#most of my posts have been heavy emotionally so let's end this year with something FUNNY

[sealrock]

decembhyur, day 31: heroic

pretending to be superheroes for a day is quality bonding time. bonus under the cut:

[vanteguccir]

destructive home | m. sturniolo

Matt Sturniolo x reader

Summary: Where Matt helps Y/N get through an anxiety attack.

Requested?: Yes, on Wattpad.

Warning: Anxiety attack, panic attack, toxic home, toxic father, fighting between parents.

Author's note: That is my work, I DON'T authorize any plagiarism! | English isn't my first language, so I'm sorry if there's any grammar error.

༻✦༺ 　༻✧༺　༻✦༺

Y/N closed her eyes tightly feeling her head spin from the loud voices coming from downstairs. Unfortunately, her parents fighting was nothing new, and even less so was her father starting the fight.

Y/N's father has always been the type of father who is physically present but emotionally absent, living in the same house as the girl since her birth, but never really playing the role of a kind and welcoming father.

Quite the contrary, her father has always been a very demanding and controlling man, Y/N having witnessed his first attack of stress when she was just a week old, when her mother cooked lunch for both of them, but couldn't bear to eat everything on her plate due to the exhaustion of being a first-time mother, and her father started a series of screams demanding that she eat all the food, after all "he pays the house bills and the food in the cupboard and refrigerator and didn't want to see anything being wasted", ignoring completely the scandalous crying of the little girl, who understood nothing at the time.

And it was exactly in an environment like this that Y/N grew up, learning that staying silent all the time at home prevented fights from reaching huge peaks, but suffering the consequences with the fights inside her head, which grew more and more. With all of this, the girl ended up developing panic attacks and severe anxiety, which she only discovered through a quick diagnosis from her school psychologist, as her father refused to pay for a consultation for her and her mother did not have enough money to do it.

Y/N grew up with constant fights outside and inside her head, experiencing the most bitter moments inside her own home, where she had to face her anxiety attacks alone on the floor of her room, muffling the loud sounds of her sobs with pillows.

But whoever was listening to her cry through all this time, listened to her prayers and sent an angel into her life. Y/N met Matt two years ago in a cafe in the city completely by accident, the barista at the cafe ended up getting confused with their orders and handed Matt's to Y/N and vice versa, the two only realizing it after the first sip.

And since then Y/N no longer had to face her fears alone, her refuge in difficult times stopped being her cold and lonely bed and became Matt, with whom she could lean on in all the sad and happy moments too, and the best thing being that she, having experience with herself, could help him with his own anxiety attacks, the two of them moving towards a better mental place together.

But despite the willpower to improve and all the effort, there were days when it became more difficult. Y/N had woken up that morning with a bitter taste in her mouth and a heavy head, feeling like something was going to happen, and she wasn't wrong.

The day went by with a heavy air, the girl staying at home all day since it was a Sunday and Matt spent the day filming with his brothers the podcast that would be posted the next day, and all the weight that lived in the walls of her house seemed to have been transferred to Y/N's back, she couldn't remember the last time she felt that, and the fact that she wouldn't see Matt that day only made it worse.

At the end of the day Y/N understood why she woke up with the heavy feeling. Her mother was cooking something in the kitchen for dinner that would be served soon, which the girl was sure she would just grab a plate and go up to her room to eat alone, but during the process of making the food, her mother let some glass escape from her hands, making a thunderous noise.

Y/N was startled by the sound, getting up and running downstairs without thinking, just worried about her mother and wanting to understand what had happened, but while the girl calmed her mother who seemed in shock over the broken plate, her mind began to scream danger.

Seconds later the sounds of heavy footsteps became present and it didn't take long for the male screams to be heard, her father releasing several curses along with insults towards her mother and, consequently, towards herself as well.

Y/N felt numb, her father's voice becoming a background sound as a buzzing settled in her head. The girl wasted no time and ran upstairs, all she wanted was to get away from the fight.

It didn't take much more than a minute and she found herself closing the door with a bang, throwing herself on the floor next to her bed and curling up in a fetal position, her throat making horrible sounds as she tried to draw in air, which never seemed to come enough.

Her heart was beating fast and her hands were shaking tirelessly.

In a moment of sanity, the girl crawled to the end of her bed to get her phone, thinking about the only one who could help her at the moment. Her fingers raced to the emergency contacts, seeing only one in the listing, Matt.

She quickly clicked it, putting it on speaker and dropping the phone on the floor.

"Hello my love, we're almost done here. I was thinking about calling you next, what do you think about... Y/N?" The boy answered with a smile in his voice, stopping talking when he noticed a sound like a strangulation in the background. "Y/N? Baby, please, what's going on?" He asked desperately, standing up quickly from his seat in the recording room on the other side of the phone, fully gaining his brothers' attention.

The girl couldn't respond, barely able to hear him properly, her mind just processing that she needed air, her eyes closed tightly as she felt as if her room was shrinking in size around herself.

"Baby stay with me, I'm coming, I'm coming. Stay with me..."

The male voice seemed to come and go in Y/N's ears, and what took less than 10 minutes seemed to take hours in her fragile mind. The sound of her bedroom window opening echoed through the room as Matt entered the pink-walled room after climbing the roof of the two-story house, already used to the action.

The boy quickly ran towards his girlfriend, throwing himself on the ground, kneeling next to her and hugging her tightly, trying to bring her mind back.

"I'm here, baby. I'm with you." He whispered incessantly against Y/N's ear, feeling her smaller body tremble against his. "Baby, I need you to take a deep breath for me. Stretch, come on." He spoke, helping her straighten her spine and stretching her legs, leaving her sitting in an L-shaped position. "Can you breathe through your nose for me?" Matt asked, watching carefully his girlfriend's face, feeling his heart tighten at her state, her lips trembling, her cheeks hot and rosy, her face tense and her eyebrows furrowed.

Y/N tried to do as requested, finally being able to identify her boyfriend's voice, but the action seemed to lead nowhere.

"Come on, my love, I know you can do it." He asked in a whisper, feeling his eyes burn with tears. Upon seeing Y/N's difficulty in fulfilling the request, he quickly approached and sealed her lips tightly, briefly remembering when the girl did the same to himself during one of his worst crises.

Y/N stood still, her hands still shaking and her heart beating hard, but her mind seemed to contain itself and the loud noise inside her fell silent.

The girl felt tears roll down her face, opening her eyes, her vision slowly getting used to everything after being in the dark for several minutes. She calmly pulled away from Matt, drawing a breath of air into her lungs, feeling relief at being able to do so.

Y/N looked at her boyfriend's face, seeing him smile in relief as tears rolled down his own eyes.

"Don't cry." She asked weakly, pulling him into a tight embrace, pressing her cheek against his, their tears mixing together.

Matt let out a tearful laugh, sniffling as he brought one of his hands to Y/N's hair, stroking the spot.

"I'm just glad you're okay."

"Thank you Matt." She thanked him, hearing him sigh happily. Y/N snuggled closer into Matt's arms, still not having the strength to get up from the floor and he didn't seem to want to do so yet either.

"I love you so much, my love." He whispered a few minutes later, kissing the top of her head. Matt slowly moved back after getting silence in response, looking at his girlfriend only to see her with her eyes closed and breathing lightly, sleep having taken over her weak body from the intense moment.

The sound of two knocks on the door made him look up, looking intently to the door and ready to protect his girl if necessary, but relief filled his heart when he saw that it was Y/N's mother.

The woman had her face between the door and the frame, ready to check if her daughter was okay after the mess in the kitchen, but her worried features were replaced by a soft smile when she saw her daughter and her boyfriend cradled together.

"Thank you." She whispered truthfully to Matt, earning a nod before carefully closing the door.

The mother walked towards her own room with a light heart, knowing that Matt would do anything to take care of and see her daughter well.

[fortheloveofwonderland]

Congratulations on your milestone!

If it’s not too late, I’d like to request Spencer/Reader post prison with this lyric.

“You’re the cure, and your eyes have dug me out of my grave more times than I could ever count. You’ve always been the one to breathe me back to life - The Cure by The Movielife

Thank you.

Oh how I love post prison angst! And this was the perfect song for, thank you darling!

You’re the Cure

Spencer Reid x Fem! Reader

Summary - you’ve always been the ray of light in Spencer Reid’s often dark life. But in the wake of his incarceration, can you be his cure?

CW - past drug addiction, past parental abandonment, mentions of Maeve arc, prison arc, emotionally distant Spencer, break ups, bad mental health, mentions of not eating and bathing, an almost relapse, heavy drinking, maybe one swear, tears, hopeful ending.

WC - 4.4k

Spencer Reid had never seen himself as someone who needed saving. Being forced to grow up at ten years old when his father abandoned him and his sick mother, had a way of instilling in him that when things went wrong, he could only rely on himself. 

His drug addiction only went to further perpetuate the notion that he was on his own. Even when his brain was muddled by the dilaudid he knew his team was aware of what was going on and not a single one of them ever said anything. 

So Spencer got used to fending for himself, keeping his emotional issues internalised. He loved his friends but he learnt not to count on them. As such he made a habit of keeping his cards close to his chest, never letting anyone in fully. 

Spencer Reid could only truly depend on one person and that was Spencer Reid. 

But then he met you. 

You admittedly joined the BAU at the worst possible time. Spencer was off work while he dealt with the grief of losing Maeve and he heard all about you through stories from Garcia and JJ. Both women described you as a bouncy, happy-go-lucky, ray of human sunshine. And to be perfectly honest, that filled Spencer with dread. 

It was one of the darker moments of his life and the idea of someone coming in and trying to force their light onto him was the last thing he needed. Spencer liked to deal with his trauma by wallowing in it on his own, he didn’t need other’s trying to cheer him up, to drag him out of the shadows. He wasn’t looking for someone to try and make it better, to take his pain away. 

And then you showed up and you breathed him back to life without even realising you were doing so.

From the moment he met you he had instinctively gravitated towards you, like you were magnets of opposing poles who were inherently drawn to one another. But his wounds caused by Maeve’s death were still so raw that he wasn’t in a position to open his heart up again. 

So the two of you fell into a wonderful friendship, probably the best one Spencer had ever had in his life. You were the light to his dark, the sunshine on his cloudy day. You were the first sip of coffee in the morning, the crisp pages of a new book. You were his favourite song. 

You were his cure. 

The whole team joked about the two of you, often referring to you as work husband and wife. Truthfully what you had was essentially a romantic relationship minus the intimacy. And at some point Spencer found the scars start to heal and his heart began to open up again without his realising. 

Almost two years after you joined the team, when Spencer kissed you for the first time, it was like the most natural thing in the world. 

You’d been leaving work together one night and you offered him a ride home like always but somedays Spencer enjoyed taking the metro to clear his head after particularly long days. 

He walked you to your car nonetheless and as you were saying goodbye he leant in and kissed the corner of your mouth as though it was something he did all the time. And then he kissed you again, this time directly on the lips and the strangest part of it was how it didn’t feel strange at all.

You never talked about what it meant but you didn’t need to. The next time the two of you went to the movies he slid his hands in yours as you walked towards the theatre. He spent the night with his arm protectively around your shoulders while you snuggled against him. 

And outside of your door after he walked you home, he kissed you again, this time much more passionately. You’d subsequently invited him in and the two of you finally took your relationship to a whole new level. 

You never defined your relationship per se. Somewhere over time Spencer started referring to you as his girlfriend and it was just so simple. 

Your relationship had grown and blossomed as though it was the easiest thing in the world, like you’d always meant to be together. Up until he’d met you, Spencer’s life had been full of complications but you were the least complicated thing in the world. 

You were the full stop to the end of all his paragraphs, you banished all the darkness from his life. You were the cure for everything that ailed him. 

But then he was arrested. 

Being locked in a cage for two and half months for a crime he didn’t commit brought all those demons out of the shadows that you had chased away with your light. He was sure even your sunny aura couldn’t bring him back from this. 

And after his release, he started shutting down. 

It started in small ways, ones in which you didn’t even really notice at first. Conversations became more one sided, his casual touches were few and far between. Then he started leaving for work earlier and earlier and you started getting used to waking up alone in an empty bed. 

During his stints of mandatory leave from the BAU you barely saw him and you knew that was by design. It became apparent that he was avoiding you, pushing you away along with the rest of the team. 

But you weren't the rest of the team. You were his partner, you shared a home together; a life together. You were once able to pull him out of any hell he was going through without even really trying. But this time he seemed so lost you worried he’d never find his way back to you. 

Even when he was home, mentally he was elsewhere. Perhaps he was still stuck inside a prison cell at Milburn, or maybe he was trapped in a perpetual nightmare that revolved around Cat Adams. 

You tried to comfort him, to offer him a reprieve from his dark thoughts but after so many attempts you gave up trying. There was only so much you could do and to be perfectly honest, you didn’t think there was any way of freeing him from the clutches of his monsters. 

Seven months after his release from prison, the two of you called time on your relationship. 

You moved out of his apartment and in with Penelope as a temporary measure while you found your own place. You took an indefinite leave of absence from the BAU while you worked on piecing your life back together. 

You didn’t see or speak to Spencer for several months that followed the break up. You made Penelope promise you not to tell you anything pertaining to him, it wasn’t your job to worry about him anymore. And even thought it killed her to do so, Penelope agreed to do this one thing for you. 

Spencer had allowed himself to get swallowed up in the darkness and this time even your magnificent light wasn’t enough to cure him.

***

Three months after the break up you still felt just as fragile as you did the day you moved out of his apartment. Your heart had taken a beating, it was bruised and battered and it would take a long time for it to heal, you knew that. But after three months you thought you might have made some progress. Instead you were still stuck at square one.

You’d moved out of Penelope’s last month into a tiny little studio apartment not far from Dupont Circle. You hated it if you were honest, but it was better than continuing to put Garcia out by sleeping on her couch. 

You hadn't been back to the BAU since the break up and had recently started looking for other jobs. You’d interview at the DC Field Office and were hopeful to get an offer, but it would be bitter sweet. You loved the BAU, you didn’t want to leave, but you knew you couldn’t work with Spencer again. Not with the way your heart shattered everytime you simply thought his name. 

You were trying to move on, it was all you could do. But what you didn’t realise was Spencer living in a whole new level of hell. 

***

The final nail in Spencer Reid’s coffin was when you moved out of the apartment. And what made it a harder pill to swallow was the fact it was his own fault you’d done so. 

He’d thought he’d been protecting you by bottling up his emotions and not dragging you down into the pit created by his time in prison. He thought if he didn’t talk about it, it would go away. This was one thing you couldn’t shield him from, one thing he needed to work through on his own the way he’d grown so accustomed to doing before he met you. 

But he’d pushed you too far, right out the door. And from there his life simply spiralled out of control. 

He left the BAU, just up and quit one day without any warning. He knew it was terrible timing with you taking a leave of absence but he couldn’t stop himself. He woke up one day and decided he’d had enough. 

For the months that followed he didn’t leave his apartment much at all. He wasn’t eating properly, wasn’t showering as frequently as he should and barely sleeping more than a couple of fretful hours a night. 

To be alone with himself like this for eternity would be agony. Without you there to breathe him back to life his appetite for living died. 

On one of his rare trips outside of the four walls of his tiringly lonely apartment, he brought a vial of dilaudid. He kept it in the middle of his coffee table for weeks, unopened, just as a reminder that he could take it if he wanted to. 

But thankfully it never did come to that. Instead of getting high, a particular rabbit hole he may never find his way out of, he drank. 

In actuality, it wasn’t much better and he knew that. Just because he’d never had a dependency to alcohol before didn’t mean he couldn’t develop one, clearly he was susceptible to addiction. But drinking was the only thing that helped numb the pain, aided in distancing himself from his tormented thoughts. 

Without you the demons were able to sneak closer and he lived with them among the shadows. You were always the one to shoulder the brunt of his misery but now he had to face it alone because he’d pushed you away. The lightness in your heart that he had always envied was gone, casting him forever into blackness.

He needed you here, the cure when his thoughts turned to cyanide, when he was going out of his fucking mind. 

He’d been drunk for more days straight than he could count and with each passing day the dilaudid grew more tempting. He moved it from the coffee table more often, rolling the vial around his hand, tapping his nails against it; contemplating the sweet release that would come with just one hit. 

But it never would be just one hit. 

The things he’d seen and done in prison haunted his every waking breath and seeped over into the small window of sleep he managed. He was never going to be the same after that experience, it had hardened him in a way he never realised possible. 

It had created a shell around his heart, a solid armour snugly encasing the organ in order to protect himself from his own emotions. But ultimately it hadn’t just been himself his emotions had been locked away from. 

In the seven months you stayed by his side after his release he hadn’t once been able to tell you he loved you. It only occurred to him after you walked away that he hadn’t said that to you since the morning he’d left for Mexico. 

In seven months the most physical contact the two of you had was a few occasions when you’d dared to place a kiss on his cheek. You hadn’t kissed properly, hadn’t been intimate, hadn’t even so much as held hands since before he made the decision to go to Mexico. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t think about it. There were multiple times he’d almost initiated something, almost drawn you into his body when you were laying in bed side by side yet miles apart. But he always stopped himself.

The sad fact of the matter was: Spencer didn’t trust himself to be with you anymore. But in order to survive in prison he’d had to become someone he didn’t recognise and it wasn’t so easy for him to shed that new persona. And as if to really drive that point home, when he’d had Cat pinned against the wall with his hand around her throat, he knew he would never trust himself with you again. 

The darkness was inside of him now, leaching into every pore. If he was the kind of man who could have killed Cat, or Scratch, and slept well afterwards, who’s to say where he would draw that line? 

As much as he missed you with every strangled beat of his shattered heart, keeping you away from him kept you safe. And he only ever wanted you to be safe. 

But without you, he may well meet his demise at the bottom of a bottle, or the bottom of a vial.

You were the cure. Your eyes have dug him out of his grave more times than he could ever count. You’ve always been the one to breathe him back to life. 

And so maybe it was inevitable that he called you, perhaps it was a feat in itself that he’d managed months on his own. But when he found himself on his bathroom floor, half a bottle of whiskey clouding his brain and a needle full of dilaudid in his hand, the only thing that was going to stop his relapse was you.

He didn’t expect you to answer but he prayed you would. And maybe someone was looking out for him, maybe there was some kind of higher power smiling down on him because you answered after three rings. 

“Spencer…” your voice was barely above a whisper as you spoke his name. Just those two simple syllables from your lips wrapped him in a blanket of your warmth. 

“H-hi Y/N.” His own was hoarse, run down. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d spoken out loud and it showed. 

Tears rolled down his cheeks, heavy and thick as the hand holding the needle trembled. 

“Did you…did you want something?” Your voice held the weight of the pain he’d cause you and made even more tears fall. 

“Uh…” he stared at the needle, brushing his thumb along the plastic tube. This was so unfair of him. He couldn’t do this to you, drag you back into his mess like this. He knew if he asked you would come running in a heartbeat. But it wasn’t fair of him to ask. “It’s nothing. Forget I called.” 

“Are you sure?” Your tone was riddled in concern. 

“Y-yeah. Sure. V-very sure.” He stuttered, choking a little on his own tears. 

Before you could reply he hung up the phone before he could change his mind and beg you to come and save him from himself. He tossed the device aside and focused on the needle. He leant back against the bathroom wall, pulling his knees up to meet his chest. 

The cool tile on his bare feet was a nice repreve, but the dilaudid would be better. 

His shirt sleeve was already pushed up to his elbow, the tie was already secured around his bicep. The needle was full, all he had to do was press it into his waiting vein and all of his problems would melt away. 

But this was one grave he may never be able to dig himself out of. Once he relapsed there would be no going back, no getting sober this time. But his sobriety didn’t mean as much to him as it once had, and perhaps it was worth succumbing to his demons for a chance at peace.

***

Despite how hard he tried to sound like himself, it was easy for you to see through Spencer’s thinly veiled lie. And as much as you didn’t want to involve yourself anymore, you couldn’t help yourself. 

Taking care of Spencer Reid came as naturally to you as breathing. You didn’t intend on doing it, and most of the time he didn’t need looking after. But you did it anyway in small, every day ways. 

You did it in the way you made him coffee every morning before work. You did it in the way you ran your fingers through his hair after a stressful day. You did it in the way you grasped his hand when he needed something to ground him, when you offered him a soft smile of encouragement when he needed it. 

He’d always called you his cure, as though you were the antidote to all the horrors in the world. He’d told you that your smile was the sweetest medicine, that your mere presence in his life was therapeutic. 

So if there was any way you could help him, even after he’d pushed you away and caused you to leave, you would find it and you would do it. Which was why after he hung up on you, you were quickly jumping in your car and driving across town to the apartment you used to reside in. 

The door wasn’t just unlocked but it was open a crack. Immediately your heart started to race and you were so glad you hadn’t officially quit the BAU yet and you were still in possession of your firearm. 

Your hand shook as you pulled the weapon from your holster, nudging the door further open with your shoulder. You made quick work of taking in the room. It looked to be ransacked, like someone had broken in and turned the place upside down in search of something. 

You held your breath as you silently started across the room, manoeuvring in and out of piles of debris left behind in someone's wake. You headed towards the closed bedroom door, gun pointing right ahead of you. You focused your hearing but thus far couldn’t make out any distinctive sounds. 

Pushing open the door, you found the bedroom in much the same state as the living room. You tried not to allow yourself to get sentimental as your eyes swept across the unmade bed and you thought back to late nights and early mornings snug beneath those sheets with Spencer. The bed that was so big but you’d never know it as he always kept you as close as humanly possible. 

The bathroom door, like the front door, was open a crack and a light pooled from inside. It was then you heard the sound of haggard breathing punctuated by loud sniffing, causing the hairs on the back of your neck to well and truly stand to attention. 

As you listened to the unmistakable sounds of a grown man sobbing, you lowered your gun and tucked it back in your holster. 

A deeply disturbed and troubled man had ravaged this apartment but it was not the work of some petty criminal. Spencer had turned his home into a reflection of his own tortured mind, you had no doubt. 

You were somehow more tentative after you knew someone hadn’t broken in. You had never seen Spencer cry before, he always liked to put up a tough exterior, probably something to do with him being the baby of the BAU for so many years. 

You’d seen him vulnerable, probably more than he’d ever let anyone else see him, but you’d never witnessed him with his walls stripped away completely. And honestly, the thought of it scared you a little. 

But no matter how scared you were, despite how much he had hurt you, you pressed on. 

You inched open the bathroom not wanting to startle him and found him on the floor, hugging his legs to his chest and sobbing into his knees. But the truly terrifying part was the vial and needle discarded at his side. A silk tie was fashioned into a tourniquet around his arm.

“S-Spencer?” You gasped, covering your gaping mouth with your hands. 

He stiffened and slowly lifted his head from where it had been buried in the fabric of his slacks. His eyes were red rimmed and tears silently streamed down his cheeks. His hair drooped lifelessly onto his forehead and his face clearly hadn’t seen a razor in months. 

He somehow looked even worse than when you visited him in prison. 

“Why are you here?” His voice cracked and his words were slightly slurred. 

“You didn’t sound like yourself on the phone. I needed to see you with my own eyes.” You heard the sadness in your own tone, unable to hide it. 

“I’m not myself.” He exhaled a breath that sounded like he had been holding it in for years. “I haven’t been since prison.” 

You swallowed, daring to take a few steps further into the bathroom. Spencer let his legs fall and stretch out in front of him on the linoleum and you slid down to sit next to him, the only thing separating you was the drug paraphernalia. As if reading your mind he exhaled again before he spoke.

“I didn’t take it.” He wouldn’t look at you, instead he looked down at his hands. “I wanted to, but I didn’t.” 

“Why are you slurring then?” You watched the side of his face. He clenched and unclenched his jaw several times. 

“Whiskey. Not dilaudid. I swear.” 

“I’ve never known you to drink.” Of course it was a relief that he hadn’t taken the drugs, but hearing that he was drunk wasn’t a whole lot better. 

“I hadn’t had a drink in nearly ten years. I gave it up around the same time as I quit dilaudid, I guess I worried it would become one vice replacing another. But I needed something. And alcohol was the lesser of two evils.” He was still slurring but he was surprisingly coherent. 

It didn’t surprise you in the least that Spencer could still string a logical sentence together when he was inebriated. 

“Why did you call me, Spencer? Of all the people you could have called, why me?” You whispered as though you weren’t entirely sure you really wanted an answer to that. 

He finally looked at you, glancing to his side with his eyebrows knitted together in confusion. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip in contemplation for a moment or two as though formulating a carefully curated answer. But really, the answer was incredibly simple. 

“Because you’re my cure.” He shrugged, his tears had dried up but the stains on his cheeks remained. “And right now I am in desperate need of remedy.” 

“Spencer…” You sighed, your own eyes misting over with tears. “I was always here for you, you could have talked to me about anything but instead you shoved me aside and tried to deal with things on your own.”

“I’ve never been very good at asking for help. I’ve only ever been able to rely on myself. People leave. People aren’t reliable. But you…” he trailed off, shaking his head. “You brought the kind of sunshine into my life I could only dream of. You have saved me in more ways than you will ever know. Your mere existence in my life has been more help to me than I can explain to you. That’s why I call you my cure, because it's the best way I can think to describe what you are to me.” 

“I knew you would be different after prison, Spencer. No decent man can go through an experience like that and come out unchanged. But in your bones you are still the Spencer Reid I fell in love with.” You tried to tell him much like you had countless times in those torrid seven months. You hoped this time he might actually hear it. 

“I’m really not sure that I am, Y/N.” He raked his fingers through his tangled hair with a meek shake of his head. 

“I am.” You nodded. “I’m sure. Spencer, whatever you had to do inside was for your own protection. It was every man for himself and you did what you did to survive. And Cat…? After everything she’s done to you, I wanted to strangle the bitch too.” 

Spencer’s eyes widened, looking a little like deer caught in headlights. He was gnawing on his bottom lip haphazardly as he stared at you. 

“Really?” 

“Yes, Spencer.” 

“Do you really think I can come back from this?” 

“Yes, Spencer.” You repeated, defiance in your voice. “And I’m going to help you. Whether you want me to or not. Because my love for you is stronger than the pain you caused me. I will be by your side, showering you in light until there is not even a sliver of a shadow for your demons to hide in. Let me be your cure, Spence.” 

You reached out your hands towards him, palm upwards and fingers spread to create enough space for his own to slot between them. He glanced between your face and your hand a few times before his lip quipped up ever so slightly at the corner in a small smile. 

And then he reached for you, his fingers finding those spaces between your own that always seemed like they were made intentionally to fit his. It was as though someone had crafted you both perfectly for each other. 

Spencer had never been a believer in higher powers but it was the only reason he could fathom for how you had found him. 

In a world consisting of nearly eight billion people, what were the chances of the two of you meeting? What were the odds of two perfectly imperfect people finding each other and slotting together in such an inconceivably faultless way? 

As you sat there hand in hand, Spencer knew he would do anything to keep you by his side for as long as he lived. Even if it meant allowing you to see all his flaws, all his cracks. Because he was certain now you would love every one of his broken pieces. 

You were the light casting away his shadows. You were the air being breathed into his lungs. You were the thread holding him together. 

You were the cure. 

[solarianastrology]

ASTRO OBSERVATIONS!!!

I just made this blog to post my astro observations, learn more, and interact with others into astrology. I've been studying astrology for 2 years and heavily focus in medical astrology, but I love it all.

DISCLAIMER: These are my observations from my personal experiences with these placements and energies. They may or may not apply to you. Astrology is not the end all be all, it's simply the possibilities and in your birth chart, you determine the outcome. There's duality to everything.

Let's get into these observations>>>>>>

If you've ever paid attention to degrees, you've probably noticed this pattern. Let's take Aries for example. The Aries degrees are 1, 13, and 25. Aries is of the cardinal modality and fire element in astrology.

Let me get to the point >>>>> In astrology, 1 degree is Aries, so is 13 and 25, but let's take a closer look at these numbers. When you add 1+3, you get 4, which is Cancer, a cardinal water sign. When you add 2+5 you get 7, which represents Libra, a cardinal air sign. The degrees coincide with the signs of that same modality.

Another example: Taurus is 2 degrees and its fixed earth sign. The other degrees that represent Taurus are 14 and 26. 1+4 is 5, which is a Leo degree, a fixed fire sign. When you add 2+6, you get 8 which is Scorpio, a fixed water sign. You see the pattern?

Most Pluto 2H natives I know that are undeveloped have an unhealthy attachment to extremely materialistic items (if that makes any sense, lol) such as designer or the most trending fashions. I've seen some go broke buying shoes and clothes, travelling, and I could be wrong but I think it's to give them a temporary sense of self-worth or value. The key with Pluto here is to get in touch with what is truly of value to you instead of what society deems valuable in outer appearance. When you transform your value system, the constant ups and downs with finances, stability, and self-worth will improve. Learn yourself, love yourself, evolve yourself.

In my opinion, Libra's are the most manipulative sign, and this is coming from a Libra. Don't get me wrong, Cancers can be very manipulative emotionally, but they don't care to have you around if you negatively affect their mood. Most manipulators need to manipulate because they need something from you whether it be something physical or not. Geminis manipulate for fun and out of boredom lol, it's not too much reason and they are very independent and can connect with almost anyone, so they don't take the top for me either. Scorpios are known for this, I know... but it's Libra's need for relationships that get me. Libras are balance and anything tipping the scale will cause an imbalance and that's the last thing any Libra wants. Some will do almost anything to keep the peace and not to mention the charm. Heavy Libra placements, especially Sun, Venus, and Mercury's words and deliverance are magnetic. They can manipulate almost any situation. and don't forget they are VERY intelligent. (AIR)

Pisces Rising's are always so beautiful in an out of this world way, like I can stare at them and just admire their beauty, almost like a painting.

Those with Sagittarius Suns in Pisces degrees are healers. They also have an expansive imagination which can sometimes lead to unrealistic or more fantasy thoughts frequently. Beautiful inventions and ideas but it's important that Ya'll sometimes put focus into the details of things and how to actually make those ideas practical so that they manifest physically.

In order to manifest anything, you need all four elements. You first begin with the imagination/visions (FIRE), then you have to connect with that thought emotionally (WATER) to give the thought meaning and reason. Through connecting with that thought you develop thoughts that support that feeling, you gather information (AIR), your mind knows what direction to go in in order to make it a reality. Now you make the thoughts a reality by putting in the practical work (EARTH) to make it physical.

Chiron 3H natives are so smart but with a lot of them I know, the education system made them feel like they weren't because of their unique way of acquiring knowledge. They like to learn on their own and in their own way to build confidence in the knowledge they know. Just because a teacher taught them something one way, doesn't make it the only way. Just because some information came from one source, doesn't make it credible or true, they dig deeper and find their own meaning.

Virgo risings are so well put together and they know it. They not only see the flaws in everything and everybody, but they see it in themselves. I find it beautiful and quite classy that they don't judge anyone despite being able to see the imperfections in others but instead strive for perfection in self. They'll never make a bad first impression.

Cancer moons feel deeply but they are not crybabies, (at least not in front of others). They don't try to suppress their emotions, nor do they try to show them too much, they sort of let them flow. They have a keen understanding of emotions.

Okay thats it! THANK YOUUU

[luckypoppymilliemama]

I am seriously so saddened to realize people have used my name and my cat to steal money from some of you. This is crazy, never, ever did I think that my Poppy would be used negatively.

Let’s give a little rundown of who we are. I’m Michelle, a 30-something year old married mama to 3 skin kittens, and 3 fuzzy kittens. One of my skin kittens is an adult, the other two are rapidly approaching attempting to leave the nest. I am disabled, physically and mentally which leads to emotionally, too. My fuzzy kittens help a lot with that.

2 summers ago, a friend texted me asking if I wanted a kitten. Of course I did. Then I found out she was a feral kitten that her mama had left behind because her one back leg was missing a foot, so she couldn’t climb and jump like the rest of the kittens were, and she was getting too heavy to carry in her mouth. That kitten now only have 3 legs, and is my Lucky baby.

Come early February of the next year, I saw on a friend’s aunts rescue site two of the most gorgeous little calico kittens I had ever seen. I claimed them before Valentine’s Day, even though I wouldn’t be able to get them until after Mother’s Day since they were slow to grow. They were attached at the hip, there was no way I could get one and not the other. Those were my Poppy girl and Millie moon.

That’s how I ended up with my fuzzy kittens. They are the best fuzzy kittens I have ever met. All 3 of them have a different job in calming me and my middle daughter down while in emotional crisis. Poppy is and has always been that calming rumble that you try to concentrate on instead of everything else that is happening. And it works more than anyone would believe.

Poppy is sick. My go fund me has all the explanations and updates you could ever need; I even have to add the email with the vet when she gets a chance to email back to me. I have endless pictures and videos to show she is my little love.

Please, if you can, share this post anywhere and everywhere, across all forms of social media. My follower numbers are so low, I’m surprised it’s not a negative number. I know a bunch of you got scammed, and I’m sorry. I really am. If I could make it better, I would.

Myself, I’ve even cut back some of my less essential but still needed medications so I have the money to get Poppy the treatment she deserves. I just need my baby girl to be better. It’s time sensitive because we honestly don’t know how much time she has left with her red blood cell count being in the low 10s percent wise (I think it was 13-14% last time, and it should be above 35). I am extremely transparent in what I show you all because if you are helping pay for it, I figure you have a right to see where the care is going and what it’s being used for.

We are trying to get the maximum amount of funding so we can get all the testing done because the liver and spleen are just as important as the bone marrow biopsy, but we will not look a gift horse in the mouth. Whatever we get it, it’s another cent that we didn’t have to scrounge around to find, another minute off the ever clicking clock.

Best ways to donate: to the hospital itself:

Philadelphia Animal Specialty and Emergency

Dial 267-727-3738, press 2, ask to place a credit on Poppy Riggs account, #FE22554C. All of this info is able to be found on the images in the gofundme.

The Gofundme. It is the *only* go fund me I have up. Anything else is a scam.

These account below are the only official ways to donate outside of the gofundme.

My email is listed below, and I am willing to answer any and all questions via email or on here, your choice.

Thank you so much for helping. It means everything to us.

[gizkasparadise]

final leg of a journey to love thoughts!! (eps 35-40). this got so gd long so under a cut it goes. spoilers, of course:

PLOT STUFF/PACING

pacing for the plot definitely got shredded in the last chunk, which is a damn shame because otherwise i've been finding the pacing pretty much perfect. eps 35-37 in particular felt like they could have been like a 10 episode arc. ep 38, which mostly dealt with wu palace politics, should have been cut or streamlined imo and more time given to the characters we've actually been riding along with the whole story. by the time we get back to the pregnant empress, prince danyang, the first prince whose name i dont even remember, and the prime minister, i do not care about any of them and i think this subplot was simply just trying to fit too much shit into one bag

that said, this show still let the emotional moments hit and breathe and linger. i love the grief for the fallen liudao comrades as we go, as well as the less heavy but still emotionally important moments like yang ying and tongguan bonding over their upbringing. and we got a wedding /;3;/!!! for this show, the relationships and characters matter more than the storyline so im not mad about anything at all

side note: it's so gd millennial to have a story about a bunch of 30 something year olds who want to fake their deaths and retire into obscurity but instead they go and die for a boss they hate

CHARACTER STUFF

this show consistently brought a lot of depth to its side characters (and side side characters!!). i said it in an earlier post, but it bears repeating that even someone like deng hui i didnt expect anything from, but he got such good development and writing that he became a stealth fave. his dying words essentially being "dude, quit fucking around" ? iconic.

i didnt like tongguan as much as everyone else, so im pretty meh about everything regarding him. the attempt to force-wed ruyi was tonally really weird and didnt make sense (i assume there was some cuts made surrounding it). but LOL at him reusing all the outfits and decor immediately for his wedding to yang ying. baby duke, you tacky motherfucker. i ultimately think yang ying deserves better than him, but the good thing is that she knows this, so she'll be able to hold her own and then some entering into this partnership

shisan really was the heart in a lot of ways--the mom to yuanzhou's dad for the liudao. i was not expecting him to break my heart the way he did, but the fact that he held both qian zhao and sun lang as they died and then tried his best to remove yuan lu from harm and saved chu yue and was just very much a nurturer all the way through got me. his character couldve been cheap comic relief but the writing + performance really elevated him into one of the (imo) most memorable wuxia characters. his line wondering who would get to behead his beautiful skull!!! and how his mantra was always that he was going to drink the best wine, see the most beautiful women, and make the best of friends and he dies having lost the ability to see and having just had wine in memory of qian zhao, yuan lu, and sun lang. like. shut up!!

ruyi and yuanzhou were both so great and they're gonna be the drama OTP to beat forever. i loved the gender reversals, that they both were so respectful of each other, and that they also felt very mature in how they handled things and communicated. they were really interesting characters both together and apart and that's always a win-win. they had a schroedinger's ending where it's not super clear if they're alive or dead (i interpreted it as the latter), but what's kind of beautiful is that either option is satisfying to me. if they both died, they're reunited and with their comrades and the story is truly about the journey and the meaningful short connections we have. if they both survived, it's a bookend with the beginning where they each faked their deaths to escape. A+

COSTUMING

i gotta just separately mention the costuming for this show because it was 15/10. the textures, shisan's accessories, the way red became integrated with yuanzhou's wardrobe and blue with ruyi's. the details on the liudao name amulets!! SO GOOD. i love when characters' clothes tell a story on their own

overall i just really loved this drama it is probably my favorite wuxia ive seen so far! it's gonna be in my brain for awhile lol feel free to send fic prompts if you've made it this far :'D

[wisp-enclosure]

@mistfallengw2

OKAY SO THE LU AND KUDO FIGHTS DURING LWS2 AND HOT

There's a lot of moving pieces here.

So Kudo spends a good chunk of the personal story being unintentionally self-centered, and this includes a lot of letting Lu do things for him. Generally protecting him and leading the way.

By the end of the personal story he's gotten more self sufficient (he even does the aetherblade hideout part of lws1 without Lu!) but Lu is still in that mindset of "this is my little rat buddy I gotta protect him I have to help I have to-" basically still trying to do all the heavy lifting of being commander for him.

But by lws2 Kudo is self-sufficient. He's capable, both physically and emotionally, of doing what needs to be done as commander. But Lu still is in that same headspace as before. And it's not that Lu doesn't trust him, doing this is just in her nature. It's what she's always done, what she was raised to do. She'll say up and down that they're partners and co-commanders and equals but then she'll put herself in harm's way or put her own comfort at risk just to spare him.

AND THEN, the other half of it, is that Lu has spent her whole life hiding her emotional pain so she won't drag other people down (and per that last post, probably can't even conceptualize it herself) so she's gotten VERY GOOD at giving the impression that she's never bothered by anything. She's carefully curated these masks to wear in public and she hasn't really been caught yet.

Until the rat.

Kudo spent most of his life walking on eggshells around his father and is very good at picking up on slight changes in mood. It's a defense mechanism. But it means he was ALSO able to see the slight cracks in Lu's facade, even from the personal story. And he's only noticed more and more as things progress.

By lws2 Kudo considers Lu his very best (maybe only?) friend, so he does what any friend would do. Worry. He's certainly been through the wringer emotionally the past 3 years or so and Lu's always been there to comfort him. But she's never confided in him and he can SEE that there is more bubbling under the surface that she isn't telling him.

So: Kudo begins to pick at the cracks in Lu's emotional walls. He asks her if she's okay, what's bothering her, if she needs to talk. She brushes him off, lightheartedly at first. Kudo, you silly billy, Lu is just fine!! Stop asking questions. Just accept things as they are. That's how it's always been.

But Kudo never stops. And the more he pesters the more annoyed she gets, but the more annoyed she gets the more Kudo knows something is wrong.

Lu becomes incredibly frustrated. Nobody's ever done this to her before, this is new territory and she hates it. Everyone always takes her "yes I'm okay"s at face value and she prefers it that way because it makes things easier. Because if she tells the truth then she'll be a burden and the thought of that makes her sick, and to be honest she doesn't even know WHAT she's feeling, just that it's bad. So everyone should just ignore it because that's what she's going to do.

A few times near the end of lws2 she DOES blow up a little at him, which does nothing but strengthen his resolve (guardian problems™️). Kudo, why can't you just let it go?? Lu's fine okay!! What's with you lately, why are you bringing this up all of a sudden? Can't you just let things be the way they were before, with Zhaitan?

So HoT happens and things are a bit frosty between them for a chunk of it. Lu's pissed because she knows he's just going to want to talk about her feelings and ever since he brought the damn topic up SHE'S been thinking about her feelings and she never used to do that! And it sucks!!! And meanwhile Kudo's frustrated because he can absolutely see that she's hurting and struggling but refuses to let him help her! She's being so obstinate! And even though they're supposed to be a team she's trying to do everything by herself.

They have one major fight over it while everyone makes camp that their friends actually get to catch the tail end of. But the BIG fight doesn't happen until the egg chamber trials.

The catrats complete them all, but the doors to the chamber still won't open, for whatever reason. Snippy comments are thrown back and forth and before long there's a huge blowout argument. Basically everything from before but magnified. Actual yelling on both sides.

It culminates when Lu screams at him to just drop it, why does he care so damn much?? And Kudo snaps back instantly. Because she's his friend! She's his friend and he cares about her and he's worried! She's spent the past few years trying to do everything by herself and he can see it killing her. They're supposed to be co-commanders. A team! She can't carry the weight of the world by herself. Please, please please let him help her shoulder that burden. They can carry it together.

Lu's breath hitches. She no longer sees her little rat buddy she needed to protect and coddle. She sees her best friend; the only other person in the world that understands what she's going through.

She does something she has never done in front of another person before. She cries. Kudo is momentarily startled, but cradles her cheek in his palm and wipes some tears away. She makes a motion to remove his hand but stops herself partway.

Kudo apologizes for bothering her so much, but he worries about her, he just wanted her to be okay. Lu tells him that she's can't promise it will be instant, but she will try to open up more to him. He tells her to take all the time she needs, he'll be there.

And the door to the egg chamber opens.

[eccentric-nucleus]

so, i finally finished (posting) my huge, novel-length teenage mutant ninja turtles fanfic. i just posted the final epilogue over on ao3!

here is my director's commentary on it, if you want to read even more about it. this contains spoilers for the whole thing. maybe read the epilogue first and sit with that for a minute. also this will probably be pretty incoherent if you haven't read the whole thing. it's just a disconnected series of thoughts i have about the story, really

man, this story. this is maybe the longest thing i've ever written? like 'the new hive' and 'hell game' had more words (i think) but they were mostly a disconnected series of sex scenes with thin connective tissue between them. this is ~200k words of a single, linear, mostly-plot narrative. i'm writing scenes that aren't just about getting the two leads to fuck!! that's weird. it's definitely the most ambitious thing i've written. kind of weird that it's tmnt fanfic. that's just how it worked out, i guess.

so back in 2022 i watched the rise of the tmnt movie because people kept talking about the animation quality of the fights and that got me into a spiral of actually paying attention to the ninja turtles. i had never been into them & genuinely i think a huge part of getting into tmnt stuff was that rise actually varied the design of the turtles so that they weren't all basically identical save for color-coding. turns out visual design was the missing mystery ingredient.

also in 2022 i was burning out on writing 'goblin cave', when what i had intended to be a fun little writing exercise ended up getting algorithmically surfaced and getting me hundreds of comments on each chapter. that got a little stressful and i wasn't really enjoying that, so i stopped. but i was like, hmm you know i mostly just write weird porn but maybe i should write something a little more ambitious. with a plot, and everything. 'goblin cave' was (in my mind) all about a character who was created for violence deciding art was a much more worthwhile pursuit. but the main character of that doesn't know what art is. because it's a magical dungeon core. and i was still thinking a lot about dead zones of the imagination, by david graeber. so i was like, okay, let's do this again but in a slightly more self-authentic way and make it weird gay porn with weird animal dicks. let's give michelangelo ninjaturtle a monologue about how the powerful are utterly insulated from any consequence.

(also early on, after watching most of rottmnt, i stumbled across this blog post about the tmnt comics and the end of the world. that ended up being deeply influential on the fic too. i've been kinda in a state for the past few years and this fic is absolutely a part of me working through a lot of complicated feelings about the world and the future. lol people talk so much about people writing dark fic 'to cope' but this was pretty much the first time i've outsourced my emotional processing by having bad things happen to fictional characters.)

so uhhh where to start here. the setting of the fic is this complicated messy mashup of a half-dozen tmnt continuities. it's very rise-heavy, since... that was the only series i had watched(/read) when i had determined the major plot points, but there's a lot of bits and pieces from all over.

to roughly outline the characters here, a huge influence on mikey's personality in this is... mikey's 'dr delicate touch' persona in rottmnt. in the sense that... okay yes yes that is a kid's show and all of his dr delicate touch lines are, you know, setups and punchlines. you think he's going to be nice but actually he's mean! etc. but in-universe it's like, wait hold on a second. mikey is like the most emotionally-intelligent of the four. he absolutely knows when people are on the edge of flipping out and need a calming out to a stressful situation. and instead he freaks them out more! mikey's hobby is: being mean to his friends & family, for fun! what a fun character trait.

i was thinking about this tweet a lot, too. i read some writing advice once that people tend to make characters who are supposed to be likable too squeaky-clean. nothing but positive character traits for them! but actually every 'positive' character trait is exactly the same as a 'negative' one; it's just a matter of focus and degree. a character is light-hearted and comedic? they can never take things seriously, even when they really should. a character is willing to do anything to protect the people they love? so they're violent and threatening and scary if they happen to decide you're something that they need to protect against. etc. i was really dedicated in this to bringing out the worst characteristics of everybody's personalities.

mikey was also very deeply inspired by: all the garbage progression fantasy stuff i've been reading. i've complained about this several times on this very blog, but a constant theme in most progression fantasy is 1. the main character will constantly get more and more powerful and 2. the main character will never really have their relationship with the rest of the world changed via that power. it's just stat-ups. they just have higher stats so they're more powerful. mikey is the most powerful person on the planet and it's fucking ruining his life. he knows that there's nobody capable of actually checking his behavior, & he's in this constant state of thinking he's maybe a few bad days away from murdering half the planet and incredibly aware there's not really anything he can do about that aside from constantly worry. he's kind of an anxious mess.

mikey absolutely thinks it's more ethical to murder somebody out of the sheer glee of seeing people crushed before you than murdering somebody for something as tedious as mob orders. you're satisfying a deep, raw desire felt from the heart! that's good!

what he'd like to do, in some sense, is just hang out in his studio and chill with other artists, but he knows the world is not gonna let him do that. things will come up. a lot of his being a creepy bystander thing while people get murdered is b/c he's very much formulated his morality to be like... it is not his responsibility to fix other people's problems. other people will do what they want and that has no bearing on him. is that a pretty cowardly and self-serving morality? sure! but he was kinda designed to rule the world & his flinch away from that pretty much defines him as a character in this. that's kinda the morality he needed to end up on to convince himself not to be a genocide machine.

he's incredibly aware he could basically be a superhero, & all it would take is... giving up on all his hopes and dreams and constantly engage with his abilities. and being a superhero isn't that many steps removed from living up to his full design spec and just taking over the world and ruling as god-emperror. idk how well i hit all those notes in the actual fic, but, that's what i was going for. mikey as the narrator clearly doesn't want to talk or think about it so it's never really directly confronted.

raph is... okay so i guess a fairly common piece of fanon, for rise especially, is to characterise raph as having multiple personalities? whether that's him just having alters or him having full-blown MPD depends on the fic. my fun little nod to that is that he's kind of a disassociative mess. he has kind of failed to reconcile the disparate aspects of his personality and he switches between one of several different facades depending on the situation. also, you know. the trauma.

(i didn't really mean for it to be as such, but there is this theme in the story about names? despite everything else mikey has a crystal-clear self-conception of himself and has one name, which he gave himself. raph, who has kinda failed to build his own personality, has a collection of name other people have given him, none of which he feels actually fits him. donnie has a more fluid self-identity and also has roughly a million aliases and false identities & constantly slips in and out of character when it's convenient. leatherhead still going by the name mikey gave him goes hand-in-hand with that bit where mikey meanly thinks about how maybe leatherhead's entire self-conception is hung up on something mikey said to him once, etc. this is one of those things that i'd go back and make more present if i did go back and clean up the rough draft, b/c as it is it's there, but it doesn't really do a whole lot.)

--

this fic was inspired by... i had read a few big aus that were just like, taking the characters and loose bits of setting and going off in completely different directions. some of NeiNing's aus were a definite influence, plus like, this one au where raph is an ex-con mechanic, etc, etc. just like "i am going to play out a completely unrelated drama using turtles as the dolls". maybe most directly influential was Of Knights and Thieves, where donnie & mikey are corporate espionage hacker/thief types and raph & leo are do-gooder vigilantes. the original concept for this was much more heavily focused on the art forgery. in a very early draft the idea was leo would get involved much more actively in trying to track down the creator of the false takenobus. then i was like, "i am going to crash a completely separate story concept about the dark armor into the side of this art-forgery story". the filename for the story is still 'lol grindr hookup art thief'. that is not really where the story went.

oh man, the art stuff. i made some posts about this at the time! that are now several years old. here's one! i did end up getting a traditional woodcut printing of Tokaido 53 stations, no. 11, Hokone. in a lot of ways doing all the art research was more satisfying and fun than writing the extensive downward spiral that was the latter half of the fic. but, hey, that's life too i guess.

also raph in this is... okay, so, i don't mean this in a mean way. i really liked the fics! but cndrow has written several raph/donnie fics where raph is just like... like a repeated theme in them is raph confessing eternal love & talking about how he's like, mentally planning on them being together forever. on the first date. and sure sure everybody has different tastes; i'm absolutely sure that my interest in guys who are mean leads to some stories that are extremely offputting to some people, etc. but it's like, oh man, raph, please slow your roll a little. if somebody said they were planning our future wedding all of ten minutes into talking to me i would flee the room. & the raph in blinded by the summer sun is very much inspired by that. sadly, i never fully committed to that. originally i even had a line in chapter 9 where slash was like 'please tell me you didn't drop the 'i love you forever' on this guy already' to imply that that was, you know, a theme for raph, but i chickened out and cut it. raph as a kind of rolling series of bad relationships characterized by him falling forever in love w/ his latest crush until the relationship detonates and leaves him not really understanding how things went wrong. but i don't think that's expressed well like, at all. but that ideally should characterize a large part of why he keeps chasing after mikey even well after the point where it would be reasonable to disengage. also to convey some of the downsides of a character believing in true love. it's rough out there in the world.

also thank you tumblr user averyterrible for writing this goncharov post. that was the point in the story where i was like, actually i have been writing raph as way too much of a sad boy. if i want to play in the space of crime drama, there needs to be some crime! he's a yakuza assassin. he needs to chop off somebody's fingers with bolt cutters.

--

to me, the central question in the fic isn't really 'will the mikey/raph relationship work out' or 'will mikey succeed in his plans', it's 'why is mikey doing these things'. & i think the leatherhead chunks in chapter 23 finally give enough context to what's going on with mikey to let people answer that? like oh, mikey is a mess.

(lol the initial setup for the early chapters are supposed to give an audience response of like, "oh no, raph has some dangerous secrets" "oh no, raph is a violent yakuza murderer! i hope mikey is going to be okay interacting with raph" "...oh no, i hope raph is going to be okay interacting with mikey")

a lot of the story really is about how... mikey & raph's relationship is in a lot of ways very adolescent? they have not had a lot of prior experience with healthy relationships, and they're trying, but, uhhhhhhh. mikey likes to act like he's so cool and above-it-all and unaffected by things happening, but that's actually just b/c he doesn't really care about most things. when something happens that he genuinely doesn't like he immediately snaps and has a giant meltdown. (we see this once with raph, when mikey has a panic attack and throws up when raph blows him off wrt warning him of bishop, and once with donny about the armor, where mike immediately starts tantruming and threatening to kill himself. mikey is very bad at resolving conflict. he's kind of a brat, actually.)

like every character in this is in some way their worst self. they're all pretty awful people. but they're all also trying to... grapple with their place in the world and try to be better people. to even figure out what 'better' means. this is a story about how 'being a good person' is a constant struggle, not to 'do the right thing', but to even figure out what's 'right'. it's about picking yourself up again after a bad period and going, well, let's keep going. like mikey has a lot of traits but one that i, the author, actually think is fairly admirable is his ability to get back up and keep going after a really bad period. which is funny b/c characterwise that goes hand-in-hand with his callousness. just shrug off all the misery you caused other people, i guess! see above about positive/negative character traits.

(also uh there's another tmnt fic author whose work has a lot of... a Bad Guy is constructed/identified. then helpless children (or teens!) are rescued from him. then the bad guy is ruthlessly & violently murdered. sometimes onscreen, sometimes offscreen. and then it's nothing but chapter after chapter of people being happy and cutesy to each other. and like, i get it. but the, like, recurring theme there of the Bad Guy having done something fundamentally unforgivable that separates from all understanding & mercy, to which the only justice is a violent death, just strikes me as... simplistic. sometimes people do really awful things and part of grappling with that as an adult with an adult moral conceptualization is realizing that you gotta look past your initial reflex to punishment.

or like, mikey's whole childhood in this really fucked him up but a huge part of his identity is him having to form an identity from that. having to make the determination of which parts of him are 'him' and which parts were done to him. lol @ him aggressively and extensively rejecting everything about what draxum made him to do & then blithely being like 'we were engineered to eat humans anyway' as a defense for all the corpse-eating. mikey you just like eating people & have decided that part does align with your self-identity. mikey would really not appreciate anybody being like 'i'm sorry nobody saved you from that' b/c that (to him) would basically be the same as them saying they thought he was fundamentally, irreparably damaged & was going to be forever incapable of being anything other than what draxum made him to be. he wouldn't take it well.)

uhhh what else. i mean there's a lot. fun fact pretty much every time mikey gets mad at somebody else he's hugely projecting. even his pacifism is like... hmm maybe he should have killed draxum. a lot of his talk @ raph about splinter is secretly mikey relitigating his feelings about draxum. oh what's that mikey you think that splinter is only playing happy family b/c he's immortal and he has infinite time to spend humoring somebody's illusions but that when push comes to shove he'll drop all that? gee i wonder if that might apply to any dynamics in mikey's own life. lol at mikey being like "wow red your life is kind of a fucked-up nightmare of weird psychopaths playing like they're happy family" and then two chapters is like "hey come meet my family. we live in my genocidal dad's bombed-out lab and we're treating him like a weird racist grandpa". i kinda wanted something that would complicate mikey just being like "i am a pacifist now and i don't kill anybody"; mikey that's all well and good but like half his inner tension comes from not being sure if he should've left draxum alive. that's kinda the mirror to him debating whether or not actually killing leatherhead would've been better. (in a few years shelldon is gonna go through a period of not wanting to talk to any of them. mikey & donnie are better parents than draxum but that's such a low bar.)

(likewise at the end when mikey is like "this is raph's healthiest relationship so far!" to leo, like, this is more mikey projecting. really the raph/casey relationship was probably better for raph & casey, idk, who can say. but is mikey's relationship with raph the healthiest romantic interaction he's ever had? yes, absolutely. we don't get to see the mikey/leatherhead relationship really up-close and personal but it should be pretty clear that it was pretty awful for everybody involved. compared to that, the mikey/raph is absolutely mikey's healthiest relationship so far. just. low bars.)

lol i am a little concerned that mikey's tendency to monologue, & especially his whole political monologue near the end, will get people to think he's just acting as an author's soapbox. i mean, okay, the little author's note where i'm like "as always, mikey is a perfect role model and everybody should do what he does" was a fun little joke. but, oof, the number of fics i've read where the authors feel the need to loudly and repeatedly disclaim that This Story Contains Things The Author Does Not Condone In Real Life is pretty disheartening. way to have absolutely no faith in your audience. but likie, the part where mikey is pretty much flat-out like, "actually i think my moral framework is whatever is necessary to justify my actions" is meant to be pretty damning. maybe not of mikey specifically as a character, just of, you know. the whole world where that's a pretty common outlook among people with power.

--

lets talk about the rape. part of it is that it felt like it would be inauthentic to go through the entire story without mikey seriously violating one of raph's boundaries. part of it is that mikey here kinda has the trifecta of ASPD, ADHD, & bipolar, and the thing with that is it's very easy to just say that but a little more difficult to convey the personality traits involved. this isn't really something ever stated as such in the fic, aside from various people calling mikey crazy + raph calls him a sociopath once. it's kind of too didactic to just flatly state "and this is what's wrong with mikey!" imo. but. this is a story about violent people. imo you can't just gesture to a character with the background level of callousness for the genre and go "okay this is a clinical sign"; you kinda gotta do something more direct. 'wow mikey sure is CRAZY and WEIRD good thing it only shows itself as him being slightly mean to people'. no. mikey has done some pretty horrible things in the past and clearly isn't fully done with that.

(i did pretty much go straight down the list of symptoms there. impulsive, suicidal, aggressive, violent, risky sex, arrogant, limited empathy, no regard for other people or social norms, difficulty with relationships, arson, etc, etc, etc. but it's not like he's a 'realistic' portrayal here, since... i mean, he is a super-powered ninja. there's a level of 'superficial charm' here but we do get enough of mikey's interiority to be able to tell he's a total mess in a way that's not particularly constructed.)

also it's like. raph graphically tortures several people to death & i didn't really feel the need to disclaim that here. murder is usually seen as a lesser crime in fiction than rape. people love their violent blorbos but the second there's the implication of sexual violence people freak out. the usual line people say is that the threat of murder is a little more removed for most people than the threat of rape, which idk if i fully agree with. but part of it is also to draw a line between raph's violence and mikey's boundary violation. like mikey says, well, raph tried to non-consensually murder him a few times too.

anyway i don't think i really stuck the landing with that either, in part b/c raph's response to it. he's a little too pathetically accepting of things at the end instead of being angry + violent. that could use a rewrite or two.

--

honestly i'm kinda sick of this story now? which sucks a little, since i kept realizing things about the story all the way up to the very last moment of editing. if i had waited to post any of this until i was done with the first draft... well, it'd be a very different story if i went back and turned this rough draft into something more complete. i never really did manage to hit the character beats with raph i was hoping to. oh well. like, i still like it. but i can definitely see all of its weak points. i guess that's just part of the process of writing. it'd be worse if you wrote a giant novel and came out on the other side not more aware of your failings as an author.

i feel like raph isn't super well-realized in terms of character motivations. or... his relationships aren't shaded in as well as they could be. if i were redoing this whole thing i'd definitely include some chunks of raph pov just to lay out more concretely what he's doing & what his life is like when he's not in the same scene as mikey. i kinda included that raph+donny conversation at the very end just for jokes, but actually ending every chapter with a little section of non-mikey pov would've helped ground a lot of the characters. raph isn't super well-developed and leo is pretty much incoherent absent external familiarity with his character's deal. they're not conveyed super well, in part because, well, any time mikey is onscreen everybody is having to deal with mikey. it's a problem.

but something that absolutely could have worked as a secondary narrative to the story is the whole thing with raph working w/ the oroku. that was a bit of a late addition to the story. it's meant as a reference to, you know, all the times raphael ends up being compared to/assuming the mantle of the shredder in the comics. but as it is since we don't get any real looks into exactly what's going on in yakuza town when mikey's not around none of that got developed very well, imo.

--

it was very important to me that mikey not learn any lesson here. where things are at in the end are pretty much the exact same as where they were in the beginning. the bit in the pizza scene where he's like 'you guys get to live and i get a boyfriend' is very accurate. literally the only change in mikey's life through this entire thing is that at the end he is in a relationship w/ a guy who he can tell some of what his life is like to. not that it's a super healthy relationship, but it is there.

well, that, and also now he's maybe out of time. (uh, so the laughter at the very end of the epilogue is mikey realizing he's out of time. the whole epilogue really is about how he's got all these conflicting tensions of who-knows-what in his life, & then right in the middle of the tension it's like, whoops, the utrom aren't coming in 10 years or 20 years, they're coming now. and in a week you're gonna be getting some really pointed questions about how you know the utrom envoy. and in a few years, well, there's gonna be some planetary evacuation) like the whole story is about... anxiety. mikey feeling the weight of the future on him in every moment. actually seeing things collapse would be a relief; you'd get the release of all the potentiality collapsing into an actual problem. the moral of the story is you get what you get and in the end all mikey's actions, good or bad or otherwise, have bought him is nine more months of ignoring his problems.

anyway sorry to all the tmnt fans who were expecting a happy cheerful mikey/raph story. this is actually about the fundamental injustice of existence. whoops!

[shiftingconfessions]

TW: venting/asking for help

I have known about the void state since 2020. I still haven’t entered it. I have gone through every single thing one talks about during their shifting journey and it’s still just cricket noises for me.

I have detached, taken a break, you name it, i have done it, sincerely. I have gone many, many countless nights without sleep for my shifting attempts. It feels like after doing everything and sometimes even just giving up has led me nowhere. I have had friends on the same journey who’d share their updates eventually all leave and while I am so happy for them i feel so incredibly lonely and now like i was made to sit on the front row to see them all flourish. I try to let this (this whole thing) go and move tf on but it’s so difficult and i am unable to.

I think it’s safe to say when you’ve been working on something for years and when it still doesn’t happen for you, it does something to you. Initially i obviously didn’t think this is how things would end up for me cause if i did, i’d most definitely not be here. I really regret wasting my precious years over this and genuinely just wish i could go back in time and start over. Even if i were to leave all social media platforms i’m still constantly reminded of my failure and it’s so upsetting.

I’m in my 20s in a toxic home, my parents emotionally manipulated me to stay back home and everyday I am reminded they only wanted me around for their own benefit and not because they love me “too much” to see me leave. There are many factors as to why I am still home but i know this doesn’t make me any different or special. However, I still can’t help feeling stuck, paralysed with fear trying to make any high risk decisions. Everyday i wake up with a heavy, aching heart. I have no appetite or when i’m too sad, i eat till i can’t. I can’t go to a therapist and vent about my situation cause i’m pretty sure i would be misdiagnosed and i’d feel out of control yet again.

All i want to do is enter the void and permashift to my dream life and be gone for good.

This is the only thing i’m hopeful about or i’m very much done from here.

If there’s anyone that can enter the void and affirm for me that i enter the void, please comment under this post and i could dm you. If not, I understand. Thank you for reading.

Side note: contrary to popular belief, I personally think affirming for others works for two reasons. 1. I have seen multiple people mention that they have affirmed for others and it has worked. 2. The void state has absolutely no limitations (realities discourse included)

.

[morphodae]

omg i finally remembered my password!!! lollll

i came to see you write for bb? omg that was my childhood,,,

since i read ur other posts/thoughts on bb, may i ask for headcanons on how you think alois would feel knowing he is actually the son of the earl (*retch*)? or just you know ur overall thoughts on it lolll thank youuu!

Hi Cece! I hope you've been well! And yeah I write for Black Butler now lol. I've been hyperfixating on that show and manga alongside Honkai Star Rail, soooo yknow how it is lol.

You absolutely can request this! I'm about to rub my hands together like a lil gremlin and put this all into words because I have a LOT ok--

a/n (1): i assume you want a x reader for this? let me know if that was alright! :) i dont think alois would be able to get through this revelation without a confidant/companion tbfh

a/n (2): just for people to know that black butler is a fandom (that I write for) where I will only write for older!ciel and older!alois. I will likely write those two between the ages of 18 and early twenties

Older!Alois Trancy - discovering the 'truth'

Again, and I mentioned this for those who aren't familiar with my post and a crack theory I saw circling around; the idea is that Alois is actually THE Alois mentioned in season 2. You know, the son of Earl Trancy and his late wife who offed herself due to the "kidnapping" of her son? So, imagine Claude suggested this fabricated story, thinking it too unbelievable to possibly be the truth, only for the young, naive 14-year-old Alois to think it perfect to trick his "uncle" with. In this case........ it wasn't a fabricated story by Alois when Arnold Trancy came over. "Jim Macken" is his name, the name given to him by the couple who adopted him as a baby.

Anyways...

In no way do I see him taking this news well. That's the understatement of the century, but you know what I mean.

Even if Claude didn't yeet him into the afterlife and nom nom on his soul at the end of S2, I can still sort of see the rivalry between him and Ciel throughout the years. Either way, I digress: let's say Alois - for one reason or another - is able to celebrate a few more birthdays past his canon age of 14. So, now he's a young adult and is suddenly staring the cold, cruel truth right in its face.

How, exactly, the truth of him being the biological son of the late Earl Trancy being discovered is something that could have happened in many ways. The most likely way I see this happening is that Claude got pretty tired of Alois' "boring" soul and decided to stir the pot. It isn't out of the realm of possibility to see Claude unearth some secrets of the Trancy estate in order to... alter Alois mental state so that it may affect the "flavor" of his soul.

Now, in Alois' extreme grief and PTSD coming back full force upon such a horrific revelation, his soul is now more appealing to Claude (yippie -_-).

No servant in that household is prepared or equipped for the incredibly detached and (even more) unstable young man they serve under. Most days I can see Alois staring blankly, mind going at super speeds. Hardly anyone can get through to him. But, as I said, the flavor of his soul is now more appealing to Claude. That little shit knows what he did stirring the pot and is waiting patiently for his mental state to "burn even hotter."

I can only see Alois working through this if he had a companion. In this case, the reader. They are a human, they have emotions, they can understand him. It's really all they can do to help him through such heavy news. And even if Alois is older now and has mentally and emotionally matured ever-so-slightly (i am a firm believer he has bpd but that's another can of worms), he is still in the process of growing as a person. So, having an actual person in his life whom he trusts and cares for deeply, and boy does he care deeply (scorpio energy fr), he will not ever forget it nor will he ever let them go. They are his rock, his safe place, his only anchor to the world. If he can't trust anyone, then he can trust them. In fact, it may just be the catalyst towards a future marriage proposal.

[quickspinner]

I just realized that Beautiful Dreams hasn't been updated since 2020, and it's not in your WIP updates anymore. Are you still planning to finish that one? I know it's been a while. I love all of your works, and I just reread what there is of that one.

The short answer is that I don't consider it abandoned, I do still intend to finish it, but I'm not actively working on it right now. I have hopes for the fall, when all my offspring-related obligations will be grouped together instead of spread over the whole day. Hopefully I should have more consecutive hours of free time.

All my excuses are under the cut 😂

2020 derailed everything. Beautiful Dreams is a bit emotionally heavy and I found that really hard to deal with in 2020. I also made the mistake (?) of posting Killer Combo while I was still working on it, and it turns out I really can't handle working/updating two multichapter projects at once. KC was lighter and therefore easier to work on so it got finished first. From there it was just one thing after another, some of them (many of them) self-inflicted and some health or family related. But as of right now, I have a bunch of unfinished fics that were either gifts or exchange pieces for friends and I really want to finish those, all of which (except apparently Indelible which got much, much, muchmuchmuch bigger than I expected when I started posting it) first. I want to finish Indelible and Guard My Heart, which are the two most complicated/intensive stories I have on the go, before I even think about getting back into Beautiful Dreams. BD just takes up too much mental space to share with those fics and still make any progress. Live With It and The Magic of You shouldn't be nearly so much work to finish so hopefully I can make some progress on those in between the big stuff and they won't be an impediment to getting back to BD.

Right now I have so little writing time that I've been focusing almost exclusively on Indelible. The end, while maybe not exactly near, is in sight on that one and I am extremely ready to check it off the list. 😆

So that's where we are at the moment. You never know what could change, but for now, don't expect updates to BD until Indelible and Guard My Heart are finished. I am doing the LBSC exchange this year, but having learned my lesson with GMH (which I have only managed to leave unfinished this long because @livrever is a dear friend and graciously patient) I'll definitely be doing something I can accomplish by the deadline. Other than that, I don't plan to commit to anything else until the published WIPs are done. That doesn't mean there will be no fics other than that in the meantime. I'll probably do another birthday big bang type thing, for example. No commitments to other people though until the current commitments are settled! Again, I have some hope for the fall that schedules will be more in my favor, but who knows what else might have happened by then. 🤪

Beautiful Dreams has always been a passion project I was really excited about and I would be devastated not to finish it, so I'm not admitting defeat yet. It helps to know people still care about it, so thanks for letting me know you still enjoy it!

[babygirlaffirmations]

2

How I got "accidentally" collared by my Master

I've been looking forward to making time for this writing. The concept of being accidentally collared. I've been interested in bdsm since I was a teenager. But I can't say I've accidentally ever been collared.

So let's start from the beginning. So I posted a fetlife AD looking for a Master. It was very bold. I wasn't sure it would end in anything at all. I must have gotten over 150 messages. Most were thirsty. Most didn't read my profile. Some were super amazing and thoughtful but there wasn't a physical attraction. I'm not shallow at all. But if I'm going to be owned by someone. Be in a free use contract with them. Worshipping their body and ordered to kiss and lick every orifice then it is a requirement that I find that person sexy. Being a slave isn't something I take lightly. Nor is the role of Master that my amazing boyfriend and Daddy and best friend has stepped into.

Back on track. I had went on one date that didn't pan out. Messaged and virtually met a few amazing people. Had some missed marks. I had dwindled it down to two people. One I was considering as a Master. One I thought would be my Daddy, who i'll call J as to protect his personal first name. I had a weird gut feeling with the M type person I was considering so I decided to call it off. That wasn't easy.

So J and I were messaging. We both flowed so well. We both moved super fast. He called me babygirl early on. I called him Daddy early on. I had him help push me to call him Daddy for the first time in voice. Because I needed help. I felt blushy and flustered. He finally literally put me in a corner and acted like he was physically above me. And I slipped into calling him Daddy. That was the first time I went into deep little space in years. Which caused our first.. idk if we can call it tiff or hurt. Idk what to call it. But he got busy with personal life. I was super scared being little alone for the first time in a long time. And I got anxious.

But that became a great learning experience for us. And he was super sweet, apologetic and remorseful. I gave him a second chance. And I'm so glad I did. He came up with an amazing solution for how to reach him in emergencies since our situation is complicated.

So anyways. We moved really fast emotionally before we met. I asked him officially a couple days later if we wanted to be my boyfriend and officially be my Daddy and he enthusiastically said yes.

I was ecstatic. I haven't cared what anyone else has thought about our speed since him and I started talking. I'm a firm believer that when there is chemistry sometimes you just know really early and I jump in fast and all in. And I haven't regretted it at all since Master and I first met or started talking. His reply was in depth. It was very thoughtful. He talked about having experience with partners with mental illness. He was sweet and sexy and handsome and articulate and I was immediately intrigued.

We started messaging. Immediately hit it off. He made my little side feel safe for the first time fully in like 3+ years. So fast forward. We started the Obedience app before we met. It felt right. One of the rewards he made was an hour session basically as a tasting of M/s and heavy degradation. He really put thought into it. And it targeted a lot of my needs. I immediately knew I needed to save up all my points as fast as possible. And go above and beyond and get big ticket point opportunities. And I did. He said he was thinking about adding other rewards that day. After I had just hit 500 points. And in my brain was like nope. Done deal. I need to try this out.

And I'm so happy I did. Flash forward into like a day or so after meeting we made time for this scene. Prior we had went to a sex toy shop. Merely looking for a play collar. We looked around. Went into a dark room in the back and I saw it. I knew it was the one. I pointed to it and said "That's it. That's the one." He said okay. We looked around a little more.

Daddy pulled me off to the side when we were looking at toys. We had talked about me previously easily learning voice controlled orgasms. He caught me off guard and huskily in a deep voice said "Cum for me"... it was the first time in our dynamic. And I did. I was holding a toy. A butt plug maybe? I don't remember. My brain went into a fog. And I came really hard. Full body orgasm. My face went plush. I dropped the toy. And I did my best to remain quite. We were near the register but I think other than that we were alone in the store. Immediately I was wet. That was so. fucking. hot. Oh my god.

So we proceeded to walk up to check out and buy the collar. Daddy acting like nothing had happened. We left. My legs felt like jello. That's when I started to see one of the peaks into my future Master's dark sadistic pleasure dom brain.

We bought the collar. I don't remember in conjunction with time how soon after we bought the collar we did this scene after buying the collar. But we specifically plotted and made time so we could have extra if we needed. I think we both knew it could and would be longer than an hour.

We get to the hotel for the scene. J orders me to strip. I do. He has me kneel. He dominates me thoroughly. Makes me avert eye contact. Doesn't allow me to walk. Apprehends me by using a toy on me to hit me when I misstep. Makes me crawl around. Thoroughly degrades me. Ties me up. Makes me cum hard and a lot. Makes me super sensitive and continues to use me and all my holes. And ever since then I've been hooked. We did that scene and I haven't really left slave space since. Somehow I accidentally got collared. The play collar that was supposed to be has basically not left my neck since. We ordered a day collar this week. We both thoroughly enjoyed my submission to him. And we still make time for me to be little and him to be Daddy. Just now it's normally me in slave space while little at the end of a long day. A play collar turned into something I knew I couldn't live without. Calling him Master a couple times in play in text and on video. And then in scene turned into me realizing holy fuck I want this man to actually own me. I went into point debt which I still haven't recovered from on obedience. For what I'm assuming was 3 hours of M/s play before we made it a part of our dynamic. We no longer require points for it. But I asked him to leave that reward up on obedience as a cheeky reminder of where we started. I'm not sure we even officially asked each other hey will you be my slave or hey will you be my Master?

It's all been one sexy blur. But fear not. He's been heavy on consent. Stresses lemon law enthusiastically. And we made that part fetlife official. And since then I've fallen deeply amazingly into the slave role. Finding this part of myself that I had thought I'd never access. Two really. My little side was and still is scared and traumatized. As is my slave side.

I had an unfortunate circumstance that awakened the M/s side of me wanting to come out. But it led me to this amazing man that I now call my Master. We moved fast. We're both going to fall deeply that I know. And I regret absolutely nothing.

This man is amazing and impeccable. He's gone above and beyond in his all his roles but especially as Daddy and Master. Makes time for nightly video check ins and normally extra ones. Handles all my mental health issues beyond amazingly. And I feel so lucky.

Like all that time I was sad looking at my naked neck. All the pain. The hurt. Is and was all worth it. Because it led me to this path of being with this amazing man. And i'm so incredibly blessed.

My mental illness is difficult. It's a beast. Our situation is complicated. Most of our dynamic is at distance. About 5/6 of it or so. But I wouldn't change any of it because of the beautiful being of what our dynamic and love has become. And what it is blossoming into being. Anyways. That's all. Now i'm just being a sappy bitch again. J has changed my life so much. And I love him so much. And I fall for him a bit more and more every day.

Our communication and vulnerability on both sides is beautiful. And we continue to thrive each day. And adapt and learn and grow together. And get to know different sides of each other more.

Tags: (add)

Just Friends

Oct 30, 2023

[goddessofthedawn]

publishing wrap-up 2022

originally posted on my blogspot blog

Hello, hello--it is that time of year, the end of the year, where I take a look at what books of mine did the best, what did the worst, and let me tell you, it is absolutely the worst book-selling year so far. My first year that I had books out, 2020, I made 200$. Last year I made 80$. This year? $63.74. 

Thank God for day jobs, right? 

But! I don't do this for the money, obviously. I do this because I love it. But let's take a look at this broken down. I have twenty-two books out. 

First, let's get the ones that made zero money out of the way. Didn't sell a single copy, no KNP pages read, nothing. 

Iscariot

This one is actually shocking, because it has been my most popular book, consistently, since it came out. It was my first book, the first in a five-book series, all of which is out now, following a bunch of kids going to Hell and meeting up with the people who are trying to take over. Urban fantasy/horror/adventure. It's a fun time. 

Spahn

This series has never been popular so I'm not super surprised. The Vendettic books follow an 80s heavy metal band and all of their adventures dealing with demon shit. The first two books in the trilogy are out. Main character? Stupidest motherfucker to ever exist. Love it. 

Life in Anachronism

This is my first collection with both short stories and creative nonfiction essays. The people who have read it have enjoyed it. Honestly, I'm not super upset about this one not making money because collections don't take as much work as novels and novellas do. I write stories in an attempt to sell them to lit mags and when they inevitably don't sell and I have enough of them, I throw them together. That being said, everyone who has read this one has enjoyed it. 

Sacrifice

Book 2 in Vendettic! I will say, looking at it, it looks like the paperback is highly discounted right about now, so it might be the time to purchase. This came out last year. Book three will come out at some point, maybe even in 2023, despite the relative unpopularity of this series.

Beyr

Beyr is almost a companion novella to the Pentalogy of Hell series, but it can, definitely, be read on its own. It was an experiment. I'm not gonna lie, I do count it as one of my worst books. Not the worst. But one of the worst. That's maybe something I shouldn't say. 

Carl & Jimmy

Speaking of my worst book! Carl & Jimmy is my worst book. Um. It does have its charms, I think; it's definitely got stuff happening constantly. It's kind of--well, it is--a 70s retelling and reworking about American serial killer Carl Panzram? 

Right or Wrong

Okay, this one is sad because it is the only book on this list of "not making any money" that came out this year. this is the third Aughts Boys book but it does not have to be read in order--honestly, this is the first one chronologically. Follows a kid who becomes friends with a real jerk named Matt and has to struggle with that. My little sister got emotionally connected to Matt and cried, so. 

 So, now that that's over with, let's get to the books that did make money, in order from the least to the most. 

15. Circus Wings (.02)

 My foray into fantasy. This is the first in a trilogy, the third book of which I am currently rewriting, so that will be my next book out. I don't quite know about this book. I don't know. We do have an environmentally conscious lesbian princess, so, there's that. I like the characters. This is also almost an experiment--I'm not a huge fantasy guy. 

14. The Crucifixion of Craig Knox (.35)

These next couple (that I clearly only sold one kindle book of, lol) are technically tied. I'm a little sad about this being down so low, because I do still consider this my best book. I dunno. Like Hell (which you will see a little farther down) might have beat it out. But I really like this one. It's my WM3 one. 

13. The False Prophet (.35)

Book 4 in the Pentalogy of Hell! While I didn't sell any of the first book, I did sell some of the subsequent ones. 

12. The Son of Perdition (.35)

And Book 5 in the Pentalogy of Hell! This one's kinda sad seeing as book five did come out this year, but, you know. I'm just banking on one day, maybe, someone just binging them all on KU. That's what you do when you self-publish six books a year. You hope for the binge-readers. Unfortunately, I'm not a romance author, and write in a million different genres, so I'm definitely doing something wrong, but. You know. 

11. Lake of Fire (.36)

Book 3 in Pentalogy! And it looks like the hardcover is severely discounted right now, like, 5$, so I'd snap on that right now if I were you. 

10. Rewind (.39)

My collection from this year! This one is all short stories. Also, don't get put off by the fact that the title is "Rewind" and the cover shows a record player. It's referencing two different stories. In hindsight it was maybe a poor decision. 

9. Forty Days (1.45)

Book 2 in Pentalogy! Hardcover here is also really discounted, so. You know. If you wanna purchase. Feel free. 

8. The Morph Suit Murderer (2.16)

Sequel to Serial Killers With Cookies. The official series title for this is "abnormal murders" but in my heart and also in my hard drive I call them "stupid-ass murders" because honestly. Also the main character is straight-up nuts by this book which is super fun.

7. One More Sad Song (2.18)

I'm gonna say that out of all of my series, I am most attached to the Aughts Boys books. Maybe this is because I'm still writing books onto it. Like, first-draft-wise. The 'verse keeps growing. But this is the first book based on publication order. Like I said--don't gotta read these in order. The only one that you should probably make sure to read this one before would be the most recent book in the series. 

6. Columbiner (2.86)

Yeah, so, I'm gonna say consistently? This is my most popular book. Like, there's not weird rushes to buy this one, it just so happens that I sell a Kindle copy like, once every couple of months and it's been that way since I published it in 2020. People love school shooting books, I guess. 

5. Serial Killers with Cookies (3.23)

Yeah, so, Amazon's all jacked up mixing up SKWC and the Vendettic books. There's nothing I can really do on my end; I've double-checked the series settings. But trust that this is the first book in the Abnormal Murders books, before the main character goes nuts. I mean, she gets there by the end. God I love Justine.

4. The Horror at Camp New Woods (4.54)

Hey, paperback is currently discounted for this one! Buy now! But this is the second book in the Aughts Boys series, and it is one of the weird, uh... left turns into straight-up horror that happens a couple of times in this series. I mean, this is the only time so far in the published ones, but like, it's gonna happen at least three more times? Look forward if you don't care about 2004 and only care about murder? I guess? 

3. Like Hell (9.41)

Paperback is also currently discounted on this one. But this is the one that I might be like, okay, this might actually be my best book. It's like Beyr but good. This was my first book published in 2022 and honestly? I do think it is a good one. Short and quick, too. 

2. Royal Blood (11.99)

Sequel to Circus Wings. New POV characters. Can I say I like this one less than Circus Wings? I do. But that is definitely a YMMV thing; that one was more action-focused, this one has more political stuff going on. Book 3 we will get a mix because I threw all the POV characters that were still alive into a blender. 

1. Hit or Miss (19.10)

The latest! Book four in the Aughts Boys books; maybe read book one before this one but otherwise you are good. Maybe book three if you want to understand Matt a little more. Maybe book two if you just wanna deal in a little murder. Uh, I got a new cover artist for this one because my original one ghosted me, but I asked her to kinda try to at least match the original covers and I think she did a great job. Also, this book is, I hate to brag, the number one new release in children's hockey books. It beat out a whole grand total of zero other books, but I do have the little orange banner on the Kindle page, which is hilarious. It's not a children's book. It's YA. Amazon counts them together. 

But that's that! That's what my sales looked like this year! Absolutely nothing! But no, it's fine. Obviously I would love to sell more books. Obviously I would love it if you would purchase one or two or twenty-two books right now, or start flipping through them in KU, or whatever. Obviously I want to make money doing this. But it is more important for me to have them available. But if any of these look interesting, please, please, please give them a look. All of my kindle editions are only .99, and like I said--a lot of these are discounted physically right now.

Let's see what next year brings! How many books will Aurora write/publish this year... it bodes not well that the first book is the last Tinon book because those take me forever... 

[dylanwritesgood]

deep fic asks, 1, 6, 12, 14, please?

Deep Fic Asks Here

Thank you for the chance to chatter, Ashes! <3

1. what's the fic you're most proud of?

I'm usually pretty proud of all of my fics, but Pretty Boy/Polaris (because really, they're one story, just published in two works for rating reasons) is my favorite. It started off as "this is a cute pair" because you can see how upset Gareth is to betray Eddie and Dustin to Jason and like... he looks at Eddie with a mix of annoyance and adoration each time they're on screen and I liked it. And I also headcanoned him as trans before I ended up on ST Tumblr so it was nice to find there was an audience for him.

During the course of writing it, I had lots of chances to research and explore transmasculinity (and experience my own little gender crisis), and kind of work out my own dysphoria with Gareth's experiences--and apparently I wasn't the only one who needed that because I have a small gaggle of 18-21-year-old trans masc readers whom I treasure. I also am really proud of it because I wrote over 100k words (~60k is published), and it's a romance featuring a fat, queer, emotionally messy character who wants and feels guilty for wanting--and I worked really, really hard to portray him as desirable and not buff off the unpleasant parts of him for consumption. Finally, I'm really proud of it because, while it doesn't get a ton of hits or comments, most of the comments I receive are from people telling me they see themselves in Pretty Boy's Gareth and feel desirable too. So yeah, I can't NOT be proud of this fic.

6. what's the hardest part of the writing process for you?

Writing something short. One shot who? I don't know her. I would like to because every new fic is going to be abandoned or a big commitment. I don't plot my fanfics because I'm writing for me first and an audience second. I wish I could but then I wouldn't have 100k words of PB and many of my favorite scenes wouldn't have made it.

Also posting. I fucking hate the work of posting to Tumblr but if I don't post and cross-post and repost and tag like a mad person, no one sees my writing.

12. What’s your perfect environment to create/write?

The physical environment doesn't matter. I've been publishing semi-professionally since middle school, wrote professionally for years at a rate of ~1 million words a year, currently publish academic research, and I've always written original and fanfic on top of that--point is, I can (and do) crank out 2k words on my phone while standing in line at Target because I've had to produce creative work on demand in so many environments I couldn't control. At this point, creativity is a reflex.

The tools do matter. I really like working in Dabble, which is a cloud writing program similar to Scrivener. It's the best solution I've found for how I have time to write--app/browser-based, constant cloud syncing, and an organization system that lets me work in smaller chunks of a larger document. I write on my phone and in my browser at work a lot so it's nice to have a consistent UI to make my brain go "oh, it's Writing Time" and a self-contained system.

And even though I'm pretty goddamn deaf, I'm also in love with my noise-canceling headphones and Spotify playlists because I write in weird places and people let you focus when you have headphones on.

14. Do you compare yourself to other writers? In a positive or negative way?

Um... *awkward laugh* Yeah. I do. I used to compare my style a lot--it was very action-focused and dialogue-heavy, with little narrative to drive the story when the characters weren't actively engaged in Doing Stuff. Obviously, that's not really my style now because I really admired fic writers who wrote a more literary, cerebral style that read less like a script so I kept practicing that style.

Now, I mostly compare myself to others on engagement, even though I try not to because, obviously, my obsession with rarepairs isn't going to net me Steddie or HellCheer numbers. It bums me out a little when I see... not well-written (or at least, not well-edited) fics getting tons of attention because they're x reader or a popular ship when I'm getting less than 10 views/likes/kudos/reblogs/whatevers across multiple platforms and I've put a lot of care into my pieces. I know it's not a reflection of my work's quality and everyone is entitled to put out and enjoy reading less-than-stellar work (and like, I read them and leave notes too, bc content about my comfort characters is still content about my comfort characters). To each their own. I try to remind myself the readers who like my work tend to love it... even if there are so few that I have all their usernames memorized lol.

(Also sometimes I end up making comparisons when I read something another person has written and it... appears to be heavily influenced by my work. I saw one Eddie/Gareth fic that picked up on my rhythm, emphasis patterns, vocabulary choices... and my bad habits--flattering--and a headcanon list that pulled heavily from All Your Faith and added a little to it--still flattering but less charming.)

[onemorningapricot]

Day 25 - 24.9.22

Today, I woke up at 9:39am. Yesterday, I was so stressed about missing attendance and breaking my 100% streak but today I couldn't care less. That is, in the morning; now the stress is slowly simmering back up. So, I woke up, joined the webinar event and it was, as expected, a total slob show. It was supposed to be a 10:00-12:00 event but it ended at 10:40. All of a sudden too. I was flustered and tbh kinda pissed. The event promised "industry expertS" and it was one guy who barely made any sense. As usual, just a scam, as with everything here. I had my Yakult and then breakfast and then just streamed shows one after each other for the rest of the day. I don't know if I was relaxed watching them though. The stress is always bubbling behind me but I didn't care; I mean I can take a break, right? I'm 19, a 2nd year uni student, I work long hours with no breaks and I even use up my breaks studying. I can, can't I? I'm not sure. With my time calculator, all my non-class studying barely adds up to 24 hours a week and I haven't even reached that for the past 2 weeks. I don't know what to think of myself now. I think I'm being very irresponsible now under the facade of having everything together. That I'm only fooling myself by pretending I'm busy when I'm not. I mean the numbers obviously tell otherwise but then why do I always feel so tired. Am I in fact, not actually physically tired but instead emotionally tired? I think that's the most probable answer. It's nice to have a space where I can honestly display my thoughts without having to force, fix it into a box made for others to judge.

I cleaned my room a bit too today. I'll finish it when I'm done writing this too. I think that's one good thing. I also took a shower, did my hair and prayed. Three other good things I did today. I had two ice creams though. I suppose that can be forgiven. I have an interview at 9:20pm. I'm not looking forward to that. I don't know much about my future so I'm not sure on what I should be focusing on and what I should let go. I also need to learn how to not get stressed by small things. I've realised I do that way too much. All in all, I've really changed so much as a person over the past year and coming down here has really made me do that, both in a good and bad way. I've reflected the most I've ever had on myself and learned what I look like at my worst. I suppose, in some twisted way, that is a positive. Typing out that word was hard. Positive. This feels so strange. My hand feels heavy and my fingers prickle because of that word. I feel sad. It's been long since i thought of something positive...

I watched a bunch of shows today: Blind, The Golden Spoon, Seasons of Blossom and 반야. The last really shook my heart. For the first time in my life, I cried so loud and heavily. I never realised I had never done that before. What a word: 반야. A profound realisation. Not that I care abt Buddhism in any way, I feel so profoundly shook by this word. I don't why I cried so much either. Well, I never seem to know why I cry these day anyways, but still. I felt weird even though I myself am the one crying. I don't what that movie meant to me but I feel so fundamentally moved. Something in there really resonated with me. I don't what it is but something did.

Since my last post

There are three things I've realised.

You can only achieve in life, if you do more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LSN7jaOL1VA

I, too, am staring to live a "normal" life.

Confidence in oneself, makes the person. Ji Changwook & 서지훈

I really enjoyed watching 당신이 소원을 말하면 this past month. Ji Changwook's acting was really on point and so real, it really moved me. Like his screams were so honest, there could be no better way to express that anger and helplessness. Terribly sad it's ending this week. Little Women started off good and then shifted into terribly foolish but I'm still willing to skip through it. Blind seems lowkey interesting so I'm still gonna keep watching it, though I doesn't seem too profound/worth my time. Seasons of Blossom: super invested in Ha Min's story; wish the other timeline didn't exist; quite disturbs my watching tbh. The Golden Spoon is a drop. One Dollar Lawyer seems like a good recap read. Love in Contract? just need to know what the ML's job is and I think that interest too will fade of soon.

So yeah. That's my summary. See you in my next post :)

Bad Events Counter: 0.5

[acourtofbookishdreams]

Azriel ~ Irresistable*

Azriel x Reader

* = NSFW. EXPLICIT CONTENT.

Summary: Whilst training with Azriel, you make one too many ‘innocent’ mistakes and his resolve wavers with each one until he can’t take it anymore.

Warning: NSFW, forbidden romance, teasing, shitty writing with no sense, out of character azriel, piece of crap - posting anyway aha

Word Count: 2539

"You need to tighten your core" Azriel instructs, voice soft and unjudgemental but aggravating nonetheless.

"I am tightening" I grit from between my teeth, working with all my waning strength on moving along the balance beam.

Azriel and I had been training only for a couple of weeks now after I'd finally decided I wanted to learn how to defend myself or at least be able to hold my own until I could get to safety. However, my insipid mortal reflexes and strength was making it insanely difficult to learn anything.

Considering my being the remaining mortal sister of the Archerons after thankfully being on a short trip to see a friend at the time my other sisters had been kidnapped and turned, it seemed like an even better idea. Especially to my overprotective older sisters. Sometimes, being the only human around definitely sucked and others, like when my sisters got roped into Fae bullshit...it definitely didn't.

It did really suck I wouldn't find a mate, though. That sounded incredibly...convenient.

"You may think you're engaging your core but you're not" Azriel says, moving slightly closer, his shadows surrounding him in the soft dawn light.

"You know what, if this is so easy then-ah!" I squeal as I fall off the beam, stumbling slightly and gripping the beams surface to keep from slipping as my feet land hard on the floor, ground shock reverberating up my legs, "Ugh, this sucks!"

Azriel chuckles softly, "You'll get it."

"It doesn't feel like it" I grumble

Azriel comes up behind me, placing one large hand across my stomach, pushing against it softly, "You need to act as if you're sucking in your stomach, belly button to spine."

I do exactly that, my stomach concaving in, forcing his hand to slip from my stomach and back to his side and Azriel laughs - a big, joyful chuckle, the loudest I'd ever heard from him.

"Was that a laugh?" I smirk, quirking one eyebrow

"I do laugh, you know."

"Not often...and not around me."

"Focus. We're not here to discuss my social habits. Now, I meant internally. It may sound strange but visualise it in your mind and then pull your stomach in and hold it. You'll feel it."

My smirk slips and I nod, focusing. I do as he instructs and though he is right, it does feel strange, I definitely feel it in my stomach, an odd and uncomfortable tightening sensation as if my stomach was benching a weight.

"Ow" I pout, releasing my stomach, "I don't like that"

"You'll get used to it" Azriel smiles, "Now, come on, back up on the beam and try again"

"Will you catch me if I fall?" I tease, my smirk returning. Though he may be over 200 years older than me, strictly off limits because of his being a completely different and dangerous race from me and completely emotionally unavailable, it didn't mean I couldn't flirt.

"Of course" Azriel responds, tone all business. I roll my eyes slightly as I hop back up onto the beam, one foot in front of the other.

Squeezing my eyes slightly against the pressure, I perform my weird suck-in thing to engage my core, taking a tentative step forward...and finding it suddenly way easier. Gaining confidence, I take another step forward, and then another, each one coming faster and faster until...

"I did it!" I giggle, reaching the opposite end of the beam and jumping off, "I actually did it."

"Well done" Azriel commends, his ice-hewn face slightly broken by a small smile, "Next beam"

"Already?" I gulp, looking over my shoulder. The next beam was higher up then the first, the top of it reaching my chest. I turn back to him, gesturing to the lower one, "Can't I just do this one again?"

Azriel says nothing and I sigh, moving over to the other beam and grabbing a couple step blocks to get up to the beam. Heaving myself up and onto the beam, I wobble softly and a small, startled squeak escapes my lips before I regain my balance.

"You really will catch me, right?" I ask nervously. Again, no response omits from his lips, just a short nod of which I couldn't tell was either actually in answer to my question or instruction to get a move on.

"Okay" I breathe, closing my eyes and stilling my body completely, performing the process of engaging my core slowly, each muscle at a time until I felt so tightly wound even a sharp shove couldn't knock me from my feet.

I take a step forward...then another...and then I slip.

My foot hits the side of the beam wrong and in an effort to stay up, I attempt to pull it back on rather than letting it go and placing it behind my other foot, bending at the knees as I was taught to do and had done many times on the lower beam. I scream and squeeze my eyes shut tightly as I tip backward, flailing my arms out as my back heads for the ground.

As if in slow motion, I turn my body as I fall, instinctively positioning to catch my fall with my hands - a rookie mistake. A pair of strong hands encircles my waist as I turn and without thinking I grab onto him, securing my body to his in every way possible to stop my fall. I grunt as one of my feet lands hard on the floor, ground shock again erupting through...one of my feet?

I open my eyes and find myself in the strangest position...Azriel's face was before me, his arm hooked underneath the crook of my right knee, holding the one leg up whilst the other was placed upon the floor as normal, my hips pressed against his.

"You really did fall in the most difficult way possible" Azriel says, voice deep and gravelly...as if straining.

It's then I notice Azriel's stance is crooked, his weight tipped to one side slightly as if weighed down...I gasp and almost send myself flying again as I realise what exactly I'd done in my attempt to escape a painful landing.

My knee was grazing his right wing, my left arm tightly wrapped around his neck with my elbow brushing the inside of his left wing and my right hand was placed entirely on the soft membrane of the inside of his right wing, my fingers splayed across the shimmering surface and pressing lightly onto it, the way one would place their hand on a surface to maintain balance.

Points of contact everywhere with Azriel's wings...Azriel's sensitive wings.

"Oh my...I'm so sorry" I gasp, pulling my leg out of his grasp and removing my arm from his neck, my hand from his wing, until I was standing before him. Closer than I'd ever been before, his eyes boring into mine.

"You couldn't have just fallen backward?" Azriel says, his voice still rough and strained, "I would've caught you."

"I know, I-" I stammer, "I didn't think, I just acted on instinct. I don't know what I was thinking. Are your wings okay?"

"They're fine" Azriel frowns softly, "Why wouldn't they be?"

"Feyre's told me before to be careful of your wings, to make sure I keep away from them because they're really sensitive...are they not?" I redirect as his confused frown deepens.

"They are but not in the way you seem to think" Azriel explains, "It doesn't cause me pain, which by the look on your face, I assume is what you think."

"It's not painful?" I breathe a sigh of relief, "Oh thank the forgotten gods...but if it's not a painful sensitivity, why do you seem so tense? Well, tenser."

"While it's not painful, it is still sensitive. The sensation is hard to explain but it just provokes a different...reaction."

"What do you mean?"

"It's too hard to explain. How about I show you the approximation of what it feels like to a non-winged being and then you tell me the reaction you have."

I nod, a little nervous about the slight gleam in Azriel's eyes, a knowing one...

Leaning forward, Azriel breathes softly into the shell of my ear, lips trailing sensually along the outer edge as his large hand ghosts down my spine in soft, light movements, his fingers barely touching the skin but sending shivers all the way through my body. My eyes go heavy lidded and instinctively, I grip his bicep to hold myself steady, neck tipping back slightly to expose more of my neck as his breath gusts over the sensitive skin, his hand coming to rest on the small of my back to keep me from falling on my ass. A small noise escapes from my throat.

In a lighting fast move, Azriel pulls me to rights and releases me completely, stepping a good few paces back. Breathing heavily, my eyes open and meet his and I imagine our expressions to be almost exact. Flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, chests rising and falling so agonisingly slowly as we attempt to keep our breathing even and failing completely.

"Woah" I breathe, "I definitely get it now."

"You can't do that, Y/N, damn it!" Azriel growls and I straighten further, lust filled haze vanishing.

"Do what?" I gape

"Make me-" Azriel says and then stops himself, "Never mind. Today's session is over"

He turns on his heel to leave but I run after him, meaning to grab his shoulder...and accidentally gracing the back of his wing again.

Damn it, dumbass.

Azriel releases a frustrated growl and whirls on me, pushing me back into a nearby wall, his hands on my waist, eyes staring into mine.

"That"

I was still confused. This was the only time I'd ever touched his wings...

Seeing my confused expression, Azriel presses closer, his body pressed to mine, something hard pressing into my-

Oh.

"I...I wasn't aware I" I stumble over my words, "I wasn't aware it was something I'd done more than once."

"That's a lie and you know it" Azriel huffs, "Stop feigning innocence."

"I'm not feigning anything!" I protest. I truly hadn't meant to turn him on. Now or any other time. Feyre and Nesta and Elain had all made it clear I shouldn't get into it with Azriel...Gods, even Rhys had told me to keep away!, "Why does it even matter? We're both adults, we can just move on from-"

"You don't get it, do you?" Azriel growls, "That I've wanted you every moment from when I first saw you, that Feyre and Rhys gave me this lecture about duty and responsibility and the different race bullshit and ordered me to stay away from you. The only reason I was allowed to train you is because I swore it'd be training and nothing more!"

"I'm...I don't know what to say to you except that I didn't know anything about any of that."

"I swear you're my own personal hell on Earth." Azriel sighs, shaking his head, eyes hard and cold as flint.

"Wow, thanks" I scoff sarcastically, offended, "I wasn't doing anything intentionally."

"That may be even worse" Azriel concedes, "Knowing that anything you did wasn't intentional means if you truly tried to make a move...I would fall at your feet and beg you for just a second of your time. For one moment between-I shouldn't be entertaining this idea."

No, please go on.

"It doesn't help that I can smell you every time you enter a room. It's like you specifically-"

"Wow, so now I smell?" I huff, "Perfect."

"Not that kind of smell. I can smell it on you now."

It?

Well, sure, I was sweaty but I'd just been working out. Although I'd cooled a bit now, with all the slow and steady lust-filled contact we'd had-

Oh...again.

I remember Nesta telling me once to be careful with any time I spent...with myself because the males could smell...

Could smell arousal.

"Oh" I say aloud this time, "That."

"I could swear you would touch yourself before each training session just to drive me insane with what I can't have-damn it, stop it!"

"Well I can't really help my body's reactions when you talk like that" I defend, that warm and tight feeling in my stomach building, eyelids fighting not to fall.

"Try" Azriel suggests weakly.

"If the past few weeks of my unintentional seducing you wasn't proof enough, I clearly can't do that."

"What has been with you recently? You're aroused all the time."

"I don't know" I blush, "I just...have been. Besides, it's not like I have someone I can go to here to...relieve myself of the frustration so I'm all I've got."

Azriel's jaw clenches, eyes ablaze with a hungry fire.

"Why can't we...I mean, why am I so forbidden to you?"

"Feyre and Rhys say...well, I don't know. It doesn't matter about their reasons, their my High Lord and Lady. If they order me to do something, I obey."

"Is that something you can't fight?" I ask, eyes trailing up and down his body, "Like a magical side effect stops you?"

"No, it's an honour thing-" Azriel stops short, recognising my intention, "Okay, I know you're doing this on purpose now"

"So what?" I whisper, "It's not like I'll tell them anything...and there's no one out here to witness for at least a few hours."

"Hours?" Azriel chuckles, "What makes you think you can handle that?"

Cocky now, huh?

"I'm almost certain I probably can't...but I'm more than willing to try."

Azriel's erection grows larger, pressing insistently upon my upper thigh, "Y/N...I can't"

"Yes you can" I say, "Something tells me you're just as good at getting in your own way as Feyre and Rhys are. I'm more than capable of making my own decisions and I would be lying if I said this isn't one of the fantasies I've used to help me out when I'm alone."

The sound of Azriel's teeth grinding against each other makes me smile. I don't know where this sudden confidence came from - perhaps from knowing how badly he also wants this. Maybe it was fate's way of making something that was always supposed to happen, happen. By removing my nervousness and forcing Azriel to think his way out of his own mental purgatories.

Azriel, still fighting his own mental battle, pants softly and I lean forward, trailing a long line up his neck and along his jawline with my tongue. My hand drifts up, reaching for the tender inside of his wing-

"Don't. Do. That" Azriel grits out, hand gripping my wrist and pushing it back against the wall, up above my head, the other arm quickly following, "Don't start something you can't finish."

"Who said I wasn't planning to finish?" I smirk

"Gods, you'll be the death of me" Azriel sighs, leaning closer to me. I could already tell the battle was lost, he was just clinging to the last scraps of will he had left.

"What was that you said earlier? That you would 'fall at my feet and beg for just one moment between...' What were you going to say?" I tease

"Shut the fuck up" Azriel growls, his lips pressing to mine.

Masterlist