#one new years night where i stayed up super late has fucked with it all

[calico-kiwi]

me: *spends a little less than a month going to bed pretty early so they can wake up in time to catch streams* my sleep schedule is being fixed! i am no longer a total degenerate!

me: *didn't go to bed till roughly 6 in the morning two days ago, midnight yesterday, and is currently up at 1:20 a.m.* I can feel myself turning back into me from a year ago.

[arminsumi]

we've had ex geto... but what about ex gojo?

YOUR FAVORITE EX

↳ GOJO さとる + fem!reader

Note : ooo... ex gojo 🤤 hope u likey

Warnings : 🔞 minors do not read/interact : contains smut/explicit content, kinda toxic themes, some angst, baby trapping, pregnancy, dirty talk, unprotected sex + creampies, possessiveness

Playme : streets

🍒 More from Jay : Gojo works / Gojo fave works / JJK works / oct. reqs open

Ex!Gojo makes the break up everyone's business. And of course it's you breaking up with his obnoxious, overdramatic ass. Multiple times, too. You two have broken up so many times in fact that your friends just don't take it seriously anymore when you announce "We're breaking up". That just means "We're getting back together in two weeks (lol)."

Ex!Gojo pulls the "I can't find anyone like you" and the "Aw, don't be like that, baby" cards on you.

Ex!Gojo claims to be your favorite ex. Yeah you hate him... buuut he's still your favorite... right? Right? He'll nag you to admit it. It makes his heart flutter and ego swell bigger than his head.

Ex!Gojo is a menace, always deterring your potential new lovers and declining dates on your behalf. He gives you a stupid excuse with that cheeky smirk, "What? It's not like they could love you better than me, anyways. I'm the best. Don't waste your time. Just come back to me, yeah? You know my arms are still open to you."

Ex!Gojo doesn't act like an ex at all. He still kisses you. Still hugs you. Invites you for every party. Visits your apartment at 2 AM when he's drunk and rambles to you about all the crazy things he always rambled about at 2 AM. And you don't treat him like an ex because... his kisses put you in a trance. Then you realize oh, we're broken up, what the hell.

Ex!Gojo clings to your body and holds it with the same possessiveness that he always used to. He places his big hand on your hip and grips it tight, especially at parties. "Stay close to me."

Ex!Gojo taunts you during those late-night hatefucks, "You missed this fat cock fucking up your guts, huh? I know you did. Don't you fucking lie to me." while he's balls deep in you, skin slapping loudly against yours in the backseat of his car. He just kindly offered you a drive home, and then one thing led to another and you ended up on his lap having his big hands moving your hips up and down. "That's it, admit how much you missed me 'n bounce on this cock, baby. Admit it."

Ex!Gojo fucks you harder when he's your ex, making sure you're super full and stuffed with his cock. He loves molding your tiny hole to accommodate his shape, hitting your sweet spots with mean pounding thrusts until you scream those three little words for him. "I miss you!" he smiles when he hears this, presses his forehead to yours and coos while cumming inside, "Missed you too, baby. Missed this pussy. You know it's m-mine forever, don't you? No one can fuck you better than I can..." and it's true, no one knows the map of your sweet spots and erogenous zones better than he does. He's masterful at pleasuring you.

Ex!Gojo cums inside you more than he did while you two were dating. Who knows why. Seems like his animalistic, primal brain kicked in and he thought well if I put a baby in you... you'll have a piece of me forever. You'll have to come back to me. And his seed is potent. You bet you're getting pregnant. He has the wolfiest smile when you bitterly show him the pregnancy test. "Ooh, baby I'm so proud of that little pussy for getting pregnant. Let's have a celebratory fuck."

Ex!Gojo knows that no matter where you go, he'll always find you. His high school sweetheart. His five year girlfriend. The mother of his child. The only woman that's ever had such a strong hold on him. The only one he's ever been weakened by.

Ex!Gojo cries sometimes after creaming up inside your pussy, "Please come back... I miss you so bad..." and starts sobbing like a puppy into the crook of your neck when you run your fingers through his snowy hair.

Ex!Gojo feels his broken heart get pieced back together when you finally return to him. And just like that, he slots half his soul into yours. "Baby... you're the best thing this world ever gave me. Just let me marry you, please..."

© arminsumi

Do not plagiarize / repost / translate / copy layouts / etc.

Do not steal what I've worked hard to create.

[odderevents]

I have had a thought. Steve secretly knowing how to play the piano bc he learned as a kid and had to stop bc his dad's an asshole is lovely. I've seen this floating around a few times and I love it. Eddie catching him playing the piano and being so fucking in love with him will never not be perfect.

But.

Consider

Steve playing the Harp.

It's definitely a rich kid instrument. Big ass fucking impractical instrument. Absolutely beautiful to look at and listen to. Hands playing piano is great. But have you ever seen an accomplished harpist? It makes you think impure thoughts about what those fingers can do.

So. Steve secretly knowing how to play the harp

Maybe his mom used to play it, so there's a big harp (the ones with the columns and super intricate base board, not celtic) that's just gathering dust in the basement. Steve started piano lessons, loved learning how to pull music out of an inert object. But his dad decides it's to effeminate, makes him stop. And sure, a harp is a different beast to a piano. But you've still got cords, and Steve's got a pretty decent ear, and he can barely remember seeing his mom play. So one day when he has the house to himself, which isn't an unusual occurrence at this point, he tries it out. And he's admittedly pretty shit at it, but so was he at piano when he started. Only difference is he has no teacher.

So maybe Steve discreetly finds a way to acquire a beginner's practice instructional book for harp. And works on it when he needs to get his brain away from things.

He's even more careful with it than he is with any dirty mags he might later acquire. He knows that worse, much worse than piano, harp is not a masculine instrument and under no circumstances should his father find out about his affinity for it.

It's still his go to when he can't sleep even years later, pulling out the now old and battered booklet of sheet music and exercises. Especially once the upside down bullshit starts. It's soothing and mindless at this point.

The harp that was much too big when he first started with it is now just the right size, it's weight against his shoulder comforting. He can close his eyes and his fingers naturally find where to land and pluck.

Even when he becomes friends with Robbin and then Eddie, both musicians who he knows wouldn't give a damn about him playing a woman's instrument, he can't bring himself to mention it. If he did, they would want to hear him play and he's self-conscious about being self-taught. Both of them play well, they play with other people and people come to listen. He doesn't consider himself a "real" musician. It's just something he does to keep his hands and brain busy on nights where the sheets feel like they're strangling him and the dark reminds him too much of when he can't see not because it's night but because something's hit him in the head again and he can't tell apart the sound of his heartbeat from something pounding through his walls.

So he goes to the basement. Finds his stool. Removes the dust cover. Goes through the meditative motions of tuning it by ear, because that's how he's always done it. And then he plays until the tips of his fingers feel numb. Somehow, he always comes out of it peaceful enough to pass out on the couch in the basement for a couple more hours.

Steve is so used to keeping it a secret he doesn't even think about it when he starts dating Eddie. It's just a thing that's always only been his, and most importantly, it's been vital to keep it that way for so long it's the natural state of things for Steve at this point. It doesn't ever come up. When Steve gets nightmares when he's sleeping with Eddie all he has to do is curl into his boyfriend's chest and feel the warm heartbeat that's not his own to settle back into himself.

The problem arises on a night when Eddie was supposed to stay with Steve but he got held up in Indianapolis when getting a new amp for his guitar. He would come back to Steve but it would be late in the night. Steve has been keeping himself busy all day so he passes out in the early evening on the couch in front of a shitty sitcom he put on to try to distract himself from the empty house.

Nightmares find him, which isn't terribly unusual, but he doesn't have his usual method of coping so he resorts back to his previous habit.

Eddie walks in bone tired after many hours of driving to and from Indianapolis, waiting while the clerk figured out they didn't have the amp he'd been assured over the phone would be available for pickup today, waiting some more while they had the amp driven from a sister shop an hour away because no way was he driving back and forth again to Indianapolis on another day. So yeah. Eddie is beat. All he wants is to dive head first into his boyfriend's impeccable pecs.

He doesn't find Steve waiting with a welcome kiss like he usually would when he walks in. Instead he's greeted with a hauntingly beautiful rendition of the melody of Master of Puppets in a way he's never heard before.

He drops his stuff in the entry hall and goes down to the basement where the music is coming from, curious to see where Steve might have found the recording. Eddie doesn't quite know what to do with himself when he finally lays eyes on Steve, with dried tear stains on his cheeks and his eyes closed as his fingers pluck and strum without hesitation. He's rooted to the spot as he watches Steve work his favorite song in a new and completely heartrending way. He hasn't been able to listen to it since he played it in the upside down. It always brings up the bitter blood tang of the air and the hair raising shrieks of the bats. But this is somehow different, it's soft and melodious but it's still got the same bones.

Eddie feels tears on his own cheeks. He's missed this song goddammit. And he couldn't be happier that it's Steve that's given it back to him

Queue tears and fear and confessions and comfort. Somehow much later in the future there's inexplicably a harp in some of the corroded coffin tracks. And it shouldn't work but it does

[treedaddymcpuffpuff]

🫧 ━━ JOHNNY UTAH X CHUBBY F READER IMAGINE𓈒

𓈒part I 𓈒cheeky Johnny

𓈒inspo: @tedsbogusworld’s 🤖

━━ you are bodhi’s little sister

━━ just trying to make it through college while working part-time at the aquarium

━━ your parents aren’t around anymore, so you’ve been taking care of your older brother (paying the bills and rent with tuition money, stocking the fridge, dragging him in from the yard where he’s passed out in a puddle of beer and vomit in the cool waking sunset)

━━ your big brother throws the wildest parties ; you avoid them at all costs, shut yourself in your room, hide away at the beach, stay late at work. it’s just not your scene

━━ plus, his friends aren’t nice, especially not when they’ve been drinking, and being surrounded by tall, athletic bodies in tight swimsuits is detrimental to your baggy clothed, short, chubby self esteem

one night, you get home super late, but the party is still raging. Spilled cans of liquor on your floor, an unattended bonfire that you have to put out with the hose - we’re in a drought for chist’s sake, have some common decency, bodhi.

bodhi catches you in the kitchen, much to your scowling dismay, and has someone he wants you to meet. you’re really not in the mood for his antics tonight - he’s so drunk and high he can barely keep two feet parallel with the ground - so you basically tell him to fuck off

but, bodhi is super bad at respecting boundaries. it inflates when he’s under influence. he’s got you face to face with a brand new partygoer before you have a chance to run

“hey.” big white grin, tawny skin, heavy dark eyes. you have to crane your neck to look at his face.

the music is almost too loud for you to catch bodhi’s next infuriating line. “told ya she was cute, johnny. she’s all yours.”

you basically freak out on him, shove his shoulder and start yelling and cursing and drawing attention.

you’ve spent years taking care of him, not asking for a cent from his party fund, putting up with his bullshit, and you’re so fucking tired of him making fun of you just because you’re not a skinny surfing meat head. after you rip him a new asshole, you storm off.

you could go to your room, but that would mean shouldering through a crowd, so you opt for a long walk on the pier instead.

as you’re watching the dark ocean waves crash and spray against support beams, you feel a hand on your shoulder. you turn around, ready to fight, but it’s just bodhi’s new friend.

lowering your fist and replacing it with a scowl, you turn back around to face the open sea and ignore mr. tall dark and handsome.

“hey.” he leans on the railing beside you, accidentally scrapes his forearm on a barnacle and starts bleeding. “ah, fuck.”

“you’ve never been to a beach town, huh?” his arm is in your hand and you’re using your old tshirt to wipe the trickling red from his skin.

he smiles at you, boyishly, gives this coy bat of thick lashes that makes your tummy uneasy. you hope he doesn’t notice the abrupt way you let his arm flop. little tickly crabs crawl over your skin as you turn away.

“got a bandaid?”

“you’ll live.”

“ouch. hey, I think we got off on the wrong foot. i’m johnny, just moved here.”

“hullo, johnny just moved here, i’m not interested in company.”

he seems way too amused by your venom, lets loose a little chuckle. “you’re not very friendly, are you?”

“not to bodhi’s cult, no.”

“man, what is your problem?” he shakes his head and kicks dried salt. “you have the hots for me or something?”

stiffened shoulders, shrinking posture, eyes unable to hold his own. it’s all the info he needs. he gets a big grin that makes you want to jump right off the pier and let the angry water swallow you up.

“oh, yeah?” he tugs his bottom lip into the toothy smile, nudges your shoulder. “listen, just cuz i’m pretty doesn’t mean i’m a dickwad.”

“yeah, it does.” you think you’re insulting him, but really what you’ve just done is confirmed that you do think he’s pretty - the quiet, thick quiver in your voice doesn’t help your case.

“thanks, sweetheart.”

now you have a better idea - push him off the pier. instead, you walk away.

“oh, she’s adorable.”

[softpascalito]

We got your back - Chapter 4

Summary: You work as a new DEA agent alongside Peña and Murphy. A not-so-kind colleague reveals more about you than you would like. You also realize you can sleep better if you're not by yourself. You're not the only one with that realization.

Relationships: Javier Peña x F!Reader

WC: 10k+

Tags/Warnings: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, mention of canon-typical violence, family issues, they arent specified but reader is implied to be from a dysfunctional family, literal sleeping together, one bed trope if you squint, tac vest javi, nightmares, cuddling, protective javier peña, mention of drugs

AO3 LINK // Series Masterlist

notes: we are back! sorry this took me so long, i started into the year super positive and motivated but then my best friend decided to fucking die so life hasn't been very slay. i hope you babes are doing better and enjoy the chapter <3

(i cope with humor, can you tell?)

Chapter 4

“She could no longer think, nor were there any more images in her head. She was aware only of the softness of the woollen bathrobe next to her skin, and then of the nearness and warmth of a being that did not frighten her.”

- Paul Bowles, The Sheltering Sky

You have the first good day in weeks. Apart from the nagging feeling that you now have something else to hide - at least from Steve and the rest of your colleagues - you do feel well rested, getting through the assigned files and some more intel with record speed.

One of the higher-ups is celebrating a milestone birthday and orders dinner, causing more people than usual to stay late. Javi finds you in the crammed room where the plates of food have been set up and squeezes in next to you, flashing his signature charming smile, “May I?”

“Yeah, sure,” you mumble back, shifting slightly to give him more space. But with how full all the tables are, the people are a good excuse to let yourself get a little closer than you normally would. Somehow, it doesn’t feel weird, the way it likely would’ve before last night. It just feels safe.

You eat your dinner without speaking much, Javi practically wolfing his down. A frown spreads over your face at that, “You got plans after this?”

“Are you asking me out, querida?” Javi responds in between two bites, flirting so casually that it almost seems like second nature to him. Which according to the testimony of at least three women you know in the embassy, is exactly that. 

He cocks his brow as he turns towards you and for a split second, he looks serious, like he means it. The thought has you blushing furiously and you think you just may choke on a piece of your pasta when the familiar grin spreads over his face and with it, a similarly familiar warmth settles in your stomach. “I was just joking,” he reassures you again at seeing your cheeks change color and clears his throat before getting a little more serious.

“Wanted to go through some more files, not like this lot will get anything done tonight.” He nods towards the group of people gathered around the man who is apparently celebrating. They’ve finally opened up the first bottle of Aguardiente.

Of course, Javi knows that with the steadily rising alcohol level, he may just be able to persuade someone into giving him access to precisely the file he wants. Or at least provide enough distraction for him to sneak off and find it himself.

He can still hear Steve in the back of his mind, reasoning with him.

“Have you ever considered that the files are sealed because she wants them to be?”

He has, now. But he finds that he doesn’t really care. There is something there, something that might explain you to him a little more. A tiny voice in his head offers up the idea of just asking you, getting to know you like everyone else does.

But he quickly shakes that thought off. It’s nothing to him, personally at least. His interest is strictly professional of course. Nothing else.

Just as the first people start clearing out, Javi slips away too. You strain your neck, glancing around the room and towards the buffet but he’s nowhere to be found.

“Great,” you mumble to yourself as you follow suit and leave the table, heading out of the large oak doors of the conference room. A pit has formed in your stomach and it only deepens when you catch a glimpse of the time. It’s past nine already so chances are Javier really has headed off to meet some informant. You try not to consider who else he could be meeting and who else may wake up next to him in the morning.

Passing through the dimly lit corridors that lead to the DEA offices, you let out a small noise of annoyance with yourself.

It’s not like it’s any of your business what Javi does after closing time or who he meets. And it’s not really like you to judge him for it.

But today, you realize quietly, your disappointment stems from the pit in your stomach at the thought of having to go home to the apartment you’d rather forget and to spend a few hours tossing and turning on a mattress until it’s time to come back.

You haven’t met a single person on your way back to your office and you consider curling up next to your desk again. A glance around the office tells you that you’re not in luck, though. A few other co-workers still have their bags and jackets draped over chairs and desks and some will no doubt return to get them once they’re done eating. Javi finding you was one thing but they would be something else.

It takes a few seconds until the solution hits you and you take off past the open plan office and towards the smaller adjacent rooms in the back. The crammed file room that you’ve spent the last night in is sitting in darkness, the blinds almost completely closed. You decide against turning on the big light and simply make your way through the room- which is barely a few steps.

The orange glow of the streetlights filtering through the blinds is enough to let your hands find the couch in the corner and you settle onto it with a small sigh, content to just be still for a moment. It’s a little eerie, especially since you’re not sure if anyone other than Peña and Murphy frequents the space. But the sounds that do drift to you are low and distant, nothing more than a couple of cars honking a few blocks away and a dog barking somewhere in the distance.

You draw your legs up onto the couch, wrapping your arms around them for the lack of actual bedding and lean back, closing your eyes.

It doesn’t become apparent to you that you’ve passed out until you wake with a start. You’re semi-aware of something above you and you squint into the darkness of the room. You can’t see his face but there is the voice you know all too well.

“That you, cariño?” Javi mutters, already a blanket in hand that he nudges against you. It takes you a few more seconds to find your voice, bringing a hand up to rub your eyes, “Thought you left.”

“I came back. Here, go back to sleep. I’ll stay.”

You’re too tired to fight him, to put up any kind of resistance against making this a habit, to bring up that this is a bad idea, for the sake of both of you. The blanket warms you up so quickly, even more so with the way Javier’s body slowly comes to rest beside you. You think you answer something before you pass out again. You can’t remember what you say.

It’s not until the next morning, when you yawn as you head into the office kitchen, that you find out precisely why Javier snuck off last night.

There is cereal. And not the shitty kind- actual Cap’n Crunch, your favorite. The man beside you, who has a reputation for being a playboy and for never staying for breakfast, remembered the way you preferred your breakfast. It’s hard not to let it get to your head.

It does become routine after that. Javi lingers around the office until he can tell if you’ll leave or stay. Most nights you stay. Most turn into all. On the second night in a row, he lights himself a cigarette as he flips through a few more files before going to sleep. On the third, it goes from a bad to a really bad night when the nightmares you never seem to be able to get rid of come for you. For a second, you think this will be one step too far for him. But he barely seems to mind the way you cuddle a bit closer to him and he mumbles soft words until you go back to sleep.

He never mentions it during the day and neither do you. It’s almost like your sleeping arrangements are part of a different world, not the one that spins around your work, that’s full of drugs and death and everything else that makes sleep difficult. But Javi just feels- safe. He never asks too many questions. He just gets the blanket, sets his alarm, makes sure there is cereal in the morning. He feels like a godsent.

Of course, it’s only a question of time until someone notices something. You’re always careful to not head into your little room until everyone else is gone but occasionally, someone will show up too early or during the night- a spontaneous raid, a tip that needs instant investigating. Javi keeps the phone by his side constantly and it takes over a week for you to realize it may not just be to get alerts on developing situations but also to be alerted to someone coming into the office during unusual hours.

So when two weeks have passed and someone does catch you, Javi is glad it's Steve who is clearly just grabbing some files early in the morning and freezes in the doorway. He stares Javi down, who in return gently puts a finger onto his lips and motions for them to head to the hallway, gently closing the door behind himself as he steps out of the office.

“I have no way to be certain about Messina’s stance on this, but something tells me she wouldn't appreciate you bringing your hookers into the embassy,” Steve hums, unable to keep a small smirk off his face. Javi rolls his eyes in return, “I'm not an idiot, do you know that?”

He pauses for a moment and raises his hand just as Steve opens his mouth, “Don't answer that.” His mind is racing with too many thoughts at once. He’s not sure why, of all the things he could choose to tell Steve, he picks the truth when the lies would be so much easier.

“She was assigned a shitty apartment, hasn't been sleeping well. I remember you and Connie having similar issues after you arrived down here. With her, I figured we didn't use the room anyway and she-” he trails off. Steve brows have knitted together as the pieces slowly fall into place, “Somehow, a hooker would have been less complicated than a colleague.” There's another roll of eyes from Javi, the air a little thick with tension.

“I'm trying to help her. That's all.”

“You are trying to help her? Do you really expect me to believe that?” Steve shoots back, raising his voice until Javi motions for him to quiet down, nodding towards the door. The blonde man makes a face, but he does lower his voice as he repeats himself, “You expect me to believe that? You’re just helping her, no motive? It has nothing to do with you feeling the need to fuck your way through half the office by the time we finish the case?”

Javier actually groans at that, pinching the bridge of his nose for a moment. He moves his fingers to the side, using them to gently rub his tired eyes. His free arm is resting against his belt, the fingers twitching ever so slightly.

“Fuck you, Murphy. Just leave us alone and get your files in the morning.”

Steve looks like he wants to say something else, but then he thinks better of it. A small glare is sent towards his partner regardless.

“If you fuck this up somehow, Javi, I swear, I will make sure you get in real trouble. She’s too sweet for whatever you are trying to do here.”

It's two nights after the encounter with Steve- who has much to Javier's relief actually left them alone- when it happens again. It's been a particularly exhausting day for both of you, which actually made Javi hopeful that you'd both fall into a deep sleep as soon as you hit the couch. But it's been as mentally draining as it's been physically. And your mind clearly just won’t shut off.

It wakes him. The small stirring, the movement of your body beside his. He’s never been a particularly deep sleeper and Colombia has only made it worse, his brain seemingly always on alert to danger. So when he does wake, it takes Javi a few seconds to realize that the danger his brain is alerting him to is not a sicario sneaking into your room, it’s not a gun held to his head. It’s an entirely different kind of danger, one much less life-threatening but so much more complicated to fix.

A small groan escapes him as he reaches for the small light perched on the file cabinets, pulling the string attached to it. He blinks groggily as it flickers to life, bathing the room into a dim, dusty light. A few moments pass before he hears another whimper behind him and turns towards you, eyes already laced with concern.

Your features are scrunched up, lips slightly apart as the noises find their way out of your dream and into reality. Occasionally, a muscle twitches in your hands or your leg, making the whole scene even more eerie. But what gets Javier the most, what makes the pit in his stomach feel like one that could reach the ground floor, is the wetness on your face. Tears, undoubtedly slipping from your closed eyes and finding their way down the side of your face. It looks absolutely heartbreaking.

“Cariño,” he mutters under his breath, bringing his hand towards your arm and beginning to rub it in a gentle, circular motion.

“Wake up, it’s just a dream. You’re-” For a split second, he wants to say home. But he knows it's so far from the truth. He's not sure you consider any place in this country a home. Actually, he's not sure which place you do consider one.

“You’re alright,” he mumbles instead, adding a little more force to his touch and voice alike. His gaze never leaves your face as your eyes finally fly open, practically choking on the whimper that had just been leaving your throat. The panic is evident in your eyes, in the way they fly around, searching for something, anything to reassure you, to replace the pictures still floating in your mind. They find soft, brown eyes. It’s something to hold onto.

“There you are,” Javi hums, bringing his free hand to your face, his thumb catching the next tear that rolls out of the corner of your eye. “It's okay, you're safe. Just a bad dream.”

You blame it on the panic still sitting in your throat or the way you've just woken up, the way you don't even think about your movements as you move yourself into Javis arms, sneaking your arms around his waist and you think you feel him hesitate for just a moment before he wraps his arms around you in return, whispering reassurances into the dimly lit room and stroking your back.

You cry a little more, when the memories of the dream feel too overwhelming and he holds you through all of it, not once complaining about how long you’re taking to shake the thoughts off.

It’s a good half hour before you’re both lying down again, his back resting against the edge of the sofa, right arm wrapped lazily around you, “You want me to keep the light on for now?”

The idea seems a little silly to you but it takes you right back to evenings in your childhood bedroom, to what felt like endless nights of asking your father to plug in the small night light you'd gotten for christmas. It looked like a sheep, carrying a smile and enough light for you to be able to tell that there were no monsters hiding in the dark corners of your room.

“Querida?” You nod your head quickly, resting it back on his chest, “Yeah, I- let’s keep it on. If that’s okay.”

“Por supuesto que está bien,” (Of course that is okay,) Javier mumbles softly, his left hand reaching below your makeshift bed and producing a pack of Marlboros. You watch the movements of his hands, the ones you see him do at least ten times a day, his fingers reaching for a cigarette, placing it between his slightly parted lips. Pausing to search two pockets for his lighter before finding it.

At a small nudge from you, he pauses, raising a brow, “¿Sí?” You nod towards the pack that’s still resting next to him, “It’s really rude not to offer me one.”

“I thought you didn’t smoke,” he says, seeming genuinely confused for a moment and you almost take pity. You sneak your hand over his torso, drawing a cigarette from the half-empty pack, “I do now.”

To his defense, he does try and look stern for a moment. But he knows it'd be hypocritical at best if he of all people tried to stop you.

“It's a bad habit.”

“Well, then it's our bad habit.”

Javi thinks, for a split moment, that something entirely else is his bad habit. The way he looks at you when you fall asleep before him or the touches that seem to become more and more frequent the longer your sleeping arrangement continues. The way he jerks off in his shower at home, picturing your face, your body draped in his shirt a few nights ago when your blouse was simply too uncomfortable to sleep in. Spilling into his own hand with a groan at those thoughts. Yeah, that's definitely his bad habit.

“Are you going to light it for me or are you hoping it’ll disintegrate if you think hard enough?” You joke gently, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“Teasing again already, are we?” Javi hums but he does reach for his lighter and brings it to your face, careful not to get too close.

He waits until you’ve both taken a few drags to ask his question.

“So what was it about?”

You swallow a bit at that, taking another long drag before you shake your head, “Nothing special. It’s already disappearing.” After another moment of thinking, you add, truthfully, “There was something with drugs in it.”

“Not very creative, I’d say. Five out of ten.”

You stare at him in disbelief, “Are you rating my nightmares, Peña?”

“I like to keep track,” he responds, giving you a small wink that you almost miss. You watch the smoke rising from the cigarette between his lips, sighing softly. You don’t like lying to him. Then again, it really was about drugs. Just not in the way he may think. It’s not your fault he’s stupid, sometimes.

“You’re silly. Go to sleep.”

“Go to sleep yourself.”

You do end up falling back asleep first, head still resting on his chest. Javi stays awake a little while longer, just in case the nightmares come back. At least that’s what he tells himself. And if he happens to use that opportunity to study your face a bit more? Well, it’s noones business.

end notes: if you enjoyed this, please reblog and/or leave a comment <3 also subscribe on ao3 or follow me here to catch the next update!

[hetalia-club]

Historical Hetalia

I hate how the hetalia fandom makes England out to be this brilliant mastermind when actual he’s a petty idiot. And he’s been getting a pass for far too long.

Here are some of my favorite England moments through recent history. Absolut Looney Tunes bull shit.

Story 1:

America and England had a plan (that was really smart and would totally work) to build a tunnel under west Germany so they could go inside of it and listen in on what the Russians stationed there were saying.

A double Agent in England's side (but actually worked for Russia) went and blabbed about it. Russia was like “oh no! That’s such a good plan we should have thought of it! I know let’s let them half way finish the tunnel and then we can discover it then we can finish building it!” So that’s what happened America and England filled in the hole though and pretended like they got lost digging like a sewer pipe or something like that.

Story 2:

A rock exists on the coast of Scotland. This is a real big and cool rock… or that’s what England thought anyway. So worried about the rock he spent nights tossing and turning wondering if the big fuck ton of a rock was perhaps being used for spying, was it bugged? Perhaps it wasn’t a rock at all and it was a submarine? Tired of sleepless nights England sailed over there one day and placed a British flag on the rock and a plaque claiming it as official British territory. Scotland was so pissed because that was HIS very cool big rock! They are still fighting over who owns the rock today. I do think teh Scotts threw teh flag into the ocean.

Story 3:

Or the time that America had just recruited a new spy and he was on his way to meet his new British associates in NY for a spy mission they had against Russia. The British Spy’s thought he gave off sneaky vibes so the kidnapped him and killed him when he got to the meeting and then they just went inside and waited for him to show up. They contacted the CIA and were like “where’s your boy dog?” And they described him to the spy’s and they were like “New mission you guys need to find this guy because we lost communication and we think it might have been the KGB and he had important stuff on him” and the British Spy’s were like “um…. I think we know where to find him” *cue laugh track*

Story 4:

The British were spying in Russian waters in a submarine when they came across a Polish sub. They were super jealous because this one was pulling a bunch of hydrophones( devices that allowed to you listen inside of other submarines). So the British wanted them so they were real real quiet and they snuck up behind the sub and they cut the line. They took the hydrophones and made a quick get away without the Polish sub being any the wiser.

Poland had to go back to Russia and be like. "Remember the really expensive equipment you gave me to use? Yeah I think it broke off in the ocean and idk where we lost it though and I'm NOT going back for it so don't ask. Kay thanks bye!"

Story 4 (my favorite because it is the dumbest and I think about it a lot):

Let me set the scene It’s the Cold War and things are really hearting up and Britain and America are afraid that Russia may try and cross the iron curtain. America said they should burry land mines but then remembers that it would be too cold for the land mines to stay working in the winter time (Just remember this was some years ago). But our mastermind England had an original though. I'm just going to write out exactly how I think this conversation would have went because frankly it's just so dumb and I could not make this shit up if I tried.

America: Alright everybody i really think we need to do something about the Iron curtain Russia has been too bold lately. So I was thinking something like land mines but I'm not sure if it'll work they won't work in the winter which knowing Russia that's exactly when he would attack. If anyone has any ideas I'm open to them Now if we could all ju-

England: *lifting is head from the mountain of cocaine he just had his face buried in* Chickens!

America: I'm sorry what?

England: Chickens! Chickens you idiot!

America: What do you mean chickens, are you alright man?

England: Uh! You are so dumb. We get a bunch of chickens, we strap the land mines on them and we put the chickens into little cages. Then we burry the cages and give them enough food for about a week. And we can just change the chickens every week. The body heat of the chickens will keep the land mine warm, don't you see? We can use a remote to detonate the land mines ourselves.

America: Okay...that's a thought. Anyone else have any ideas? *Looks around the room of his allies as they all nod in agreement*

America: Germany, what's your thoughts on this? You don't think this is a good idea surely, right? Just burying chickens along the border of your country.

Germany: I like chickens.

America: This is worse than my idea to put little head sets on cats and turn them lose in Moscow, you all can't be forreal

Italy: Chickens are cool tho.

America: God Damn it. Okay Operation Chicken is-

England: No stupid you can't call it operation chicken, Russia will know what we are up to right away. We need to name it something discrete. If not he'll steal our chicken idea.

America: Russia dosen't want your stupid- Alright whatever, what do you want to call it then?

England: Operation Blue Bunny....No No! Blue Peacock

America: What the actual fuck is wrong with you?

(Provided a link for this one because I don't think any of you would believe me if I didn't)

[writersblockended]

Bucky's House Sitting trials - blurb.1

Hey guys this is a new fanfic I have been brewing on for a day or two and decided to go from daydreaming to actially writing it down for once. It's been so long since I have written anything from ANY fandom but lets see where this takes us omg. Im definitely gonna make this into a full fic if I see it going somewhere nice. Regardless this isn't even a real chapter this is just a scene of my whole concept.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Plot; Bucky decides on trying out house sitting after his therapist suggest he needs to get of his damn house and isolating himself. Sure, the isolation bit is still there but at least he's not home anymore, right? Anyways this homeowner is super rich and who knows maybe they'll cross paths at some point.

TW; none hehe

WC; 885

I do not own any of these characters don't sue me marvel thx

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Bucky pushed through the door. Keys dangling from his hands, loudly making noise as he stepped into the big empty apartment complex he was supposed to look over. So, he had so much free time after the big shtick with Thanos and Steve leaving that he never had to leave his home anymore. So, his therapist in a desperate attempt forced him to get out of his home and told him of an app where he can “house sit” some rich person’s house for a couple days while they leave for whatever reason. So here he was, taking care of some rich person’s insane apartment that probably cost millions of dollars that he will never see in his life. At least he was getting paid for this, it's not like he exactly has a job right now. 

He looks around the place and it irks him just how expensive everything looks. If he breaks anything in this place he’s so fucked. Whatever. He will just have to be careful. Entering the kitchen, there's a note stuck to the fridge in neat handwriting: please enjoy your stay, I will be gone over the weekend and have whatever you like in the fridge and pantry! :) 

He opens the fridge and Jesus there is so much food, enough for a family of twelve. Is this how rich people live? He sighed. The size of the kitchen alone is probably as big as his old place in brooklyn when he was a child. These new appliances from the future looked intimidating. He was still learning how to use a coffee maker. What happened to just regular coffee? What is up with all these new chinos? Let's just say this new world is still pretty fucken new. His phone alone was a nighmare to use even after years of using it now.

He made his way upstairs and found what would be his bedroom since it had a note on the door. For you! It wrote. The room was furnished like a hotel with all its necessities, the owner had even put his towels on the bench at the end of his temporary bed. It even had a TV! He continued to the bathroom. It was medium sized and had a large rain showerhead. The bathroom was dark with black cabinets, even the tile all over the bathroom was black. He did not mind the layout. 

Bucky turned around and went straight to the bed. It was a late Friday night, and he should at least be doing what he already knows what to do. Failing to fall asleep at a normal hour while it is still night. So, he does what he needs to and grabs from his pack of clothes he plopped down earlier and gets what he calls his poor excuse of pajamas: sweatpants and no shirt. He never got used to modern clothes either, men's clothes nowadays are so tight. 

And at that the days drifted slowly. He spent most of his time working out in his room with the TV on or he kept to himself by scrolling on his phone. Twitter was so weird, everyone just constantly fighting eachother over what was mostly misunderstandings and typos. He caught onto the internet stuff quickly, it wasn’t to figure it out, most of it was just navigating the apps. One social media he did not understand truly was instagram. It was just sharing pictures, so he didn’t do that. It’s not like he has any friends currently, and there's so many underdressed women. It's not like he judged per se, he knows women are allowed to do whatever they want to do. He just wasn’t used to seeing women dressed like that at all. Had women done that in his time he would look away out of respect. 

What he missed a lot of the time was being able to drink. The feeling of being drunk. It isn’t always for drinking when he gets sad but sometimes it could just give him a buzz. Just to get rid of the anxiety that is always threatening to tip over. 

He shook his head and decided he should change the channel of his TV. It was now Sunday. Just a couple more hours till six o'clock. He could do this. Then he’d be holed up in his apartment and prove to his therapist that he actually does what she tells him to do. He rolls his eyes at the thought. This is probably the most outlandish thing he's done since he got back from being himself. 

The hours were passing slowly, and he decided on one more task. He wanted to snoop. So, he decided exploring this apartment would be ideal. He never really got to; he respected the owner's privacy but really had nothing to do. When he left his room, he turned the corner and found a smaller door. He stepped inside and it was a small laundry room. It was messy and had a basket of women’s clothes in a corner. He was not about to snoop on some woman's clothes, he was not that kind of guy.

He turned his ass around and left to go back to his bed. He should’ve just stayed in his room.

[mermaidsirennikita]

I need a recommendation for a contemporary romance novel that is not a billionaire, sport or workplace romance that is Open Door to explicit open door?

I'm sorry billionaire romances might as well be fantasy novels IMO.

Fortunately for you I ONLY read open door to extremely explicit open door so all my contemporaries are along those lines lol

The Roommate by Rosie Danan. The heroine has to get a last minute roommate after the friend she thought she was in love with bails to go on tour with his band... and she ends up living with an adult film star. They do start working on a project together late in the book (not a film) but it's not a workplace romance at all lol. So fun!

Glitterland by Alexis Hall. M/M, a down on his luck bipolar author has a one night stand with a radically different (in a class way and a personality way--this book handles UK class stuff really well) glittery sparkly guy, who then unexpectedly stays the weekend at his place and they sort of fall into a relationship together?

You, Again by Kate Goldbeck. A 21st century take on When Harry Met Sally, the hero and heroine meet when they realize they're both hooking up with the same girl. After some rough starts, they eventually end up as friends... but obviously, there's a ton of UST and he's falling in love with her and she CANNOT deal with that reality.

Forget Me Not by Julie Soto. Borderline workplace because the heroine is a wedding planner and the hero is a florist she's using for a wedding, but functionally not. This is a second chance romance; they were together in the past, but she's a commitmentphobe (as a commitmentphobe, I love a commitmentphobe hereoine) and screwed it up. So now they're thrown back together for a new wedding, and it gets Complicated. Also, there's an amazing scene were they're in the bath together and she's ranting out work stress and he basically is like "let me help" and reaches around to... help.

The Other Side of Disappearing by Kate Clayborn. This one is a bit softer on the sex, but it's definitely not closed door. The heroine's mom ran off with a con artist years ago, and the con artist was the subject of a famous podcast before he disappeared and kind of left it on a cliffhanger. The podcaster and her sort of protegee (the hero, a very Soft ex football player) show up to pick up where it left off, and the heroine and her sister end up on a roadtrip to find the mom together.

Friends Don't Fall in Love by Erin Hahn. The heroine was an up and coming country singer before she got cancelled for singing a protest song about gun control. Her fiance, another country singer, then dumped her, and she impetuously hooked up with his collaborator/friend. Years later, he's her landlord, and they start collaborating again to revive her career.

I would also recommend Kylie Scott's Stage Dive series (rock stars, but not billionaires); I like all of them, but I loooove Lead (the frontman for the band, a recovering addict, lives with his assistant/sober living companion; she realizes she's in love with him, and as a no-nonsense bitch is like "I'm quitting", to which he says, "NONONONONO"; has a scene where they fuck on the kitchen table to get it out of their systems and he like, immediately stagger-runs away) and Deep (the bass player has a one night stand with the drummer's new baby sister-in-law, and oops, she's PREGNANT).

Kristen Callihan's VIP series (again, rock stars but not billionaires) is also very good, though I don't like the first book. I do recommend Managed (about the band manager becoming platonic nap partners with the new photographer/social media manger; he's uptight and she's Not, he sniffs her dirty panties, she undoes him, it's great); Fall (one of the band's front men is recovering mentally from a suicide attempt, finds out he has an STI, is super ashamed and spiraling mentally... then becomes friends with the girl who's like, house sitting for another bandmate, I think? And she's a Professional Friend?); and Exposed (the band's publicist, their childhood female friend, enters into a FWB situation with the one member of the band she can't stand).

Kennedy Ryan's Skyland series is good, too. Before I Let Go is about a divorced couple that realizes they still have feelings for each other; This Could Be Us is about a rich housewife whose husband is thrown in jail for financial crimes, unexpectedly finding love with the forensic computer guy who turned him in.

Helen Hoang's books are really good too, but I especially love The Kiss Quotient, which is about a woman on the spectrum who hires a male sex worker in an effort to become better at dating (it's actually so sweet... also hot).

Of course, I enjoy Talia Hibbert--Act Your Age, Eve Brown is probably my favorite, but that's a bit of a workplace book, as she works for him at a B&B. Otherwise, try Get a Life, Chloe Brown, which is about a woman with a chronic illness deciding to take control of her life, and her neighbor helping her out and in the process falling in love with her.

Fwiw, I think all romances are kinda fantasy!

[beatsboy]

7.28.24 / day 35 of romanticizing my life until i love myself again

it’s almost 2am, i woke up about an hour ago from a 5 hour “nap” after going to a queer day market to support my friend selling their art, and it was really cute and i was honestly super social as i have not had that much social interaction lately (getting used to living alone and having to actively go out and seek social interaction has changed my capacity when i do have it so much, like crazy not feeling drained every time i leave the house because i’ve already been like 5 people’s father/therapist/cleaner/etc before getting to the place i’m going to be supportive/present for someone else) but god damn it was so f u c k i n g hot and tbh i’m very proud of myself for making it as long as i did i only made it thanks to the ice cream vender who put my ice pack necklace (shoutout to my mom who has these for menopause and told me about them) in her cooler so it could get cold again and the lemonade vender who gave me a giant cup of ice to hold against various parts of my body to stay cool af and i got to talk about the music video, and future music videos, the more we talk about this stuff, the more motivated i feel to work on music i want to get to the part where i get to be the thing i’ve been building mostly in my brain for so long

originally, we were going for summer release, and then everything got all fucked up with my roommate situation and moving but i think it was meant to happen this way; this project is better suited for the fall, regardless, and clearly brat has taken over this summer in terms of music, on all levels, especially in the hyperpop scene there are still brat parties going on in la, smaller artists are still reaping the benefits of this album (though not getting much credit, as per usual) love seeing the dare dj a petal supply remix of a brat song and getting all the credit, it’s fine we can continue letting cis white dudes get the credit for queer artists, it’s fine i was literally at a brat market today, where everyone had brat merchandise it’s hard for any other music to break through the brat noise in pop/hyperpop right now, not to mention, boypop is kind of fucking freaky, so i do think sept/oct release would be good for the theme

i rewatch the assembly of the first minute or so of footage and literally cannot believe that that is me these are the movements i practice in the shower, in the corner, in my room, when no one’s looking, movements, expressions, i rarely actually see and the thing is, when i do see, i often shrink from them when i tried to practice performing like this in front of a mirror, i always lost it, the authenticity of it, the commitment, giving fully into the performance, the character, the self that’s the only way, in my opinion, to perform, because any level of restraint pulls you back to reality, that i am just a human, an insecure boy, going through puberty for the second time in his life of 27 years, afraid that he hasn’t done enough in his short time on this earth and wishes he’d taken a life-altering journey to a faraway planet where pop music was the harbinger of liberation instead of a stint in rehab and a coke addiction

anyway, market was fun, although so so hot, and after not going out all weekend, especially after thinking i was going to go to the rave on friday night and not, i really needed some socialization, with friends, and new people, and really needed some real time spent out of my apartment i got a really cute trucker hat that says “gay son” that i’m obsessed with and a really beautiful zine made by a trans guy about his gender journey (originally to raise money for his top surgery, which he had evidently already had, as he was standing there, fearlessly, with his shirt off) i honestly didn’t want to spend another $10 (i literally still have to make my rent in the next 3 days but telling myself i got this) but i think i just feel this intense awe when i see other trans guys post op shirtless, so free in a way i cannot imagine being so, naturally, i was blinded and overcome with this feeling, so i paid the $10 for the zine, and of course i do not regret it at all another vender had a kitten cafe with two 2 week old kittens inside (pictured) because they were too young to be left alone and while i was worried about them and the heat, they were quite cute

after being at the market for over 4 hours, af and i came back to my place, where i made us greek wraps with ground turkey and homemade tzatziki and cucumbers after we walked to h mart to get fresh tortillas i showed them the latest version of “boypop” which is so close i can taste the final mix (and am a bit mad i didn’t work on it today, but it’s fine, i was exhausted) they noticed the automation, the changes i’ve been making, i feel like i’ve actually been moving forward in my work this past week instead of just hyperfixating and going in circles, which is a danger i face in the finishing phase it’s hard to let go of a project, to let it be done i still listen to “king” and think of different harmonies i could record now with my current voice and i can sing whatever i want live, but the recording is done, the mix is done, there are no more changes to be made

i think, in the same way that i love people for their potential, and not always for who they are right now, i see a song as it’s potential, which is why i can imagine so much more than what is actually in front of me, and translate that symphony in my head into the daw, and i also why it’s so hard to let go, to stop, to step away from the infinity of changes and evolutions each project could still face sometimes it feels like i could just work on something forever and as i learn new things it will keep getting better and better, but at some point, i just have to let go

when i was a kid, my dad told me that an artist’s first album is always the best because it’s the cumulation of only their best works at the time, but then they just have to keep creating and they slowly get worse and worse i don’t know why i let this stick with me, more insidious influence from my father on a career i hadn’t even chosen when i knew him, it was just some dumb musing from a middle-aged man making himself feel smart by making a comment about maroon fucking 5

his birthday was 2 weeks ago i wonder if it makes him sad, on his birthday, at the age of 66, knowing he’s grown to be the kind of man who would offer back his relationship to his child, who has grown to hate him more than he hates himself, at a price, who has grown to be a man who can put a price tag on anything, even his love and support knowing he is one of the only people left in this planet, soon including even TSA agents and the DMV, to call me that name to wonder if i will ever come back, if i will ever call, if i will ever reach out, if i will ever show up and say i’m sorry dad you were right all along i got off the path and i sold my body and i want to go back to my normal life with a check for $5000, crying, and return to his control (i won’t) he tells my brother that it’s on me, ball’s in my court, if i want to come back that’s all i have to do, say sorry and pay the fine my terms have always been more simple, which i have communicated let’s talk, with a therapist present you two (parents) schedule (since they have crazy schedules) and i will be flexible (even though i too have crazy schedule) “he said he’s willing” my mother claimed, but it never came to fruition, of course not i blocked his number at first, i had to he wouldn’t stop calling, threatening me, telling me i’d made my mother sick with my behavior (becoming financially independent after realizing i was being financially/emotionally abused) i responded to his emails for a while, but they got worse, so i stopped then, his dad died, and i unblocked him just to call and give my condolences i left him unblocked after that. he could have called any time he wanted, but he didn’t i would know if he’d even tried

i wonder if my dad, too, ever sat alone in his first solo apartment journaling about his thoughts and reflecting on the ways his actions impacted other people mostly i hope not, because i don’t want to know if he did good things before he went bad, i want his fate to feel impossible for me to come to i already know that he read the tao te ching and the four agreements, things i’ve read as a young adult, that have brought me peace, that have taught me ways to move through the world, that don’t make sense when i think of him, and it makes me uneasy i don’t want to envision him being a morally good person and suddenly turning it makes me fear that i could still face the turn, when i want to believe that i have avoided it, that i am not capable of becoming a man like That

but, in truth, we are all capable of becoming like that, of selling out to some idea worse than what we believe in because it’s easy, because what we’re doing now is hard, because the rat race is tiring on the ground because our bodies are tired because maybe our fathers were right and the world’s a hard place and maybe i won’t because i know he wasn’t right, he never was, he was a professional bully who practiced on his wife and children but it is in every decision we make, daily, hourly, minute by minute, that determines who we are, and in ever decision, we can make the turn, we can cave and be cruel, we can give in and take the easy route, knowing that each of those decisions pulls us closer to That which we fear becoming the evil you fear lies as much in buying all your furniture on amazon as it does saying something cruel to someone who doesn’t deserve it just because you’ve had a stressful morning as much as the goodness you chase lives in being friendly to the coffee employee who’s taking forever on your drink when you’re late because it’s not their fault and their morning is just as important as yours as much as it lives in buying from local artists every decision determines how you move through the world, connecting each step and choice like a river, that is where you find where you’ll end up, which ocean you end up submerged in, which fish you will find yourself swimming into the dark night with and i crave free, calm waters for when i my end

[lcatala]

My top 6 movies discovered in 2023

I watched 52 new-to-me movies in 2023. Not nearly enough , as I could only find 6 movies that stood out sufficiently to be worthy of a personal top, in what was otherwise a pretty meh year — yes I'm a picky watcher — and yeah The Boy and The Heron didn't make the top, you can read the long rambling I wrote about it if you want to know why; I haven't watched Barbie, Oppenheimer or the Super Mario Bros. Movie, and haven't watched any Marvel-related movie since 2015.

6: Nimona (2023)

I didn't really expect to like the animated adaptation of N. D. Stevenson's comic, and I went in reluctantly, only because a lot of people who seemed trustworthy recommended it. Despite having some of the flaws I've come to expect in modern 3D animation, this was a very good surprise. You can read my detailed review here.

5: Suzume (2022)

The plot of Suzume stays very much within the bounds of the "modern artsy anime film", with a rather predictable 3+1 acts structure and an exploration of themes and human interactions which has some subtlety and nuance but overall stays very safe and on-the-surface. Nothing offensive, but nothing truly groundbreaking either.

But.

Suzume had, by far, the best animation of any movie I've seen this year. This movie is an absoluteely beautiful, every-frame-a-painting kind of deal. If I was to rank every animated I've ever seen solely by the quality of their animation, Suzume would easily be in the top 10.

4: Cape Fear (1962)

American cinema achieved maturity during the New Hollywood era that started in the late 1960s, marking a shift toward more naturalistic and more adult filmmaking and themes. But there were a few notable precursors before that.

The most famous of those is of course Psycho (altho tellingly, it was from a British director). But Cape Fear followed close behind, and is another example of an early 60s movie which you don't expect to be this dark and this raw, starring an absolutely get-under-your-skin-terrifying Robert Mitchum — if you thought he was creepy in The Night of the Hunter, you haven't seen nothing yet…

3: The Outwaters (2022)

This was the biggest surprise of the year, watched the same day it was recommended to me, having heard absolutely nothing about it before that (I didn't even know this movie existed). I got treated to a no-budget yet beautifully-shot found-footage horror movie — in fact the best found-footage movie I have ever seen, with a lot of attention put toward making the gimmick plausible, making the characters realistic and likeable, making this look like the kind of actual footage you'd find on a personal camera — while also having amazingly beautiful cinematography — all while slowly building up the tension.

Because that's just the first half.

Oh yeah, it's one of these horror movies in which you think you know where the story is going, and then second half just explodes in your face and becomes completely, utterly batshit insane. This is on par with Men (2022) for how weird and fucked up the climax is. Don't expect any kind of explanation or closure here, the second half of this movie turns into one of the most fucked up and bizzare horror movies you'll ever see.

2: Godzilla Minus One (2023)

Yeah so this one was a surprise late-year hit for everyone, not just me. First live-action Japanese Godzilla film in 7 years, with rather tempered expectations — we all knew that Shin Godzilla was an odd one out, that the average Japanese Godzilla movie is not like that, that we shouldn't expect this kind of quality on a regular basis.

Well we played ourselves.

This was incredibly well made as a blockbuster — Japanese cinema has completely caught up on American cinema, for a fraction of the budgets — one of the best Godzilla movies ever made from an action and visuals point of view, and a reminder that Godzilla, as a character, can also be scary, a terrifying incarnation of destruction and disaster.

But somehow this also managed to be a powerful and well filmed drama — no lazy endless shot/reverse shot dialogues here, a lot effort is put into framing choices, blocking… — a movie that actually touches on difficult questions and goes against the message of many other war or action blockbusters.

When so many stories glorify the idea of sacrifying your life for a greater cause, here's one movie that says "hey maybe expecting people to sacrifice their life for your cause is actually pretty fucked up, and maybe it's actually better to choose to live for the sake of your loved ones than to die for the sake of your own pride". Yeah a Japanese movie is saying that, a Godzilla movie is saying that.

1: Skinamarink (2022)

So, speaking of low-budget independent horror, back in 2022 I had foolishly overlooked Skinamarink. I had vaguely heard that it was good, but no particular detail was mentioned that would have picked my interest, and the poster looked fairly generic, so I skipped it, even tho I should have been more intrigued — 2022 was already shaping up to be a really good year for horror films…

Skinamarink was a tough proposition from the get go, in the "experimental" kind of tough: an entire film made in the analog horror genre — usually short videos made to ressemble old media from the 80s and 90s, advertisements, warning messages, weather channels, documentaries and informercials, with a disturbing twist; a format usually made of short segments. Trying to tell a film-length story in that fashion is an entirely different exercise, but that's fine, I've sat thru Begotten (1989), I can do this.

Right away, this is not framed like a movie: it's more as if someone had negligently left an old camera on the floor — but this is not even found-footage, there is no camera in-story, we just happen to be seeing this world thru stolen, furtive points of view. The image is grainy, the sound is bad quality (subtitles are provided), the frames are often askew, you never even see the actors' faces. We get no narration, no exposition, just a succession of disjointed scenes that slowly form a story.

This shouldn't work. And for many people, this will not work. Most will turn this off not even 5 minutes in. But if you're among the exceptions, then howdy does it work. The format is not a gimmick at all — it's completely in service of the story. The grainy image, the low quality sound prey on your pattern recognition, never quite certain if something is there or not; the framing by a "forgotten" camera contributes to make the atmosphere hyper-real in its intimacy, yet alienating and uncanny.

The director of Skinamarink deals with one very specific topic: nightmares. Not the idea of nightmares, not the heightened nightmares of fiction, but the literal nightmares that real people have; he started by making short videos representing common nightmares that people would tell him about. When it came time to make a full-length feature film, he kept the same approach. Skinamarink doesn't really use any of the classic themes or structures of horror movies; it largely ignores that folklore and instead focuses on deep childhood fears, the kind of stuff your mind used to conjure up long ago and that you have forgotten but not erased from your brain.

If you manage to enter into this very peculiar format, this very unusual and seemingly disjointed way to tell a story, and if you identify with the kind of fear material the movie is drawing on, this is a truly scary experience. Not really in a jump scare or suspense way, more like a deeply haunting and unsettling atmosphere, a strong ambient uncanniness where things are almost normal but just broken enough to give you a constant feeling of unpleasantness, of wanting to run the hell out of here while being trapped, a sense of horrible lurking threat while having nothing concrete to fight against or protect yourself from.

Of course, this isn't exactly a fun experience. This is very, very intense, I'm talking Antichrist-levels of playing with your nerves, and the story, as simple as it is, is tragically harrowing and cruel — you're essentially watching two young children getting psychologically (and eventually physically) tortured by a sadistic, unseen entity for a hundred minutes.

It's hard to recommend, and yet recommendations is how this movie ended up grossing 2 millions on a 15k budget — promotion included ! Most people actually didn't like the movie, but those who liked it liked it so much they can't shut up about it (case in point!) It's one of those horror movies that completely break the boundaries of the genre and do something truly new and unique. It's what horror should be for: imagination gone wild, format-breaking fantasy, and realism thrown out of the window.

[misstodorokifreelance]

Birthday Boy (Bakugou x F!Reader)

Gah! I know im super super late to this. Bakugou's birthday was ages ago, but I have become inspired. Perhaps my late night animated Bakudeku comics have finally brought me a wholesome idea. Anyway, here is a one shot, drabble, something or other that popped into my brain. Anyway in this short story you are Y/N Midoriya, the twin sister of our precious Deku after he's suddenly up and disappeared. (Vigilante stuff? Who knows?) With Bakugou feeling his friend's absence, he struggles to comprehend what had become the norm for him, and takes some solace in the presence of his best friend's sister. Tw: Mentions of self harm, mental health stuff, Bakubaby's usual swearing.

It was funny. In a way, Katsuki had been perfectly content not having to deal with Deku on his birthday, but now that this was the first year he'd gone without the usual over the top well wishes, he missed it. He missed Deku. Not that he was dead. Hopefully. But it sure felt different not having him around, not having the usual comforting presence that could stop his darkest thoughts. Katsuki had felt pain before, of all types, but he had never truly thought about inflicting what he felt was truly deserved. After all, what had happened with All Might, that was all his fault, and he knew it. Leaning over the balcony railing off his dorm room, Katsuki didn't try to stop the few tears that dared to leak from his eyes. He didn't even try to wipe them away. It was his fucking birthday. Where was that damn nerd when he needed him the most? The tears flowed a little faster now, and with a growl Bakugou dragged the end of his long sleeve over his face, feeling disgusted with himself for being so weak. Happy Birthday? Fuck off with that shit, he thought, turning away from the sunset outside and glaring back inside his dimly lit room. He'd received a handful of gifts from Kirishima, Ashido and the other Bakusquad members; all trivial tough guy shit that sure he'd use but wasn't anything majorly special. Not like Deku would give him. Deku knew what he liked. All Might figures, dumb movies about monsters and stereotypical happy endings, the odd comic book. That was what Deku gave him, and it was what Katsuki truly treasured. He settled himself to sitting with a lonely soda on his balcony, wondering where Deku was now, when Katsuki's arms were cut and bleeding. When he couldn't rest easy worrying about his friend, or screaming at his demons... "Dammit, nerd. The one year I need you-" he spit, setting the half empty cola harder than necessary on the concrete. A few more tears splashed their way onto the front of his shirt, and Katsuki sighed. He'd need to wash it now, great.

At that moment, there was the quietist of knocks at his door. "Who the fuck-" Katsuki wasn't at all in the mood to deal with anyone, so he ignored the knocking. Only whoever was at the door wasn't going anywhere, and knocked again, a little louder than before. "Kacchan?" he heard a voice call through the door, and he sprung up, immediately wondering if it was Deku. Only it was a gentler voice than his, and there was no stutter in the next few words. "Hey, can I come in?" The hell does she want? Opening the door, Katsuki looked down at you, momentarily forgetting that his face was tear stained, and his shirt marked by the salty drops of betrayed emotion. Your green hair, sleeker than Deku's, was loose over your shoulders, and you wore plain leggings and an All Might shirt which you had planned to sleep in. Katsuki blinked. "Y/N? Thought you'd be home what with damn Deku missing." "I was. This came for you, it's from my brother. He asked me to deliver it, he couldn't stay." "You saw him? Is he-is he okay?" Katsuki said quickly, ushering you into his room and shutting the door with a snap. He'd barely registered the rest of what you had told him, desperate to hear any news. You nodded slowly, holding out a small wrapped box in your hands. "He's....alright. Happy Birthday, by the way, from both me and Izuku." Katsuki took a second to realize you were handing him something, until you placed the box in his shaking hands, feeling how cold they were. He noticed the difference, almost wanting to lean into the warmth of your comparably smaller hands. He felt the scars along the palms and fingers, and as he pulled away, the tip of his index finger brushed over what felt to him like a burn. He'd always thought you were the stronger twin, having not been born quirkless like Deku. You'd inherited a fairly stronger version of your mother's telekinesis, and had never been one to refuse a fight or stand down before. But here you were, quiet and subdued in a way he'd never seen, standing with your hands laced anxiously together while he idled with the box in his hands. Shaking hard enough he had trouble undoing the bow, Katsuki opened the gift, and pulled something out of a tissue paper nest. He stared at the leather cuff, embedded with designs of All Might's signature hair tufts so it looked like a 'V' printed over and over. With the cuff was a small handwritten note, and he read it almost desperately. Kacchan, Happy Birthday. If it was safe for me to be with you at UA I would, so I asked Y/N to deliver this to you. Forgive me, I'll be back when I can. -Deku Katsuki didn't realize that he had stumbled back onto his bed, a sob wracking his frame. The box fell, forgotten to the floor, as he grasped the stylish cuff in his hands. You moved to his side, placing a comforting hand over his shoulders, and Katsuki didn't shrug you off for the first time possibly in your entire life. "I- fuck. If I hadn't gotten kidnapped, All Might would be alive, Deku wouldn't have to run. He'd be here. We'd be celebrating-I-this is all my fault-" He coughed, swallowing back more tears, while you gripped him tightly around his shoulders. "No, he chose this. You did nothing. Stop blaming yourself, and stop hurting over it. Deku wouldn't want that, he wouldn't want you to be hurting yourself cause of something you couldn't ever control. Okay?" Katsuki sniffed hard, and looked sideways at you. God those green eyes were hypnotic in the amber sunset glow. You were right, weren't you? But how did you know what he was- "You're not one to wear long sleeves this often," you murmured. Katsuki grimaced, and he looked deep into your eyes. He could see Deku there, though you had less freckles than him, and your lips were fuller. Still, he was there, in your features, and in the small smile you gave him. "Don't hurt like this," you said, moving your free hand to run up his arm, feeling the bandage he tried to hide under the sleeve. "I- know. I miss him, I

[the-type-a]

would you happen to have any hcs with duncan and courtney being college dorm neighbors??

i can just imagine the classic “my next door neighbor is playing music obnoxiously loud while i’m trying to study, now i need to go yell at him” that leads to a beautiful enemies to lovers storyline.

I can come up with some!

Now, I went a private college so the dorms were completely separated and I’m not too sure if a regular college/uni does the same. So I’ll just make it like they’re college neighbors in some apartment building 💀

The semester is about to start so everyone’s moving in. More importantly, one specific building is a major hotspot for students since it’s off campus yet close enough to walk over.

The applications for this building are insane, you basically have to send yours in before you even graduate high school to even be considered.

Courtney, who plans ahead knows this already. She’s made sure to send her application, along with reasons why she’s a great tenant, the second she send her college app.

Duncan on the other hand does not. He could care less and probably hasn’t even filled out any type of dorm application. BUT since his parents are respectable people in the community, he gets a free pass and into the apartment building.

Courtney wants to be a good, nice, neighbor so she decides to introduce herself to everyone on her side of the floor. She meets Bridgette, just to the left of her. DJ, who’s just across the hallway. Geoff, who’s to the left of DJ. There’s only one more door, to the right of her (Duncan). The rest of the floor is unimportant tbh

When she knocks on the door she can’t help but get pissed when she hears a voice from behind the door asking her to go away.

She says she’s just wanting to introduce herself to her closest neighbors and is staying until she meets who’s there.

Duncan opens the door, not giving one fuck that he’s only dressed from the waist down.

This is where is all begins. 💀

Courtney’s just appalled by Duncan. His lack of concern for his surroundings, his attitude, and quite frankly his appearance all together.

Duncan truly does not care and just wants to get back to whatever he was doing, probably smoking from the terrace or getting ready to give himself a new tattoo/piercing.

Right off gate they don’t get along, obvi.

Courtney’s alarm goes off before 6am and since her bedroom aligns with Duncan’s, he bangs his fist against the wall. If it’s the middle of the night she’ll hear his tv blaring off until she’s banging her fist on the wall.

Duncan has a habit of listening to his rock/punk music in the shower, and honestly, just about all the time. And it’s super freaking loud. So loud that Courtney can feel the vibrations and is pissed.

Courtney’s constantly knocking on his door until she figures out how to kick him off the Bluetooth. Then Duncan’s the one at her door flipping shit. Courtney’s just like, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Duncan is always asking if Courtney has extra toilet paper, milk, sugar, etc. and since Courtney wants to be a good neighbor she lends him some, but now it’s just getting annoying.

Duncan hates when Courtney cooks her dinners but won’t offer to share. He can smell it and he’s starving most of the time because he literally eats like a 5 years old.

There’s a issue with the plumbing at one point, so the floor has to be extra careful when it comes to hot water. Duncan, not caring, takes a 2 hour steaming hot shower, which leaves Courtney with ice cold water.

When she flips tf out at him in her bathrobe he just opens the door and offers for her to join him instead. She punches him.

One time Courtney locks herself out. She didn’t even notice she didn’t have her key because she was with her study group late. The only person up is Duncan, she can hear his tv, so she knocks on his door asking him to help her.

You know Duncan, can’t just do it out of the kindness of his heart, always has to add his two lines in there for dramatic effect.

He picks her lock and now she’s paranoid he’ll do that at random just to freak her out. Duncan swears he would never do that, but was thinking about it regardless.

Sometimes they get each others mail and it’s very awkward when they have to exchange it.

Duncan teases Courtney on what she wears and is completely dumbfounded when she steps out in some hot af outfit when she goes out with Bridgette.

Courtney purposely picked that outfit to shut him up, but thinks he’s gross for eyeing her so openly like that (but let’s face it she also likes it).

The tense elevator rides when they have class around the time?? Insane.

Don’t even get me started on the Duncan randomly checking his peephole for Courtney. He did it once when she went out late and wanted to make sure she made it back alive, and ever since then it’s a habit. He catches himself a lot but can’t stop.

Whenever Courtney doesn’t hear Duncan’s tv at night she wonders if he’s at some random girls dorm. She hates herself for even being mad about it.

Holy shit. If the fire alarm goes off and Duncan doesn’t see Courtney immediately leave her apartment he’s picking the lock… just to find out she wasn’t even there in the first place 💀

That’s all I can come up with rn lmao

[coeurify]

I'm not sure how to word some of these things and make them make sense so bear with me please. My partner for over a year has been polyamirous and I knew that before we started dating, I personally am not but it has never bothered me up until now, like I love them but lately no matter what I do or try to talk abt it's always about the new partner. A little over a month ago was our one year and we normally would spend that day or weekend together for like date nights and things like that, but last month it's almost like they forgot? Like I texted them and asked if we were going to stay at my place or theirs and they just asked what I meant and at first I thought they were just fucking with me but then later that day they posted with their new partner and captioned it like really sappy I guess? Like it was more than they have given me in the past few months. I'm not necessarily jealous I guess I'm more so upset. I've tried talking to them about how I feel and they either brush it off or just completely ignore me, and I know that new partners are exciting and all but it just makes me super sad. And not only did they miss our one year but also my birthday and everything since then. I know this makes them sound horrid but they are truly an amazing person. I wouldn't be involved with them if they weren't. I feel like they lost interest and then the next day they are all over me, I asked them to explain a couple of things about our relationship and they just kept going on and on about this partner. I don't want to end things but it seems like they don't really care for how I feel anymore? I'm not sure what to do and they won't talk to me about what they want to do either so I'm just sitting here pondering life and crying.

mean this in the sweetest way, but fuck them. you do not sound horrid at all for talking abt how you feel and being upset. they forgot important dates (LIKE HUGE ONES!!) to talk about their new partner. it isnt the poly part thats the issue, its how they handle the relationships and how they treat YOU. being poly doesnt mean they can treat you like shit to obsess over the new person. if they wont communicate with you and hear you out, it may be good to take a step back. try again, a serious conversation where u are honest about how everything has made you feel. if they cant handle that or be mature and converse with you, let them go. you deserve better than that. you deserve as much time as someone can give, you deserve to feel loved and wanted. ik you love them, snd thats why you should try your best to talk though it.. but if they cant do that, it isnt worth it. im sending sm love and hugs babe

[silverislander]

some caitlyn hcs. brain full of she

i have def mentioned this before but i like to hc her as trans sometimes just because :)

and her parents helped pick her name! caitlyn wasn't one of the ones they suggested but they were pleased with it anyway and they've always been very supportive as is normal for the cities (canon no homophobia/transphobia FUCK YES)

had a week or so where she was going by a new name every day bc she hadn't found the right one yet ("hannah, could you-" "i'm not hannah, i'm trying abigail today"). it was a nightmare to remember but by the time she settled on it her parents felt it was worth it because she was so happy

again not an uncommon one but she's autistic!!

i'm projecting but she did a lot of people watching growing up bc she was sure she could figure out how to make people like her if she just studied others hard enough. it did not work unfortunately

she likes animals :) is not afraid of bugs either! she just likes them all pretty much. probably terrorized her poor mother bringing neat-looking centipedes into the house to show her

either had or has at least one dog i KNOW it. even if the dog wasn't hers, technically, it was her best buddy

did music as a kid but was never much of a musician

sometimes she still sings tho, mostly to the radio (canon pop music fan)

was on debate team in middle school. was exactly as determined about it as she is about everything else. caitlyn did not join debate to make friends she came here to Win

people assume she's so neat and organized and all bc of the everything about her but she so isn't, her notes are a disaster of a system only she understands. why are there multiple overlapping piles of papers on your desk. she doesn't get stains on things, but that's really her only rule

def read those kid detective books growing up

i love the hc of her actually being a Competent Lesbian i really do but i also like the idea of her just being a very charming very pretty nerd. she's not going to deliver a perfect pickup line but would you like to hear an in-depth explanation of methods of transport and be treated with genuine kindness (also known as the Oh I Can't Not Fuck Her effect)

snuck girls in through her window, but only snuck out once in her teen years because the guilt was eating her alive

(she did it more as an adult- it was more about her parents not knowing where she was if she was in danger, so by the time she could handle herself she was Gone whenever she wanted to be lmao)

jayce wasn't the first time her parents decided she couldn't be friends with someone anymore, but it was one of the last

after she meets vi she becomes fascinated by the undercity bc she just knows so little about it! she just wants to know everything (this is basically canon but You Know)

has always been very good at being a little rebellious, mostly because she's very smart and she knows that people assume that girls like her are well-behaved

coffee drinker i'll die on this hill. tea is for relaxation coffee is for work and pulling yet another all nighter no its not too late she can stay up a little longer its FINE she has things to DO

super awkward around children younger than their teen years like. what is she supposed to talk to them about. hextech? is that what kids are into nowadays is it hextech

very rarely, when cassandra has free time, the kirammans play board games as a family :) certain games are banned because caitlyn and/or her mother got too competitive and ruined family game night

(they eventually add vi to family game night as well and it becomes much less stressful for tobias. he no longer has to calm both of them down/get accused of taking sides. he's very thankful for this)

after s1... i genuinely think she could wind up a bit afraid of jinx. not in a sense where she's going to draw back from finding her, but if jinx goes to her gun/tries to smack her, caitlyn's going to flinch hard

by "i'm a misfit too", i kind of interpret that not so much as her never having friends, but more so like... never feeling close to them? she's had friends, probably has some now, but they're not close. if it came down between her and something else, she knows she's never been anyone's first choice

a Winter Enjoyer. gets cold easily tho/runs cold in general

[callsignbaphomet]

EDIT: I started this last night.

It's one of those somber nights so I'm gonna talk about Loke in Fallout.

I think wounded best describes him. Yeah, wounded and twisted with guilt. He lost both parents at 17 and he couldn't even mourn them because the second he got the news that they were killed he had to take care of his 2 ½-year old brother. He buried them and instantly became a father. For weeks he was numb, barely ate when he did and never left the house, most of the time he was in bed.

He snapped out of that numbness one day when he heard Jelani crying, not just a little crying. This was full on crying. Of course he freaked the fuck out and ran to find him. Jela was playing outside, tripped, fell and scrapped his knee pretty bad. That's when it first hit him that he couldn't just sulk around and feel sorry for himself, he had a toddler that needed him.

Despite the odds Loke did a wonderful job raising Jelani. There's no question about that. He was put into a shitty situation and he did the best he could. Loke showered him with love and kindness, taught him everything he was taught and shielded him from all the crap he could. Despite his own demons he made sure he never ever let Jelani see him drunk. Even at 18 (Jela not Lo) he still wonders if he did a good job raising him.

At first he wondered if staying in New Vegas was even a good idea but he stayed anyway. By that time Jelani was a teenager and found the place exciting and all so they stayed. Loke was super glad they stayed 'cause that's where he met the love of his life: Uthorim. It was love at first sight. Also, for the first time in a long time he felt like something good happened to and for him. Since his parents died he basically dedicated his entire life to his brother, his entire world revolved around his brother. He doesn't regret one second of it, his brother is his first love of his life. But Uthorim was like a balm and honestly Jelani was ecstatic for him. He instantly loved Uthorim, loves how he treats Loke and loves how he makes Loke light up.

At some point everything seems like everything is falling into place and then Iain comes into the picture. Loke was pissed off when Jelani told him what happened at Goodsprings but ultimately they decided nothing was gonna come of it. But then that fight between them and Iain breaks out in the strip which gets worse when she pulls a revolver out on Loke and actually fires the damn thing with the full intention of killing him but Jelani pushes him out of the way and gets shot instead.

Like, the horror that Loke experiences in that moment is indescribable. This crazy bitch comes out of nowhere talking shit about their dad, calling him a deserter and a traitor, pulls a gun out on him and Loke is super overprotective so he grabs Jelani and drags him behind him to shield him with his own body. The man nearly has a heart attack when he looks up and sees his baby brother had pushed him out of the way and he's just standing there in shock and bleeding from the gunshot wound. Instinctively Jela just puts his hand on the wound but blood's just flowing out of the wound. Not just shot, the bullet practically shreds his right kidney and had to have it removed 'cause it couldn't be saved.

Loke's only priority at that moment was to get help for him and luckily he survives. They have a discussion/argument about what Jelani did in the strip. Basically Loke arguing that Jelani should never have pushed him out of the way 'cause it could've gone horribly wrong for him and it would've destroyed Loke if he lost him. However, Jelani argued the same thing and both were at an impasse. After Jelani recovered Loke went to the NCR about what Iain did and long story short he was told nothing was gonna be done so that just royally pissed him the fuck off.

Knowing that his brother was safe Loke just tried to cool off but he had vengeance stewing in the back of his mind. He, Jelani and Uthorim just go on about their lives until several months later when they crossed paths with Iain and Loke's need to pay her back for what she did to his brother just blinded him. Long story short, she's dead but now they need to get the fuck outta dodge 'cause they know that the NCR knows Iain and the Haakonsons have some bad blood between them so they gather their things and leave. However, before leaving Loke talks to Uthorim and tells him he and Jela have to leave the area for a little while and that as soon as the heat dies down they'll come back for him and move wherever Uthorim wants to move to. Uth argues back and says he'll go with them but Loke insists that he doesn't wanna involve him in the mess they're in especially knowing that the NCR would send people after them.

Leaving Uthorim behind broke him. It just broke him but Loke was trying to protect him. He was gonna find somewhere to stay, make sure it was safe, tell Jelani to stay and wait for him and then go back for Uthorim and then the three of them could leave.

During their escape Loke was devastated and riddled with guilt but he was doing what he thought was the right thing to do. He was a wreck though.

Then that thing that was done to Jelani happened (not gonna repeat it here, y'all know what happened to him). That morning when Loke woke up and didn't find Jelani anywhere was horrible. A million things crossed his mind and he was freaking out, he was near tears. Then when Dagny came back to get Loke he was just freaking at that point. If seeing his brother shot nearly gave him a heart attack this was twice as bad. When he found Jelani unconscious, beaten, bleeding and you know what he almost fainted. Loke actually thought Jelani was dead until he checked for a pulse and just broke down. It was worse when the caravan's doctor gave him a run down on all of Jela's injuries. Every time she mentioned an injury he felt a gnawing guilt in his stomach growing bigger and bigger. Loke blamed himself for what happened to Jelani to the point where he cried himself to sleep that night while hugging him and apologizing over and over again.

I don't have the ability to put into words the level of guilt this man felt when he grabbed his brother's arm and he recoiled in fear and yelled at him not to touch him, Jela was developing haphephobia (extreme fear of being touched). It was worse when Jelani described to him what he went through. He was choking on that guilt. His one job was to protect his brother and he felt he failed him on a cosmic level. Thing is when Jela told him what they did to him Lo figured out who it was and he wanted blood.

But, they had threatened Jelani with finding him again, killing Loke in front of him and repeating the act if he told Loke who they were. Jelani knows Loke better than anyone else, he knew he was gonna go after them and he couldn't let that happen. He didn't care if they did it again what he cared about was Loke being killed. Loke was just one person and they were eight and Jelani didn't wanna lose his brother because of him.

For the next few days Jelani didn't sleep to keep an eye on Loke in case he decided to slip away in the night to find the men that did the thing. Everywhere Loke went Jelani was right there. One night Jelani couldn't and fell asleep for a little bit but woke up to find Loke walking away from the camp and armed to the teeth. He couldn't let it go, he was overwhelmed by guilt and rage. Jelani chased him and begged him not to do it to the point where he referred to Loke as "dad" and that got Loke's attention.

Loke was all Jelani had and he's been his guardian for as long as he could remember so when he was little he referred to Loke as his dad. When Jelani was older Loke explained what happened to their parents and why Loke was the one taking care of him but he didn't really care. To him Loke was his dad, yeah, he was aware that they were siblings but he felt more like a dad than a brother to him. In a weird way Loke felt the same way. He raised him and more often than not he felt like Jelani was more like his son than his brother. Usually Jelani calls him dad when he's being very serious about something. So he cried and begged him to let it go because he needed him and Loke relented despite the guilt. They hugged, even though it made Jelani nervous, and Jelani reassured him that what happened to him was not Loke's fault. That he shouldn't feel guilty because despite everything he knew he did the best he could and that he was an amazing dad.

Nevertheless Loke still felt guilty but he dropped the idea of finding the ones that did what they did to Jela and they continued.

Then the deathclaw attack happened and in an act of selflessness Loke sacrificed himself so Jelani could live. Thing is Loke survived. He was pretty banged up and messed up for weeks but he survived. To his extreme surprise and relief Uthorim found him and both spent a long time trying to help Loke heal back up. It wasn't easy and Loke kinda has a messed up shoulder and a bad knee because of his injuries.

He explained how he got the injuries and said that as soon as he was able to he and Uth were gonna go find Jelani and they could leave for Chicago. At this time Loke was worried sick about Jelani, if he was okay--hell, if he was even still alive but Uthorim reassured him that Jela was tough and Loke taught him well and that he was alive. Still, Loke felt guilty.

On their way to find out where in the blue fuck Boston was Loke just so happened to find one of the men that had attacked Jelani living in some cabin in the woods. He. lost. his. shit. The man apologized and said he didn't wanna take part in what they were doing but he was forced to. He was the guy that protested because Jelani was a minor and when he was forced to he did it as gently as he could BUT HE STILL FUCKING DID IT ANYWAY so he's still guilty of it. Loke took his time with him.

When Uthorim found Loke he found him crying and what was once a person dead in the ground. Loke explained who he was and what he and his friends had done to Jelani and cried out that it'd been his fault. Uthorim consoled him and told him what Jelani had told Loke, that it wasn't his fault and he was a wonderful parent to him.

So finally they find their way into Boston and start looking for Jelani. He was directed to a ghoul who said he knew him so he escorted both men to the Kingsport Lighthouse where the two women in charge of that settlement said they knew Jelani but he wasn't in the area but that he was gonna be back though they weren't sure when exactly. Almost two months later one of the women got a call from a friend on the radio and she informed Loke that his brother was on his way back.

As soon as Jelani and Angelus got back to the lighthouse he was told he had two visitors waiting for him which he found weird. As soon as he saw Loke he broke down in tears and kept repeating over and over that he saw him die. Both spent hours talking and crying and hugging. As soon as Jelani saw Uthorim he freaked out and hugged him and cried some more.

After settling down Jelani introduced Angelus to Loke and Uthorim. Uthorim was super happy but Loke was kinda cautious. At this point Jela was doing better, he still had nightmares and the occasional intrusive thought during certain activities though. So one night Jelani was having some pretty bad intrusive thoughts that triggered a mild panic attack while he and Angelus were having sex. He asked Angelus to stop which he did and Jela went out to clear his head. Loke and Uthorim were awake and saw Jelani walking outside and crying and saw Angelus walking after him.

Loke went right into "protective feral dad" mode and went after Angelus and had a long talk with him. Uthorim went after Jelani and both talked for a while, mostly stuff he didn't really dare tell Loke like the drinking, the med-x, the nightmares and panic attacks, how he felt guilty over being responsible for Loke's "death", and the cutting as well as the suicide attempts. Uthorim encouraged him to tell Loke 'cause he thought it would be better to hear it from him than someone else so the next day Lo and Jela spent a few hours talking about what he omitted the other day.

Loke was devastated, heartbroken and felt guilty but as soon as he saw the scars on Jelani's arms he fucking broke, especially when he saw the ones on his wrists. Both of them cried but especially Loke who confessed he constantly felt guilty about every choice he made that affected Jelani in some way. He was worried if he had done right by him or if he failed him in some way. Jela saw how beaten down Lo felt but he told him what he said that night at the campsite. He told him he knew Loke was doing his best and that he was the best father anyone could ever ask for, that he had no reason to feel guilty and that he loved him more than life itself.

They spent a little while at the lighthouse just healing and being happy to be together again. Eventually Uthorim proposed to Loke and they got married. A while later they decided to head off to Chicago with Angelus going with them.

Honestly I think Loke and Jelani are pretty wounded more so Jelani after what happened to him but despite their wounds they do the best they can and maybe some choices they make aren't the best but aw hell they try to make due with what they have. The trip to Chicago is really comforting for them all and it's actually really sweet that they're all together and having fun.

[nokingsonlyfooles]

Yeeting this into the void...

Half vent, half self-expression and the third half is so my few readers followers know what's up with me. But my brain is not a nice place. Tread carefully.

My brain is low-key trying to kill my lately. I don't know how much of this is meds/health issues and how much just stress. My thyroid and estrogen are fighting and that really hurts. I'm doing what I can to mitigate it, but the bottom line is, I don't have anything that works AND is tolerable at an effective dose.

Wednesday, I'm going to the endocrinologist. I have never been to one, despite having hormonal issues my whole life. The only reason I got this referral is my spouse came with me and demanded it on my behalf, and I think my family doctor is borderline senile. I have no idea what that man has told this new doctor who is holding my life in their hands. I've been waiting for this appointment for months. This was the earliest I could get in.

I have issues with at least two hormones and I would hope that the hormone specialist can deal with both, but estrogen - ha ha, that little scamp! - is gendered. I'm so scared that (after I get told to lose weight) I'm gonna hear, "Sorry! We'll have to let the lady doctor who specializes in lady parts deal with your lady hormone, you lady, you."

These two things interact, you see, and I've had trouble absorbing both. I need someone who can deal with that, otherwise I'm going to be playing a three physician game of telephone, where instead of talking to each other, they make ME explain everything - even though they're supposed to have all they need on the computer. It's... I don't have the energy to keep doing that and it's super ineffective.

I don't have anything sexy or cool or simple wrong with me. I didn't even get Agent Orange dumped on me, that happened to my dad and I can't prove it's affecting me. Even though I have never been okay. Ever.

I can't hug people or lean over a table without cringing, 'cos my breast pain goes off at random depending how you hit 'em. Nobody cares. I mean, the love of my life cares, but nobody who is gatekeeping my healthcare cares. It's been this way for years. The gynecologists want me to express my pain in a way that makes sense to them, "hot flashes and night sweats." If it's not that, why would estrogen help? But it does. I've been on more and different versions of it and that helped, and even what I have now is helping. The trouble is, I can't stay on it because of the side effects. The goddamn thyroid hormones help it too! But so far nobody is equipped to do anything with this information. I have to craft a lie like a crow bending a wire into the perfect shape to get a cheeto out of a tube.

I'm in a new place with all new people and I don't know how to operate them. I really don't know how to operate that family doctor, he forgets everything about me as soon as I leave the room. I'm gonna lead with the truth again - unless something goes south real fast - but I don't know what I'll get.

I'm haunted by the suspicion that I'm unfixable. Not just that I need something I'm not getting, but there is no thing. There is no cheeto in the tube. This'll just be my life. Not only will I be sick, but I'll have people treating me like I'm fine, and I'll be expected to act fine. Ha-ha, that's the trouble when you don't look disabled, everyone expects you to act that way too!

Even if I do get better, finally... I'm going to be mad. I am going to be really mad. I rested my shoulder for a week out of desperation - it's been a mess for over a year - and it feels better. It still locks up and hurts if I push it, but I am learning to rest it when it needs a rest. NOBODY told me to rest it, it was always various permutations of working it harder. I am so fucking ANGRY that "a rest" was never on the table for some reason. I had to be in constant pain for going on two years and then come up with a way to help myself. This small level of relief I'm feeling was KEPT from me.

I don't know if even this will last. I don't know if I'm gonna find out typing and drawing is bad for me and I need to limit one of the only things that makes my life worth living.

I've fallen into some very dark holes this last week, and there will be more. Self-harm is always gonna be something that occurs to me, whether to end the pain or just to make my outsides look as screwed up as my insides so I'll be left alone. It is ground into my bones that nobody is going to help me, so that's really all I want when it's very bad, to be left alone. (I've mentioned sometimes I sound like an unholy union of Milo and Mordecai, that's because I am!)

I'm hanging on and trying to be okay. It's just fragile. I keep crashing. It's not that I'm faking being happy, it's that I'm apt to very suddenly not feel that way anymore. Happy is like paint with too much thinner in it. I can layer on a little more, but the base coat keeps leaking through. I'm scared. And I feel so small and dumb and petty to be scared and not wanting to go on when I've been so lucky and have so much. I always find a reason to keep going. I just worry (and I know my spouse does too) that one time I won't.

I need that support system, so I'm going to keep trying to be social too, but it's hard. Web 1.0 is dead and you can't just talk to people on the internet anymore. Best I can do is talk to the internet in general and worry the few people close enough to actually care.

I'm sorry. I'm tryin' to stay safe. It's just precarious right now. This is gonna be a rough week, no matter how it shakes out. I'll end up with new meds, and no idea what they'll do to me.

Respect to Our Emily, but my hope isn't light enough for feathers. It's heavy like lead, that's why I can't always hold on to it.

Nevertheless, I've nothing to do but keep tryin' to get that cheeto out of the tube. Rejoice, rejoice, we have no choice, but to soldier on...

(Well, as long as the shoulder holds up, I can write and art to distract myself. I'm sure I'll get Erik out of that hotel room soon.)