ruined everything and it's my fault that the relationship ended the way it did. What do I do???? I have no friends and no one to talk to.

I’m sorry you feel like you have no friends and no one to talk to, I’ve been there many times myself. I think putting aside any feelings you have about your breakup/ex, you should try to focus on what would make you feel better right now. And I think that would be making a friend and giving your brain a break from analyzing what happened with your ex and trying to solve it. It sounds like you’ve been stuck in a spiral of negative thinking and blaming yourself, and honestly the only way to get out of that spiral in my experience is to change how you’re thinking and living your life. Small changes are best. Choose to join a group you’re interested in, try to make a friend. You can hangout and just talk about silly inconsequential stuff. You can try new restaurants together or go see a movie. Or you can do those things by yourself if you want. I often go to the beach and just walk around taking pictures by myself. I’ll spend the whole afternoon there and I don’t feel anxious at all. Sometimes it’s the only break I get from my anxiety. And a little break is much better than no break at all. I can’t fix how you’re feeling (I wish I could) but I can tell you that it’s normal to feel how you do, it’s okay to be confused, it’s okay to miss him, it’s okay to feel alone. Just allow yourself to feel it, then allow yourself to not feel it for a little while too. If you overwhelm yourself with these thoughts all the time, you’ll be stagnant. You need to live in the present if you want to move forward. Your body needs to process the trauma of this relationship, because it sounds like this relationship was absolutely traumatizing for you. I have been in several abusive/traumatizing relationships with men and every single time I blamed myself. Even when they hit me and sexually violated me, I was still the one who ended up apologizing. I was always the problem to these men. There was no other scenario. I would always be the bad guy to them, and I felt like that said something about me rather than them. I didn’t realize how much I hated these men until many years later. I was so used to being blamed and apologizing that I couldn’t even understand that it wasn’t shame and regret I was feeling, it was anger, rage, fury. I can’t speak to your ex’s character but I can tell you that positive, healthy relationships do not end with one person feeling like they’re to blame for everything and being overwhelmed with feelings of confusion and regret. It’s possible to find love that is easy and effortless. That kind of love won’t leave your head hurting and searching for a fix. You’ll feel calm and safe. I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself as you detox from this relationship. I think making a friend or just spending some me time doing something relaxing like photography or learning an instrument or painting could make a really positive change in your life. Sending love & calming energy 🕊️

[bigskydreaming]

And to clarify my clarifications further, because I know I’m gonna end up reblogging that post about my Official Stance On Jason’s Murdering and Also How To Like a Character for Being A Good Example of Being a ‘Bad Survivor' and Not Because You View Them As Good At Societal Reform....

In a nutshell, I have complicated thoughts on stories where Jason kills people on the basis they’re unrepentantly committed to wide-scale actions that negatively impact tons of people and he feels society/the justice system will never punish them due to privilege or institutional corruption, etc. Because I think there’s potential worth exploring in those stories IN THEORY, though I don’t think I’ve ever felt stories explored these ideas in ways that are novel or interesting rather than cliche and essentially just revenge fantasy fulfillment.  

That said, this does not in any way translate into being pro-extrajudicial murder in real life, for similar though not identical reasons to why I’m not pro-vigilantism in real life in general.

This is one of those things where I’m like, people have ruined ‘fiction isn’t reality’ as a phrase and I refuse to use it because it lacks nuance and is a performative soundbite....BUT that doesn’t mean that fiction can’t still be used to explore concepts in ways reality can’t duplicate.

For me, the big sticking point is being able to point to WHAT fiction is letting you do that you can’t replicate in reality. Fiction IMO shouldn’t be a catch-all that lets you just spew out any idea or fantasy and essentially platform any thought you’ve ever had while shielding it with some ‘its not real so its exempt from any reactive or critical thought it brings forth in people who see it’ BS. That’s a non-starter with me because it ignores that thoughts, views, ideas and ideologies are all real things that have real effects on people who encounter them, so fuck off forever with trying to dodge accountability from the simple reaction of people encountering a thought/idea/ideology and saying questions, comments and criticisms, we have them.

But what fiction CAN do, when you have a specific REASON for doing something in fiction that you know can’t work that way in reality, without being afraid to just fucking own what you’re doing with that fictional narrative and why.....

Is it allows you to explore various ideas or scenarios or let them play out in ways or to degrees that wouldn’t be possible in reality....because so much in reality is outside of peoples’ control. We can’t ensure that various factors all align or cumulate in the specific ways we need to reach the endpoint that’s the entire reason we started a scenario in the first place.

With fiction though, we CAN line up the dominoes in the right way, steer the narrative down the right channels to get things to a place where we can address the things or ask the questions we started a narrative TO explore.

Its like that one post I made about child heroes, for those who’ve read that. Never in a million years am I going to encourage kids to go out and fight crime or be burdened with the pressure of saving the whole damn world like the protagonist of the average YA novel. But child hero narratives absolutely have validity, because there’s a lot of worthwhile ideas and themes worth exploring in power fantasies for children and young adults, where they can see themselves centered in high stakes situations where they have the power to save themselves or affect real change without having to rely on adults in their lives to do it for them. 

A child hero narrative isn’t a how-to manual encouraging say, an abused kid on how to escape their circumstances and leapfrog their way into having actionable power to better their own life. But it can help mentally or emotionally fortify them WHILE they wait or look for ways for their actual circumstances to change. AND at the same time, it can also help them explore via proxy, the ways they COULD use the increased power and agency they might someday have, in order to get certain outcomes, or to see how various problems or fallout might arise from using that power/agency in negative ways. And per my example of an abused kid using fiction for escapism from their own currently victimizing circumstances.....just speaking for myself, a kid in circumstances like that might absolutely be lacking the kind of parental figures that ideally should be present to help them learn how to make good decisions or navigate complicated situations as they grow older. And while fiction shouldn’t HAVE to be a substitute for adults able to give kids personal attention and guidance towards growing up to be a responsible, empathetic adult who makes good choices and weighs the potential effect their choices have on others....it can at least always be a good supplement, and sometimes it actually is the only thing kids have to rely on.

So from that angle, and plenty others, child hero narratives absolutely have validity and contribute meaningful things to even child readers who one hundred percent should not be encouraged to ever put on a cape and appoint themselves the neighborhood watch.

The kind of questions some of Jason’s narratives could be used to explore, even though they never really are, similarly have potential IMO, and that’s why I hold back from being like ‘extra-judicial murder is never valid and thus Jason’s character is A Literal Bad Guy for engaging in it’. Because this is one of the areas where I think used with intent, fiction can present thought-provoking or morality-examining questions that can’t actually play out in reality.

I’m hardcore ‘no extra-judicial murder’ in real life, and firmly against the death penalty, but not because I believe that there’s no human being out there, no crime that can be committed, that doesn’t deserve death. Sorry not sorry, but unrepentant mass murderers, serial rapists, etc, people who have full awareness of what they’re doing and the harm they’re causing others, absolutely have the means, resources or privilege to make other choices and still do the things they do not out of necessity but out of want, who commit their crimes not because they’re unaware of their impact on others but because that impact absolutely is the whole point of their crimes for them, who have had abundant opportunities to change or reform but dismissed them time after time because they flat out don’t want to change.....hypothetically, yeah, they can fuck right off to hell, as far as I’m concerned. 

The value of that kind of person’s life will never IMO rise to the level of the value of all the lives they destroy with intent, who will never have the opportunity to make better use of the same kinds of power/resources/privilege they themselves abuse and exploit over others, all because they’ve used those things specifically to ensure their victims never get similar opportunities, or significantly hijack or derail their lives before they get a chance to. My bleeding heart does not extend to people who have already voluntarily chosen to sit back and watch while a person bleeds out in front of them, from wounds they inflicted. Its extended to their victim instead, and I truly do believe that many of the people who end up in the latter position would never be victimized if more of the people in the former position did face something like the death penalty after their first several victims instead of a dozen in.

But that’s just a hypothetical for me. The reason I’ll never support the actuality of the death penalty is there is flat out no way to be sure, in 99% of situations, of the actual culpability, motivations, or possible rehabilitation of the people actually faced with the death penalty. And given the institutional biases and the nature of most of our societies, and the way they’re largely set up by people in power rigging the systems they themselves help install and shape in ways quite literally intended to cover their own asses and allow for them and those of like-minds to continue exploiting or victimizing others their entire lives while setting up marginalized or disenfranchised people as scapegoats that societies are usually all too willing to accept as the True Face of Crime in their stead, given that the very nature of marginalization and disenfranchisement speaks to how selective society can be in applying personhood and empathy in the first place....

Well, duh. Obviously a disproportionate number of people who have not done anything to deserve the death penalty are gonna end up the victims of it while untold scores of people who have deliberately victimized people in the hundreds or thousands will never so much as get a slap on the wrist all because their address is a penthouse while the average victim of the death penalty hails from a low income, predominantly marginalized neighborhood.

Except, of course, its not actually that obvious to a lot of people, considering that the vast majority of Criminals in Fiction and the real life prison populations they reflect....tend to be blue-collar POC waaaay more often than they are white-collar white people.

So no real life death penalty is getting my vote. Not when there’s no way to ever be sure its applied to those truly culpable, and only those, with no actual innocents statistically sacrificed on the altar of the societal greater good. And not when additionally, the state appointed judge, juries and executioners determining both the greater good and who society needs to sacrifice for said greater good.....are y’know, all picked and appointed according to the rules and guidelines set in place by many of the same people in power looking to scapegoat others in order to cover their own asses and divert society’s focus away from their own crimes and victimizations of others. And thus, uh, they’re not picked because they inherently are the best moral barometers of society and what it needs, or even because they’re truly and accurately representative of society as a whole, but rather they tend to actually end up in the position to play judge, jury and/or executioner quite literally because its expected they’ll make their judgments in accordance with what those in power want or are hoping for, rather than according to the actual spirit of a Justice that isn’t completely arbitrary and self-defined.

The death penalty as a consequence for people who destroy lives on a huge scale, over and over without remorse, is one of those things that makes sense to me as a hypothetical, but that I understand just isn’t possible to implement as a real, actionable thing in any way I would accept and wouldn’t have reservations about.

But like I said, this is one of the times and ways fiction as a departure point from reality can be used, with intent, to explore stories of accountability, consequences, and the way these things play out on both an individual and societal level.....because fiction is completely defined by an author and their intent. In fiction, a writer can present scenarios where there is zero doubt that the perpetrator of a particular crime, however heinous, is one hundred percent guilty and did it of their own free will, has no remorse and absolutely intends to do it again, etc.

Because the writer has full control of what information readers do and don’t have about a situation or a character, they absolutely can craft scenarios where there is no narrative doubt that hey, this dude did the thing. Its not even in question. The only thing in question then, is the thing that I’ve expressed would sometimes have a different answer if it were possible for that to be the only question, with no question as to their actual guilt: what happens next.

And that distinction can make all the difference in a story, or when expanding on a certain topic. Its the difference between something that’s a non-starter in real life becoming a useful thought experiment in the realm of fiction. Where suddenly it can be used to raise and explore all kinds of different questions like:

How do people in-story and out-of-story react to a vigilante who applies extra-judicial murder to criminals he targets.....when those criminals don’t look anything like society-as-a-whole assumes from the outset? When his targets aren’t the ‘expected’ drug dealers or addicts, marginalized low income men who look like they expect rapists or violent murderers to look....but instead are CEOs who’ve paid off a dozen different women they’ve assaulted over the years and are still doing it like clockwork? A senator who got away with a hate crime in college because the all white jury judged it a youthful indiscretion when he was drunk and didn’t want to ruin the life of a young man with such a promising future, but who since then has gone on to back white supremacy groups and craft legislation that further marginalizes people of color all while using his connections and political capital to smooth over the crimes of his ‘constituents’ while demonizing and scapegoating black men in their stead? Etc, etc.

With fiction, with the guilt of said vigilante’s targets actually assured instead of a troubling question that can’t ever be indisputably put to rest.....instead, here we can use that as a springboard to examine what happens after....does finding out the reasons for why the vigilante went after these individuals in particular change how people in-story and out-of-story view that vigilante and his own actions? Do those who view him as bloodthirsty and morally wrong do so regardless of who he targets and the low likelihood they would ever be punished for their crimes by the actual institutions they hold so much power and sway over themselves.....or do some of them show awareness of the system’s existing biases and seem more entrenched in defending it and how people have to trust in the system and not go outside it because they’re concerned that changing it might make it less effective at covering their asses for their own misdeeds or shortcomings?

Do those who praise said vigilante and his actions seem to support him primarily because he’s ensuring accountability for people the system has failed to protect society from, or does it seem they’re more just enchanted by his seeming fulfillment of their own personal revenge fantasies, letting them see various bosses, politicians, people who’ve exploited or lorded power over them be the ones running scared and enjoying the view of those in positions of power cowering like they’ve so often made others?

Does the deliberate juxtaposition of these things, the narrative raising these things as questions in the narrative, change any readers’ personal stances towards the vigilante and his actions? 

Do some of the pro-vigilante readers start to second-guess themselves, ask whether they’re really sure their enjoyment of the narrative and defense of this character IS rooted in a fairer application of justice, or whether they might just be finding empowerment in the disempowerment of others and justifying it as ‘well as long as its the right people’? If the latter, is this something they’re actually okay with, or does it raise questions of its own, as to whether secondhand enjoyment of others’ disempowerment is ever truly valid or always just a stepping stone to making excuses to enjoy the disempowerment of anyone positioned to have less power than they themselves?

Do some of the anti-vigilante readers encounter things within the narrative that spark questions about their stances? Does it ever confront them to acknowledge whether they’re projecting more onto the vigilante’s direct victims than the victims of his victims, the ones he’s seeking justice/revenge on behalf of? Are their judgments of his actions and morality truly a reflection of their own supposedly neutral perspective, or are they predisposed to be more defensive about one group within the narrative than others? Are they more uncomfortable with the fate of the vigilante’s targets than whatever the narrative reveals the fate of these characters’ various victims to be, because they just can’t justify extra-judicial punishments and say well it was still up to the system to punish them, no one else - even if that meant they likely would never face real consequences.....or is their insistence on adhering to the system’s take, even knowing that it would likely enact no consequences and thus no real justice for the targets’ initial victims, because it just feels like this isn’t real justice, isn’t natural, just isn’t the way things should be done?

And if the latter, does that ever prompt anyone to examine what it suggests that they’re more willing to defend a status quo even once proven unfair and completely useless in some cases....than they’re willing to defend consequences for criminals the status quo refuses to ever hold accountable, not if that means actually challenging the status quo and suggesting it be changed into something new and unfamiliar, with no idea whether it’d be better or worse for them as individuals?

Can stories whose premise has a vigilante side-step an in-story legal system, built as it is on the biases and skewed tendencies of an out-of-story legal system, and applying capital consequences specifically to criminals who parallel those that readers and characters implicitly assume will never be faced with those kinds of consequences.....and with the narrative assuring readers of the actual guilt of those characters....thereby effectively raising questions about how much we ‘let certain people in society get away with’ versus how okay we are with ‘throwing the book at certain people in society’ for far less actionable harm to far fewer people? And how much of this might be rooted in readers’ own biases, readers’ own projections and which characters they personally relate to or identify with most…how much of this is readers just assuming or accepting that the difference in the ‘two groups of criminals’ and how people and the system react to them, is like, just the way things are and they’ve never put too much thought into any alternatives because they’ve never truly spent any time contemplating a different status quo, or what society might look like if one group’s lack of accountability and the other group’s scapegoating weren’t so guaranteed?

With fiction.....you can explore all these questions and more (regardless of how much readers are willing to entertain this narrative and y’know, actually engage in honest reflection of whatever questions you’re aiming to raise), even if, like me, in real life you’re never gonna vote yes on the death penalty let alone morally sign off on extra-judicial murder-by-vigilantes.....because in real life, unlike fiction, there is no way to ensure the consequences only get applied to people you think actually deserve them.

And that right there is another question....what is the line, for you, if the question of whether a person actually committed the crime is taken off the table completely? Do you even know where exactly it lies for you - because honestly, the reason I’ve been so vague and ambivalent throughout this post about who this hypothetical vigilante kills and why is because I do not actually have a clear idea of what I would even consider to be a crime definitively deserving death, even if I am clear on the fact that if questions of guilt and institutional bias can be removed from the equation, I do think that yes there are crimes - or at least degrees or scales of crimes - that can justify a criminal’s death? So apparently we can jot that down as one of the questions I’d read stories like this to explore if I felt any of the stories about extra-judicial murder-by-vigilante were actually interested in exploring questions of morality and accountability rather than just building bad-ass street cred by way of arguably sympathetic/justifiable body counts:

What actually is the point at which we see the inherent value of a human life as no longer outweighing the value of the harm/damage a person does to others, with their own lives’ value and worth taken into consideration? Can we truly be said to value the lives of all a person’s victims, if we know that they killed and traumatized these victims with total disregard for the value of their lives....or does that inherently position us as actionably treating their victimizer’s life as having more value?

Of course.....none of this really matters except in theory, if like, the stories never actually apply similar consideration or try to examine big picture questions.

And my own feelings about Jason, his stories, tropes, and potential aside....I will get a rolled up newspaper and smack the nose of the first Jason stan to try to insist canon Jason ‘the greatest blight plaguing society today is the neighborhood drug dealer who is definitely never disenfranchised/marginalized/driven to crime by necessity or desperation, just Evil and Deserving of Murder’ Todd is actually nuanced in any of the ways this post wishes he was.

But the fact that writers haven’t used him this way doesn’t mean that the potential isn’t there, and well, anyone familiar with how intensely I stan two-line characters on the basis of But The Potential knows that’s more than enough for me, lmfao.

Like, all of this might not be present in his canon or a lot of fandom reaction/building upon his canon, but the capacity for all of it is there in his stories, history, and tropes.

Its Schrodinger’s Stories: both there and not there, at least until someone writes him that way or doesn’t, with far more of the latter than the former but both still existing in the as-yet-unwritten chapters of every new arc or story starring him.

So I’m not like....self-deluded or in denial about Jason-as-is or the way he and his extra-judicial murder marathons are actually written, buuuuuut because I’m pedantic as fuck and always keenly aware of whatever whole big qualifier exists in my head as a footnote every time I round-down to a generalized statement or reference about a character or trope......

This is the qualifier that exists for why I’m ambivalent or vague about not definitively wanting to say Jason and murder always equals bad. Its like, yes, true, it does, but like, it doesn’t have to, there is stuff that could be done with the set-up already given us.

It just....hasn’t been tapped.

Anyway. So this has been a post. A post was had. My thoughts on Jason and extra-judicial murder: Here. Have them!

[britswriting]

Desire (9)

Desire Masterlist

Read on Wattpad

Sequel to Unbroken

I'm not necessarily happy with this chapter.. But tbh, idk what to do with it other than just moving on.. So here is this..

T/W: Mention of alcohol, abuse - action not taken, mentions of emetophobia (fear of throwing up) - she does do that in this chapter.

*Leighton's POV*

"Silas?" I asked and he nodded, his face showing confusion.

I nervously swallowed, the bartender passing me my drink, taking the money from me.

"Are you-" He started and I quickly shook my head, my hands practically shaking.

"No, it's for my friend!" I said a little too quickly, glancing away from my ex-boyfriend.

Silas nodded slowly, not moving.

"Aren't you going to take it to your friend?" He asked and I gnawed on my bottom lip, trying to find Alex to pass the drink off to. "Leighton" He said in a suspicious tone and I could feel the tears start to sting my eyes.

I didn't say anything, I just slowly brought the straw up to my lips, sipping it, glancing away.

"Leighton!" Silas exclaimed and I backed up from him, surprisingly liking the taste of the sweet drink. "Stop serving her drinks!" he told the bartender whose eyes went wide.

"Why? Is she underage?" He asked, almost panicked and I rolled my eyes.

"I'm twenty one" I grumbled, glaring at my ex.

"A twenty one year old addict in recovery! Leigh!" He hissed, reaching for the drink but I just backed up, holding the drink away from him. "Leighton! So what, you leave me, and now you're drinking and lying about it?!" He asked in an accusatory tone, narrowing his eyes at me, his arms crossed.

"I'm not lying" I mumbled, taking the drink back into my mouth and I swear his eyes were seeing red.

"I- You know what? I can't fix this. I can't save you. You're not my problem anymore. If this is what you want to do, fine. Hope you're happy" He grumbled, turning to walk away from me, my eyesight blurred from the tears.

I had so many questions for him, but I was emotionally paralyzed.

I stopped fucking around with the straw and decided to just take down the drink in gulps, causing me to get a brain freeze.

I placed the empty glass on the bar, panting as my head throbbed.

"Ms. Are you okay?" The bartender asked and I nodded, mumbling "brain freeze. Got anything warm?" I asked and he nodded.

"Liquor or?" He asked and I nodded. "Buttered Rum, spiked cider or mulled wine?" he asked and I shrugged.

"Whatever the strongest one is. Want to forget tonight"

He nodded, reaching for a bottle.

He gave me a glass and I downed it like a shot, letting the warmth explode across my stomach, bracing myself on the bar.

"Would you like to open a tab?" he asked and I nodded, handing him my card.

After about five minutes, and two drinks later, I was barely here.

I couldn't see, and my body wouldn't stand on its own.

"Leigh? Woah, are you okay?" Alex asked and I giggled, nodding.

"Alcohol is good" I giggled, leaning against her.

"How many drinks has she had?" Alex asked and I stopped listening, closing my eyes as I leaned against her. "Jesus Christ. I thought I said to drink water and eat food? Where's Scott?" Alex asked, holding me up as we stumbled to a table. "Will you help me take her home?" Alex asked someone, and I felt myself wobble.

"I don't want to go home" I mumbled, but no one seemed to want to listen to me.

Another body came over to me and held me up when I mumbled "He has my card"

"Who has your card?"

"Bartender" I mumbled and the body to my left tossed me back to Alex, my hands bracing her shoulders.

"You're pretty" I giggled and she smiled back at me, "You're drunk" which made me giggle and hum in agreement.

"Why'd you get so drunk Leigh?" Alex asked and I mentally sighed, not wanting to think about it. After all, didn't I get drunk to numb those thoughts?

"Wanted to have fun" I mumbled and she nodded slowly.

"Well, was this fun?" She asked and I shook my head, frowning.

"My ex saw me" I grumbled and her eyes widened.

"Colby?" She asked and I shook my head.

"Silas. I dated him when I was pregnant"

"Oh"

"Mhm"

The person came back and helped hold me, telling us that he got the card.

I don't know how I got there, but eventually we found our way to my apartment.

"Do you have the keys?" Alex asked and I nodded, handing her my purse.

I waited for her to unlock the door and she helped me in the house, crouching down to take off my heels.

"God my boobs hurt" I groaned, clutching my chest.

"Aren't you supposed to pump?" Alex asked and I nodded, afraid to squeeze my chest and soak this bra.

I reached behind me to unclasp my bra, letting it fall only to hear someone go "Woah!"

I looked up and saw Scott cover his eyes which made me roll my eyes.

"God my feet fucking kill" I groaned, my bare feet now hitting the tile.

I wobbled to the kitchen, feeling like I was pregnant all over again.

I wasn't sober, but I wasn't drunk. I knew what I was doing, and I would definitely remember this in the morning.

"Fuck!" I cursed, only to hear a door open behind me as I stared at my unwashed pumping parts.

"Hey what's- where's your shirt? Who are these people? Leigh?" Gabe asked, standing in the archway of my kitchen.

"Front door, friends" I mumbled, my eyes feeling heavy.

"Are you drunk? What the hell is going on?" Gabe asked as I knocked some pumping parts on the floor.

"Shit" I went to lean down, only to learn that was a bad idea, and I ended up vomiting on them.

"Woah! Leighton what the hell is going on? Go to the bathroom!" He exclaimed, "And find a shirt!" He practically shoved me out of the kitchen, almost causing me to almost fall as I stumbled.

He barely touched me, but for some reason, my balance was all sorts of off.

"You let her drink?!" I heard him accuse as I made my way to the bathroom, collapsing on the ground.

I ended up getting ill again, and I was starting to feel sweaty, and before I knew it, milk was dripping down my chest.

I don't know how long I sat here, leaking for, but eventually Gabe walked in with my pump.

"I cleaned it" He mumbled and I nodded, watching him eye me and then grab a rag.

"I'm sorry" I whispered and he ignored me, getting the wash cloth wet.

"Wipe it up" He handed me the rag and I started cleaning up the milk off my chest. "I washed your breast pump, here" He said in a monotone voice, and I could feel the guilt and regret start to consume me as I started to cry, fumbling with the breast pump.

God my boobs hurt.

I could feel the tears running down my cheeks as I eventually got it attached to my very sensitive nipples, making sure the bottles were secure.

"I googled what to do if you drink, they say to dump the milk" He mumbled and I nodded, wiping at my cheeks. "I sent your friends home. Gemma's asleep. You reek of Vodka" He mumbled, reaching behind me to turn on the shower.

"I'm sorry" I repeated and he shook his head.

"I don't want to hear it. I heard it all before" He mumbled and I sighed, "But I mean it. I really am sorry. I had no intentions of-"

"Stop talking Leighton"

"But-"

"Stop"

"Gabe-"

"Leighton Rae, I'm not kidding. Shut up before I take Gemma and go back to my parents!" He threatened and my eyes widened.

"You wouldn't!" I gasped.

"Try me! I'm not leaving her intoxicated mother to look after her!" He claimed and I felt my chin quiver as I tried to pull it together.

"But I-"

"Have you used?" He asked and I stopped, my mouth parting in disbelief.

"I wouldn't-"

"I don't believe you!"

"But I-"

"God Leigh, we already went through this!" He groaned and I cried, "I leave for New York in 10 days, and now I don't know if I can trust you with her" I grumbled, leaning against the bathroom door.

"It won't happen again" I cried and he rolled his eyes, his jaw clenched.

"I don't believe you"

"But-"

"No! No buts! End of sentence! I'm so tired of this Leighton! I'm tired of you fucking up! Of you making your life a mess, and dragging me, and now our daughter through it!"

"But I didn't-" I blubbered, my heart racing.

"Stop. Talking" He demanded.

"Please" I cried and he shook his head. "It won't happen again!" I quickly got out, wanting him to believe me.

"Why did you do it? Why are we doing this again?! You said you were done! You said you learned your lesson!"

"I didn't mean to" I cried, wanting to curl up in a ball, but I couldn't with the pump attached.

"Have you done it before?" He asked me and I shook my head, feeling a tear roll down my jaw, sliding down my neck.

"No. I swear. I've been good. I haven't lied" I told him, wanting him desperately to believe me, but I kept just hearing them make assumptions that I wasn't sober, and it not only lit a fire under me to prove them wrong.. But to also prove them right.

They already didn't believe me.. What was there to lose?

"I want to believe you" He said and I cried harder, covering my face with my hands, but then my stomach turned and I quickly leaned over, emptying my stomach.

"Fuck" I cursed, my eyes drooping as one of the bottles smacked the porcelain.

Gabe handed me a hair tie and I tied my hair back into a low messy bun, leaning my cheek against my arm.

Gabe sat down on the floor, pulling out his phone.

"What are you doing?" I asked, and he didn't look up from his phone as he replied, "I'm sitting with you" and I frowned, "Why?"

"Because I love you, and I can be mad at you, and still not want anything bad to happen. Finish pumping so you can shower, and please, not more vomiting on our floors"

~

"Pour it out" He said and I wailed, not wanting to.

"But I-"

"Pour it"

"But-"

"Leighton fucking pour the tainted milk down the drain"

I sobbed really hard as I poured the full bottle of breast milk down the sink drain, collapsing against the counter as I cried.

"I worked hard for that!" I cried and he nodded.

"Yeah. Sucks being stupid doesn't it" He grumbled and I gasped, trying to breathe through my cries. "Pour the other one so you can shower and I can clean it" He told me and I grabbed his shirt with my fist. "Please" I cried and Gabe handed me the bottle of warm milk.

"We can't give her this Leighton. It's useless. I'm not pouring it for you. Pour it. You made it useless, you pour it" He said and I wanted to slap him so badly.

I understood he was mad, but this felt cruel.

Maybe I did deserve it, but still.

"You're a dick" I groused, feeling tired and pissed off.

"At least I'm not drunk" He shot back and I glared at him, "Fuck off"

"Pour it Leighton"

"Fuck you" I grumbled, dumping the bottle of milk down the sink and chucking it across the bathroom, letting it hit the bathroom wall and fall down to the tile, creating a loud crashing sound.

"You're going to wake the baby. Stop being immature. It's not my fault you got hammered and we can't use the milk. Get it together" Gabe scolded and I rolled my eyes, my eyes burning as the tears finally stopped falling. "Undress, you need to shower. You're not going to reek up the apartment. I don't care that you don't feel good"

"You're still a dick"

"I don't care"

"I hate you"

"Good. Go shower"

~

I spent god knows how long in the shower crying and trying not to throw up as I washed my hair and body, focusing on not falling over.

Eventually I finished, and I sat down on the floor of my shower, leaning my head against the wall, the water smacking my legs.

What did I do?

"Leighton, are you okay?" Gabe asked and I hummed. "Leigh?" He asked in a softer tone and I whimpered, then the shower curtain was pulled back. "Leigh" He sighed and I shook my head, looking away from him. "Come on. Get up, here" he had a towel and I shook my head. "Leighton, stop being a baby. You need to dry off and go to sleep. Come on, up" He pulled me up, my wet body soaking his shirt.

"I don't deserve you" I mumbled, Gabe wrapping a towel around my body.

"Right now you don't, you're right" He said and I frowned, Gabe taking another towel to my hair.

"I'm sorry"

"I don't care"

"Are you mad at me?"

"I wouldn't say I'm happy"

"I'm sorry"

"Shut up"

I frowned, staying quiet.

He grabbed my brush and started carefully going through my hair, being careful not to pull.

"How was your mom's?" I asked quietly, holding onto the countertops.

"Fine. Gemma was fine. She had her naps and her meals. I did her tummy time, everything went fine. Chase and Penny came over so that was nice" He sort of mumbled, seeming uninterested in the conversation.

I nodded, watching him in the mirror.

"And your brother?"

"Was at a friends house"

"Oh"

It was quiet again and he finished brushing through my hair, setting it down next to the sink.

"What time is it?" I asked quietly, Gabe grabbing a tank top off the stack of clothes.

"Almost four in the morning"

"Oh"

"Yeah. I don't know how you're still awake, then again, substances always did make you wired" He mumbled and I frowned, letting him pull the tank top over my head.

"Step" he said, holding my postpartum underwear.

I sighed, letting him slight them up my legs, doing the same for the shorts.

"I'm truly sorry" I said for the hundredth time.

"Tell that to someone who wants to hear it" he mumbled and I sighed, closing my eyes.

I woke up that next morning with the worst headache and a soaked through tank top.

Great.

I grabbed my phone, seeing Gabe had plugged it in for me.

I made a mental note to thank him as I checked the time.

12:13pm was on the front, so I was long overdue on pumping.

There was a text from Gabe that read he and Gemma had gone to her pediatrician appointment and my eyes widened.

Fuck.

I completely forgot that it was today.

I royally screwed up.

I groaned, tossing my phone on to my bed and climbed out of bed.

I found a painkiller and filled up my water bottle.

I opened the fridge only to see it was pretty bare.

I groaned and grabbed the last granola bar from my cupboard, chucking the box towards the recycling can, missing completely.

I ate my granola bar and saw my pump had been washed.

I didn't deserve him.

I grabbed my pump and walked back to the bedroom, peeling my now soaked through shirt off and tossing it into the laundry bin, not even bothering to wipe myself clean.

I was hoping that my painkiller and nausea pill would start to kick in soon, and I snatched my phone up, googling if I still had to dump my breastmilk

Apparently if my blood alcohol level was back to normal, so would my milk.

I decided to just play it safe and dump it anyway, not wanting to hurt her anymore than I already have.

I laid in bed watching YouTube as I pumped and when I was almost finished, I heard the front door open.

I listened to Gabe walk around and then I saw him walk into Gemma's nursery and after about five minutes, he carried Gemma into our room.

"Yeah, Mommy's back" he cooed, kissing her cheek. "She's got a fresh diaper" he said and I nodded, watching Gemma.

"How was her pediatrician appointment?" I asked, listening to him intently, hearing both the good and the bad things.

We were still working on her weight, and that was the main concern.

She was such a small baby.

"Are you going to make me dump it again? Or can I snuggle my child? Am I allowed to touch her?" I asked and he nodded.

"You can snuggle her. I'll dump it"

I sighed, handing him the milk, taking the breast contraption off and just staying shirtless in my bed as I grabbed my baby.

"I'm sorry" I whispered, unsnapping her onesie so she could lay hare bare skin against mine.

I laid there for a while, letting my thoughts wander, and before I knew, both Gemma and I had fallen asleep.

~

"You won't believe who I saw at the supermarket" Gabe said, placing groceries down on the small counter.

"Who?"

"Your old roommates" he said and my heart stopped.

"Sam, Kat and Colby?" I asked and he shook his head.

"Just the boys"

"Oh... did you say hi?" I asked and he nodded.

"They asked about Gemma"

"Oh.. and?"

"Nothing much. Said she was doing good"

"Did they ask about me?" I asked and he shook his head which made me sigh.

I missed them.

"Are you feeling better?" Gabe asked and I nodded, sitting back down on the floor next to Gemma who was doing tummy time.

"I took ibuprofen and a nausea med"

"Ok"

"Are you still mad at me?" I asked, looking over at him.

"I'm not mad" He said numbly.

"But you're not happy" I shot back, hoping he'd correct me, but he didn't.

"Correct"

"But-"

"Leighton. Let me feel what I'm feeling. How are you okay right now?" He asked, looking up from the plastic grocery bag.

"I don't know" I told him honestly and he sighed, grabbing something out of the bag.

"I got you your goldfish" he held the bag up and I thanked him, the apartment going quiet.

That evening I was sitting on the couch, nursing Gemma, when there was a knock on the door.

God damnit.

"Gabe!" I yelled, but then I heard the shower turn on.

Fuck.

I groaned, pushing myself up off the couch, causing Gemma to unlatch and start to cry.

I grabbed a blanket, nudging her cheek back to my nipple, only to hear the door knock again.

I got myself covered, praying to god it didn't fall down my shoulders when I reached for the door handle.

I opened the door and my eyes widened.

"What are you doing here? I didn't buzz you up?" I questioned, extremely confused.

They were the last people I expected to see right now.

"Good to see you too" Sam told me, Kat standing next to him.

"Sorry. Having a shitty day. How did you get up here?" I asked, letting them in, Gemma crying as she unlatched again.

"Someone was leaving and let us in" Kat explained and I nodded.

"Hold on, let me go find my cover" I mumbled, trying to support Gemma's weight without actually seeing what I was doing.

I tried to hold Gemma and search my messy room for my cover up, but after five minutes and Gemma's hard wails, I gave up and just sat down on my bed, grabbing the boppy so I didn't have to hold her.

I grabbed my phone, finding Kat's number. It rang for a moment before I heard, "Why are you calling me from the other room?"

"I can't find my cover up, and Gemma needs to eat. Don't really want your boyfriend to have to see me breastfeed"

"Leigh, it's fine-"

"But I-"

"You need to stop worrying Leighton" I heard Sam say and I rolled my eyes.

Me? Worrying? Never.

"If you want, you can come into my room. Gabe's in the shower though"

They didn't even reply, they just hung up and the next thing I knew, my bedroom door was opening.

"There's our favorite girls!" Kat cooed and I chuckled, letting the throw blanket rest over me, making sure it wasn't lying against Gemma's face, or blocking her access to my boob.

"Not that I'm unhappy to see you, but why are you guys here?" I asked, Kat sitting down next to me in bed.

"A stupid birdy told me that you were told to stay away from us, so we came to you" Sam said and I smiled, pursing my lips a little.

We had some small talk and Kat asked how Gemma and I were doing, Sam already hearing the information previously.

Once I was done, I handed Gemma off to Katrina so Kat could burp her, Sam passing me a shirt from my closet, turning around so I had more privacy.

It was a loose fitting pajama shirt that had snaps so it was easy for nursing.

Gabe eventually came out of the shower, starting to ask me a question before stopping when he saw Sam and Kat lounging in our bed.

"Um.. hello?" He said awkwardly which made Kat and I laugh.

Gabe grabbed his clothes and walked back into the bathroom which sparked Kat to ask me all sorts of questions about how it was going living together.

"It's been fine. We co-exist" I explained and she nodded.

She asked how it was watching him be a dad, and we talked a little more about how that's been going, and how weird it was at first.

"I wish we saw you more. I feel like she's changed so much since I last saw her" Sam said, looking down at my wide eyed baby. "Have you been getting enough sleep? You look rough" He asked and I scoffed, a small smile peaking through, "Thanks" I chuckled and he laughed, apologizing.

"I had a rough night last night, but it's okay. I need to make some calls tomorrow, figure some stuff out. Anyway, enough about me. How's um.. how's Colby?" I asked, deciding to stop letting the question burn a hole in my brain.

"He's good. He said you and him weren't talking though, why's that?" Sam asked and I sighed, throwing my body back against the pillows.

"He wanted space" I replied back numbly, hating the way that sounded.

I hated everything about the current situation.

I missed him.

"Why?" Kat asked and I frowned, not wanting to share that information.

It felt embarrassing.

Imagine needing a break from your friend.

Are they even your friend then?

I decided to just shrug, not wanting to make eye contact.

Before Kat could ask another question, Gabe walked in, grabbing his wallet off my dresser.

"I'm going to work. Are you going to be okay? Don't you dare lie to me" He gave me a serious look and I nodded slowly, the hair on my neck standing up as I eyed Sam and Kat. "I'm counting on you to feed her, understand?" he asked and I nodded, Kat looking at me weirdly.

"I know. I said I was sorry, can we not talk about it now?" I pleaded and he nodded.

"If you need me, call me" he said and I nodded, my mood dropping at the remembrance of what I've done.

"What happened?" Kat asked and my lip quivered as I shook my head.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it" I whispered, praying she'd drop it.

"But-"

"I'm fine" I snapped, her eyes widening.

"Why couldn't you feed baby G?" Sam asked and I glared, hissing "Drop it, or get out" which made a look of surprise quickly spread across his facial features.

"Woah, okay, damn" He said and I closed my eyes, taking a deep breath.

"Sorry" I mumbled, rubbing at my eye, not wanting the tears to fall.

"What happened?" Kat asked again, and I shook my head.

"I don't want to talk about it" I told her and she stayed quiet.

"It's getting late-"

"It's 8pm?" Kat cut me off and my jaw clenched.

"Well you invited yourself over" I grumbled, climbing out of bed.

"Did we do something to upset you?" Kat asked and I kept quiet, walking over to my dresser, keeping my eyes low, not wanting to see my reflection.

"I just need to give her a bath-"

"We can help" Kat offered and my shoulders tensed.

"I don't want your help"

"If you want us to leave, just say so" Kat said in a snappy tone and I spun around, glaring.

"Fine. Leave"

"Hey, what's going on?" Sam asked, sounding concerned and I shook my head, my hands shaking a little.

"Nothing. I need to take care of my daughter. She needs a bath, to be fed, diaper changed, her laundry done-" I started listing quickly, trying to keep myself in control and not have a mental breakdown in front of them.

You know what would help?

Vodka.

Leighton, no.

But it would.

Leighton, no.

Gabe is trusting you with your daughter. Don't blow it.

But if she's fed, and asleep.. and I pump and dump like I did last night...

Leighton, no.

But

No.

But if I-

No.

"I need to bathe her, feed her, change her-" I listed again and Sam gave me a weird look.

"You just fed her?" He questioned and I stopped and stared.

Oh yeah.

"Well I still need to bathe her-"

"Leighton, what's wrong?" He asked and I shook my head, my hands clutching my dresser.

God I fucked up.

He doesn't trust me.

He thinks I'm bad for the baby.

That I can't put her well being first.

I felt my head spin, and I finally looked up to see myself in the mirror.. and I didn't recognize the person standing in front of me.

The longer I stared at myself in the mirror, the more I wanted to punch myself in the face.

I royally fucked up.

"Leigh?" I heard, but I couldn't reply.

I ignored whoever spoke up, walking out of the bedroom and to my freezer.

I opened the freezer, seeing I had a pretty good milk supply stored.

He said I had to feed her... he didn't say it had to be from my boobs..

I couldn't get intoxicated around her though..

I wouldn't ever want to cause her harm.. but this itch.. I can't get rid of it.

I missed the feeling of being numb, and the difference I felt with Vodka instead of laced Weed, is one made me relaxed, and one made me let loose and god did I want to relax right now.

I suddenly got an idea, and I walked back over to my bedroom.

"I'm sorry for snapping, I just.. I'm hungry. Breastfeeding makes you very hungry all the time. I was um.. wondering if I could treat you guys to dinner? I can order it and pick it up, and you guys can hang out here with me? I do need to bathe her though, and get her ready for bed. Gabe and I are trying to get her in a sleep routine since he's leaving soon, and I won't have much help" I explained and they nodded.

"It's okay Leigh, and food sounds great, what are you thinking?" Kat asked and I pursed my lips, racking my brain for what I loved when I was high.

"Um.. Pizza? I haven't had it in over a year, and I'm down to finally try it" I suggested, Kat's eyes widening.

"Pizza sounds so good! Sam and I can do an online order and pick it up instead if you'd like?" Kat asked and I shook my head.

"I rather do it. Let me know what you want, I need to go pee" I excused myself, grabbing my phone off my dresser.

I unlocked my phone whilst peeing, opening up a new text message.

Do you still deal?

I hit send, anxiously waiting.

I  wiped and flushed, reaching for the hand soap when I heard my phone buzz, and my heart starting beating rapidly.

I flipped over my phone, quickly glancing down at the new message

(xxx)-xxx-xxxx Yes

I felt my heart race as I walked out of the bathroom, my hand having a death grip on my phone.

"Babe, can you hold her for a minute?" Sam asked Kat who happily took the sleepy baby, his eyes following me.

I could feel his stare burning a hole in my back.

Once we were in my kitchen, away from the bedroom, he cornered me.

"Cut the shit, what's going on?" he said and my lips parted in surprise, my finger finding the twistable anxiety ring, fidgeting.

"I need to-"

"No you don't. What is going on? You can trust me. Are you in danger? Is Gabe abusi-"

"No!" I quickly cut him off, not wanting Sam to do anything drastic.

"He is, isn't he?!" Sam asked, his voice raising and I quickly shook my head.

"No! He's been a perfect gentleman!" I defended my ex, knowing he would never intentionally hurt me.

Sam's eyes narrowed as he stayed quiet, his forehead wrinkling, seeming to be trying to figure me out.

God I hate that.

"What's going on?" He asked again.

"Nothing" I said in the most even tone I could muster.

"You're lying. You weren't busy when we got here, you wouldn't randomly drop everything to go get us food. You'd prefer to bathe Gemma yourself, and we go get it if we're willing. You're bullshitting me, and I don't appreciate it. I thought we were friends? I thought that after everything we've been through together, you'd at least have an ounce of respect to not lie to me"

"I'm sorry" I mumbled and he sighed, shaking his head at me.

"I can't believe you"

"What?"

"I can't believe that after everything we've been through, that you don't trust me. You thought about having me in the room when Gemma was born, and yet you can't tell me what's going on? Are you a fit parent?" Sam asked, catching me off guard.

"Excuse me?"

"Are you a fit parent? Clearly Gabe was having doubts-" He said and before I even knew what I was doing, I slapped him.

"I would never hurt my daughter" I hissed, now in his face. "And what I'm doing is none of your business. If you don't want to watch her, then get out! I don't fucking need you anyway! GET THE FUCK OUT!" I yelled, shoving him as I pushed myself past him, stomping why back to my master bedroom.

"Give me my baby" I hissed, grabbing Gemma hastily, causing her to cry.

"What's going on-"

"Get out. Both of you, get out!" I yelled, Kat standing up, seeming confused.

I walked past Kat, my heart beating rapidly as I found Gemma's car seat, carefully laying her down so I didn't hurt her, clipping her in.

"Where are you going? What's going on?" Kat asked desperately but I grabbed the diaper bag and pulled up the car seat handle, quickly walking past them.

"OUT!" I yelled, opening my front door and grabbing my keys off the hook.

"What's-"

"GET OUT!" I said again and Kat and Sam both walked out, now standing in the hallway.

I slammed the door shut, locking it before passing them in the hallway, heading straight to the staircase, not wanting to wait for the elevator.

I couldn't hear or see as I tunnel visioned down to my car, strapping Gemma in.

I sat in my car, taking a deep breath, giving myself a few moments to calm down.

"I'm sorry baby" I apologized, hearing her wails behind me.

"I'm so sorry" I whispered, before putting the car into reverse, tears stinging my eyes as I left the parking garage.

I'm sorry.

* * * *

Written on:: July 14th, 15th, 16th 2022

Word Count: 5k

Part Ten

[aihoshiino]

whats your favourite thing about each of the onk characters?

As a person with ADHD I am ontologically incapable of picking Just One Thing but I'll do my best!!

Ai: oh my god she melts my brain too much to pick just one thing!!! If you really put a gun to my head though I would have to say her warm, persistent kindness in the face of a life that has often been abnormally cruel to her. She always goes out of her way to be kind to people even when it has absolutely no benefit to her, just because Ai is a deeply kind person that even abuse and neglect couldn't tarnish. She understands loneliness and abandonment to such a deep degree that even when she can't exactly understand the ins and outs of why or how other people feel the way they feel, when she sees people suffering or in pain, her instinctive response is to reach out to them and try and make sure they feel heard even if she can't actually do anything to ease their pain. For all the BS she says about calling herself cynical, people hating and all the rest of it, Ai is such a deeply and actively kind person to such an incredible degree.

Also her fangies. Can't forget the fangies.

Aqua: Aqua Hoshino Is The Funniest Guy In Oshi No Ko And He Doesn't Even Know It. This sort of falls under the more serious header that is the cavernous gap between Aqua's stated goals and intentions and the reality of his actual feelings that often slips out via his actions but more specifically I'm obsessed with the hysterical comedic gap that is Aqua larping as Light Yagami during season 1 of Love Live. Like ugh yeah I have to kill my dad but what am I gonna do, NOT wear matching TWINS tshirts with my sister? Or shit like him being the one to go and get his copy of Sweet Today and start paging through it while Ruby and Miyako watch it and then immediately tattling to Kana that Ruby talked shit even though he toooootally doesn't care you guys :/// Mfer dressed up like a buff chicken and did a squeaky voice for a week because he can't handle having a crush on Kana!!! HE'S THE FUNNIEST GUY IN THIS WHOLE SHOW AND NOBODY UNDERSTANDS Ruby: The way Ruby's history as Sarina - or I guess more specifically, as a person who grew up both disabled and under a toxic mother - informs her zest and energy is soooooo sweet and tender to me, but especially in the ways in informs her deep, deep love for Ai as her mother. The inheritance of Sarina's despair and its transition into Ruby's joy and empowerment is such an incredible and powerful beat - I watched episode 1 with a friend last night (hi Silvie!) and the scene of Ruby realizing that she no longer lives in a body at risk of betraying her at any moment and that she has a mother who loves her and values her happiness and positive growth over all else is still one of the most powerful scenes in the whole story for me. The way that realization of euphoria and power continues to form the foundations of her arc going forward is a big part of why the first stretch of the manga is still the strongest material to me.

Kana: my little failgirl <3 Kana is another one of those characters where I could say a lot of deep and introspective things about her incredible resilience, her intelligence and determination and the way she continues to try and make herself big in a world that has only ever operated by making her feel small but the truth in my heart is just that I think she is the funniest bitch on the planet. If Aqua did not exist she would take the crown as Funniest Character In Oshi No Ko. The consistency with which she takes Ls and gets fed her own hair emotionally speaking (UH AND LITERALLY I GUESS BECAUSE I WROTE THAT JOKE AND THEN REMEMBERED THAT SCENE WITH THE DIRECTOR) just really gets under my guard and makes me fucking lose it every time it happens. I'm a simple guy, ok? Memcho: Mem being a woman in her early 20s and the perspective and emotional intelligence that comes with that experience, especially when contrasted with the teens, is soooooo fascinating to me. In general it's just really refreshing to see a girlie in her mid 20s in an anime still being portrayed as just as fun and cute and silly and energetic as the teens; anime in general has a really bad habit of having two ages which are Teen and Middle Aged Adult but Mem just feels like an actual person in her mid 20s which is SUCH a nice change. I also just think that, like I said, the way her emotional intelligence contrasts the kids who are still going the fuck through it as teens experiencing huge, fucked up emotions for the first time in their almost-adult lives; Mem's a lot smarter and sharper than folks give her credit for and it's always so interesting to see her snap into 'adult in the room' mode. The fact that this doesn't at all interfere with her friendship with Kana and Ruby is also really sweet - I actually do not remember ever seeing one of these age gap friendships in an anime that didn't come with some weird maternal overtones but the way B-Komachi's friendship kind of supersedes and makes their age gap a non-factor really reminds me of my own friendships like that - both when I was Ruby's age and had older folks looking out for me and now that I'm Mem's age and some of my besties from my real life DND group are babies LMFAO

Akane: The way OnK portrays Akane's acting technique is really fascinating to me! This is maybe a bit of a silly comparison to draw but I find that I weirdly relate to Akane and the way she portrays characters because I've been doing some form of online text roleplay or another since I was licherally 11 years old and the way she talks about like... sewing up internal inconsistencies and reverse engineering a character's thoughts, feelings and general worldview from their portrayed actions, making connections between aspects of their character that may be unstated by the text but make your portrayal cohere and feel richer and more vibrant. This is literally exactly the way I handle writing canon characters right down to the unhinged canon review, to the point that it is a running gag between me and my friends that Akane's serial killer ass Ai research session is Literally Just Me when I'm doing my Oshi no Ko canon review. It's about the weirdest and most unexpected way I have ever felt represented by a piece of media LOL Miyako: The absolute character development W this woman had!!! Admittedly I feel like the glowup is only so strong because Aka clearly had a very different Miyako in his brain when he started writing Oshi no Ko vs the one she actually became but I still absolutely love the ways Miyako grows over the series and how smart, competent and fiercely driven she is when given a reason to motivate herself. I don't have a huge to to say about Miyako just because she so effortlessly speaks for herself but God I Love Her. Ichigo: i just love it when a guy is a faildad to a fucked up teenage girl There we go! Admittedly this wasn't Everyone and I mostly just stuck to the main cast I had strong enough opinions about to voice but! If you're ever curious about what I think about someone in the extended cast, please do feel free to drop me some asks and prod me for my thoughts!

[dancedwiththe666]

Dancing with the Devil and his name is: Kirk Leslie Naziel Reid AKA  Kirk  Reid

(He who shall not be named)

This blog was made to help woman escape the burden woman hold when meeting this man. Since more woman are learning of this post, it has done its job to save some woman who have reached out. He who shall not be named doesn’t get the luxury of harming more woman. The truth of the matter of he who shall not be named is that. 

He is an abusive mother fucker.

He does owe all of the woman he fakes a future with. (Hundreds – thousands)

He will give you a bladder infection. (Because his junk is disgusting, it’s a thing that happens with all narcissist’s)

 He will say he’s going to kill himself (oh don’t all of us with he was brave enough)

He will use anything fucked up story to make you afraid of him. Planting seeds of shit he’s supposedly done (but don’t worry, He’s just a bitch)

Don’t be afraid of this loser. Period.

The author of this blog is leaving it as is, and will no longer be checking it.  Hopefully more woman can come foreword and comment or share.

This man will give you a fantasy when he meets you. He does this to every woman. Narcissist’s like to FAKE a future with every woman, but people aren’t people to them. They are supply. Kirk will open your doors, will insist to open the car door. Carry your things. Get you coffee and flowers, but GIRL! I am here to tell you that will be the most expensive flowers and coffee you will ever buy. His chivalrous act he gets from movies and books on manipulation. This is where he is doing his best acting in the beginning. He acts so charming, charming the panties right off of you. And any man. Men love Kirk too. He seems like a man’s man. But under the mask he’s a Bitch.

He will then seem so open and honest and get you to open up in the same way. But every thing and I mean EVERYTHING he says is a lie. Kirk doesn’t live in the real world, he lives in a fantasy, so everything he tells you is a lie. One of his best qualities is his lying memory bank.

He will make sure to study you and knows everything about you fast because you tell him, he will mould himself into being the man of your dreams. Then comes the sad stories…

Stories of his childhood, abandonment, sexual assault. He will also tell you about all the woman who cheated on him (this is a huge lie) He has cheated on EVERYONE. He will use this to play the victim of why he’s been to jail so much. He uses this as a way to get what he wants from you. What does he want from you? – Pity – love – money – your body – your ass. He wants to drain everything from you. He will use this to drain you of everything emotionally and physically.

While you are falling for this man of your dreams. He will be working on other supply. He will be messaging other woman on many different fake accounts. This is why he has 2 phone numbers. He will tell you he’s the best loyal guy, while he’s sticking his Dirty Chicken Nugget in every Tuna Canoe in town. He will leave you with a STD cocktail of Syphilis and Chlamydia.

 Then he emails all the raunchy pictures of himself and his victims to one of his emails. So many pictures of may woman over the last year. Everyone of these women think they found someone special LOL

He also lies to his friends, especially the woman friends. And so-called best friends, like Danielle. She probably thinks he’s a good guy. Besides the point. Every Woman friend or Man friend Kirk USES. He will only pop up every few months or years and what does he need? FAVORS. A place to stay perhaps, a loan, work done a truck, a ride. Maybe for you to loan him tools. Whatever it is, everyone will do it because they believe his bullshit stories. And another one of his best scam qualities he’s charming. If that doesn’t work, he’s the sad lost puppy. The sad lost puppy who destroys lives.

His so-called Best Friend Merlin will always have his back, but doesn’t know how much Kirk talks shit about him behind his back. He has the audacity to call Merlin a shitty father, to all of his girlfriends! But Kirk has barley paid child support to his 2 children besides a few hundred dollars. Why does he shit talk his friends because Psychopaths can’t have friends, they only see competition. The next step after a narcissist is to become a psychopath.  This is what one of his Ex’s therapists labelled him as. We all need therapy after Kirk enters your life.

Kirk will tell you what he needs to in regards to his criminal record, because you can google it. The reason he was sent to the PEN in 2017 is because his Ex Mellissa was 4 months pregnant, Kirk was getting aggressive (even though he says he’s never been physical with a woman). She was leaving him. Kirk didn’t like that, so he sent people to slash her tires. He then began threatening her sister and her other vehicles. So, she told the cops, and because of his 2015 grand thefts long with 3 other warrants he went to jail.  Kirk also owes Melissa child support for 4 years on top of that over 12K while they dated.

This is where Kirk and money get interesting, he rarely works. Always makes up stories about how much he makes or what he will do when he retires. Or his next big jobs or BIG PAYOUTS he’s getting. He will borrow money from You, your best friend and dead uncle if he could. He tells his friends he’s going to get 100k loan form the government. No government agency is going to lend a criminal with a record that can go from here to the moon.

Kirk owes his friend Glen over 10k, as well as more friends he borrowed from over the year. Because Kirk is a sad lost puppy, his friends will always be offering him a job, then they find out he’s a shit worker.

Kirk owes his ex-Tara a truck. He totaled the truck that was put in her name, then stopped paying her the payments. But he talks about how its his, and how he’s getting it paid out for insurance. She’s probably still paying for it.

Kirk lied his way back into his ex-Kim’s life last year. He has a 5-year-old with her. He talks about what a great dad he is, and he barley had time to spend with his kid. His children are more like inconveniences, but to everyone else He’s the best dad he says. He owes Kim 5 years of child support and a few 1000 he borrowed from when he was with her.

Imagine a man that has barley paid child support asking the mother that raised his child for years while he was in jail, for money. He’s really a disgusting man.

Rachel is Kirks ex from last year he owes her over 10k as well. Kirk told her he was Christian and fucking prayed with this girl. He also told her he got the Covid vaccine for her because she believes in it. (He got the shot for work). She didn’t even know he had kids for over a year.

Have you seen “THECON” on Disney? He is those characters.

He is also the “THE TINDER SWINDLER” – Except you don’t get any fancy trips or money flow. You just get a homeless man with bad hygiene, and a drug and alcohol problem.  Who moves in right away, and how does he get so comfortable so fast!

And the Dick, “is the dick good though?” or is it the only consistent thing he can give you, because well, its FREE!

There are so many other scams Kirk has run and is running now. So much that whole chapter books can be written. 

Kirk needs to be avoided at all costs. He will lie, manipulate, abuse you. Physically and emotionally.

All his Ex’s agree he would be better in jail or on another spiritual plain. He is a text book Psychopath/Sociopath.

[sldkfjskdfjlsdk]

11024

dear bone,

i feel stuck trying to start this. words aren't coming to me when i try to thinking of what i want to say. maybe i will just type without thinking too much about it. i can be intentional or whatever next time

-

the hatred i have for your abuser and anyone who followed is immense, inexplicable, and so fucking strong that i can't think of enough ways i would genuinely hurt them without a second thought. physically, emotionally, psychologically, all of them. over and over again

the hatred i have for them is also meaningless, with no where to actually go

i wonder why it's so easy for you to accept the harm inflicted on you (by people we both instinctively know are wretched) as warranted somehow? the more i think about it, the less sense it makes. but at the same time, the more i think about it, the more my insides feel like they understand.

at this point, the body and mind trying to make sense of assault through internalization doesn't feel like protection, even if at one point it was. it feels insidious. although i don't know for sure, i believe at one point a you existed that did have self worth, or at least there was a you that didn't think about self worth at all because you didn't have to. the absence of self worth you experience was caused at some point and then evolved into an automatic mechanism of self hatred and disgust.

but it makes absolutely no sense if you allow yourself to really think about your self worth, just honestly for once, without the distortions that you feel simultaneously comfortable and despairing in. like yeah it is comfortable to sit in repulsion of yourself, to not believe you are worth anything to people because it's what you "know". but it's such an obvious fallacy. you were not assaulted because of who you are, in absolutely any way. you were at the hands of someone who was simply incapable of love and only capable of the opposite. and the opposite of love is pure evil.

when you say you cannot accept when people say they love you because it is simply the reality, i'm sure you already understand somewhere that you don't/can't feel love from others because you were forced to get accustomed to receiving the opposite of love. and i'm sure you already know that it was gratuitous, distorted, and wrong in every single way.

you're not in a place where you can experience love because you were stripped from it by someone who was supposed to love you. but that doesn't mean you as you are now are incapable of being loved. at all. and the very farthest thing from the truth is that you were/are deserving of being deprived of love, especially in the way you have experienced depravation. to be frank, i think your abuser would probably have done the same to the infinite versions of you who could have existed, and you would've been innocent every single time. how could you have not been? in fact, how fucking dare he harm someone as blameless as you were and still are? how dare he harm you to the point you cannot feel heartbroken for yourself

if others have harmed you in similar or the same ways, it is not because you attract that behavior or that type of person, it is because HIS actions carved an ugly pathway for you that you weren't equipped to avoid, that disarmed you into something that other, similarly depraved people, were able to reach. and that is at the bare minimum despicable and the opposite of your fault.

what makes me the most angry was his ability to hinder you to the point you can't acknowledge your inherent value in its entirety, or even at all. that it this grieving and these patterns are things you were forced to carry even into adulthood

you were wronged, completely and simply, because of the nature and actions of your abuser and anyone else that has done the same to you. and the person you've grown into, the defense system you developed, the constant self blame when you feel pain, the constant pain in it of itself, is their fucking fault. i don't know if i can underscore this enough. i want to scream this into the universe, that it was not your fault that it was never your fault and that it shouldn't and cannot reflect who you are to yourself because it's not true

the most recent time you said you cannot accept when people say they love you, a part of me honestly wanted to scream and shake you from that into my own reality, as selfish as that may be. you may not be able to understand or accept love from most people right now but if i'm being honest, i have known that i love you for some time already. i have held my tongue out respect and care for your comfort, because i know how hard that is for you to hear and the last thing i want is to cause you discomfort or even pain. but you have become and are one of the most important people in my life, in a way no one has been before.

i wonder if i can articulate why. i don't know if i can right now. but i want you to know that if anything were to ever change, if you were to hurt me somehow, or if something weird happened between us, the way you have become significant to me can't be changed by something like that. i think i would feel the same way i do right now. i feel pretty certain that i would still have peace, knowing you at least were who you are to me at this point. idk not even just have peace of mind with it i would still feel gratified that i met you , the impact you've had on me is that strong.

and to be completely completely honest i have not told you i love you or how important you are to me because i don't know how to completely articulate why yet and i do not want to weird you out with this sentiment and i am scared that you would feel like your importance to me is unwarranted somehow. like it's too early to feel that way about someone, or i don't know you well enough to be able to feel that way.

but i am being completely honest when i say i genuinely love you and you have a very unique significance to me, that i have not felt this way towards someone in this way ever, and that is my reality and i honestly want to apologize for it lol. but i made a promise to you to be honest even if it's uncomfortable and you already know i expect the same from you.

all that to say, even if your internal reality precludes you from being loved, or even physically prevents you from being loved somehow, the truth is that you are loved and that is the reality outside of you. it already is reality, in a different form, and even if you internally deny it as real or true, it is truth in me. and so long as i cannot deny your reality you also cannot deny mine. and i won't speak for others even though i know others presently love you as their reality too. and i want to drill that into your head but i also won't because i respect you and your pace

even if you do end up getting to a place where you can fully and completely rid yourself of blame, i would want somehow for your abusers to suffer as you have suffered. but at the same time vengeance doesn't necessarily seem like the answer. for some reason i'm starting to wonder if just letting yourself own whatever has happened to you is, though. i think that it is very possible to take advantage of how you were taken advantage of through fighting for yourself and fighting to be okay. even if that is worlds away, i think that it's possible. idk. i'm very used to having delusions, that i know are delusions, become stronger and more intertwined with my reality the more i ruminate on them. and the thought that it is possible to literally rise up from that kind of thinking(/that kind of experience even if its perpetual) is becoming more real as i think about it more and more. and it feels foreign and daunting and uncomfortable and impossible like it shouldn't feel like a real option. but i can't say i do not feel a fire in my chest. becoming a real human despite what has happened in the past kind of feels like a direct blow to every single abuser. like spitting in their face. like when shirase first stepped off the boat onto the ice and started yelling at everyone who didn't believe in her.

today, i woke up this morning after my two hours of sleep feeling kind of inspired. after we texted i felt even more inspired. and then a few hours later i felt despair again, pure and utter despair. like it's never going to happen. like i will never get better, i will never be okay, and i will always be mourning and hating myself. and for the first time i didn't fight that feeling, i didn't agonize over it or chastise myself for it. i let myself feel those things, and as i was feeling them i started writing this letter. and i feel inspired again. i wonder what it all means, where it can all go