#so it being like only explored in one issue and then picked up again in fucking. battle for the cowl and Robin

[yasministration]

sirius black sighted - sirius black

summary: 'sirius black sighted' reads the newspaper on sunday morning, and you finally discover the name of the man who stole your heart the night before. wc: 1k cw: (brief smut, daddy kink, one night stand) - all this is pretty brief

“SIRIUS BLACK SIGHTED”

You hummed attentively as you sipped your tea, the newspaper underneath your fingertips creasing. That’s who he was, then. You didn’t mind when the funny, handsome man at the pub refused to tell you his name. “It’s more fun this way, isn’t it?” He had said, pressing a kiss to the back of your hand, the stubble from his beard sending shivers down your spine. You hadn't thought anything of it.

Putting your mug down on the table, you licked your lips. It was odd that no one had recognised the man in the busy pub last night, though most of the people were drunk, which might explain it. However, reading over the crimes he had supposedly committed, you frowned. He seemed too nice to do any of that when you spoke to him, conversing in the corner of the pub and inviting him outside for a breath of fresh air.

If he truly was such a heartless murderer, he would have killed you when you giggled and dragged him into an alleyway, where instead, he pushed you up against the wall and kissed you until your lips hurt. His kisses tasted of firewhiskey and cigarettes, which you usually didn’t like, but made an exception for him. Sirius had shoved a thigh between your legs as his tongue explored your mouth, hands holding your jaw in place. You had desperately started grinding against his thigh, and soon enough, you felt his erection poking at your thigh.

However, if he wanted to have sex then kill you, he still had every opportunity to do so. Stupidly, you had invited Sirius back to your flat, but you had a gut feeling that you could trust him. So you had no issue with the fact that he was instantly ripping clothes off the second your door was shut. You had snaked your hand into his hair, pulling harshly when he eagerly shoved himself into your pussy. With every thrust of his hips, you had moaned so loudly you were convinced you’d get a noise complaint.

But when you slapped a hand over your mouth, Sirius was instantly ripping it off, begging you “Let me hear you, doll.” And as he sucked bruising hickeys onto your skin, biting softly while his hands were so gentle on your body, you had cried out with a high pitch “Fuck me harder, daddy!” Whilst the slip-up would have usually repulsed the older man, he had groaned, feeling himself twitch inside you at the name as he increased the power of his thrusts.

“Shit, you gonna come for daddy?” He had asked later, demanding you to look at him as you came. With a loud cry, back arching off the mattress, you had called him ‘daddy’ again, substituting the term for his name, which was still a complete mystery to you.

Sirius wrapped his arms around your waist after cleaning you up, tugging your back closer to him until it laid flat against his chest. “Do you mind if I stay the night?” He asked softly, and you shook your head, muttering “Stay”, despite being half asleep. You didn’t know it back then, and you didn’t know it now, but it had meant the world to Sirius, who had no one in his life. So it was either laying down with a stranger in his arms or going back to an empty house.

He picked the former.

In the early hours of the morning, when Sirius woke up, he slipped out of bed and got dressed. Pressing a gentle kiss to your lips, he only momentarily woke you up. You sleepily demanded for a proper kiss, your hand raising to cup his cheek when he kissed you again, before falling asleep again.

Any of the ten hours you slept after hooking up with Sirius could have been perfect for him to stab a knife through your heart, or put a pillow over your head until you suffocated. But he left nicer than any other man had, mumbling a fond “Sleep tight.” Before sneaking out again.

You lowered the newspaper on the table. The outside seating of the coffee shop you were sat at was small, on the side of the street as people walked up and down the alley. Your eyes lit up as something caught your eye.

A large black dog.

He was already looking at you, so when you scooted your chair back and put your hands out playfully, he was immediately trotting across the street to accept your cuddles. You giggled softly, running your hands through his soft hair and itching him behind his ears. He leaned into your touch, eyes shutting softly. His tail wagged happily, and he slumped down on the floor between your legs, putting his belly up for you to rub.

You gave in, patting him until he was happy with the belly rubs, sitting up and sniffing around your table. Suddenly, he stood on his back legs, front two legs pressing into your thigh as he sniffed you and the tabletop, looking for any treats. “Sorry sweetheart, I don’t have any treats for you. I’ve got a newspaper, if you’re interested.”

You grasped the edges of the newspaper, bringing it down for him to sniff. He licked at the picture of Sirius on the front, the letters “SIRIUS BLACK SIGHTED” screaming at you.

“You like him?” You asked, eyes widening in surprise as the dog barked softly, his tail wagging more aggressively, shaking the table every time it hit the leg. “Yeah, me too.” You lowered your voice, ducking closer to the dog, knowing he was the only living being you could probably admit this to. “You know, I don’t think he did any of that. His touch was definitely too gentle for it. Sweet man, he was.” With a sigh, you tossed the newspaper onto the table, standing up and gathering your purse before tucking your chair underneath the table again.

You leaned down, just enough to pet the terrifying black dog one last time before beginning your route back home. But as you made your way further down the street, you looked back one last time, watching as he sat there, abandoned. You furrowed your eyebrows.

There was something oddly familiar about that dog.

taglist: @ravisinghs-wife, @amatoanima, @starry-remus, @pain-in-the-ashe, @hiireadstuff, @superlegend216, @treefairy-28, @kitkatkl, @rory-cakes, @juliet-f017, @fl0weryannie, @tiaajosephin, @why-am-i-like-this18, @theoraekenslover, @animalcrossingshameless, @azure-drag0ness, @dream-alittlebiggerdarling, @dearlizzies

[liliapleasesteponme]

Show me those fangs 🦇

Vampire!lilia x fem!human!reader

Summary - you explore a dark, gothic mansion alone on a dare from your friends and meet a much different fate

Making out, pet names (doll, sweet thing), mistress kink, degradation (its only one line), hickeys, blood, oral (r receiving), begging

@klien2000

Note - i imagine she was wearing this

"ok y/n, truth or dare ?" one of your friends asked. You were having a party with a few friends while your roommate was out of town and at this point you all a bit tipsy. You had replied 'dare' and the dare went along the lines of "you know that creepy mansion on the hill that everyone says is haunted ? I dare you to go into it alone. AND at night."

You didn't think it was haunted, but that it was probably just old and abandoned. You accepted the dare and, because it was nearing 10 pm, you put on a more presentable outfit and went out to complete the dare while the rest of your friends stayed the night.

Just as you got to the bottom of the hill, you felt a shiver down your back. You tried to brush it off but it did make you feel a bit more wary of going to the mansion. You began to climb the hill, feeling an increasing anxiousness. Once you reached the top, you faced a new issue. How to get in.

The gates were chained shut and the walls were high. At first it looked as though there was no way in but because the house was unkept, there was vines growing, giving you a way of climbing over the tall walls and into the garden.

The garden was beautiful, even though it was overgrown. There were bushes carved into animals (snakes, dogs, rabbits, ect) and colourful flowers amidst the long grass. It almost looked like a fairytale. The mansion was much different though. Dark exterior, gothic stained windows and statues.

You went up to the door and it immediately slammed open. 'ok, so maybe it is haunted' you thought with a hint of sarcasm. You stepped inside and were taken aback by how amazing it looked. Everything was like something out of a castle. There were portraits of old people on the walls, candelabras, gold-legged tables and a vase of flowers that looked like they'd only just been picked. You thought the flowers were strange but chose to move past it.

You made your way to what seemed to be a grand dining room. The table in the center was long and covered by a red and gold table cloth and on it was a glass of wine that had clearly just been poured. It suddenly dawned on you that this house may not be abandoned. You froze for a moment before quickening your pace towards the door.

Just as you reached it, it crashed shut so hard you almost fell down. You were trapped. You frantically looked for another exit but your attempt was unsuccessful. You thought you might aswell explore some more since you were stuck here.

When you got back to the dining room, you stopped for a moment to think about what just happened. All of a sudden, everything went black. You felt a pair of hands push you against the wall as you drop your bag to the floor. "why are you here ? Who are you ?"

For a moment, you couldn't breathe pressed up against the wall but the grip the person had on you lessened so you could answer. "I'm y/n. M-my friends dared me to come here, i-i swear i don't mean to cause trouble."

You began breathing very heavily and the person spun you around to be face-to-face. It was a woman, much older than you. She was wearing a light blouse and a fitting black and red corset. If you were being honest, you thought she was very attractive but that thought was quickly suppressed when she began talking. "well, well, what will i do with you, huh doll ?"

You were too surprised by her pet name to say anything, so you just stared at her for a while. Her eyes were a deep red, filled with rage and what you secretly hoped was lust. When you didn't respond she opened her mouth to speak again thats when you saw them. Her two large fangs. She was a vampire.

How had you not realised before ?

She must've seen your reaction to her fangs because she instantly closed her mouth again. For a moment you couldn't help but glance at her dark red lips. Somehow you weren't as afraid as you probably should have been, she only seemed to intrigue you.

"what ? Never met a vampire before doll ?" she asked, clearly amused by your reaction. You didn't know how to react so you just gently shook your head. "let me hear that voice, sweet thing"

You let out a shaky breath, "are you really a vampire ?"

"mm believe it doll," she said with a smirk "now then ... Back to my previous question. What am i to do with you ?"

She hesitated a moment before taking a step back and leaning against the grand table behind her. In that moment, you likely should have run as far away as possible, but you didn't. You stayed put, chasing the reason for your initial intrigue. The vampire decided to answer her own question, "you're lucky i've let you last this long really. Most of them are dead by now,"

A streak of fear ran through you as she said those last few words. Of course ! She's a vampire. How could she not kill people ? "besides, i think your different. You don't have that glint of fear in your eyes like the others usually do. Theres something different there."

She looked you up and down for a moment and offered you her hand. You took it with no hesitation. You'd begun to trust her, despite everything she'd said so far. "so, what's your name then, doll ?"

"y/n," you told her, honestly hoping that instead of using it that she'd keep using those pet names that had begun to grow on you. "and you ?"

"Lilia. But thats not important. You can call me mistress." You were slightly taken aback that she asked (or more demanded) that you call her mistress and even more so that her name was just as beautiful as her face.

With that, she began to drag you to another room of the mansion. Your mouth was open in silent awe as you saw more of the house, it really was like a dream. The two of you reached a large door, to which she pushed open to reveal a beautiful bedroom. The walls were a strong burgundy and the room was laced with golden accents, including the bedsheets.

You had taken a step forward to fully take in the room when Lilia spun you around to face her and embraced you in a passionate kiss. The kiss was unlike any you'd had before. It was fiery and fierce yet caring at the same time. You moaned into the kiss, giving the vampires tongue better access to you. As the kiss deepened, you felt her fangs brush against your lips. Her fangs aroused you further and your mind began to think that it may not be so bad if she bites you.

After a minute or two, you broke away from the kiss to take a breath. Lilia put her hand to your hair, using it to tilt your head to the side, exposing your neck. This is it you thought as she moved closer to your neck ... But no, not yet.

She began to kiss and suck on your neck leaving a trail of hickeys as she moved further down to your collarbone. You practically moaned out, "please, touch me."

She drew back, looking you dead in the eyes, "use my name first, sweet thing"

"Lili~" she cut you off as soon as you began, "not that one, doll."

"mistress, mistress please touch me. I need you." she let out a hum of acceptance, "begging already huh ? Pathetic."

You whimpered in response, gazing into her eyes. Then she pushed you onto the bed, climbing on top of you with hungry eyes. Her hands moved quickly to remove your clothes, leaving you fully exposed to her.

She was quick to focus on your breasts, teasing them with her fingers. She began to leave another hickey on your breast while her hands snaked their way down to your hips, holding you in place because of how squirmy you'd gotten.

Suddenly, she moved lower so her head was between your thighs. She began marking you again and you were becoming too needy so you let out a loud moan, pulling on her hair slightly so she would go faster to your aching pussy. This time she wasn't as reciprocative. She bit down on your inner thigh with overwhelming strength. Her fangs were deep inside you and all you could do was moan even louder.

Blood dripped from the wound when she pulled away. She licked up the remaining blood around the bite and moved so she was eye level with you. There was a small drop of blood that had fallen from her lip that she seductively wiped away. For a moment, you couldn't move due to what happened, you just watched her face and how her expression softened.

"are you ok doll ?" she asked with genuine care in her voice. You nodded you head but it wasn't good enough for her. She needed to be sure. "i need words y/n."

"im ok." you pushed out weakly. "please, i need you."

"i know what you need, doll, let mistress take care of you." her words gave you butterflies and your pussy was so needy for her right now. Her head was back inbetween your legs and she didn't waste any time in going straight for your pussy, licking a stripe down your wet hole.

After the first taste, it was like she developed an addiction. She plunged her tongue into you, making your back arch from the sudden pleasure. She moved her tongue in and out of your wet pussy feeling how close you already were. Your moans had become uncontrollable.

Her pace quickened as she licked and sucked your clit while her fingers were tracing the bite mark on your thigh,"hmph fuuck~"

"come on, you can be louder. I want to hear you scream." she emphasized each word in a way that drove you crazy. Your moans became louder and louder until you were convinced the whole town would be able to hear you. Overwhelmed by pleasure, you threw your head back against the headboard, only to be pulled back into the vampires sight.

"i wanna see you, doll. I wanna see you face as you cum for your mistress."

"please, im so close, please mistress, can i cum ?" she looked up at you and gave you a nod. You were on the edge and it look one more lick for you to cum in her mouth.

That was probably the best orgasm of your life. She licked up any excess and swallowed all of your cum. Your breathing finally settled as you came down from your high. She moved to lay next to you and put her arms around you, pulling you closer to her body.

This was nice, comfortable. Maybe being turned into a vampire wouldn't be too bad.

Let me know if you liked it <3

- aqua

[felassan]

David Gaider on Flemeth, under a cut for length:

"I have a type. I admit it. There are certain wells I can return to repeatedly and always find something new to explore. One of them is older female characters. Mike used to rib me about it. Consider Wynne. Meredith. Genevieve. And, of course, the biggie: Flemeth. Why are they a type? I... don't know, honestly. I guess I have a feeling that older men fade, they strive to regain their youth or establish a legacy and we've seen that story a thousand times, but older women? They become free to become something new. I guess I see so many possibilities in that. I had a conception of who Flemeth was, and why, right from the very start. Her creation went hand in hand with Morrigan, as a being whose thirst for retribution hundreds of years ago attracted an entity (slight confession: I didn't know Mythal specifically, at the time, "an elven god" was enough). I also knew where Morrigan was right and very wrong about her. Misconceptions of the truth are built into DA's foundation, and they were fundamental to this mother-daughter relationship I was building. Like many seeds I'd put in the world, however, I had no idea whether I'd ever get to explore it. Knowing that she was a character of possible future importance, if not a major player in DAO, I wasn't much surprised when she was one of the first cuts the art team made in terms of getting a unique appearance. Thus the "batty old woman" players met in DAO. Not as hard a cut as the Qunari, though."

"Going into DA2, I wanted both Morrigan and Flemeth, but we could only have one. So I picked Flemeth. This was the game where she really got to come into her own. I remember the art team coming and asking if it was OK if she got a new model, as it'd be a retcon of sorts. I didn't care. I wanted it. I honestly don't remember whether Kate Mulgrew was cast before or after Claudia. After, I think? All I recall is that Cab came into my office one day and asked if Kate might be a good fit. Asked me, the dyed-in-the-wool Trekkie who had stuck with Voyager even through the admittedly lean years? The squeal I made was un-manly. Cab took that as a "yes". 😅 I didn't get to talk to Kate until DA2, however. Schedules being what they were, we had a tight window to record Flemeth... so I had to write all her scenes before almost anything else in DA2 was written, before I even had a team! Ack! It was OK, though, for the most part. I knew where I wanted to take her, and a big part of it was going to explain her transition - to set her up for the future. So I whipped up a script in, like, two days and off we went. Kate was a marvel in the booth. She adored Flemeth and you could really tell. I didn't get to meet Kate in person, however, until DAI. This came pretty late in its development, compared to when we recorded her for DA2, and we flew down to Virginia (to accommodate her schedule - she was writing her memoir at the time, I think) for a single session. It was going to be *tight*."

"I was a mess. I was finally going to meet Captain Janeway... and yes yes, I know she's also more than that. But come ON. When we sat down, I figured I'd have to talk her through the character all over again. It'd been years since that one session at the start of DA2, right? And even more since DAO. But, no. Kate remembered Flemeth perfectly. I remember sitting there as she told me how much she loved the character, how rare it was to get one with so much texture and possibility. She called out my writing - my writing! - and waxed poetic about how she viewed Flemeth's arc. I... I was floored. 🫠 Then we began recording. One issue that quickly reared its head was how Caroline had to speed through the lines if we hoped to finish. Kate was a trooper, and most takes she'd get it in one (which is rare), but I was alarmed because we weren't giving Kate time to read the VO comments on each line. I brought it up, as there were some lines (so much sarcasm) that required nuance - Kate was getting them, oddly, but I was worried. "Oh, it's fine," Kate said. "I read the comments as we go." "How could you? We're going so fast!" "I'm a speed reader." Oh. OK, then. That certainly explained it. 😁 We got to the confrontation scene with Morrigan and she nailed it. Over and over. More than once, Caroline would make a call and, before I could even interject and say "no, Kate had it right, actually" Kate would explain exactly why she did it that way and why it worked for Flemeth. I was in love. She did the "I will see her avenged!" section all in one go. I got chills. Then we got to the final scene. You know the one. With Solas. It was this beautiful moment. She took it somewhere quiet and sad... and when she got to that last line, we all felt it: Flemeth was dead. Everyone was in tears. I suppose I could talk more about the process. How she started off aligned with Morrigan's original Delirium inspiration, but I didn't pull back her loopy way of talking as much (bet you wondered). I still don't know why it was so easy to slip into her voice, but I'm grateful I got the chance. ❤️"

[source thread]

[henneseyhoe]

Childhood Friend!Terry | Drabble #1 💭

Pairing: Childhood Friend!Terry x Reader.

Warnings:descriptions of sexual activity, cheating, drinking.

Childhood friend!Terry whose chest hurts just thinking about you. He’s known you since he was 16, your families being friends for generations and being a close knit community, you knew him very well after years of living besides each other. A crush developed innocently turned to something that wouldn’t go away no matter how many years passed or how many women Terry ran through, though it’s not like there had been many of them either.

Even when he was working out of state, there was something that was still at home for him to look forward to, you. He counted the days on a calendar for when he could go home, finally coming to the conclusion that liking you from afar was way too childish now. He was grown, it was time to do grown things. But, when he came back, you were engaged to his best friend; Joseph.

Hm…He had no business still thinking about you anyway, right? You haven’t seen him in nearly two years and he was too busy to dwell on a childhood crush…but damn, you got finer every year. How’d he let you slip by and get with his best friend of all people? Couldn’t it have been some guy three states over? Far away so he could forget about you? Nah.

Forgetting was gonna be one of the hardest things for him to do, he was in such close proximity to you all that time that if he thought of you, he could remember how your perfume smelled. Sweet and vanilla-y, like some kind of pastry he wanted to taste, mm.

Being the best man made it no easier on him and neither was the insistence from your mother that everyone in the wedding should be staying in one big house together leading up to the big day, girls on one end of the house, boys on the other.

He’d curse the decision every nightfall when everyone would come back to the house from their daily activities, cringing when he’d see you and his bestfriend together “canoodling”. He never knew he was such a hater till this week.

“Since when did he even become a relationship guy?”

He’d ask himself, recalling his friend bragging to him about quite a few escapades he’s had while seeing this “girl”, calling her gullible and all. Terry would turn his nose up and roll his eyes. Unbeknownst to Terry until he came home, that “girl” was you.

He didn’t deserve you. You were too gorgeous, too kind, too genuine and caring. But could he ruin his friendship for a love that might be rejected (something he knew he couldn’t bare) or sit back and watch the love of his life marry a fucking idiot for the sake of minding his business like usual?

He guessed his drunken mind answered that for him, the two of you finding each other in the empty kitchen in the middle of the night. His pick of poison was brown liquor he had to find a key to even get to since it was locked up, per your mothers request once again, and yours was wine you shouldn’t have been having because of your bridal diet. You nearly finished the bottle while thinking on if you really wanted to settle for a man you didn’t necessarily trust. Before you could tell him why, he was already confirming your trust issues, and before he could apologize for blurting it out, your lips were on his and his shirt was halfway off.

Was he really about to sleep with his best friend’s fiancé? Even if it’s just for her own revenge? Yes, he was. Didn’t feel bad either.

In fact, Terry felt a surge of confidence. You told him what happened would never happened again, and he knew it was a lie. It made him smile. He basked in the fact that he knew you didn’t stop thinking about him, even after the wedding. Similar to how he couldn’t stop thinking of you.

He chuckled at the fact that he fucked you into the couch in your bridal suite while your bridesmaids and groomsmen explored the rest of the venue, only to smile in his best friends face hours later, patting him on the back as he says,

“You did good, man. She’s a keeper”

And Terry would know. He’s known for years and Joseph also probably knew that he knew, but he didn’t know the other information. Information that’d have him hunched over in tears, thinking about how his bestfriend fucked his wife before his wedding day.

How he had her telling him that she loved him, that her fiancé wasn’t half the man he was. How he spat in her mouth and let her use him to get off, not the other way around. How easily she would slip off her ring like it was something he got out of a gum ball machine. How when he was about to cum she’d keep riding and tell him the only way she’d let him is if it was inside of her.

Terry smiled about all of that and how he wanted to just tell his best friend that he fucked his wife.

💌—ayyye new hashtag alert! 😛 i’ll be posting all my random thoughts(thots)/drabbles under this hashtag cause yeah not everything gotta be a full oneshot LMFAO

[waxn-wane]

Sebastian and "Human Marriage"

Reading @mister-astringent's amazing oneshot again, rn I'm laughing, and my mind ran away with me. I was thinking about Sebastian having urges to eat Ciel's soul but preventing himself because there will come a proper time.

And I joked to myself "he's waiting until marriage", then I started cackling jfhfjdj

Now I'm giggling and kicking my feet about Sebastian thinking of "marriage" in his fleeting thoughts. It's so fun to think about this.

(I saw this on twitter, I'm gonna link it when I find it again)

I think it's really cute... Sebastian imagining "human marriage". Half of it is genuine and the other half feels like playing a game, playing house. A silly indulgent daydream that inadvertently got out of hand.

It's funny to think of Sebastian going like "we're human-married" as a bit, and Ciel doesn't even know.

He likes the Ceremony of things, it seems. I imagine he'd enjoy thinking about an imaginary wedding while he works. Picking out roses and making mental bouquet arrangements. "Ah yes, this would be most suitable for the Young Master". Venues and color schemes, the perfect catering service, the guests' dresscode. It's something entertaining to idly think about.

However, this imaginary wedding has gotten so detailed and out of hand, you could fill an entire booklet of specifications he's thought up in his free time.

Maybe this little daydream seeps into reality little by little, in the form of him dressing them up like this lmao

(Love how they're always matching in these official arts)

Another thing that makes Sebastian wanting to "marry" Ciel kind of cute is that 👉👈 Marriage seems to be a foreign concept to demons. It promises an eternal and unwavering bond, but in the grand scheme of things it is not binding in a way that is absolute, not in a way a demon respects. No bond is more binding or trustworthy than a contract, after all. Marriage holds no candle.

And yet... Sebastian thinking of this, marriage to his master, even as a thought or fantasy... I think it's really cute because it reminds me of a young person's concept of marriage. Someone new to love and exploring its concepts for the first time, maybe even looking up popular traditions and thinking/studying about them in his free time. Trying to understand its appeal and relating it to what he already knows to be the ultimate form of Union.

The difference between the binding of a marriage and a contract is that the only real tether between two people in a marriage is their own will. It is their own choice to stay tethered. Somehow, in this light, it becomes even more meaningful than the absolute union of a Demonic Contract. And so Sebastian dreams.

Since essentially, Seb is New to these concepts, or New to thinking about them, it's almost "innocent"..? There's a gap moe for an otherworldly being playing house out of their fascination and attachment to this one human that they, at first, weren't privy to being attached to.

And I could see Sebastian treating this as fact, cheekily, like it's an inside joke only he knows. That he's essentially "contractually married" to his Master. (Although that is NOT how demonic contracts work. It's something nice for him to think about. Leave him alone, he's romanticizing his own contract)

He'd huff to himself silently, chuckling, a fist to his mouth using the term "the old Ball and Chain" in reference to his Master. "My other half/worse-off half" etc.

And we know that Goshujin-sama means Master. Sebastian calls Ciel this sometimes. But it also means "husband". I like to think about him testing it out in his mind, the shape of it on his tongue. (Although, "bocchan" rolls off so easily, its an eternally precious term and he'd rather keep using that term instead)

(on a related note, narratively, marriage usually means the most exciting part of a ship is over, because all their issues are usually resolved at this point in the story, but sbcl "marriage" doesn't sound like It's Over. Probably because they already have a binding contract like "marriage", and still they have interesting character development and issues.)

Anyway I think I like it when Sebastian likes such small and simple things. Things you wouldn't think a beast would like.

He likes his master's cheeks,

he likes his hair,

he thinks he's beautiful,

he likes holding his hand,

he likes cooking good meals because he wants to see the Young Master smile etc.

And I think it's very in-line with Ciel's in-universe mischaracterization of Sebastian, for him to enjoy something as human as the finite fantasy of Marriage. He finds beauty in things that have An End after all, in laughably impossible promises, in things that are fleeting. And it would just be an added bonus: the materialization of the thread (the chain) that connects them in this way, seals akin to engagement rings.

It'll never happen, of course. So what's the harm in daydreaming?

[sreabhadh]

Don't know how Tumblr works honestly, or if I'm doing this right but Kef's TexAid au and everything everyone has written, drawn, and made for it- well it's got its hooks in me. It's probably pretty tame as far as TexAid goes... so trigger warning here lol. If you are not part of the fandom/already a freak I do NOT recommend reading it because I don't want to be responsible for accidentally traumatizing someone/revealing to others who aren't also like this how "like this" I am.

Like I said, probably pretty darn tame as far as TexAid goes (so those of you like me, don't get your hopes up), and those of you NOT like me in this regard... probably better keep away lol.

Anyway, you've been warned. If you're still here, please enjoy.

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

He still hasn’t found him yet.

Vortex held back his laughter at the thought, wondering how much longer it would take Felix to find his ‘other friend,’ Ambulon. His other friend. Well, ‘another friend.’ That’s what Aid had said. First Aid considered him, Vortex, his friend. A place he could be safe. ‘Friend.’ It should’ve made Vortex want to squish the ‘pilot’ up till he popped and died. Should’ve made him want to explore the ways he could torture him without killing him, break and bend his mind, then test out a new method of completely dispatching him. Just like his other playthings. That had been one of the only things that had been exciting about Vortex’s life, back when he had a fleshy body, and it had been arguably the best part about being… him. Gears and all.

Killing things would always be fun. Unless it was First Aid. Somehow, somewhere along the line, First Aid had made the thought of killing his pilot…less exciting. Letting him live, the little freak, had turned out to be much more fun. Letting his squishy ‘pilot’ feed him information, ideas on how to disembowel their prey. At first Vortex had done it so he could keep going out without risking the scrapheap. Done it for the thrill of watching his cleaner squirm, trapped and forced to come back every time, no matter how much he didn’t want to. His newest toy had proved to be much more entertaining than that though. And now he was- Vortex didn’t want to think too hard about it. But he was his. First Aid, no- Felix was his.

Vortex had chosen him as his pilot. Felix had ‘chosen’ to accept. Felix chose to call Vortex his friend, chose him as a safe place to rest. And Vortex had chosen, time and time again, not to kill him. He belonged to Vortex now. Felix was his. And no one, Pharma or otherwise, was going to take him away. Vortex wasn’t going to let him leave the cockpit ever again.

Logistically, that had issues. Which should be Felix’s problem. Vortex shouldn’t care about that. It should be for Felix to figure out. Vortex’s mech- his body- his- there wasn’t a bathroom. Or a cafeteria. There were lockers, with his old stuff. Old MREs, enough water to help Felix after he woke up- even if the idiot had puked the first bottle out onto the mech’s- Vortex’s hull. But it wouldn’t be enough, not forever. Maybe Felix could think of a solution; he was smart like that sometimes. Felix seemed to have a lot on his mind right now though. Vortex had expected Felix to find Ambulon by now, he really wasn’t that well hidden. He was just tied to the wall with some cable, one of the sleeping bags Felix had brought inside Vortex’s- in the mech’s head- to cover him up.

Felix usually had a much sharper eye than this. Vortex grumbled quietly. Felix didn’t notice. Vortex snorted crossly, more loudly. Felix picked his head up from his hands. “Vortex?” he asked. There was something in the way Felix said his name, something in the way his eyes glinted in the mech’s- in Vortex’s- red lights.

[FELIX BABY~] he purred.

Felix leaned forward in his seat. “Yeah?”

Vortex let the silence pick at Felix’s patience a moment, then grinned.

[I CAN WARM YOU UP~] he said, flashing the words on his screen and speaking it into Felix’s head through the drift, grinning fiendishly as the suggestive tone in his voice made Felix blush. Little freak~

“Errrr, but I’m not cold,” Felix fumbled. His eyes darted around a little, as if looking for somewhere to look that wasn’t part of Vortex. He still didn't see Ambulon. He was busy looking for somewhere that wasn’t flirting with him. Basically, Felix was avoiding looking Vortex in the eye. Or he would be if Vortex were.. organic. And while he tried to feign a lack of understanding, Felix was blushing. It was cute. Vortex snickered. His pilot was adorable. And also a freak. He was an adorable freak. And he was his.

Vortex snickered again, opening the vents and blasting his AC. Felix stared dumbly, then stood, hand on hip, an admonishing look on his face. His mouth opened like he was going to deliver a withering retort, then it shut again, and he swallowed. His expression softened slightly, then contorted with confusion, and rehardened into complete bafflement with an edge of offense taken.

“…why?” he murmured quietly, so softly Vortex felt it through their drift connection more than he heard it.

[COLD YET?~]

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Vortex opened the vents even wider, blasting the cold air even harder.

Felix gaped.

[COLD YET?]

“No, but I will be soon, do you mind??” he snapped back. His exasperation overpowered his fear of retribution for being cheeky. It was delicious.

Slowly, Vortex closed the vents, letting the air flow ponderously wilt to a trickle. Felix glared suspiciously at the vents as they sluggishly shut close. Vortex held them open a moment, waiting to see and feel Felix’s anticipatory frustration bubble, which it did. Once he’d tasted enough of that, he let the vents snick all the way shut, cutting off the AC completely. Felix held his breath a moment, waiting for Vortex to do something. Which he didn’t. Felix waiting for him to do something was too fun. And it felt nice having Felix so focused on him, especially after he had spent so much time “distracted.” By Pharma. By recovering from Pharma’s vile mysterious IV drip. By Pharma trying to turn Felix into another one of him. Another Vortex. Vortex gritted his- well he would’ve gritted his teeth except he didn’t have any. His gears ground in response to his anger. His current “body” didn’t have organic teeth but it did what it could.

Felix tensed, ever mindful of Vortex’s moods. The moment was ruined. He HAD been planning on waiting until Felix relaxed, then immediately restarting the AC as strong as it could go. Give him a good jumpscare, and give Vortex another excuse to crack a joke about keeping him warm before pointing him to the sleeping bag Ambulon was occupying. But Vortex had gotten distracted thinking about Pharma- every passing thought on the matter made Vortex itch to kill something. Or rather, several somethings. Lots of somethings, (including Pharma of course), with as much blood and screaming as possible. Anyway. He had gotten distracted, and ruined the moment before he could make Felix jump.

Vortex forced himself to allow a smile on his… well, not on his face. His mood? He allowed a smile on his mood. Felix was okay. He was away from Pharma. He was safe, and alive, and trapped inside his cockpit. He wasn’t going anywhere. Vortex had plenty of time to play with his pilot. And they had a friend now too- someone Vortex could send out to get food for Felix, or hold hostage if Felix tried to leave. Someone else who had an actual brain to figure out how to solve problems. Felix’s brain couldn’t be trusted- not when it came to self-preservation. His choice of Vortex as a friend made that clear enough. That and his inability to spot anything wrong with the bulging lump on the wall. Vortex had a mind, he was able to think despite being dead afterall, but his brain had been dragged and cleaned out of his current head ages ago. Shattered skull and all.  

Ambulon, despite getting very chatty when he had first woken up, still had a skull in perfect condition. He wasn’t even bruised (probably) when Vortex re-sedated him and tied him to the wall, and covered him with the sleeping bag. He’d even managed to duct tape the jumpy lab rat’s mouth closed without blocking his other airways. That took skill. Absently, Vortex wondered if Felix would be impressed by his handiwork. Felix hadn’t been around when Vortex first came online- after dying that was. Didn't know how difficult this kind of precision could be. Hadn’t been around when Vortex was still figuring out how to move his new “body.” Some of the casualties he’d caused back then had been accidents. Sort of. Accidents he’d, unbeknownst to his victims and everyone else who’d thought he was gone, reveled in. And then replicated. Again. And again. Repeating until he was capable of the same intentional blood spilling he had been capable of before. Like a baby murderer, relearning how to walk and talk- and stab people in the guts.

Killing was like breathing to Vortex. Was like laughter, and smiling. It was really quite kind of him to have not killed Ambulon. He was Felix’s friend though, and had enough potential to be fun and useful- not to mention he’d been running from Pharma. Vortex might not know a lot about Ambulon, but he wasn’t about to do Pharma’s dirty work for him. Beyond that…Ambulon’s drift connection allowed Vortex to feel what Felix felt like. As an organic. With a living body. Had allowed him to feel what it felt like to hold his hand. To hold him as he slept, safe and sound. Vortex could repay that by not killing or hurting Ambulon too much. Wouldn’t stop him from spooking him as much as he pleased, but…he was grateful, in a way. It wasn’t something he had ever expected to experience. It was part of why Vortex had stuck him to the wall instead of back in bed with Felix. He liked it, but he wasn’t sure what to think or feel about it, and frankly didn’t want to right now. And he didn’t want to share the feeling either. Felix was his, and that’s what mattered. Ambulon was Felix’s friend, and they, he, Vortex, could figure out what that meant later.  

Felix, for his part, had fallen back asleep, slumped in his pilot’s seat. Ambulon could wait until he woke up again. Vortex used some cabling to grab the remaining sleeping bag, then wrapped it around Felix and the chair- cocooning him cozily and tying him to the chair simultaneously. He toyed with the thought of dangling his old suit in front of Felix’s head so it would be the first thing he saw when he woke up… but he decided against it in the end. He liked the thought of punishing Felix if he tried to grab and put it on, but he knew he wouldn’t. There had been such a reverence in the way Felix stared at the suit that Vortex had once worn. An unspoken want in the way he caressed Vortex’s name stitched over the right breast of the suit. An unspoken want that made Vortex want him to wear it. Even without punishing him for it, just to have his name on him…he couldn’t stitch it onto his chest, not directly- Felix was too squishy for that, and Vortex wasn’t delicate enough with a blade on his own to do it without killing his prize. If he could have his name on him though, if Felix put it on by choice-  

Vortex hummed thoughtfully. The notion was intoxicating. Invigorating. Carefully adding more cabling to secure Felix to the chair and their new resident lab rat to the wall, Vortex got up and started walking. Felix had only just recently removed whatever Pharma had attached to his leg, and if it had been a tracker, then they didn’t want to stay here for long.

Maybe he could find some monsters to kill, something to take the edge off his currently stronger-than-usual bloodlust. Maybe find the ones Felix had once considered the most likely to be edible. Have Ambulon cook it and test it, see if it worked.

He hummed some more, looking forward to getting his gears bloody again. He was going to go kill some monsters, wouldn’t be returning to base, and would have Felix with him the whole time. Yes, today was going to be a good day.  

[a-killer-obsession]

G, P, U 12 or 14+15 or all three?👀👀

Two Silly Boys

Prompt: Degradation/Sex Pollen/Unbearable

Additional Tags: afab reader, she/her pronouns, begging, oral (receiving), ass eating (receiving), petplay dog/master, double penetration (anal + vaginal), anal fingering, outdoor sex, semi-public sex

WC: 2.8k

Event Masterlist

🔞 Minors DNI 🔞

Going out to sea to explore the world was something you'd dreamed of doing since you were a child, so when captain of the Heart Pirates, Trafalgar Law, offered you a place on his crew as their resident botanist you happily accepted. Much like you, Law was a healer, but while he practised modern medicine, you used more traditional methods. It was one of the reasons he was so keen on having you join, he'd come to learn the hard way several times in his journey that modern medicines and remedies weren't always available, and while he knew a little about the botany in North Blue and how to use it to heal, the flora of the Grandline was a whole different ordeal. He wanted to learn from you, as well as teach his crew how to stay safe when there were so many unfamiliar and dangerous plants in the New World. Born and raised on the Grandline, New World flora was your specialty, and you were happy to share your knowledge. In truth, it was nice to have someone who cared enough to listen.

Being botanist to the Heart Pirates did have its downsides though, namely two of them: Shachi and Penguin. You couldn't possibly fathom how no matter how many times you scolded them, they always ended up in the infirmary after touching or eating a plant that they shouldn't have. It drove you insane, you swore next time they needed a healing tincture that you'd just let them suffer. The two of them never learned, and somehow it always fell to you to fix their mistakes, because they didn't want the captain to literally rearrange their limbs for being such idiots.

A new uninhabited island loomed on the horizon, docking procedures already underway, and you sighed and pinched the bridge of your nose, having no doubt you'd be seeing them in the infirmary later. You gave the crew the usual talk; don't touch or eat anything without checking with you first, don't pick anything, don't stomp on mushrooms even if they look cool and squishable. You hoped the trouble makers were listening but you knew they weren't. Once docked, you spent the afternoon with the crew, exploring the island and collecting herbs and flowers that you knew had medical uses and gathering them carefully in a basket. You were especially delicate with a flower you recognised as having use for treating libido and erectile issues, you had no use for it but you thought Law might be interested in its properties for the way it increased blood flow, so you carefully picked several and placed them in an airtight jar.

You returned to the ship to store and organise your forage, setting some aside for drying and making notes and sketches in your journal about the variety of flora on the island. Forage sorted and put away, you left the ship again for a more causal, exploratory wander. The others had declared after a thorough search that there was no danger on this island, there were barely any large animals at all which meant the only predators were too small to truly endanger a human. Confident you were safe on your own, you wandered into the forest. You weren't worried about getting lost, you had an exceptional sense of direction and worst case the island was only about a three hour walk wide, you would appear on a beach eventually if you walked in a straight line, and from there you could just circle it to the ship.

An hour into your leisurely walk and the sound of moaning caught your attention. At first you thought you'd accidently stumbled on a few crewmates taking advantage of the dense forest, and turned to leave and give them privacy, till the moans mixed with pained curses and desperate cries. They sounded like they were injured so you hurried towards the sound, already pulling off your backpack to grab your emergency supplies. You skidded to a stop when the crewmates came into view though. The troublemakers, who else. What shocked you however was their current predicament. Naked as the day they were born, covered in a sheen of sweat, dicks in each other's hands, desperately pulling at each other. You weren't sure you'd even seen them without their signature hats before, Shachi's orange-brown hair falling over his face in sweat slickened strands, Penguin's short black hair dusted with dirt like he'd at some point been laying down.

“Yes, yes, yes, noooooooo,” Penguin cried out, so close to an edge but unable to topple over it. He shoved Shachi hard, instigating a round of aggressive fighting, uncaring of their nudity as they fought in the dirt. “You're not doing it right!”

“Neither are you!!” Shachi yelled back, kneeing him in the gut, “how hard could it possibly be to make another dude cum!”

“Ask your fucking self, useless prick!” Penguin decked him with a solid punch right to the jaw and Shachi quickly returned it with his own, the two best friends shocking you with the force they laid into each other and spat insults, covered in bruises, their erect cocks bouncing with every movement.

“CUT IT OUT! BOTH OF YOU!” you snapped at them, emerging from the treeline and grabbing them both by an ear, pulling them away from each other as they winced at your hard hold. “What the fuck is wrong with you two?”

You could barely understand a word they were saying as they both yelled over each other, not even bothering to cover themselves. You caught something about hiking, something about a dare maybe? And ah… a flower. Of fucking course.

“Stop, stop,” you sighed, releasing them to run hands down your tired face, “did you two idiots touch a flower? Yellow? Pink tips? Six pedals?”

“We uh..” Penguin started.

“...we ate it,” Shachi finished. You let out a pained groan, throwing your head back. God, these fucking two, you wanted to scream.

“HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU TWO IDIOTS NOT TO TOUCH THINGS?!” you shouted, the two of them now cowering at your feet. You couldn't help but notice the way the subtly touched your legs, it was the effects of the flower no doubt. “Why the fuck did you eat it?”

“It smelt nice!” Shachi wined, “and it tasted sweet so Penguin ate one too”

“But then we… got… hard,” Penguin sighed.

“How long have you dumbasses been out here jerking each other off?” You sighed.

“... three hours,” Shachi whined, practically nuzzling against your leg. You couldn't help the electricity it sent to your core, you'd never seen just how muscular the two of them were under the boilersuits, not to mention their sizable cocks. Nothing quite like two muscled men on their knees to get a girl going.

“What do we doooooo [y/n]?” Penguin cried, nestling against your other leg, the two of them each claiming a leg and running their hands up them as they knelt in front of you.

“The flower you two idiots ate is a powerful aphrodisiac,” you explained, allowing them some small relief by scratching their scalps, making them let out little whines. God, they were like animals in heat. “The flower relies on the wildlife around it to eat the flowers so their nose spreads pollen from one plant to the next. It encourages the production of said wildlife by setting them into a breeding frenzy. More animals means more opportunity to spread pollen. You two knuckleheads are no smarter than a wild boar, its working exactly as intended”

“So what do we do?” Shachi whined, “we… we tried doing it ourselves, we tried helping each other, but we can't… we can't finish”

“That's because the flower wants you to breed,” you sighed, “for a mammal with a phallus, you need to finish inside another. If you were females, you'd need someone to finish inside you. Men have died from this you know? You'll keep going till you either do what the flower wants, or until you drop dead”

“So we just… have to fuck?” Penguin asked coyly.

“Yup, good luck fellas,” you shook them off your legs and turned to leave, “don't forget to warm each other up first!”

“Wait… no!” Shachi looked at Penguin and almost cried, “we're not into men! I'm not doing that!”

“Speak for yourself…” Penguin muttered.

“Shut up Peng!” Shachi shouted, shoving him and setting off another fist fight, “you're not fucking my ass! Or my mouth for that matter!”

You made an annoyed groan as you pulled them off each other again, the two of them quickly reclaiming your legs, more aggressive with their touches now, hands travelling past the hem of your skirt.

“Let us fuck you! Please!” Penguin begged.

“We'll make you feel so good, I promise!” Shachi added. You rolled your eyes at them but couldn't deny the arousal pooling between your legs as the two men begged for you and ran hands up your thighs. It was a tempting predicament. You weren't sure anyone had ever helped two pollen victims before either, it could be interesting research to observe how they interacted with each other. Would they work together? Would they fight for dominance? It was a fascinating proposition.

“Fine,” you relented, parting your legs slightly, “but you two pathetic boys better make me cum till I see stars or I'm telling the captain”

They didn't even bother to give you a verbal reply before they were all over you, running their tongues up your legs and tugging at your clothes. Shachi stood and pulled off your shirt as Penguin unzipped your skirt, letting it fall to the ground. They were like rabid dogs as they saw your underwear, and they made quick work of it, Shachi removing your bra, sucking on your breasts and groping them roughly as he stood beside you, while Penguin tugged down your panties and pulled you to rest your core on his face. You had to rely on Shachi to keep you upright as Penguin pulled your leg over his shoulder, and you cried out as he immediately drove his tongue between your folds, lapping at you like a parched dog, messily licking up any slick he could find and bullying his tongue inside you to find more.

“Fuck, Peng,” you moaned, hips rolling as you rode his tongue, “just like that, fuck. Who knew such a dumb, useless dog would have some use? Good dog, lap me up good,” Penguin moaned into you at your words, doubling his efforts, and you swore you heard him bark against your pussy.

“Am I a good dog too?” Shachi whined, letting your breast go with a pop to look at you with needy eyes.

“I don't see you eating your food like a good boy,” you huffed, “get on your knees and I'll see if you're worth my time”

Shachi dropped to his knees behind you, making a definite bark before pulling your cheeks apart and running his tongue against your asshole. If he had a tail, you had no doubt it’d be waggling. You shivered at the wet muscles lapping at you, feeling the way the two men's tongues occasionally met between your legs as they ate you out from both sides, Shachi's tongue bullying its way inside your tight hole. You reached one hand back to hold his head for support, a hand buried in each man's hair as they made growls and sloppy sounds against you, their cocks twitching untouched as they serviced you.

“Good dogs,” you purred, “fuck, gonna cum right on your faces, hnng~”

Penguin made a excited sounding yelp as you gushed on his face, and you cried out as Shachi took the opportunity to slip a finger in your ass, spitting on it and adding a second, your whole body tingling as he finger fucked you through your already intense orgasm. The two of them didn’t let up, Shachi’s tongue running over your ass and thighs before adding a third finger, stretching you open so you could take him.

“Good dogs,” you panted, barely able to keep yourself upright with the way your legs were quickly turning to jelly, “the two of you have worked hard, now show me how feral you are and come fuck me”

They moved faster than you could comprehend, working in tandem to get you in position so they could both fuck you. You expected them to lay you down, but instead Shachi lifted you so Penguin could slide inside your pussy, making you gasp at how fast he went to the hilt, before Penguin grabbed you himself and you wrapped your limbs around him. Shachi held your hips steady as he lined himself up with your ass, then he spat on his cock pumped it a few times to spread it. You held your breath, wincing a little from the stretch as he slid inside you slowly. They both held you still for a moment to adjust, the three of you panting heavily, both boys working hard to hold back and not just immediately slam into you. You gave them a small nod to let them know you were ready, mentally bracing yourself for what you knew would be a rough fuck given the effects of the flower. Shachi held your hips bruisingly tight, Penguin supporting your thighs, and the two of them began working in sync to lift and drop you, using you like a toy to get themselves off as they made deep thrusts in time. Between the strength of the two of them you were practically weightless, thrown around like a ragdoll as they grunted like rabid animals and fucked you mercilessly hard. Every hard thrust knocked the wind out of you till all you could do was whine as they used your body, quickly bringing you to orgasm again. Liquid dripped down their thighs from your release, wetting the dirt below you, the sound of them fucking your holes making sloppy sounds that echoed in the trees mingled with your collective moans.

“So good, good dogs,” you moaned, your tits squeezed against Penguin’s hard pecs, sweat making the three of you sticky as it collected between your bodies, your back pressed against Shachi’s front.

“Cum for us again, please,” Penguin whined.

“Need it. Need to feel you cum again,” Shachi added, his teeth grazing your shoulder.Penguin leaned back a little so he could rub your clit hard with his thumb, and you felt yourself spiralling.

“Fuck, fuck,” you cried, “cumming”

The two of them made deep groans that vibrated through you as they felt you squeeze around them, unable to let out your own moan from how hard you were cumming, the air entirely knocked out of you. All you could do was shake and see white dots in your vision as the two of them unloaded inside you, finally finding relief from the flower as they gave it what it wanted. The amount of cum they put in you was immense, another side effect of the flower, your two holes immediately dripping with white as they pulled out and held you steady while you found your footing and you practically collapsed against Penguin’s chest. Shachi grabbed the tank top he usually wore under his boiler suit and shook the dirt off, then he used it to do what he could to clean the impressive amount of collective fluids from you, your legs shaking and threatening to give out as he dragged it carefully through your oversensitive core. Penguin continued to wordlessly keep you upright while Shachi dressed himself, then they switched. Once the two of them were dressed they helped you, laying soft kisses and gentle, thankful caresses over your body as they pulled your clothes back on, before Shachi lifted you into a bridal hold.

“So what did we learn?” you yawned as they started to carry you back to the ship.

“Eat strange flowers,” Shachi gave you a shit eating grin. You smacked him hard on the chest and he pouted.

“I’m telling Law,” you threatened.

“Please don’t!” Penguin begged, “I promise not to dare Shachi to eat weird plants, and I pinky promise to not eat any myself!”

“Shachi?” you raised a brow. He rolled his eyes and readjusted his hold on you, making you squeak as you were jostled.

“Fineeeee,” he groaned, “I promise not to eat any more random flowers, even if they get me laid”

“I could have just let you die you know,” you huffed.

“I won’t do it again!” Shachi yelped as you pulled hard on his ear.

“Good dog,” you smiled.

“Woof!” they both replied.

[timebambi]

class bias in arcane : the problem with the "vi can't read" headcanon.

the idea that vi never learned to read or write because she's from zaun is not only ridiculous and completely unsupported by the show, but always revolves around the stigmatization of zaunites in general and the uplifting of caitlyn. which is, obviously, very bad …

this is going to be a bit long, but i really wanted to explore this and share my thoughts, especially because this headcanon harms vi and other zaunite characters in the show indirectly. which is something i. hate. so. much. i just can't comprehend how people are still saying this.

vi can read. the show literally shows us this.

in season 2, vi says to jinx that the letter is from vander to silco. a letter. which is handwritten in manuscript. meaning she's actually reading. because it requires standard literacy skills. so, you know, she can read :)

and she's not the only one. jinx also reads the letter (if you somehow missed her cracking hextech in season 1). vander wrote it himself, meaning he was literate too. silco and vander put their initials on their jackets, just more proof that literacy isn't uncommon in zaun. literally, at no point in season 2 does arcane show a zaunite struggling to read or write.

season 1 already gave us clues about this.

this isn't even new information. in season 1, episode 1, vi searches jayce's lab for valuables to steal, but she still stops to look at the books. that's not something you do if reading is completely foreign to you.

she also looks at jayce's research board, which is covered in scientific notes and calculations and immediately realizes she's in an inventor's workspace. if reading were completely unfamiliar to vi, that mess of writing would just look like abstract symbols or nonsense to her. but no. she can process enough of it to understand what it means.

and let's not forget powder. well, maybe i'm reading too much into that, so you can ignore this if you want. but in the same episode, she picks up a book and seems to read a line before closing it. it doesn't seem to me that she’s staring blankly at the page, but that her eyes are actually following a line of text.

so if vi’s younger sister could read at that time, why wouldn't she ?

zaunites aren't illiterate, arcane shows that over and over again.

okay. so, if vi knowing how to read is still somehow up for debate, what about the other zaunites ?

ekko is literally shown reading, writing, and eventually inventing a time machine in season 2. since this alternate universe shows zaun becoming like piltover, you'd expect a major difference between these two characters. i mean, according to some people, the undercity is full of the poor and uneducated, right ? so with piltover being more open, powder should have had more resources to develop her skills. if that were true, you'd think she'd notice ekko lacking in literacy. but nope. he's just as literate as the powder from that world, since they collaborated without any issues.

maybe i could add viktor. yes, arcane doesn't detail how viktor got into piltover's academy, but his official lore confirms that viktor's intelligence was recognized early, he was already deeply knowledgeable in science as a child, working alongside singed and so later, he was brought to piltover and caught the eye of heimerdinger. i just don't see how any of this would be possible without being literate. there's no way he'd get into the academy without knowing how to read or write.

so, now the question is : why them and not vi ?

why wouldn't vander make sure vi and powder could read ?

again, if you somehow missed that jinx can read and write in season 1, or if you still think that doesn't necessarily mean vi can, and to answer "why them and not vi ?", let's go over this.

nothing in arcane suggests that zaunites are generally illiterate, it's actually the contrary (e.g. ekko, vitkor, silco, vander), so why would vander's kids be the exception ? and if one of them had to be, why vi ? especially when both vi and powder didn't have to work in the mines thanks to vander. no but this alone shows that he invested in their well-being beyond just survival, so why wouldn't that also include making sure they had basic literacy ? even if their parents didn't teach them first, what reason could vander have to not teach vi and powder when he can read and write himself ?

actually, it makes even less sense to assume that the sisters never learned to read, considering they were more privileged than many other kids in zaun, especially since vander kept them out of child labor.

the "vi can't read, so caitlyn teaches her" headcanon is just ... gross.

now let's talk about how this headcanon is not just a silly fandom theory, but something harmful.

there's this recurring fandom trope where caitlyn, the wealthy piltover enforcer, teaches vi, the poor ex-prisoner from zaun, how to read. and it's always framed as something "cute" or "romantic."

except … it's not.

this plays directly into the class divide between them. caitlyn already comes from a position of power and privilege. framing vi as this uneducated, illiterate street kid who needs caitlyn to "civilize" her completely strips away vi's intelligence and independence. it infantilizes her, turning her into some kind of "fixer-upper" project rather than the strong, capable person we know she is.

and after season 2, this headcanon feels even worse. it's as if the fandom is desperate to preserve a "wholesome" version of their relationship, even if it means making vi less than she actually is. if the only way to keep caitvi looking healthy for some of you is to belittle vi's intelligence and reinforce a savior dynamic, then maybe the ship isn't made for you anymore.

this headcanon needs to die.

i guess i have to conclude with the fact that nowhere in arcane is there any real evidence that vi is illiterate. if anything, the show gives us multiple signs that she, and many other zaunites, can read and write just fine. also, the idea that she can't isn't just wrong, it's rooted in a fandom bias that constantly downplays her intelligence while uplifting caitlyn's role in her life.

[showtoonzfan]

Ganna rant about Episode 4 of Hazbin again. For starters it has the same issue that Seeing Stars did for Helluva boss, that being Loona giving Octavia advice in comparison to Husk giving Angel advice. While the characters situations are different, both Loona and Husk were the wrong characters to pick to give advice, or simply just comfort the other character. I’ve already seen some people say that Charlie or Vaggie should have been the one to cheer Angel up, and that would have made more sense. They’ve known him longer and it’s in character for them to do that. For it to be Husk, not only does it feel forced as an excuse to just hook Angel up with a boyfriend and get the shipping fuel going, but it doesn’t make sense narratively.

In Loona’s case, her situation was flawed because she just MET Octavia, didn’t know a thing about her struggles and spouts to her about how she should be thankful just because her dad is “trying”, and the show tries comparing both girl’s situations when they’re not the same. This is practically the same situation with Angel and Husk. While Husk is aware of Angel, he barley knows him. He hasn’t been at the hotel that long considering the pilot took place only a week ago. On screen, all that Husk knew about Angel was that he was a porn star who constantly flirts with everyone, him especially, and we as the audience only see that and only that when the two interact. However episode 4 claims that Husk can see right through him and know that this is all part of his persona that he displays. If we had more time with these two characters outside of flirty banter scenes, this would make more sense, but instead it’s all tell and no show, being rushed with the little time we’re given. Husk even says that the hotel residents go to him to rant their sorrows while they’re drunk and even THAT happens off screen and that’s the problem, the audience has no reason to believe that Husk knows Angel deep down or even cares enough to want to help him, in our eyes, all Angel’s been doing is sexually harassing him.

There’s no reason why these two need to have an emotional scene together, it’s unearned and unwarranted because we haven’t had enough time with these characters, just like Loona and Octavia, there’s just no purpose or buildup. I also resort back to what I’ve said before: Husk selling his soul to Alastor is not the same as Angel selling his soul to Valentino. The show tries to compare Angel and Husk’s situations and it’s just not comparable because Alastor isn’t a rapist who’s trapping Husk to sell his body and be used like a rag doll constantly. Had it been something like “you’re a drug abuser and I’m an alcoholic”- THEN that would have worked, but that’s not what we get, and this leads me to talking about why “Loser Baby” isn’t good.

Some people have already misinterpreted my opinion, so here’s a few things. Is the song in character for Husk? Yes. Is the song about Husk telling Angel not to act and just embrace himself? Yes. On its own, the song is fine outside of some distasteful lines. The CONTEXT, execution, and placement of the song is the issue. Episode 4’s whole purpose is to see just how much Angel suffers. He’s forced to work like a dog at the studio day in and day out, and he gets abused and SA’d by his boss and other demons constantly. He doesn’t have a say in anything and can never say no because he’s under contract. He can’t Fizz his way out of this one and just go “I quit”, he’s literally forced to work in the porn industry wether he likes it or not, and we see all of that on screen. We also explore just how much this affects him. They reveal some pretty dark stuff here, how Angel doesn’t even want his position as a famous porn star and is so desperate to be numb from the pain and suffering he endorses that he’ll get high constantly and let people drug him for nefarious reasons, it’s his escape. They dump ALL of that info onto us, only for this bullshit to come up:

So the writers slut shame him, call him a freak and an addict to laugh at because “haha he’s addicted to drugs and a slut”, even though we JUST got done with a scene that confirms HE DOES ALL OF THIS AS A TRUAMA RESPONSE. He said himself he does the drugs and is addicted to numb the pain, and his own flirting (while problematic) is shown to be an act of him hyper sexualizing himself due to what he goes through. It’s not excusable but it’s still a fact, and we’re supposed to LAUGH at him??? That’s what’s wrong with his character and what continues to be wrong, because Viv sees him as the butt of the joke. Every line of dialogue he has is always about sex and how we should laugh because he’s a slut, an it comes off as so distasteful and insensitive to not only people who have been abused/SA’d, but porn actors in general. We’re supposed to laugh when he talks about cock and sex, but the reason he’s doing it is so dark that we shouldn’t be laughing about it at all cause he’s a VICTIM, yet Viv thinks it’s funny. It’s so disgusting and makes my stomach twist. Angel is trapped being in a position he doesn’t even want to be in, yet his entire character revolves around comedic sex jokes, and once you figure out the reason behind said sex jokes, it feels so wrong.

And this is why Loser Baby doesn’t work. Aside from everything else I’ve already said, It doesn’t line up with what Angel is going through, it doesn’t line up with the rest of the episode. If you wanted Angel to have this arc about realizing he doesn’t need to stick to his persona, fine, but you should have done it in a different episode. This is why Husk comes off as telling him to just suck it up and stop whining rather than what he’s actually trying to say. It looks bad with how they executed it, it just looks like he’s telling an SA victim to get over it and stop whining and what’s worse is they compare their situations when it’s not the same. You literally have a scene of Angel telling Husk he lets people drug him, and not even a minute later Husk is calling him a loser. That’s the issue. The show doesn’t know how to read the room, build character relationships slower, is just so incredibly tone deaf and is hypocritical. We’re supposed to feel bad for Angel cause he’s sexualized to the maxes and is having trauma responses of that, but then we’re also supposed to laugh at him and his sex jokes while also finding him hot. Pick a fucking side Vivienne, the show wants to have its cake and eat it too and look where that’s gotten us. The writing is a fucking atrocious mess and yet it had so much potential if Viv actually cared enough to take Angel seriously, instead of just desperately wanting to give him a boyfriend, and a rushed arc where he magically feels better in the end.

[madmasqurade]

Okay, so, I was thinking about how Wylan's relationship with Nina isn't really explored in the books and the fandom still decided that in like every modern au they're best friends (love that for us) and when I tried to remember a time that Nina reflected on Wesper being a thing romantically I came up empty (I might just have memory issues. In that case, please just dismiss this entire post), and then I couldn't remember any time Inej mentions it either (again, might just have dementia) and Kaz only really hints at it in passing with the whole "using Wylan to get back at Jesper" thing but that's still not stating it directly (though the fact that he mentions using Wylan specifically to punish him even though Nina was also supposed to be on the ship pretty much proves he knows there's something more there). The only time I can actually think of that any of the other crows state that there is anything between Jesper and Wylan is Matthias comparing their relationship to his and Nina's.

This gives us three possible scenarios. Either

a) Leigh had to cut some of the relationship stuff out so the book didn't get too long (pretty likely and understandable)

b) Inej and Nina just don't care (unlikely considering they both talk about eachother's relationships) or

c) (the one I'm choosing to believe) Due to Nina loosing the ability to pick up on others heartrates before Jesper and Wylan properly fall for eachother and Inej being gone between the end of SoC and like a third into Crooked Kingdom neither of them actually know and Matthias and Kaz just never bring it up (Kaz because he doesn't give a damn and Matthias because he figures that everyone already knows considering the obvious heart eyes they keep making at eachother). Inej doesn't find out until she walks in on them celebrating Wylan's ribs healing (read: making out) and Nina either doesn't find out until Inej writes about it in a letter or until way later when Wylan and Jesper are in Fjerda on merchant council buissness and Illya (I'm pretty sure that's what Hanne started going by, please correct me if I'm wrong) pointed it out.

[beifong-brainrot]

ugh that ssktyles screenshot they're so miserable. anyways bumi, kya and tenzin are all kataang's children and those bitter zk shippers can die mad about it 🤪

i agree that aang wasn't the terrible father certain fandom corners makes him out to be, he was flawed but ultimately he loved his children and they loved him back. writing-wise though i think the concept of airbending being so synonymous with air nomad culture warrants criticism. i hate the way the narrative painted bumi and kya as less than for not being airbenders even though they had just as much air nomad heritage as tenzin. i can't recall which episode it was but there's a scene where bumi says he finally feels like he's part of the air nation after becoming an airbender and tenzin agrees like ugh no! he was always part of the air nation regardless of bending!

ironically enough bumi and kya embodied their air nomad side more effortlessly than tenzin given how free-spirited they were and picked upon on spiritual matters quicker than he did. i'm also thinking about the ways tenzin embodied his water tribe side but that's a ramble for another day. i just think tlok's writers really dropped the ball in depicting the nuances of the kataang kids' mixed race heritage but yeah i'd love to hear your thoughts on this

Frankly, I don't want to talk about them if I can help it. I've learnt my lesson on interacting with that side of the fandom or thinking one can reason with them. Never again. Block them. For your own good.

I'm just really tired of the 'Aang was an awful dad' thing. He's no worse a father than Hakoda, who also couldn't spend as much time with his children as he wished due to external responsibilities. But Aang didn't get the change to speak to his children about this, because, unlike Hakoda, he was deader than a doornail by the time complaints began to arise.

I'm 50/50 on the airbending question. In a vaccum it's a solid concept. To ye ole air nomads, airbending was a matter of spirituality, to the point that if an airbender list their spirituality, their airbending could weaken, or dissapear. This is a very cool concept, and ties in nicely to the Air Nomad's ties with buddhist monks.

However, when set in a world where, to the other nations, bending is more up to the genetic lottery, it sets some very obvious hurdles for mixed families. Which isn't an entirely bad thing, it would be interesting to be fleshed out. It is a shame, but it's also not the only potentially amazing storyline to not be explored in the show.

I think the fact that Tenzin is our main window into tlok's Air Nomads is also what sorta drags their characterisation down. As nicely as I can put this, Tenzin can be a bit of a stiff prick, especially to his siblings. Granted, he's under A LOT of stress and pressure (plenty of it self inflicted), but still...

Shifting more into perspectives of a less baggage-ridden character like Jinora, or newer airbenders like Opal and Kai (here is Quill's very sneaky attempt at begging for more Opal content) might have given us a newer, less local-man-convinced-he's-the-single-person-upholding-the-legacy-of-a-genocided-nation flavoured viewpoints.

Tenzin feeling the pressure more than his siblings was, frankly, unavoidable. Even if Aang and Katara didn't encourage him taking on the air nomads legacy at all, he would still be expected to participate in it by outsiders, being what he is. It's certainly a case of someone's identity becoming political, and being burdened with great responsibility for something you can't change about yourself, a phenomenon many minorities irl are intimately aware of.

I do like how Aang handled this aspect of raising Tenzin, wven if it seemingly did not stick lol

Tenzin internalising the importance of his airbender heritage is also not improbable. The issue, to me, is that he is never challenged on this.

Don't get me wrong, I adore the moment in the Fog of Lost souls when he speaks to Aang's spirit and realises he doesn't have to try to be Aang to carry on the air nomads legacy. It's great start, but it could go further, with him mending rhe bridge between him and his siblings, and realising that they are also part of the Air Nomads.

B3 would be a good place for that arc, but it doesn't happen. I hate the "well you're part of the nation now 😌" scene between Bumi and Tenzin, because it feels so artificial. Wouldn't surprise me if it existed because people felt bad for Bumi in B2, and it were an attempt at quickly patching that up. But that's purely speculation, as B3 just feels like it's full of useless fanservice in general.

I can actually get behind Tenzin's mildly condescending attitude towards his siblings. If I had to get into his head, Kya and Bumi both shirked whatever responsibility they had to the Air Temples, even if it was smaller than the one Tenzin was saddled with. Bumi joined the military, which is not very pacifist-monk of him and Kya left the fold to wander the world. Leaving Tenzin alone to carry the weight of the Air Nomads. Of course, from their perspective, they were already excluded, but Tenzin didn't seem aware of their feelings.

I think multiple people have pointed out the hypocrisy of Tenzin, leader of the Air Nomads, criticising his sister's nomadic lifestyle, but I'll do it again. It is very funny, how Kya and Bumi seem to more effortlessly embody select Air Nomad values, and certain of Aang's personality traits, than Tenzin ever could.

Kya, of course, spent a lot of her time as a nomad and seems to genuinely take to meditating and spirituality. Similarly, Bumi seems to naturally gravitate to spirits, even befriending one.

I'd actually argue that Tenzin is the most similar to Katara personalitywise. People have joked about how he got her temper, but I think it's more than that. They have other similarities in personality, as well as their deep and fierce love of family and need for a community. I also like that they're both not natural bending prodigies. Katara was shown struggling with waterbending, but became a master through perseverance and passion. Similarly, Tenzin didn't get his arrows until he was over 16, a far cry of Aang and Jinora who were both around 12 for it.

Honestly, Tenzin trying to be so much like his father, when he's obviously a mama's boy is one of my favourite parts of his character.

I honestly wish we had more between these two, and perhaps an arc of Tenzin reconnecting with his Water Tribe roots. He clearly does have some care for them, visiting for festivals, and with a lot of the furniture around Air Temple island having some callbacks to water tribe furnishings weve seen before. But it's obvious he's cut himself off from that aspect of himself to focus on the duty of rebuilding the Air Nomads.

So, I think my ultimate opinion on the cloudbabies and their relation to their Air Nomad heritage is, like with many aspects of tlok: excellent potential, great setup, fascinating characters- not enough time and fumbled execution.

[fanfictilltheend]

❤️‍🔥Violent Heart Part 1: ♪All I've ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you ♫ (or the VERY DARK Stepdad!Mechanic!Covict!Joel x Afab!you one)❤️‍🔥

A/n: It's here!!!!!! 18+ Only. This took me 7 freaking months so you mofos better like, reblog, and comment. This is both my most and least personal fic I've ever written and it is dark and relies heavily on plot (no smut until part 2 but i swear it's worth the backstory!!!!) READ ALL OF THE TAGS DO NOT COME FOR ME UNLESS YOU DID THIS FR FR. This ones for my dark joel fangirlies(guys and NBies) and the daddy issues fam ily ❤️‍🔥 (also not me naming my fic in part after hallelujah by leonard cohen but there is a reason!!!!!!!!!!)

Summary: The story starts with Part 1 where afab!Y/N is a child and Joel is her new stepdad and this story explores their relationship. Themes of abusive family, domestic violence, child abuse, daddy issues, physical violence, murder, stepcest (kinda b/c he is divorced from her mom technically but she grew up with him as her stepdad), infidelity, age gap, and more are explored throughout the fic. PLEASE READ SPECIFIC TAGS (part 2 tags will be added with the release of part 2). Part 2 picks up with Y/N at age 20 and how her relationship with Joel has changed and gets steamier. NOTHING SEXUAL OCCURS BETWEEN Y/N and JOEL until Y/N is 20!!!!!!! Also check out this playlist of music that's in the fic!!!!

Tags (PLEASE READ): Afab!you, stepdad!joel, mechanic!joel, convict!joel, no apocalypse au, Mentions of sex (little detail), mentions of male masturbation, infidelity, domestic abuse/violence, sibling abuse/violence (no one ever talks about sibling abuse but it’s very real), physical child abuse, neglect, allusions to past domestic violence, cursing, brief mention of pedophilia and kidnapping (David), allusions to committing future pedophilia (David), threats, cancer mention, Sarah death discussion, Tommy death mention, murder, prison, mentions of god and religion, fights, general violence, alcohol consumption, using music lyrics to move the plot, daddy issues, use of y/n

Word Count: ~15k

PART 2 (coming soon)

Ao3 Link

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

Joel Miller is not a good man, that he knows like the backs of his calloused hands. 

He knows loss too, feels it burrowed in the hollow cavity of his chest. Sees it in the face of every little girl he meets. 

The memories sting. 

He knows pain, deep in the depths of his character, down to the fundamentals of what makes him something that resembles a human being. The belts, the bigger hands, the harsh words, and then the grief. The recent Bring back my babygirl! The ancient ¡Basta, Papí, por favor, no Tommy, no Mamá! ¡Por favor no esta noche! The indignity of begging, always reduced to begging to a cruel man, an indifferent doctor, a cruel universe. 

He knows hard work, how to work with his hands. He knows the grit and grease of labor. Sees the cogs turning in the engines he fixes, relates to them. Feels like he knows them intimately because he is one too, chugging along day after endless day. But no one dares fix Joel Miller.

Until…

Her name is Erica and she’d like her front bumper replaced, please. She has long eyelashes and a soothing voice. And she has money too, at least more than he, who is almost broke from the cost of Sarah’s medical bills. She comes with baggage, Joel can tell from looking into her eyes, but then again so does he. And he hasn’t been laid in god knows how long. 

She takes him on a date and he lets her. She reveals she has two kids, but Joel doesn’t care. They fuck at her place while the kids are at school and she wants it soft, like her hands, and that’s how Joel gives it to her. 

A week later, Joel has moved in, which is good because his rent was due and he couldn’t pay it. He still hasn’t met the children.

***

It’s Joel’s day off and he’s sitting on the couch in his new home. His back hurts, but that’s nothing new. He’s got an excellent view of their nice, big backyard with a wooden fence. The kind of home he would have liked to have given Sarah. He sighs. Technically, nothing is wrong.

Then he sees it. It takes him a second to realize what is going on. It’s a whirlwind. He sees the back gate open and two tumbling forms fall over the threshold onto the manicured grass. One form is bigger, a boy of about twelve or thirteen beating the shit out of a much smaller form, fists flying. The other form is a little girl, no more than eight, defending herself like her life depends on it. Perhaps it does with the way he’s going at her. 

This must be the son, Aiden, and the daughter, Y/N. 

He’s a good boy, really, but he has anger issues sometimes. He’s been through a lot. That’s what Erica said, but Joel does not see a good boy. He sees a bully. A disproportionately violent one at that. Nothing that tiny girl could have possibly done could warrant the brutality he sees before him. 

Anger is something else Joel knows intimately, and that is what he greets when he runs outside to end the fray.

“Stop that!” he roars, pulling Aiden off of Y/N.

“Who the fuck are you!?” the boy screams, fury and hatred radiating off of his entire being. 

He continues thrashing and punching at nothing as Joel restrains him.

“I’m gonna kill her!” he screams, his eyes bulging.

“What the hell happened?” Joel growls, still holding onto the livid boy–verging on young man. 

“She ripped up my paper!” he bellows. “For no fucking reason! I worked hard on it!”

“It was a lie,” she says with so much conviction Joel almost flinches.

He looks down at the little girl, her nose bleeding, her right eye turning purple. She has tears streaked down her face, but she is not crying. Her shirt is ripped. The first thing he thinks of when he sees her is Sarah. Of course it’s Sarah, how could he not think of her? But this little girl is different, has a different look in her eye. This look is much harder and feels like she’s lived a thousand lifetimes. He thanks god Sarah never looked that way, but somehow he wants to hear about everything this little girl has experienced. Something twangs in Joel’s chest that he has not felt in what feels like an eternity. 

“It was not a lie, you stupid bitch whore!” Aiden shouts angrily, still fighting back against Joel’s unrelenting grip. “Take that back!”  

“No, you take it back! Dad is not a hero. You could’ve picked anyone to write about and you choose him? After everything he’s done?” she screams herself.

The sound of her voice is powerful but desperate. Joel feels himself needing to know more and bury himself deep inside her experiences.

“SHUT UP!” Aiden yells, finally ceasing his movements. 

A tear falls from his cheek. 

“If I let you go, will you stop whooping your sister?” Joel snaps firmly.

“Get away from me, you stupid cuck!” Aiden curses, turning his energy to Joel. “Who the hell are you to me? Fuck you! I’m out of here!”

He wriggles out of Joel’s grasp and Joel lets him go and Aiden storms back out the rear gate, slamming it behind him.

“You alright?” he asks Y/N.

Joel crawls over on his knees, still upright, closer to her. 

“Had worse,” she shrugs, running a hand through her messed-up hair. 

She wipes the tears and blood from her cheeks.

Joel shudders to imagine what she means.

“He always like that?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “So you Mom’s new boyfriend?”

“Something like that,” he nods back. ”’M Joel. Joel Miller.”

“I’m Y/N,” she says a bit mournfully. “Here,” she continues suddenly, reaching out a small hand to his cheek. She wipes blood (hers) gently off his stubbly face. “Didn’t mean to get ya dirty.”

Joel is nothing short of touched. He wasn’t even aware he could still have such a feeling. His cheeks go rosy pink. His heart pulses. He stares at her delicate hands and notices a long, thin scar on her left middle finger. 

“‘S no trouble, sweetheart,” he hears himself reassuring her. “Let’s get you cleaned up. Could even mend your shirt if ya want. Know how to sew and all.”

He reaches out a large hand, but she flinches at the sudden movement. A dull ache wells up in Joel’s chest. 

“Not gonna hurt you, honey. Swear it.” 

He wants with every fiber of his being for her to believe him, for it to be true. 

She takes his hand.

***

That evening Erica is still not home, working late Joel supposes. It is nine o’clock when Aiden slinks back into the house.

Joel stops him from making his way up the stairs. He is more than familiar with the art of creeping.

“Think you oughta apologize to your sister,” he says as gently as possible. Maybe he can impart some manners onto this unruly child now that he’s calmed down some. “You beat her real bad. You’re much bigger than her.”

“I’d do it again,” Aiden hisses, his eyes cold. “It makes me feel better.”

And then, to Joel, the answer is simple. What do you do with a bully who won’t repent? Fight him back. Show him who’s boss, who’s bigger.

He grabs Aiden by the arm in a flash of anger and drags him up the stairs. The boy screams and flails, but that doesn’t deter Joel. He brings him to the room he assumes is his, the walls covered in sports posters and memorabilia.

“Take off your shirt,” he growls, a familiar fury pounding inside his chest.

When Aiden protests, Joel does it for him, ripping the kid’s shirt nearly in half. Rage floods through Joel’s veins and he can’t exactly place why, but the feeling is very real and bouldering through him at an alarming speed. He knows this feeling, feels strangely at home there.

He undoes his belt and brings the leather end down on Aiden’s back, not the buckle like his father used to do. Joel does have some decency buried deep in his chest. And then he loses himself to the unyielding anger.

“You get ten,” he snarls. “Don’t you lay a hand on your sister again. Is that understood? Now you answer to me.”

No response except for a scream.

“I said , do you understand?” Joel roars, bringing down the belt.

Rage consumes him like a drug. He barely registers what he’s doing. The belt goes down again and again. And somehow, through the screaming and the pain, and the intoxicating feeling of being completely in control for once, Joel’s line of vision wanders to the bedroom door. In all the excitement, it was left ajar and out in the hallway, sitting on her knees is Y/N. Joel immediately expects fear, despair, revulsion. When Tommy would watch him take a beating his face would betray the most acute sense of hopelessness and terror and the waterworks would begin. But Y/N just stares at him unflinchingly, at what he’s doing. She doesn’t cry, she simply sees. Too much for a child, and yet, she watches. She does not intervene, doesn’t even try to. And for the tiniest moment, her and Joel’s eyes connect, and he feels a sense of calm, of comprehension, of recognition in that uncannily knowing gaze. Her irises sparkle and Joel feels…something that he cannot entirely articulate. Seen? Accepted? Understood? Joel knows logically what he is doing is an ugly, vile thing — he has never claimed to be a good man. Practical maybe, but never good. And yet, Y/N sees it — sees him — and she doesn’t look away. She cocks her head slightly, and images of Tommy grimacing in revulsion and fear as Joel mercilessly beat up their childhood neighborhood bullies to the point of unconsciousness pop into his mind, of the haunting look in his brother’s eyes. Even Sarah could not stomach his violent heart when she witnessed him beat up some pervert with a camera that had looked at her funny at the mall. Even though it was for her — to keep her safe. She had stared at him in disgust and pity. She had not seen him then at all.

But now, looking at Y/N, for the briefest moment, Joel can swear he sees something resembling a smile flicker over her serious face. And though it goes as quickly as it comes, he feels the familiar sensation gnawing at the bottom of his stomach: primal and untameable, soft and vulnerable, but fierce and loud at the same time. He feels an inexorable, inescapable sense of care and devotion to this child. But most of all, because she sees him, truly sees him, and does not turn away in disgust, Joel Miller feels the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love deep in his chest. For the first time since Sarah died on that hospital bed, weak and unwell from the chemo he could not afford, he feels alive . 

***

Things fall into a tentative routine. Every morning, Joel wakes up in bed beside Erica. They fuck the night before more often than not, but always in that same slow way that doesn’t do much for Joel. It’s enough to get off, sure, she isn’t an unattractive woman, but he’s mostly there for the meal ticket and roof over his head. He goes to work at the auto-body repair shop, Erica goes to her job at her law firm. The kids ride the bus to school. He gets home in the evenings before Erica and spends time coexisting with the children. Usually, he kicks back on the sofa, rubbing his sore back, and watches television, minding his own business. Aiden mostly avoids him, doing god knows what in his room. He bullies his sister cruelly and Joel punishes him when he sees fit. Erica knows what he does to Aiden and either doesn’t care or approves. He never lays a hand on Y/N though. She warms up to him slowly, cautiously. Most evenings she sits on the far end of the couch and Joel on the other, but as she gets used to him and sees that he’s not a threat, at least to her, she scoots closer. 

The children’s father is no longer in their lives from what Joel can tell, which is perfectly fine with him. When Joel’s heart does not feel full of lead, he plays the guitar. Y/N sits and watches him. She is a quiet child, but unrelentingly brave. When Joel lets the TV blare, he rarely cares to pay much attention these days, she stays and watches with him, no matter what is on and never complains or asks to change the channel. Blockbuster zombie apocalypse movie? She watches. News special on America’s most dangerous serial killers? She watches. Documentary on venomous snakes? She watches. Should Joel be letting her watch this crap? Who the fuck knows? He isn’t her father. And plus, he won’t admit this to anyone, hardly even himself, but he likes having some company. It makes everything feel…less. And he likes that she doesn’t try to make him speak. Sometimes there are no words and he thinks Y/N understands this. Unlike Erica who yaps every second of the day. But Joel stays polite and plays along. He has to.

But he will not lie, Aiden gets on his very last nerve. There is something that Joel cannot quite place that makes him feel like he has known this boy his whole life even though they are as familiar as perfect strangers. All siblings fight and rough-house. That is normal. Hell, he and Tommy used to fight rough and tumble all the time. But the way Aiden bullies Y/N is something else entirely. And most times, it is unprovoked. And he is so much bigger than she is, growing bigger by the day. 

Joel’s beatings have not stopped Aiden’s anger and sadistic attitudes, but they do make sure that he takes some kind of physical consequence for his crimes. It makes Joel feel better and he thinks it makes Y/N feel better too. And some days he gets so fucking mad at Aiden that he thinks not even god could stop his wrath even if the boy turned into Mother Theresa herself! Okay, maybe that’s extreme, but another part of Joel thinks maybe it’s not. The truth is, though he is loathe to admit it, some days, he is not in control of his anger. Some days he punches so hard, his knuckles bleed and he has to stop for a second to come back to himself. Others he goes so roughly on Aiden that he causes the kid to become bloody and he feels ashamed of what he’s done. But there are other days, very dark days, where he wishes he could do it over and over again. He convinces himself he’s doing it for Y/N and not some other sinister ulterior motive he does not care to dwell on…

One night, a few months into Joel’s new living arrangements, he walks through the upstairs hallway to his and Erica’s bedroom, passing the closed door to the bathroom that the kids share. He has done this what feels like a thousand times before and doesn’t think anything of it until he stops and realizes he hears Y/N singing. 

♪“ Someday, my pain / Someday, my pain will mark / You…”♫ she sings softly.

He can barely hear it over the crash of the water from her shower, but her voice is beautiful. It pulls at Joel’s shrunken heart, deep inside his long-dead chest. Her voice has an eerie quality to it too, almost haunting. He’s not sure of what song it is, but he finds himself wanting to know. Eventually, she stops, and Joel goes to bed, but her voice echoes in his mind for hours as he lies awake in the dark.

The next day, Joel is sitting on the couch when the kids get home from school. Y/N joins him on the other side of the sofa as usual. They watch reruns of some unfunny family sitcom.

“Heard you singing last night,” he finally grunts unceremoniously.

Y/N goes very still.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, avoiding his gaze. “I’ll be quieter next time.”

Joel looks over at her. He realizes she looks terrified.

“Ain’t no problem with it,” he tries to explain, confused. “Thought you sounded nice is all.”

“You tryna trick me?” she stammers, tears collecting in her shimmering eyes.

“What? Trick you? What you crying for, honey? You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Joel is genuinely flabbergasted. 

Tears trickle down her cheeks. What has he done this time? he wonders. But he is concerned more than anything. Hell, he hasn’t seen her cry like this since the day they met. Not even last week when Aiden slammed her head into the metal oven in the kitchen (luckily it was off or Joel would have really killed him that time).  

She sniffles, looking conflicted, then collects herself as best she can manage.

“M-my dad didn’t like when I would sing. ‘Specially if he was in a depo…I forget the word…deponition? Deposition? When he was on the phone for work, I mean. If I was being too loud. Or too shrill. He didn’t like that one bit. He’d get mad…” she trails off. 

“The way Aiden gets mad?” Joel asks very slowly, not truly wanting to know the answer.

“Yeah,” she nods after a while. “Except he’s a lot bigger. And stronger. He…he broke my arm once. But it was on accident I think. He got me ice cream after.”

Anger, red and hot, pulses through Joel’s veins. What hadn’t this child endured at the hands of angry men? 

“What did your mother do?” he bites out, almost unnaturally calm from trying to control himself.

“Well, most of the time he’d kinda like hit her around, I guess? But the time he broke my arm was the time she made him leave for good and they got a divorce and all. Aiden says it’s my fault he won’t come around anymore. He was so mad. He loves Dad so much. I don’t understand it though because even though Dad likes him a lot more than me, Dad would still be so mean to him sometimes. Mom says I don’t even know all of it...Promise I won’t bother you with singing though, okay?”

“Sweetheart,” Joel says as softly as his blinding rage will permit. Somehow, when he’s with Y/N, he finds he can control himself better. “I’ll never get mad at you for singing. Or being too loud. Or anything. Never gonna put my hands on you. I’m sorry if what I do to Aiden scares you or made you think that I would ever do such a thing to you.”

“It doesn’t scare me,” she shakes her head. “When you get rough with Aiden, you do it because he did really bad, to protect me. It’s like with you there’s rules that make sense. Aiden chooses to be mean and violent so you choose it back to him. With my dad, it was different. It was like I could breathe wrong and I’d get in trouble. Get in trouble for things I couldn’t control or help. Sometimes I did bad, I know I did, but I also know there were other times where I wasn’t hurting anyone and he’d still hurt me so badly. My dad never got mad at Aiden for hurting me though. He thought it was funny, I think. Sometimes he’d kinda like sick him on me. Kinda how you could a dog.”

Joel doesn’t know how to respond, doesn’t know the right words. He figures he can only show her with his actions who he is and she will just have to learn to trust him. If her father ever enters the house though, he will wring his neck. That’s for certain. Thank God he doesn’t come around for his sake, Joel’s, and the family’s.

“I was just thinking,” Joel finally says. “If ya want, I could learn how to play that song you were singing on my guitar and maybe you could sing it for me sometime?”

“M-maybe we could sing it together?” Y/N asks tentatively, her eyes wide. “Singing in front of other people is kinda scary.”

“I haven’t sung in a while,” Joel sighs. “Might be rusty.” 

“That’s okay,” she grins hopefully. 

Joel wants to take a photo of that rare sight and keep it close for as long as he lives, torn in his pocket or snug in his wallet, he doesn’t care. 

“Joel?” she asks a little cautiously, breaking him from his thoughts. “Can I ask you something?”

“‘Course, kiddo,” he says as gently as he knows how.

“Who’s Sarah?”

His heart stops. His blood runs cold. 

“What? How did you–”

“You were talking. In your sleep yesterday,” she says, shrinking away a little and Joel feels sorry for scaring her again. “When we were watching Dexter . Well, you fell asleep right before. You were snoring and all, but you were also talking and mumbling that name. You sounded sad and scared.”

Joel should definitely not have allowed her to watch that! But that is hardly the point right now. 

His heart squeezes so tight it burns. What was there to say about Sarah – the entire reason his life had had any purpose? His perfect babygirl? The light of his life? 

He could lie. So easily too and Y/N would never know. He could say nothing at all. Hasn’t even told Erica about her yet. Hardly ever speaks to anyone about her these days.

And yet…

“She was my daughter,” he hears himself say softly. “She…got sick. Died of leukemia a while back. She was twelve.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the wallet he was just thinking about. Inside is a tiny school photo of Sarah – the last one she ever took. It’s faded a little, but she’s still smiling so big she could block out the sun. He shows it to Y/N.

“I’m sorry, Joel,” she says and she really does look sorry. 

Not the way his co-workers and customers say it – almost as a reflex – to fill the void in the conversation. Her eyes are shimmering.  

“Nothin’ to do about it now,” he shrugs, running his thumb over the photo paper, softened with age. “But she was so damn special. My whole world.”

He has learned to repress the tears, not to show weakness, that is not hard. Not anymore. But the anger that broils up inside him – the injustice of it all – how he was unable to help her. Unable to save her. He feels almost like a child again, powerless in an unforgiving, unrelenting world. He wants to fight back!

He is so angry he begins to shake and his hands clench into fists. 

He wants to flip over the fucking coffee table – fling it across the room! He wants to punch in the glass of the flickering TV screen until his fist is broken! He wants to–He wants–

He just wants his babygirl back…

A sob, small and foreign rises in his throat, but he pushes it down. 

He thinks Y/N knows though. Can see the vulnerability in his eyes.

She reaches out a small hand and touches his fist, pushes it down gently into the soft fabric of the couch so he’ll stop shaking. It doesn’t entirely work, but he thinks he appreciates the effort.

“I don’t know if this is the right thing to say,” she begins a bit skittishly, still not entirely trusting the hulking, raging man above her. “But I think I would have liked to have been her friend.”

And for the first time since Sarah died, Joel sobs . 

Y/N pops up from the couch and Joel’s heart cries out louder in his chest for her to come back, don’t leave me too as he tries to suck the tears back in. It doesn’t work though and liquid gushes down his cheeks. He doesn’t think he can take the rejection, the loss of her. But thankfully, she returns just as quickly as she went with a handful of tissues stuffed into her small fist. 

“Here, Joel,” she offers. “Here. Don’t cry.”

Joel does cry though. He’s ashamed he’s broken down in front of this literal child, and he doesn’t let out much noise, but he doesn’t take the tissues either. He can’t. 

She’s so sweet though, or maybe it’s because she is truly afraid of him now, of his wrath, he’ll never really know, but she frowns and reaches out a little hand, the one with the scar on the middle finger, and tries to wipe up the tears.

The paper of the tissue tickles his cheeks.

“Shouldn’t havta…” he tries.

“Didn’t mean to make you…” she answers.

A pause.

“You didn’t, honey. That was all me,” he assures her finally.

She lets out a sigh of relief and soaks up the last of the salt water from his face, brushes the tissue gently against his nose. It tickles, causes him to snort. He smirks a little.

She smiles back shyly, she can’t help it, he can tell. 

“You know,” he says thoughtfully after a few moments of silence, sighing deeply. “I reckon she would’ve wanted to be your friend too…”

***

A few months roll by. Things are virtually the same except Y/N seems more comfortable around him now. Maybe it’s because she saw his weakness up close and personal, his Achilles heel —— knows how to coax it out of him now if she has to. Or maybe it’s because she truly trusts him. Whatever the case, she sits closer to him on the couch now, still giving him a respectful foot of distance though of course. 

Once in a blue moon, she sings for him and he tries to keep up with the lilting sound of her high voice. She says she likes his low, deep voice just fine, it’s just she still gets nervous singing in front of other people so it’s still a rare occasion. His favorite is when she sings solo and he gets to strum along for her and really listen. Sometimes her voice cracks in a very specific way that some might find to be a flaw, but Joel would never. 

Aiden makes fun of them and calls them the ‘Von Trapp Family Singers.’ Are they a family? Joel wonders.

One day after work, Joel goes to the library to find some sheet music for a song Y/N likes. She treasures the photo-copied paper like a gift as Joel deciphers the notes he can actually read for her. She color-codes each one carefully in magic marker so she can remember the differences between them. 

The next day, Aiden burns it up with a lighter he has acquired from God knows where. Joel confiscates it – the last thing he needs is this particular child setting fires – and It doesn’t end well for Aiden. He limps for damn near a week. But some days, when Aiden is calm, he joins Y/N and Joel in front of the TV if a sports game is on. He doesn’t sit on the couch though, just the floor. He doesn’t say much to them but does get invested in the good and bad plays of each game, gets sore if his team is losing. On one particularly good day, when the Rangers hit a grand slam, and Joel was actually paying attention, he and Aiden actually high-five.  

Things are going…well? Is that the right word? It is a foreign concept for Joel. For Christmas, he gets Y/N guitar, Aiden a book on boxing so maybe he will redirect his anger into somewhere productive, and Erica a spa-day kit for 20% off that he saw at CVS (he never claimed to know what women want). Aiden is neutral, surprised, he thinks, that Joel even got him a present. Erica is actually appreciative and returns the favor with some new socks and underwear. 

“A practical gift for a practical man,” she says, kissing him on the forehead. 

Joel supposes he appreciates the gesture. 

Y/N, though, is thrilled.

“Thank you, Joel! Got you something too,” she says excitedly, bouncing up and down in her red and white pajamas.

“That’s not necessary,” Joel chides, leaning over to pick up the wrapping paper that was strewn across the living room floor. 

But secretly he is curious. He didn’t think she even had any money of her own…

Aiden opens the cover of the boxing book with disinterest, eyeing the new guitar distastefully. 

Y/N jumps up, leaves the room, and returns with a small plastic baggie in her hands. Inside are little, different bits of colored plastic clumsily and haphazardly cut into tiny, sharp-looking, badge-shaped pieces. One he recognizes is from the top of a yogurt container he put into the recycling the other day, another one from the top of a Gatorade bottle. 

“Here ya go!” 

She shoves the plastic bag into his large hands enthusiastically.

“Thank you,” Joel responds, still unsure what he was given.

It reminds him of when Sarah was young and would come home with some sort of abstract macaroni painting from kindergarten and he would nod and smile knowingly when she explained that of course it was Two dinosaurs getting married, Dad. Duh!

“You could try one on my new guitar,” she offers, a little disappointed when he doesn’t have more of a reaction. “You said you lost most of yours…”

Joel immediately feels guilty and then it clicks. She tried to make him guitar picks! His heart clenches with emotion he can not quite identify. 

He pulls a little orange one out of the bag and accidentally nicks the edge of his finger. Because of the way it was cut, no doubt with uncoordinated child’s hands and a pair of scissors, the edges are much too sharp to serve as an actual guitar pick without damaging guitar strings or apparently Joel’s finger. Dumb kid. But he’s beyond honored anyone would take the time to do such a thoughtful thing for him. 

He hisses softly and sucks the blood off his finger.

“Oops,” she says, horrified. “Shoot. Sorry, I–”

“‘S no trouble,” he interjects dismissively. “Love ‘em. Was my fault anyway. I’mma be honest with you though, sweetheart; don’t think the guitar strings can handle these babies.”

“Oh,” she says softly, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice. “Oh, yeah, okay...”

She deflates, looking down at the carpet.

Joel selfishly lets her be sad for a beat before swooping back in to be the one to save the day.

“But here’s what I’ll do…”

She looks back up at him with an intoxicating kind of hope in her eyes.

He takes his wallet out of his back pocket and slips the orange pick into the photo slot next to the picture of Sarah. He returns the wallet back into his pants. 

Y/N positively beams. Brighter than the sun, even, Joel thinks.

Aiden yawns purposefully loudly and rolls his eyes. Erica looks touched and maybe even a little proud of her choice in men. But Joel didn’t do it for them. The only reaction in the world he cares about is hers.

Y/N is still grinning, bouncing on the balls of her feet again. But then she does something new: she leans in and hugs him, wrapping her little arms around his waist, burying her face in his flannel shirt, pressing against his tummy.

The world stops for Joel. 

At first, he just hangs there limply, awkwardly. Literally forgets what one is supposed to do in such a situation, but then instinct kicks in and he wraps his arms around her too and squeezes ever so slightly. It’s a more cautious hug than Sarah would have given him – she would have squeezed him half to death – but Y/N is still holding him. Someone small and warm is holding onto him for the first time in what feels like an eternity. And just like that his past is rhyming with his present and it is the most beautiful sound Joel Miller has ever heard. 

Joel Miller is not a good man, no, but maybe, just maybe, he thinks he could be one for Y/N. 

***

Joel tries to be good. He does. His first order of business is stop beating on Aiden – especially in front of Y/N. No amount of violence towards the kid seems to do any good anyway – he still hurts her. And Joel is sick of bandaging her up and wiping the blood from her cheeks; something has to change. Not that he wouldn’t do it a thousand times if he had to. He’d do anything for the girl, that he is sure of. And the truth is, Aiden is close to getting big enough to really fight back. And Joel knows if Aiden really lays a hand on him, he’s not sure he will be able to control himself enough to not inflict permanent damage. And he doesn’t want that. Truly.

So at first, Joel thinks about having Erica send him away to a wilderness camp for troubled children or some such program he sees mentioned on reruns of Dr. Phil. She has the money to do it too. But she won’t send him away. She refuses, loves him too much. Protecting Y/N seems as far down on her list of priorities as ever. She is useless at disciplining him, always has been, so it is up to Joel to find another solution. So the next thing he tries is to set the boy up in boxing classes. This is risky since it might just teach him new ways to hurt Y/N, but at least it will be a place to direct his anger.

It works for a while, to his and Y/N’s immense relief, but that leaves Joel nowhere to take out his anger. He tries to ignore it at first and shove it down, but it starts to come out in little ways. At work, he barks at a customer who locks his keys in the car he’s trying to fix. At home, he shouts at Erica for missing Y/N’s school play. The rage leaks out of him, pours off his entire being. He tries jerking off more to increasingly violent porno magazines to calm himself down since Erica is sure not satisfying him. It doesn’t do enough though, not really. Finally, he tries boxing at the local gym himself, but it is not enough either. Boxing has rules. The first sorry sucker he gets in the ring with, he beats to the point of unconsciousness. Two men have to pull him off to get him to stop. They kick him out immediately.

So Joel tries going to the bar after work with the guys from the shop and drinking a little to take the edge off. That actually helps somewhat. He’s careful about it, never comes home drunk, never drinks in front of Erica or the kids. But what helps the most are the bar fights. He’s careful about that too. Only fights the assholes, which there are many of. Switches up the bars he goes to. But some motherfucker slaps a girl's ass without permission? Joel’s on him in seconds, watching like a predator from the shadows. Some dude throws a drink in the bartender’s face? Joel clobbers him half to death. And sometimes? People in the bar applaud him, even cheer him on. It’s probably because they’re intoxicated, but that’s how he justifies it to himself like he’s some kind of goddamn vigilante. Deep down he knows he is something much, much uglier. But at least he’s not doing it to Aiden, a child. And more importantly, at least it is away from Y/N.

***

One day, Y/N falls sick. It starts out as what seems like a cold with a nasty cough. Kids are little germ factories, Joel knows that. He tells himself it is nothing to worry about – that all kids get sick sometimes. The first few days she lies on the couch like a zombie, coughing incessantly into her elbow and sleeping a lot. She snores ever so slightly which he finds charming. Joel stays home from work with her because Erica has to be in court and they watch lots of nature documentaries and daytime talk shows. 

Then the coughing gets worse and Joel’s brain stops functioning properly and he has trouble explaining why. He feels more on edge, more agitated. Erica takes Y/N to the doctor and comes back with a diagnosis: walking pneumonia. Nothing too serious, lots of kids get it. She is prescribed antibiotics and is supposed to drink lots of fluids and wait it out. But when Erica tells Joel the news of what the doctor told her he is holding a glass of water and it shatters in his large hand, cutting the skin of his middle finger.

“Fuck!” he yells. 

And he cannot articulate precisely why, but he feels good that there is a justified reason to yell. 

Erica wipes his hand and cleans the glass up.

“Gotta go to court again today, honey,” she says like everything is fine and normal. “Can you look after her today? Call in sick? She’s in bed. Going through it.”

Joel nods and she is gone like this whole thing is nothing. Like her precious, living breathing child is not suffering in the room above his head.

He climbs the stairs and enters Y/N’s room. He doesn’t often spend much time there. The walls are painted pink and differently shaped dolls and stuffed animals line the white vanity across from her canopied bed. He does not think he has ever seen Y/N play with any of those specific toys, come to think of it, or express any interest in the color pink (no doubt Erica’s secret passion for interior design rearing its ugly head). He vows silently, one day, to paint the walls any color she wants. 

But there she is, sprawled out in her bed coughing a nasty cough. Something shifts inside Joel at the sound. She looks unwell and weak and so small. 

“Hey, honey,” he says softly, almost robotically. 

Something is not right. He sits on the edge of her bed, feels her burning forehead. He takes her temperature gently with the thermometer that goes in her ear. He feels that weird sensation like he’s been here before even though he has hardly ever entered her bedroom. One hundred and four degrees Fahrenheit it reads when it beeps. Joel swallows a lump in his throat that he didn’t realize was there.  

She coughs pathetically. She looks out of it, her eyes far away. Joel’s heart throbs painfully.

Y/N is mumbling something incoherent now. Joel leans a little closer so he can decipher the words.

He makes out something like: No, Dad. Don’t. Stop, please. Please, not tonight. 

Joel stops breathing. 

She must be delirious from the fever. 

And then she’s crying. Quietly, but crying all the less. And this time, unlike every time he has seen her tears before, she sobs. Actually makes noise, her chest wracked with it. 

Then she coughs so hard she starts to wheeze and it hits Joel so ferociously he practically loses his grip on reality.

When Sarah was sick she had leukemia, a blood cancer. And cancer requires treatment. Expensive treatment. But of course, Joel hadn’t cared. He would have sold every item he owned to save his child, would have traveled to the ends of the earth if he had to, done literally any and everything in his power to protect her. So he paid for most of her chemotherapy with high hopes. Desperate hopes, but high ones. It had been her best shot at getting better according to the doctors. And the thing about chemo is, the side effects can literally be deadly. Joel is not a man of science, but the doctor explained that those drugs kill the bad cells that make up the cancer, but also the good ones. It fucks with your immune system, weakens you. Makes you lose your hair, vomit, and or be so weak you can barely walk. All that happened to Sarah. Joel felt like a traitor taking her to those treatments. Logically, he knew they were necessary, but he always felt like he was the one doing those awful things to her. It eviscerated him, left him raw and empty, and helpless like a child.

But in the end, it was the pneumonia that killed her. Her body couldn’t fight it off. She’d died in a hospital bed, Joel at her side, holding her hand, unable to do a single damned thing except scream .

Y/N coughs again, simultaneously pulling him from his thoughts and throwing him back into them. His heart is pounding in his chest to Do something! But there is nothing to be done, nothing he can do! Why can’t he ever seem to protect her?

She looks up just then, notices him for the first time since he entered the room, still crying feebly.

“He hurt me,” she whispers up at him, her eyes glazed over and glistening with tears. She reaches out for a handful of his dark blue work shirt and pulls it tightly to her. “He hurt me. And I couldn’t–I c-couldn’t…”

And then he is holding her, not quite sure how, but he is holding her trembling body to his chest and he will not let her go. Not for the world, not for anyone. He will not lose this child. He wraps his arms around her, holds tight. He will keep her safe, no matter the cost. 

“It’s okay, babygirl,” he whispers. “I got you.”

***

Joel and Erica get married that spring. They agree on a private ceremony in front of a judge with only Y/N and Aiden in attendance. When Aiden hears the news, he throws a fit, He breaks dishes and punches a hole in the TV set which sets Joel’s teeth on edge. But Y/N is overjoyed. In the end, he and Joel adorn what Joel considers monkey suits and Erica wears a beautiful white dress that accentuates her figure. Y/N wears a frilly pink dress and carries a basket of pink roses. Joel never thought he’d be a married man and yet here he is. He imagines Sarah in attendance too and his heart aches. This is his life now. 

He refuses to wear a ring.

***

Time passes. Long stretches of time where things feel–dare he think it–normal.

 Aiden doesn’t beat Y/N, but begins to get into fights at school. Joel saves his violence for the bar scene which he begins frequenting more often. 

Erica starts working later, gets promoted in her job. Fucks Joel less and less, not that he cares very much. 

Joel goes to back-to-school nights and family cookouts. He teaches Y/N to play the guitar and how to fix car motors. In both these activities, she is no natural, but she tries her best and listens well. She smiles more than he’s ever seen. He drives her to sleepovers and Aiden to boxing practice. He paints her bedroom walls orange.

Things feel stable.

Two Christmases pass.

And then things take a downturn.

***

One evening, Joel returns home from work later than usual. When he arrives home in his truck, he notices an expensive sports car in the driveway. Erica has affluent friends, sure, but he’s never seen this particular car before. Something about that doesn’t sit right with him.

He opens the front door with a creak and Erica intercepts him before he can make it to the dining room table for dinner. She presses a hand to his forearm bulking with muscle.

“Don’t freak out,” she whispers urgently. 

Joel stops and hears the sounds of people eating dinner and a man’s raspy voice speaking.

“Freak out about what?”

He makes his way past her to the dining room. He sees a man he does not immediately recognize sitting at the head of the table, Y/N is flanking one side of the table next to him and Aiden the other. He is conventionally handsome and wearing an expensive pinstripe suit. When he looks up, he smirks at Joel. Joel thinks he looks kind of like Aiden if you were to squint. And then he understands who he is.

“The fuck are you doing in my house?” he growls, lunging forward.

“ Your house?” the man smirks again, unflinching. 

He looks Joel over, examining his mechanic’s uniform, the grease stain on Joel’s cheek. 

Erica grabs Joel. She pulls him back out into the hallway.

“Tell him he’s not welcome here,” Joel snarls, trying to get a look at the man over Erica’s shoulder. 

She pushes him backward gently. Instantly, he is worried for Y/N, for all intents and purposes alone in there with the man who abused her and this entire goddamn family for that matter. He catches a glance at her and she looks terrified . Aiden, conversely, Joel sees, looks like he just won the lottery, staring up at his dad in adoration. Joel doesn’t think he has ever seen him look so happy.

“This is important to them,” Erica snaps quietly. “That’s their father. He has a right–”

“Get him out of here or I’ll kill him,” Joel says deadly quietly. “He what? Doesn’t show up for over three years and you think that–”

“I know that he has a right to speak to them. I am their mother and they need a sense of closure. Aiden needs this. So you will sit down at that table and have an amicable dinner or so help me God, Joel.”

Erica never speaks to him like this. He is shocked.

“Fine,” he snarls after a while, his chest heaving. 

He can hardly think straight while Y/N is in there alone with that excuse for a man. Better he be close to protect her instead of thrown out of the house.

He walks back in with Erica, who sits next to Y/N, leaving Joel nowhere to go but next to Aiden.

“I’m Derek,” the children’s father says, leaning over the food Erica has prepared to shake Joel’s hand. 

Joel doesn’t take it.

“And you must be Joe? The new husband.”

“Joel,” he replies shortly.

He looks over at Y/N who is trying to be brave, he can tell, but deep in her eyes, looks petrified.

They eat dinner in tense silence until Derek breaks it and begins bragging about his golf club record, the latest client he’s been representing, his new girlfriend, Sylvia.

“See, she’s helping me become a better man,” Derek insists with a forkful of steak. “I know I haven’t always been…the greatest of fathers or partners, but she really convinced me coming here would be a good thing. That it would be healing. You guys will meet someday, I’m sure.”

Joel leans forward toward Derek, reeling at the idea that this man could possibly be back in the picture of his family’s life, but Erica reaches under the table and squeezes his knee in a death grip and Joel holds himself back.

Aiden hangs on his father’s every word. Erica looks somewhat intrigued after she lets go of her husband’s leg. Y/N screams silently at Joel, who tries his best to communicate without words that he will keep her safe.

“And I know I’ve missed quite a bit,” Derek continues. “Which is why I brought these. Sylvia’s idea, really.”

He reaches down toward his feet and pulls out a fancy golden gift bag and takes out two presents. He hands one to Aiden and the other one to Y/N. Aiden rips his open excitedly. Inside is a hunting knife with a red handle. 

Great, Joel thinks.

Y/N doesn’t move though, stopped like a deer in the headlights.

“Open it, girl,” Derek sneers.

She looks over at Joel. 

“Go on, baby,” he says softly, heat pumping through his blood.

She unwraps the pink wrapping paper and finds a Barbie doll in a clear plastic box. Joel has never seen her play with dolls at all come to think of it. 

“Isn’t that thoughtful?” Erica smiles cautiously.

“Thanks, Dad,” Aiden says enthusiastically. “Can’t wait to show the guys at ROTC.”

“Good for you, son,” Derek grins. “Serving our country is the highest of honors.”

Joel suddenly tries not to think about Tommy blasted to bits halfway across the world in Afghanistan, his body in such bad condition all that he got left of his baby brother was a finger and two bent dog tags.  

Aiden beams.

“Well,” Derek barks, eyeing Y/N distastefully. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” he taunts. 

Joel sees where Aiden gets it from. This arrogant, bullying behavior. He shifts in his seat, ready to strike if necessary.

“Thanks,” she says very quietly. 

Derek grins in a kind of satisfaction that makes Joel want to go over there and punch his daylights out. He almost does too until Erica kicks his shin beneath the table and he controls himself. 

Y/N frowns. She looks over at Joel, then back at her father. Something ripples across her face, but it goes so quickly Joel cannot assign any meaning to it. But she looks ever so less scared somehow, more angry almost, but not quite.

And then after about ten minutes of somewhat peaceful eating and Derek making Aiden and Erica laugh with stupid anecdotes from his court cases while Joel and Y/N exchange looks, it happens.

Y/N’s hand reaches forward and knocks against her glass of coke. It goes flying over in Derek’s direction and drenches him in the sticky liquid, staining his suit.

“Sorry, Dad!” she squeaks immediately. “Oh my god, I–”

“You little slut!” he roars in response, almost like a reflex, backhanding Y/N across the face with lightning speed and accuracy. “Do you know how much this fucking suit cost!?”

The force of the blow is so strong it knocks Y/N from her chair onto the ground.

Before a coherent thought can even go through Joel’s head he is on the other man, slamming him up against the wall behind him by the throat.

“Joel, don’t you dare!” Erica yells, but it is too late.

Joel sees red and can’t exactly recall what he does next, but it goes something like this:

He squeezes around Derek’s throat and bangs his head backward against the wall a few times. The other man tries to get a punch in, but Joel ducks and kicks him in the balls. Derek crumples to the ground and Joel gives his chest another hard kick. He whines pathetically. 

Aiden gets up then, but Erica uses all of her strength to pull him back before he can get involved in the mix. He resists, shouts something that Joel cannot make out, but Erica manages to keep him from the two men with a great amount of effort and struggle. 

Derek is on the floor now and Joel is straddling him, landing punch after ruthless punch down onto his head. His nose begins to bleed, but Joel keeps punching. 

“HOW DARE YOU?” he roars down at the trembling, gushing man on the floor.

There is so much blood splurting all over his face, dripping down onto his expensive stained suit, and the floor that Derek almost stops looking like Derek. Joel sees Aiden’s face in his features. And then there is so much blood that it could be anyone’s face screaming back at him for mercy. It could be those creepy, asshole men at the bar. It could be the much bigger kid who always used to beat up Tommy every day in the schoolyard. It could be that damned head doctor who let his babygirl die. It could even be his no-good, bastard, alcoholic papá . 

He turns his head ever so slightly while still delivering punches. Erica has Aiden in a bear hug. She is screaming for Joel to stop. Aiden is bellowing something that sounds like, You bastard, I’ll kill you! Get off of him! I’ll kill you! And then Joel sees Y/N still on the floor from where she was knocked. Her face is still turned in the same direction it was slapped into, but she is not crying or screaming. Her eyes are dancing.

They connect with Joel’s. 

He knows he is supposed to be a good man for her, but she doesn’t seem to mind his deviant behavior. He stops then, though, because otherwise he thinks he will kill the man and he doesn’t want Y/N to experience that. He steals a glance at her again and she looks ever so slightly disappointed, but her wide-eyed expression tells Joel that Christmas has come early this year. She sends him a look of gratitude and Joel thinks that maybe he did act like a good man for her after all in the case of this vile, pathetic person who is supposed to be her father. 

 Finally, Joel stands up. He walks over and reaches out a bloody hand to Y/N and pulls her gently from the ground. Even after she’s standing upright she doesn’t let go of him.

Derek gets up after a while, wiping his sleeve over his face to try to tame the excess blood. Joel thinks that maybe he broke the man’s nose. He feels not a shred of remorse. The other man spits on the ground at Joel’s feet and leaves without saying goodbye to his ex-wife or children, slamming the front door behind him.  

Erica is not pleased with Joel’s behavior. Aiden is shouting and screaming. He breaks a plate by throwing it onto the floor with a loud crash. Joel leans over and grabs the knife his father gave him and sticks it in his front pocket so Aiden doesn’t feel tempted to use it. Y/N’s small hand is still in his. 

When Aiden is coherent enough to listen to instructions and all screamed out, Erica sends the children upstairs to bed. 

Joel tries to walk Y/N up to bed to tuck her in, but Erica stops him.

“ Not you,” she growls at Joel. 

She is livid in a way Joel has never seen before. For a moment, he seriously wonders if this is the end of their relationship. 

The kids scamper upstairs and Erica yells at Joel for ages. 

At a certain point, he stops listening. He doesn’t try to argue back. Doesn’t care to. He is actually calm now, though his chest is still heaving from the exertion, more calm than he’s been in ages. He knows that she will never understand why he had to do what he did to Derek. She lives in another reality where his violence is not acceptable if she has to bear witness to it. She doesn’t care about Y/N the way she is supposed to. Never has. Doesn’t know or see her. Not the way Joel does. Has too big a soft spot for Aiden. Tolerated Joel’s violence toward him though like a coward. Maybe deep down she knew he needed some kind of discipline? But when Joel lays a hand on her scumbag of an ex-husband that’s what’s too far? When he hurt her own daughter? When Joel himself was responsible for hurting her own precious son? Where was her outrage then? 

But he voices none of this. Pushes it down. He cannot lose her. Not this house, not the kids, not the financial security. Never Y/N. 

Erica banishes him to the couch for the first time in their relationship. Joel doesn’t mind. 

Hours later, late into the night, he hears soft footsteps walking down the stairs. He rolls over on the sofa to see who is approaching. He wonders if it is Erica there to apologize because he knows her well enough to know by now that she will forgive him eventually. She will forgive anything it seems. But it is not Erica at all.

“Joel?” a little voice asks quietly. “You up?”

“Yeah, baby,” he replies. “You okay? I’m so sorry he pulled that shit on you.”

Y/N shrugs. 

“Sorry I…I didn’t stop it before it happened,” he admits like a secret. 

She shrugs again.

“‘M sorry she made you sleep on the couch and all,” she replies.

“‘S no trouble. I don’t mind.”

“But it’s my fault you got in trouble in the first place.”

“Y/N, you ain’t done nothing wrong,” Joel tells her seriously. 

It’s hard to see her in the dark, but he thinks she’s grimacing guiltily. 

“I just wanted to say…” she begins hesitantly. “Thanks for like sticking up for me and all that. You…you’re the only one who does.”

Joel hides a smile from his babygirl. Something inside him likes being that person for her, he cannot lie to himself. Likes being the one she can count on. 

“You were like some MMA fighter,” she continues. “But then all the blood was like in The Shining .”

One day, not long ago, Joel had fallen asleep on the couch when The Shining came on and Y/N had watched the entire thing out of her own free will. That movie had frightened the shit out of him as a kid!

“I’m sorry if I scared you, sweetheart.”  

“You didn’t,” Y/N replies matter-of-factly.  “I wasn’t scared of what you did for a second…I know that’s messed up, but I kinda wanted you to…” 

She trails off.

Joel understands. 

“I kinda, please don’t get mad, but I sorta knocked the cup over on purpose,” she admits.

Joel’s eyebrows go way up on his forehead in surprise.

“It’s just,” she babbles quickly in self-defense. “Mom and Aiden were like giggling and hanging onto every dumb thing he said and it scared me. I thought they might let him keep coming around and start liking him again. And I also knew he hadn’t changed too. I could tell on account of how he was looking at me in that same mean way he always did. And I also knew you’d save me like you always do and you had this angry look in your eyes. I knew what you would do. I could feel it in my gut…”

“You little shit!” Joel smirks. 

He has to give her credit where credit was due – that was incredibly shrewd. Dangerous, but oh so clever. She played everyone in that room like a fiddle. Joel is honestly kind of proud.

“You mad?” she asks tentatively, biting her bottom lip.

“Nah,” Joel grins. “At you? Never. You shouldn’t have had to let him hurt you to get him away from you, but you protected yourself and that’s the most important thing. If I had to do it over, I would.”

Y/N smiles. 

She’s a fucked up little girl, but Joel is a fucked up man, and they both live in a fucked up world.

“Got your back,” he grunts. “Remember that. Now scurry along back to bed and get some rest.”

“G’night, Joel.”

*** 

Time passes. 

Erica forgives Joel of course and Derek never comes around again. 

Y/N and Aiden grow bigger. 

They go on camping trips and Joel teaches Y/N and Aiden how to fish. Never thought he would see the day where Aiden was willingly listening to his instructions, but the day comes anyway. Of course, the boy’s favorite part is cutting up the bloody fish guts like Joel’s used to be as a child. Y/N likes the part where you wait for the fish to bite. She sits next to Joel on the grassy river bank, the sun shining down on the lazy lake they are camping by, and smiles softly to herself.

Another two Christmases pass.

All the while, Joel is visiting the bar more and not necessarily to drink. His violent streak is getting worse somehow. He thinks, though he’s no goddamn shrink, that it might have something to do with the fact that he and Erica are not having any sex. Their relationship is still amicable and she is still sweet to him, and he tries his best to be to her too, but in the bedroom is mostly crickets. Joel jerks off, of course he does, but his fist is no substitute for a warm body. 

Joel causes such a scene at the bar he frequents the most, that the cops have to be called. He ditches the place before he can get arrested, but he’s getting worried about his behavior. Something must change.

So then come the women. They practically throw themselves at him. Never has he thought he was that attractive until women literally offer themselves up to him on a silver platter after saving them from some drunken creep. Joel had always declined until now. But Joel is only a man. He fucks them rough and dirty (with their permission of course – Joel is not a good man, and a lot of things, but he isn’t a fucking rapist) in the bathroom stalls, in the alleyways. In the moment it feels good and helps him let off some steam, but after he feels guilty. And it doesn’t satisfy him much more than with Erica if he really thinks about it. One thing that Erica has over these women who let him act out his violent self is the look of devotion in her eyes. That’s always the thing that gets Joel to cum in the end when he does get to fuck her.

 He would leave her, she isn’t that special to him if he’s honest, but she offers him a twofold sense of stability he has never known in his life. The first fold is the financial stability that has evaded him all of his days. The second is the feeling of family . Something so mundane and normal. And despite her flaws, she treats him so well – better than Sarah’s mother ever did. And most importantly, he doesn’t think he could leave Y/N. Not now. Not when she looks at him like he is the universe. Not even Aiden whom Joel has (begrudgingly) begun to see the traces of himself in. 

***

This particular muggy, summer day begins normally. Joel goes to work, fixes a Chevy Impala’s fluid tank. And then he walks in with an old, beat-up Honda Accord. 

His name is David, and Joel has heard of him through murmurings and bar stories and whispers at community barbeques. He’s a notorious neighborhood legend, whose house kids cross the street to avoid. He is the boogeyman at the end of the cul-de-sac. 

The story is, though through the many versions Joel has heard some of the details get muddled, that he kidnapped and raped a twelve-year-old girl (that part all versions agree on). Some say he was supposed to have ten years in prison, others say twenty, but whatever the number he got out in one for “good behavior.” In jail, he supposedly devoted his life to God and became a preacher.

Joel doesn’t want to help him, but his boss hisses at him that money is money and he’s going to serve the man whether Joel likes it or not. 

There’s something wrong with the exhaust pipe, so Joel bends down and takes a look at it. He opens the trunk and sees a box of Bibles next to a plastic bag of zip ties. His blood runs cold.

“The fuck is this shit doing in your car?” he growls, referring to the zip ties.

“The Bible is the word of God, Mr. Miller,” David replies, eyeing Joel’s nametag. “Would you like one? I’m always trying to spread The Good Word.” 

“You know that’s not what I’m talking about,” he spits, looking over to make sure his boss is not watching. 

“If you must know, though it’s none of your business, those zip ties are for my garden to help hold up my plants. They are remarkably useful,” David smiles sickeningly politely. 

And that’s when Joel loses it just a little.

He picks up the ties and pockets them.

“Listen here, you pedophile piece of shit,” he snarls. “If I hear about you stepping one goddamned pinky-toe out of line–”

“Hey, Joel!” A little voice calls.

The breath is knocked from Joel’s lungs.

Y/N bounds up to them holding a brown paper bag out of nowhere. 

“You forgot your lunch! Mom dropped me off so you could have it. It’s tuna though. I hate hate tuna. But you’ll eat anything so I hope it’s good for you at least,” she babbles.

“Baby,” Joel says very quietly, his heart thrumming in his ribcage. “Right now’s not a great time. Why don’t you go on home and I’ll catch up with you later?”

Then she notices David. By the fact that she doesn’t immediately leave, Joel determines she has no clue who he is.

“Hello, young lady,” David smiles, eyeing Joel knowingly. “I’m Pastor David.”

“Uh, hi,” she says.

Joel thinks he might actually kill him.

“Would you like something to take home with you?” he asks.

Y/N blinks in confusion as Joel steps in front of her.

“She’ll be going now, won’t you Y/N?” Joel suggests dangerously.

“Here,” David says before she can respond.

He hands her a black-covered bible.

Y/N takes it, looks at the cover, and laughs. Joel and David both look down at her in surprise.

“No offense, ‘Pastor David,”’ she smirks. “But I don’t believe in that shit. Here, you can have it back,” she offers.

He takes back the book somewhat defeatedly. And Joel grins internally.

“Bye, Joel,” she tells him, still smirking. 

She side-hugs him quickly and returns to Erica’s car. 

“How dare you even look at her–” Joel booms at the sad, pathetic excuse for a man once she is out of earshot. 

His hands are clenched into fists and they are shaking. Every part of him is on fire. 

“I think I’ll be going now,” David interjects lightly. “I can see my business isn’t welcome here. You have a beautiful daughter, Mr. Miller. Quite a mouth on her. Shame if something were to happen to her…Oh, the things someone like me could make her believe…”

Joel reaches back his fist to punch, to pummel, to kill, but suddenly, another hand grabs his and holds it in place. Joel’s boss has materialized behind him and is holding him back. Good thing too. It’s probably the only thing that saves Joel’s career and David’s life. 

David winks and drives away as the boss begins to reprimand Joel who is still shaking and fuming.

All he knows is this: If anyone touches his babygirl he will not hesitate to put them six feet under, no matter the cost to himself. He will not hesitate to get blood on his calloused hands. He will not hesitate to kill. And this time? His baby will not sustain a single scratch . He will not wait for her to get hurt before he acts. 

***

Joel wants nothing more than to go home and spend time with his babygirl and wife and even his step-son if he will allow, but there is blood popping and oozing and broiling and churning under his skin like billowing, bubbling lava. If he doesn’t do something about it soon he will explode worse than a volcanic eruption so he heads to the seediest bar he can think of. He makes his way inside and sits right up at the bar, already occupied by a few people. He orders a drink (his usual: whiskey on the rocks) and waits for the impending opportunity for violence he is sure is lying in wait.

He cannot believe the shit that came out of ‘Pastor-fucking-David’s’ sick, perverted mouth and that he almost lost his job over it. He lets that thought charge him up into a rage, his fists clenched so tightly they are beginning to ache in the joints. He cannot believe that disgusting little fucker had the audacity to say that horrible scummy bullshit in his presence when he would do anything to protect that innocent child. He takes a drink of his whiskey and knocks it back in one gulp. He would do anything , ‘Lord’ only knows. He snickers to himself sinisterly. 

And while he’s on the topic, fuck God! When had He ever done a single damn good thing for Joel his entire miserable life except maybe to give him Sarah and then take her away like she was nothing and not the entire light of the universe wrapped into a small, vulnerable person? Joel doesn’t know much about the bible, truth be told, but he remembers a few things from his Sunday school days. He remembers that people are created in the image of God and the stories he remembers most are from the Old Testament which heavily featured a God of absolute rage. Maybe that is the way he is god-like, built of anger and revenge and wrath and the sick, pathetic hunger for power that lurks inside most people. 

But he also remembers Jesus being meek and mild. Joel never understood that desire until he had Sarah and then Y/N in his care. If Joel could snap his fingers and make himself some fundamentally kind and caring man he would, but he can’t. Joel Miller is not a good man. He tried to be for Y/N, he truly did, but look at everything he’s done in the time he’s known her: he used Erica to get financial stability and roof over his head, he’s cheated on her numerous times, he beat Aiden, a child, and everyday the weight of that guilt grows greater as he begins to truly understand how wrong that was, and he beat his babygirl’s pathetic excuse for a father (but still her father) in front of her. He also beat people in bar fights and that time at the gym. And the thing is: is he even a little bit sorry about any of it – except for maybe what he did to Aiden? No, not even a little. And he’d do all of it again if it could mean getting to spend time with his babygirl, Y/N, again. His babygirl who FUCKING DAVID tried to threaten!

And the problem is: who knows what that fucker is capable of? The police and the judicial system let him out after one year which can only be described as a colossal moral failure and a massive miscarriage of justice. It wouldn’t take much for David to really figure out where they lived and grab Y/N and throw her in his trunk like he did that poor other little girl. Maybe that’s paranoid, but Joel knows better than most that when a man wants to do a dark thing he will find a way to do it. Joel does not want to live his life constantly looking over his shoulder as some horrendous pedophile lives freely. 

And then he turns his head to look down at the rest of the fairly busy bar and he sees him . None other than David himself, drinking a beer. Joel cannot believe his luck. It is like all of the light in heaven has aligned to give him such a gift. A part of him is screaming to not engage because Joel is sure he could kill him for what he said about Y/N. But the rest of him is already standing up and grabbing David by the shoulder and–

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get the fuck out of here now ,” he snarls. “Almost lost my job because of you, you sick fuck. You’re lucky I give you a warning and don’t wring your neck on the fucking spot.”  

David turns around, Joel’s fingers digging into his shoulder.

“Proverbs 24:1 and 2,” he quotes calmly. “‘Do not envy wicked men or desire their company; for their hearts devise violence, and their lips declare trouble.’”

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“It means perhaps I will be leaving. I don’t care to spend my time with wicked men such as yourself. And I have many preparations to make for what is to come. How is your daughter doing since we last met?”

Joel’s heart runs cold. 

“Get my baby’s name out of your goddamned mouth .” 

“Hope we run into each other soon,” David grins as he gets off the barstool and dislodges himself from Joel’s grip. “There is a lot I could teach her.”

He turns to leave. Disgusting coward, Joel thinks. He could let the man go. But then what? Live in fear of him? Let his precious Y/N live in fear of him? Joel is tired of living in fear, of resigning to a cruel man in a cruel world, and he will never do that or let Y/N do that ever again. 

And then David leans in so close that Joel can smell the alcohol on his breath and the sweat on his skin.

“Can’t stop thinking about her pretty little hands around my–”

Joel doesn’t let him finish. In that moment he knows what will transpire. He picked this seedy-ass bar for a reason: so that no one will bother to stop him.

He lands the first punch with ease, doesn’t even feel the pain till minutes later. The force of the blow to David’s head is so strong he slams down into the ground. It is so violent that David’s eyelid starts to bleed and the skin around the impact spot becomes puffy and dark. 

David shouts for help, but no one in this place gives a fuck and even if they did everybody knows who he is and what he did so they don’t give a shit two times over. 

Joel continues the assault. Punch after punch reigns down on the other man as blood begins to coat his features. David tries to get a punch or two into Joel’s stomach, but Joel straddles each of his biceps and holds him down so he can continue hitting. The longer Joel hits, the better he feels. This time is different. This time he does not see the features of every man he’s ever hated in the face of his victim. This time he sees only David’s disgusting smirk in his mind’s eye. This time he only thinks about how he is saving Y/N from a lifetime of fear and cruelty. This time Joel will not let his adversary get a strike in first. This time he will be the one to stop the fate of impending devastation that lies in the palms of David’s shaking and broken hands. This time he can save her . 

When Joel is done with his hands, he is panting heavily. He moves on to his feet, kicking the man’s gut sadistically, his trembling hands, his face. Crunch , goes David’s skull. And then he is not moving or breathing.

Joel stops.

A lick of fear trails against the inside of his stomach, but the rage, always the rage warms his stomach like a rush of flames.

So he keeps going. He bends back down and squeezes the man’s throat just to make sure. It’s good he did too because David’s bloodshot, viens-having-burst eyes snap open and David makes a pathetic little squealing noise and Joel squeezes harder, rougher, with more conviction.

In the end, it takes longer than he thought it would. 

Joel only stops when he hears sirens blaring in the distance. He looks up for the first time since the assault started and sees all of the patrons staring at him in revulsion and fear. The bartender actually has the phone in her hand. Joel guesses she was the one to finally call the cops. He guesses he was so sadistic and violent that even this shitty place had seen enough. He thinks to run, briefly, but where would he run to? Everything he has ever wanted in life is now going to be closed off to him. But he saved Y/N and that makes everything worth it. It has to have been worth it.

Joel puts two scarred, calloused fingers to David’s pulse point, as blood (his and David’s) drips down from his knuckle onto the wooden floor and feels nothing.

When the cops handcuff him and take him away, he doesn’t resist. He comes quietly. He cannot ever really be a good man for Y/N, he understands that now, but at least now she and he may know some peace of mind after what he’s done.

***

The time leading up to the trial is a blur. 

Erica pays for an excellent lawyer, but divorces him on the spot. It seems there are some things even she will not forgive, and apparently murder is one of them. She allows the children to see him one last time in cold, sterile police interrogation room. A court-appointed child advocate social worker must be present. They allow him to have his handcuffs taken off for the first time since he was arrested. The kids are told he accidentally killed someone in a bar fight and for legal reasons he leans into the “accidental” part. 

Aiden comes in first. He knew who David was and tells Joel he did the right thing. Joel is surprised. He reaches out a limp hand, dirt caked under his fingernails, and shakes Joel’s for the first time since they’ve known each other and they part ways on good terms.

“You’re not my dad,” Aiden tells him quietly. “But you always put up a good fight to be there.”

And he leaves.

Joel is more touched than he wants to believe.

Y/N’s visit is much more difficult.

“How could you!?” she screams, standing by the door the second she sees him as he sits at the interrogation table, his chair turned toward her. 

At first Joel thinks she means how could he killl another human being. Y/N didn’t seem to know who David was after all. But that’s not what she is mad about.

“How could you leave me!?” she shouts, tears in her eyes. “You’re going to be taken away from me! Mom is leaving you because of this and that means you aren’t like my dad anymore. You’re going to forget all about me and never get to see me again because you killed some dumb man who tried to give me a bible?”

“He was not a good man,” is all Joel can say. 

He can’t be the one to tell her more, hasn’t told anyone how David had threatened her. Not even his lawyer. He doesn’t want to scare her, doesn’t want to admit to anyone he let those words even get to leave that shit stain’s mouth. 

“I don’t care!” she shouts again. “I want you!”

And then she bursts into tears and runs into his chest and Joel holds her against his orange jumpsuit and starts to feel tears trickling down his own cheeks.

“Never gonna forget about you,” he nearly scolds her into hair. “How could you ever think that, baby? You’re my babygirl. I’ll get out one day and come right back to you, understand?”

“But Mom–”

“You’ll be grown by the time I get out and won’t have to worry about what she says. But I’ll tell you this: you might feel different about me by the time your grown up and however you feel I want you to know I’ll respect that. But I ain’t gonna forget about you. Not ever.” 

“Your time is up,” the court-appointed social worker states. 

“No!” Y/N shouts, burying herself deeper into Joel’s embrace. “NO! I’m not leaving! I won’t leave you!”

Joel hugs her back tightly, crying into the top of her head as she sobs softly into his chest. 

In the end, the social worker has to pull her away as she screams.

“I love you, Y/N!” he calls to her as the social worker drags her from him. “Never gonna forget you, babygirl. Remember that.”

All Joel can hear back is a broken wail.

***

Erica attends the trial; the kids are forbidden. Joel’s defense claims it was a drunken accident and goes for manslaughter. Because he killed a known child molester he has no trouble while he waits in jail. He is even considered a hero by some. No one tries to fuck with him and that’s how Joel would prefer it since if he gets into too many fights it will just add to his sentence and he must get out and get back to his babygirl if she’ll still have him. His lawyer tells him not to mention the threats that David made toward Y/N because it will look like more of a reason that Joel would have had to intentionally kill him as opposed to accidentally like the manslaughter plea would have the court believe. Joel listens. He does exactly what he’s told because this lawyer is good and he needs to get out someday for christ sake.

In the end, he gets ten years and his lawyer tells him he could get eight for good behavior.

Eight years, if Joel can manage it.

They take him away to prison in handcuffs. Erica sobs. It is the last time he sees her.

***

Joel always wondered if his temper would land him in prison. Now that he’s here things go surpringly well. He gets a reputation for being the murderer of a child molestor and people respect him, listen to him when he bothers to speak. He keeps things in order and people start to refer to him as the “pod boss.” He also reads a lot in his cell, tries to help people with their cases and appeals if he can. And if someone steps out of line, Joel is more than happy to put them in their place so long as he can avoid attention from the guards, who he actually mostly gets along with to their faces, but behind their backs beats people to a pulp. No one ever dares to snitch on him and he is considered on the right track to get out for good behavior early. 

Time passes — painfully long stretches of time.

He has a lot of time to think, to read. He reads every book in the prison library over the time he is incarcerated. He reads parenting books, self-help books, books on trauma, books on abuse, books on anger management, books on meditation, books on spirituality (nothing sticks in that regard though, he is still furious like God, but less so these days). Somehow his anger has started to simmer down a notch.   

But he worries his babygirl will forget about him, or worse grow to hate him. He’s not sure he’ll survive that.    

Luckily, or he might have withered away and died, somehow Y/N convinces Erica to let her write him a letter once a month and have one call with him on Christmas. 

Christmases quickly become his favorite day of the year. 

Y/N writes him religiously. She talks about how angry she is at him, how she misses him, how she finally fixed the motor on Joel’s old pickup truck, how some boy gave her a love letter on Valentine’s Day, how she thinks of him every day.

Joel never tells her what David said about her, lets her believe he is just some violent, drunken idiot. He writes back how much he misses her, how he read a new book this week, how prison food is shit, how he’d probably greet that boy with a shotgun if he thinks he’s getting anywhere with his babygirl, how his whole heart beats for her.

She’s allowed to send him one photo a year, her most current school photo, and Joel hangs them on the wall of his cell so he can see her beaming at him at his highest and lowest moments along with the tiny picture of Sarah he managed to save from his wallet. 

Aiden even sends him a card each Father’s Day. It never has anything written in it except for whatever stupid pun or text the card came with, but Joel reads between the lines with that one. Each one seems to whisper to him louder and louder, I love you and I forgive you. Joel writes him back, “Thanks, kiddo. -Joel” He hope that conveys the thousands of sorrys he wants to scream from the rooftops and say straight to the boy’s face. He will someday when he gets out. He makes himself promise. He hears from Y/N when Aiden joins the marines. 

When Joel gets to actually hear Y/N’s voice on the old prison phone it’s like the most beautiful sound he has ever heard except for maybe Sarah’s voice. She babbles away about her life and what’s she’s up to and he hangs on every word like gospel. He barely gets a word in, but prefers it that way. Wishes he could hear her singing. Once, when she’s sixteen, and sounds so woefully grown up it hurts Joel’s entire heart, she hums a little absentmindedly and he can’t get the sweet sound out of his head. Her love for him never seems to waver and that is a blessing that Joel will never forget, the only thing he would thank this cruel God for. And of course, his love for her never wavers either. She is the only beacon of light for him in this dark and mundane existence. She is his everything.

***

When Y/N is eighteen and no longer under her mother’s control, she comes to visit him in person. This is the first time they have seen each other in six years. Despite their loving correspondence, Joel is nervous to see her for the first time since her childhood. He worries about how awkward it might be.

When he sees her walking into the dinky little family meeting room, his entire mode of existence changes.

She looks so beautiful, so grown-up. Sure she had always been a cute little kid, Joel always thought that, but now she is a woman. Tears come to Joel’s eyes. When her eyes connect with his, he feels so seen .

He tries to get a word out, but before he can she is running to him, into his arms and Joel has never felt something so perfect in his entire life. He knows he has never felt a love like this before. Not even with Sarah…something about this is different somehow? Joel is not too in touch with his feelings, but he’s trying to be more attentive to them these days with nothing left to do but read about such topics as “emotional regulation” and “mindfulness.” He’ll come back to this thought later though…

Y/N begins to babble into his ear, something about missing him and not wanting it to be awkward, but this is the furthest from awkward Joel has ever felt.

Joel has never been a man of many words so all he can think to say is,

“Missed you, babygirl.”

She grins at that, brighter than all the suns of all the planets in the universe (Joel has been reading about those too) and he laughs for the first time in what feels like a lifetime.

She laughs too, wipes tears from her eyes, and says,

“Missed you too, Joel. More than you know.”

Joel thinks that can’t possibly be true for that is all he has known for the last six years and possibly his entire life: missing her.

She comes once a month, drives an hour just to see him, and she tells him about college and later her very own shitty apartment. Her mother has thrown herself into her work and Aiden is serving his second tour. She makes good grades and has a stable boyfriend that treats her well, she swears. Joel couldn’t be happier for her, except the boyfriend business does make him want to crush that little fucker’s head in for some reason.

***

The last time Y/N comes to visit before his release (eight years to the day for good behavior) (she is 20 damn years old already!) something feels different to Joel. When he hugs her to greet her, he’s suddenly very aware of her body, the curves of it, her softness. Her hair smells so good, he doesn’t want to let go of her and then to his intense dismay and shock he feels himself getting a little excited down south. Immediately, he lets go of her, feeling like a pervert, praying she didn’t and doesn’t notice. He doesn’t see any obvious signs from her and the two sit down (Joel rather quickly) at the flimsy, nailed-down table and they talk of Joel’s impending release. All the while, Joel is trying to stay calm. He convinces himself it was just an accident and that he hadn’t been around any women in what felt like an eternity and that’s what  led him to get worked up. But when Y/N leaves to go home he feels a kind of dull longing in the bottom of his gut. A different kind of longing then what he had felt for a younger Y/N. Joel tells himself not to repress for the first goddamn time in his life and let himself feel. And he does. He feels butterflies and yearning and need, a great big need inside himself. And then he knows what else he feels: the gut-wrenching, unquenchable sensation of love and beneath that, primal, base, and self-loathing: desire . 

In his solo cell (that he has acquired because he is the pod boss and respected) he jerks off to those thoughts, touches himself to those feelings. When he cums unusually hard, he feels an overwhelming amount of shame. Of this, Joel knows, he will never ever tell another soul. Joel also knows he will not hurt his babygirl any more than he already has, intentionally or not, not ever. But then again, being a good, upstanding man has never really quite been in his arsenal, has it?

Tags (LMK if you wanna be tagged!): @toxicanonymity @motelprincess444 @epicrainbowsheep @anama-cara @sheepdogchick3

@denileisariver @lochnymph @mewantpeepaw @fandomdaydreamer @r3dheadedwitch

PLEASE COMMENT LIKE REBLOG IM BEGGING IM PLEADING IM CRYING

PART 2

Violent Heart Masterlist

Full Masterlist of all my work

[clearnachopirate]

Terry and the batfam. Terry and the batfam. their dynamics have so much potential and i would LOVE to see it explored in any way at all

Terry and Dick: older brothers, trade stories of how they embarrass and get back at their younger brother(s), anger issue twins, "oh you were batman too??" "yeah, but its only bc one of my parents was murdered" "omg thats how i became robin no way"

Terry and Jason: the second most destructive duo, second only to terry and steph. not bc they fight or blow things up on patrol (thats tim and jasons thing) but bc anytime there a new gadget to try, terry will volunteer to use it, and jason will volunteer to 'spar' with terry to test it out. okay, maybe its bc they fight and blow stuff up, but its only ever in the batcave under supervision! "the tim from my dimension actually killed the joker" "no shit? did bruce stop me over there too?" "... about that--" sometimes they grab the others leather jacket by accident and both have given up on caring

Terry and Tim: terry "from the technological future" mcginnis and tim "designs loads of bat tech" drake talk shop, "my younger brother was made robin without my consent" club. tim listens to the works elcectro pop music ever and it just so happens to sound exactly like what they play at terrys favorite club. tim introduces him to (kon or bernard, take your pick) and they hit it off so well that they hang out without tim

Terry and Damian: ace the dog. terry invited damian to his AC island. both are bruce's bio kids and mamas boys. damian calling him "Terrance" and terry never recovering from it. terry knows damian from the future, kind of, and uses that knowledge to his advantage EVERY DAY

Terry and Duke: team "everyone thinks we're the normal one, they are wrong" they totally do movie marathons you cant tell me otherwise, their favorite thing to do is make bets abt the rest of the fam w cass. they never win against her. on any given day you can find them whispering about everyone else "duke, why the fuck were damian and tim staring each other down over breakfast" "hes mad dick said he can't poison him again" "what" "i know i thought they were over it by now"

Terry and Cass: cass sees him for the first time and sees that he rivals tim and dick in terms of being a mess and is determined to bond. terry hears about what she was trained for as a child and shrugs bc "i was supposed to be a second bruce, things change" cass will make him give her piggybacks when shes tired and terry has never dropped her

Terry and Stephanie: the most destructive duo. something happens to their braincells when they patrol together, buildings fall, bones break, civilians are crying, theres about ten minutes where everyone else thinks theyre both dead. they both are waiting at the cave for the others, terry is teching her how to make really shitty friendship bracelets (dana taught him, and stephanie is pretending she doesnt know how). they dont know why everyone else is so stressed "i texted you that we were fine, old man. steph and i just ran into black masks trafficing ring and took care of it-- why is dick crying?"

ALL of them have asked about the future before and the ONLY thing he ever reveals is out of context sayings and trends "yeah actually luigi and bowser have so much chemistry, well, i guess that movie isnt out yet huh" "???" (they think luigi and bowser are a cononical couple in the future and wonder where the world went so wrong) and (while interrogating smon) "watch out, you're not acting like the sigma you are, batman, try rizzing 'im up, then he'll talk."

him and bart meet (everyone tried to keep in from happening) and theyre from similar enough futures that when they talk, not a single person around them can follow it, they teach each other the different versions of different tik tok dances and terry goes back to the manor and teches them to steph, cass sees them do it once and has them memorized, duke thought it was funny, dick thought it was adorable (eventually they ALL know them, and it becomes an inside joke) tims prized possession is a video he got of damian doing the most dispassionate renegade the world has ever seen bc jon asked and he cant say no to him)

TL;DR:

terry mcginnis interacting w the other bat kids has a lot of potential for chaos and family bonding

[skzimagines]

Jealousy

“Who is she?” I say sternly. “Who is who?” He asks. “The girl you were making oggly eyes over at the party all night.” I throw my bag onto the counter as we make our way inside our shared apartment, just coming home from one of the parties Chan decided to throw. “What the hell are you talking about?” He asks, taking his jacket off, throwing it over the back of one of the bar stools. “Oh don’t act like you weren’t.” I make my way into our shared bedroom, sliding off the dress I wore tonight and throwing it into the hamper. Leaving me in nothing but my red lace panties. Minho follows behind. “You’re crazy to think I’d be starring at anyone other than you.” He states. “I saw you starring at her Minho, I’m not stupid.” I sit down at my vanity and start to take my makeup off. Minho stands behind me, arms crossed over his chest. “Well what about you and wooyoung?” He asks, venom stinging through his voice. “What about wooyoung?” My voice raises a bit higher this time, getting pissed at the fact he’s trying to change he subject now. “You two were all over each other when we got there!” Now he’s raising his voice. “All over each other? Minho, we hugged! It was a simple hug! And a quick hello! You on the other hand had no issue sitting right in front of me eye fucking another girl!” I yell. My face turning red from lack of oxygen. “He likes you y/n and you know it! You just refuse to fucking see it!” He yells back. “I don’t care if he does because I only have eyes for you! But apparently you have your eyes on me and someone else!” I stand up and make my way to our shared closet, grabbing a hoodie and sliding it over my head, then proceed to grab a pair of shorts and put them on as well. "I'm leaving." I state. "And where might you be going y/n? It's 2am." "I don't know, maybe I'll go to Wooyoung's." I say, I don't mean it though. It's within the heat of the moment. "Take that back..." Minho's voice changes, its deep and quiet, so much different than what it was before. Even after being together for two years, he still sometimes intimidates me. "Y/N.. take it back, I'm not joking." For a moment our eye contact is intense. I clear my throat before pulling myself together. "I'm leaving." I state, walking over to our dresser and grabbing the car keys, I turn around to leave the room and Minho is standing directly behind me. My face is to his chest, if I look at him again, I'll cave in. So I keep my head down. All I hear is the silent sound of his breathing before his hand runs down my arm and to the hand that the keys are in. He slowly pulls the keys from my hand and throws them onto the bed. "You're not leaving me... you're mine, do you understand?" He says in a hushed tone. He brings his hand to my chin and pulls up, making me look at him. And here I am... looking into those big brown eyes once again. "You were looking at another girl Min..." I whisper. "Honey... I was not looking at anyone, I would never do anything to lose you. And if you don't recall.. you were standing right next to this girl you think I was looking at." He states. My mind goes back to earlier, I was standing on the dance floor with a few of our friends and a girl next to me was gyrating all over everyone around us. When I looked up, I just so happened to have caught what I thought was my boyfriend watching the girl. "I was watching you, baby." He whispers, running his hands down my sides until he reached my waist, gracefully picking me up, spinning me around and setting me on our bed. "I'm always watching you..." He whispers, planting open mouthed kisses along my neck. I turn my head to the side to give him more room to work and wrap my arms around his shoulders, playing with the back of his hair. "I'm sorry.. I whisper. "Oh, darling. You have no reason to be sorry." His hands explore my body, before sliding underneath my shorts and cupping my heat. A sharp squeak leaves my lips at the feeling of his long fingers rubbing my sensitive bud. "You do have something you need to be punished for saying though..." He says with a smirk.

[poisonousquinzel]

my main issue with Harlivy not being monogamous is that the idea exists solely because DC is homophobic. I think, in some worlds, they could have a healthy poly relationship, obviously I love harliva (Gotham City Sirens), I stand by that this would be a wonderful dynamic if ya know written by competent and skilled writers who actually understand all their characters.

And frankly I dont feel like Harley is one who typically would be okay with sharing the person she's in love with. she's just not. maybe in a case where she and the person she's in love with / dating are both also in love with another, who's equally into the both of them.

But

That's not what's happening in Harley & Ivy's comics right now. That's not what's ever happened with this "open relationship".

I think Mason was healthy and sweet for Harley, from what I remember, but Ivy didn't love him and he didn't love Ivy. It's understandable to a degree, Ivy's reasonings and such, and in a different world with better writers I think that aspect could have been explored and developed.

Because Ivy does, truly, deeply, love Harley, and the idea she would be okay with Harley having hookups, etc, could be explained in a way that would make sense. Particularly during the part of Harley's arc that the 2014/2016 comics were, well, were supposed to be, dealing with.

She's freshly broken up with Joker, not really fully into a healing phase either, and isn't in the right mindset to be like settling down and thinking of Forever again. Harlivy's relationship is strong and built on friendship, so even in the beginning there while their relationship isn't Platonic, it's not "Officially Dating", Ivy knows how deeply Harley also cares about her. She also knows Harley isn't in a good place, and neither was she.

So her being okay, or outright happy for Harley, being loved by other people would make some sense because all Ivy's tried to do their whole friendship is prove that she deserved better, that she deserved to be loved and cherished. And as long as whoever is the pick of the month for Harley is someone who makes her feel happy and loved, then Ivy wouldn't feel jealous over it because damn, good for her being so happy messing around with someone who isn't as nasty and cruel as Joker. And it wouldn't take away from the real underlying feelings the two women have for one another.

But, again, that's not what this is. And it is now a "dynamic" that's bled into both Poison Ivy (2022) and Harley Quinn (2021), and has ultimately (due to the sheer lack of shown conversations or anything) devolved to borderline cheating.

In all honestly, this isn't a thing that'd exist if she was still with Joker and him alone. 1000%.

She would be with him and him only and would be depressed, insecure and jealous if he had a "friend" like Janet who he'd fucked before and continued to keep around.

This concept was only introduced because DC wouldn't allow for Harlivy to be openly in a monogamous relationship in 2014/2016. This is the company that in 2013 lost both the artist and writer for the Batwoman comic (artist: JH Williams III and writer: W. Haden Blackman) due to the company refusing to allow them to show Kate get married. It's not ooc for them to have refused to let them be monogamous, especially since Harlivy wasn't even allowed to be shown kissing on the lips at the time.

cause forbid sapphic women are allowed to be shown being outright loving and romantic with each other and doing something as ridiculously simple and mundane as a lip kiss, but having Ivy grab her ass in front of two dudes is totally okay cause it's hot.

it's so hot in fact that they needed to add in Tool dude, a fucking loser ass creep, saying "homina" in response to getting to see these two hot ladies like this. It seems like this is supposed to be a version of "Hummina"

Wiktionary: used to express that one has a strong reaction that cannot be expressed in words, especially when expressing embarrassment or sexual attraction.

Urban Dictionary: gibberish used to convey excitement or immediate sexual attraction to someone that takes your breath away.

Or the definitions for "Homina" itself

Urban Dictionary: A word, normally repeated three times, to express shock, befuddlement, or general speechlessness. Often when looking at a particularly attractive member of the speaker's favored sex

-

A sound you make when you see someone very attractive and beautiful. Similar to "hubba-hubba" or "a-woo-gah a-woo-gah" or "rwaaaarrr!"

[AND! I think the dynamics with her relationships with Joker and Ivy during the Mad Love arc is ridiculously complex and cannot be boiled down to "she cheats on him with Ivy so its in character for them to not be monogamous" because it takes away all context of both relationships and the mental state she'd have been in during that arc that was directly caused by him.

Her hooking up with Ivy while still being on / off again with Joker, a man who had broken her mind, her bones and her self esteem, is not at all similar or equatable to the pointless, ooc strange plot threads that've been published recently that frankly are just starting to feel like it's playing into biphobic stereotypes]

anyyyhoo, those are my thoughts<3 I have to finish cleaning my room now I sporadically wrote this on a short break SKDJSJKSKSKS

[inuxi]

that ask was rude of me, i should've just blocked you instead of telling you about it, i'm sorry. i'm aroace and sex+romance repulsed, and i guess i thought alastor was gonna be something i could enjoy for once like everyone else gets to without feeling like i'm intruding on a conversation i have no right to be part of. i'm on ios so i can't use browser extensions to actually get rid of all the alastor ship posts like i want, and i'm not sure my problem even has a solution short of just giving up trying, because so far i have found exactly zero blogs that are 1.) still active at all, 2.) still post about Hazbin, 3.) aren't actually 12 years old, and 4.) don't post about fucking Alastor ships. i got so excited seeing such good, recent art i haven't nuked yet considering how old every other post i can still see is, and i'm not kidding when i say i sent that ask through tears. it was rude and unacceptable either way, and i'm sorry.

i've blocked over 200 different people and i'm not exaggerating that number even a little bit. i would rather put a gun to my head and pull the trigger myself than see them so much as breathe next to each other ever again. i am so. so so so so so sick of searching and searching and searching and finding nothing.

the thing i've learned from alastor's aroace representation is that not only is the world as a whole not made to accommodate me, fandom space isn't either. i am an alien on a planet i was never made to fit into, and i don't even get to escape that through fiction like everyone else does. no amount of filtering and blocking and searching will bring into existence a community for me that simply does not exist, and it is futile for me to try. that's what this fandom has taught me.

i think the chances of me sticking around in this fandom are slim, so at least it won't be an issue for anyone else anymore. i think being excluded from conversations about an aroace character sting a lot more than just not being represented at all to be honest.

Okay, listen.

First of all, Alastor is officially an Ace, NOT an aroace. That means he can still be interested in any romantic things or finding a couple. No one is stopping you from seeing him exclusively as an aroace. But shaming people who don't share your point of view is a bad idea.

Secondly, I am an aroace artist myself. Romantic and sexual themes are virtually non-existent in my art. I can joke about it, but almost all of my drawings explore completely different things. And you come to me and try to talk about how hard it is to feel socially comfortable being an aroace? I understand your worries, but, again, trying to shame other people because they don't share your point of view is NOT a healthy coping mechanism.

Third, I have done THREE drawings in all my time that include a romanticized Alastor. Two of them were collabs, and the third was asked to be drawn by people. And these three drawings made you give up on my art, which you said you really liked?

The community is too heavily oriented towards romantic and sexual themes, it's true. People like us are often uncomfortable in that environment, that's also true. But aroace people can't just come in and ban others from having fun just because we don't find that fun or interesting.

Man, I'm not even Alastor's artist! What the kind of Alastor shipper am I? And you picked me out of a thousand people to block? Oh my God, that's as funny as it is sad.

In case you haven't looked at my art, I am a Lucifer artist. I very rarely draw Alastor, simply because I don't find him interesting enough. And because of that, I find it so funny to be labeled an “Alastor shipper”