#the bigger of an asshole she is the more affection i have for her | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

miller-n-morgan · 28 days

Text

And I Feel Fine (.iii)

Joel Miller x Jackson!Reader

18+, mdni

Summary: The injury has sustained itself into something bigger than a flesh wound, and is wreaking havoc on all three of you. Luckily, Ellie manages to find a helpful tool, but you're almost certain it did not come from a safe resource.

Warnings: this one is sad and fluffy at the same time. canon typical violence, blood, gore, shooting, and gun violence. mentions of teenage pregnancy and birth. more angst and backstory but also some sweet moment with both Joel and Ellie at different points.

Word Count: 9.1k (she's long as hell today)

greetings darlings!! I come to you with another part of the hellscape that is my TLOU series. I know that there's been some slightly mixed feelings on reader having descriptives but to be fair I never actually describe the way modern day reader looks (other than that ellie bears strong resemblance to her) the only reason I make the connections of ellie being the reader's mini me, is just because she's supposed to be her mom. Also, this is a little self indulgent because i myself do look significantly like ellie so this is mainly for me lol

Series Masterlist

“Ellie?” You sprung to your feet, meeting her where she was and watching several men crowding the street outside. “What the fuck did you do?” “I’m sorry,” she shook her head, trying to slow herself down before rambling. “I didn’t think they would follow me. I had to get Joel’s medi-” “Get down!” You shouted, shoving her shoulder. You watched to make sure they didn’t see you, but looking at their numbers, it wasn’t going to be an easy fight, and there would be a fight. They were searching the houses on the block. “Must’ve caught the horse prints.”

It’s cold, it’s moist, and it’s just about the most uncomfortable place you’ve hunkered down in over the span of your life. But it’s safe, and it’s sheltered from the snow.

The basement of the biggest house on the street, Maple Drive, you think it’s called. It was probably the most sought after house in the neighborhood back in its heyday, standing tall and beautiful at the end of the cul de sac.

You were freezing your ass off, unable to sleep in your current condition, but not darling to change it right now. You’d given your heaviest jacket to Joel, who needed all the layers he could get to stay warm. You’d been out in the sun this morning, soaking up as much heat as it would allow in the midst of the new onset of cold weather.

Ellie was devastated. You knew that the closest thing she had to family was Joel, and you couldn’t do anything to console her about his injuries or the fact that his wound had gotten infected and he was on the downward spiral of non recovery.

“You take her, get to the fireflies and make sure she’s safe,” he’d told you, whispering it quietly in his state of weakness as you dragged him into the basement. He was referring to the second lab location you all had found before the attack.

“I can’t.”

“Don’t stay here on my account, you’ll be fine…”

“No, Joel, I actually can’t. I don’t know where to go or what to do,” you tried not to sass him for the fact that his life could be ending, but you wanted him to know that this wasn’t just some self righteous stance of sticking by him. You were legitimately lost without him.

“Get Tommy to-”

“If I go back to Tommy it means you’re dead.”

And the conversation was left at that. He had barely spoken a full sentence since then.

“Are you asleep?” you heard a soft whisper pipe up from next to Joel…

“Do I look asleep?” You asked, eyes wide open and sitting straight up against the wall. There wasn’t much light except for the small solar lantern in the room, but you still didn’t exactly look to be resting peacefully. You were shivering in the cold, arms wrapped around yourself, and you supposed that the temperature was having an affect on your attitude.

“It was just a question, asshole,” she muttered, and you softened immediately.

“I’m sorry, it’s just freezing,” you laughed out, nearly seeing the puff of air expelled from your mouth in the air around you. “Can’t sleep?”

“Guess not,” she sat up, scooting her way closer to you so she wouldn’t have to be as quiet around Joel. He hadn’t woken up for an entire day, you doubted her voice would stir him now.

It was silent for a while, neither of you said a word, just content to keep your eyes on the steady rise and fall of Joel’s chest on the singular mattress in the room. You’d lugged it from the twin bed upstairs, the only one that actually had a mattress anymore.

“What do we do if he dies?” She asked, her tone flat and even as if she were asking you what she should eat from the rations. It shocked you how plain she sounded about it, but tried to shake your thoughts away and answer.

“I don’t know… I guess I take you back to Tommy, see if he can help us find the other lab.”

She nodded, understanding that with the days passing, and nothing changing, the future was looking grim, and she might have to say goodbye to her companion.

“I’d wanna bury him first,” she breathed out, more emotion falling into her words now knowing what the ultimate plan would be incase of his demise. “We’ve been through some shit.”

You sighed out, the urge to grab her hand was strong, but you denied it, shaking your head slightly before thinking of some words to make her feel better. Even after everything, you still didn’t feel like you could touch her, take her hand, let her be real to you.

“I get it. Before I joined the fireflies I had a friend I traveled with. She got infected and I-” you cut yourself off, feeling the weight of your sentence seep in. Maybe you shouldn’t be using this as a pick me up. “Anyways… I couldn’t leave her, so I put her in an old truck we used to hide in, decorated it with wild flowers. We could do the same for him.”

Her nodding along was a sad sight to see. You didn’t want her to just be taking this to heart, knowing he’s going to die. He might live, he might get better and then you can all go to Salt Lake City before returning home to Jackson.

“Don’t give up on him, though. He’s a fighter.”

“I know it, old man’s been through hell just to get here. Would be a shame if he died now to a lousy infection,” she joked. You smiled, tossing another glance to the man beneath the winter layers and sleeping bag.

Why would a man like that go through all of this? Why would he put himself in harm’s way for a girl he met as cargo? And what did the receiving end even want with her? You had some theories, based on your own experience, based on what happened to you.

“You must be pretty important to the fireflies to warrant this kind of cross country trip.”

She chuckled under her breath, a tenseness spread over her shoulders before you spit out your next words.

“You’re immune, aren’t you?”

“What?”

She freaked out immediately, because as far as she knows, Joel didn’t tell you, and neither did she.

“Why would you think that? I haven’t even-”

“You were bitten,” you cut her off, unwilling to sit by and hear her diversions. “I saw it a few weeks ago down by that stream.”

She didn’t say anything, just stared blankly. You’d known and you hadn’t told her? But wait, you hadn’t specified what you’d seen… she doesn’t recall…

“You weren’t there by the stream. You rode ahead to the gas station to find supplies… Did Joel tell you?” She asked, her stare more pointed this time as she leaned forward as if to interrogate.

You didn’t say anything back for a moment, just shook your head. If you told her how you knew, you were going to have to spill a lot more than just ‘I saw your bites.’

“Where was I bitten?” She demanded, but you couldn’t answer. You didn’t actually know. You could take a guess and say the leg or the hand, given those are two common bite sites you have seen often in the past… but you can’t be sure.

“I don’t know. And no, Joel didn’t tell me,” you could have just thrown him under the bus, said that he did… He might die, and your secret would follow with him. But you didn’t want to lie to her. She seemed to trust you, and you would hate to break that small bond you’d begun to form.

“Then how did you know?”

You huffed a sigh, followed by a trail of your eyeline that looked at literally everything else in the room before landing on her. Your ‘mini me.’ She hadn’t noticed your resemblance to her, but to be fair, everyone else had to have it pointed out to them, because to be clear, the chances of her actually being your daughter were so slim at first glance.

“You’re immune, because I’m immune…”

And after a few seconds of trying to let your words sink in, she was still utterly confused.

“What’s that supposed to mean? You got some weird voo-doo shit goin’ on or something?” She was being her regular sassy and sarcastic self, but in all actuality it started to dawn on her that there was only one reason you would be bringing this up.

“Ellie,” you let out a breath. No, but voo-doo shit sounds far more creative.

She backed away from you and toward Joel, but she didn’t try to leave, or even to take her eyes away from your compassionate stare.

“No,” she shook her head, her eyes were wide and full of something akin to fear… but not towards you. “Are you trying to tell me you’re my fucking mom?”

You didn’t know what to say. By now the cold had worn off from your body, whether or not it was from the adrenaline of telling her, you weren’t sure, but you were set in the heat of the moment for now.

“Look,” you started, your voice a little bit raised and on edge. Ellie was a spitfire, you didn’t want her to interrupt or shut you down before you could finish. “Don’t go crazy, alright? You might not be…”

“I can’t be! You’re like, twenty… you would have had to have me when you were a kid,” she argued, her arms flailing for emphasis. The worst part in her mind was that she didn’t disagree with your belief, she just didn’t know how to process it, didn’t think she could justify it. What are the fucking odds, too?

“I was fourteen…” you trailed. You didn’t have the will to say anything else yet. You almost wanted to joke, to thank her for the compliment on how young you looked… but that wouldn’t help anything, and this was something serious.

She was sat in silence for the moment, and you took the time to explain.

“I was on my own, and I was a kid… and I gave up a baby in Boston around the time you were born. At that age I looked a hell of a lot like you.”

Her hands balled into fists but there was no anger in them, just the pent up energy from this exchange that she wasn’t sure what to do with.

“So you think I was the baby? How can you be sure?” she asked, leaning in towards you again but not scooting back to her original position yet. It was like a sly fox tiptoeing around thin ice.

“Ellie, how many kids your age in Boston are immune?”

She sighed out, her eyes dropping to her feet in front of her. You really shouldn’t be so lousy with your attitude towards her. This had gotta be ten times harder for her than it is for you.

“This really sucks…”

“I’m sorry,” you replied, understanding how this must be to take. She didn’t want you as her mother, why would she? She doesn’t barely know you except for bits and pieces of what you’re willing to say. “If it’s easier not to believe it, then by all means-”

“No, I believe it. That’s what sucks. I went my entire life thinking my mom was dead.”

The realization dawning that perhaps she did want you to be her mom was even worse, because you weren’t there for her when she needed you.

“Oh,” you breathed out, finally reaching for her hand and feeling comfortable to do so “Ellie…”

“I didn’t even think twice about the fact that she could be out there, much less that I could ever know her,” she sighed out. Wetness filled her eyes but she’d expressed before how tough and brave she was, and you knew she wouldn’t let a tear fall. She did however let her hand remain in yours.

“I came looking for you, y’know? When I was seventeen, my friend and I… we both went back to Boston. The people I left you with, I don’t know what happened to them, but they weren’t there and neither were you. Figured I was just grasping at straws going back in the first place.”

“You… wanted me?” She was almost flabbergasted at the thought. No one has wanted her in her entire life.

“Of course I did… I was too young in the beginning, couldn’t barely take care of myself. But I wanted you. I cried like hell the night I left, and you did too.” The explanation brought back memories. Things you thought were buried in the crevice of your mind floated back. You were a shell of a human when you left the Boston QZ.

Things were quiet after you spoke. She nodded, not able to meet your eyes. Maybe all of this is for a reason. You wanted her, and you finally found her again. You being at the dam that day was no coincidence.

“When did you know? That I was her?”

The chuckle that left you was flattened, but you had to laugh at her question a bit. She probably didn’t put the pieces together of your first encounter.

“First day I saw you… I froze like a deer in headlights, thought I was seeing my past self. Had myself thinking you were here to taunt me, or make me atone for my actions or whatever.” You thought it sounded stupid, now. Maybe you’d just had that assumption because until you met Tommy, your life had been a shithole, and it continuing to be a shithole would make sense.

“So when you said I reminded you of someone…” She trailed, recalling the dialogue.

“You reminded me of you. I just didn’t want to believe it could be you,” you told her, the tilt of your head helping to indicate your tone. She laughed, giving you a sideways smirk…

“I guess I probably scared you pretty good, huh?”

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” You scoffed, rolling your eyes. She was indeed your kid, as much as one could be. You’d known from that first feeling, seeing her face… but after all the evidence was stacked up to this point, you had absolutely no doubts.

You shivered again in the cold, and she took notice, scooting back beside you and leaning a delicate head on your shoulder. You almost winced at the sudden contact, because you didn't expect this physical closeness.

“Is this okay?” She asked, noticing your hesitancy towards her.

You tried to relax, to feel the added warmth against the cold, and let her grab a gentle hold of your arm into hers. As if it were a pillow or stuffed animal.

“More than okay, Ellie.”

Joel was going to die. You could feel it.

Ellie had been wanting to try her hand at hunting since Joel showed her how to last month, but he never let her go by herself, always just taking the lead and letting her watch.

Today, you awoke to the various grunting sounds of Joel Miller, and it scared you half to death. His pain is taking him over and the infection is spreading too fast. Without antibiotics to clear his system, he’ll be gone in a few hours.

You decide that for everyone involved, it’s best if Ellie doesn’t sit in this room with you and watch her companion die. So you send her hunting, and she almost seems excited. Her attitude towards you, although pretty good from the beginning, was like that of an actual daughter to her mother. She still called you by your name, of course, and you felt that maybe you weren’t exactly ready to be called ‘mom’ anyway.

She left with a hop in her step, and the promise to stay close to the neighborhood.

You waited until you heard the trotting of a horse before you returned to tending over Joel. You checked the main laceration on the side of his stomach, nose scrunching just at the sight of it. The purple threads of infection that coiled into a ball at the dead center, the terribly stitched up entry wound that had finally begun to scar over.

He had stirred from his sleep just barely, his eyes not opening, but quiet mumbles falling from his lips. You don’t understand what he’s saying at first, but you see him shaking subtly. He’s cold… of course he is. It’s gotta be ten below zero, and all he’s got to keep himself warm is the lousy jacket he’s been traveling with, and a cheap sleeping bag.

You lift up the padded material, slipping beneath it and laying next to him. This isn’t ideal. You’ve been beside far too many people when they take their dying breath… but this man had come so far, only to die now when he hadn’t seen his journey through. Survival and mission are two different things. He was never going to fulfill his duty to Ellie, never going to get her to the fireflies. If he was going to go out now, he deserved to die warm, and in the comfort of someone’s embrace. He shouldn’t be alone.

“Y-you’re…” he struggled to speak, his weakness almost completely consuming him.

“Don’t talk, just rest,” you tried to reason with him, but he let out a heavy breath. He knows, he feels it too.

“S’almost t-time,” he got out, before he had to even his breathing again. Almost time, and he feels every breath get shallower. “I’m dyin’...”

In normal circumstances, you wouldn’t want to scare someone by agreeing with them… but this man doesn’t seem to fear death, he just seems to wish it had waited longer. He wishes it had given him a little more time to help Ellie. Ellie… she was going to be torn apart.

“Yeah,” you nodded, placing a hand on his flannel and letting your fingers fiddle with the buttons so that you can’t get too wound up in emotion. This man is dying beside you, like many in your past… and you can’t stop it.

“Don’t gotta…” he ran out of breath before he even finished the thought. He had to inhale again just to get the words out. “Don’t gotta stay with me.”

You looked at him, eyes still closed and color draining from his cheeks. Any minute now.

“It ain’t right to die alone,” you told him, finally feeling your eyes fog over.

You’d liked him. He was a good man, reminded you of Tommy, but older, maybe a bit more stern and protective… Joel Miller had been the kindest grump you’d ever met. He was lethal, but he was also something else. A family man. Maybe in his life before the outbreak he had a wife and kids. Maybe he used to take his kids to school before going to work, later returning with his lovely wife and they would all have dinner together. It’s how your family was, your mother and father and brother and sister. You’d longed for that sense of family again ever since you lost it. Joel had been the first person that made you feel like that sort of thing even still existed.

“I’m gonna stay right here,” you told him straight, voice a bit shaky but unbroken.

“Alright,” he breathed, his consciousness fading in and out. He finally gave in and let himself sleep. He knew he’ll probably never wake up.

You check his breath and pulse every few minutes. They feel weaker each time, but he’s still holding on. His chest still rises and falls every few seconds, and his heart still beats. It gets to the point where you just lay your palm flat over his chest, feeling each thump, slow, fading, but not gone.

Ellie returned less than an hour later… and you’re surprised.

“Hey,” she called from the corner of the room, holding a small pouch in her hand… she found something, and it didn’t look like food.

You rolled over, sitting up and slipping away from Joel to see what she had brought back.

“...Hey?” you looked at her, then to the pouch in her hands.

“Getting cozy, huh?” she lifted a brow to you, and you rolled your eyes.

“He was cold,” you take the pouch from her hands, beginning to open it up and take out the contents.

“Sure,” she scoffed, kneeling down by him, checking to make sure he hadn’t keeled over yet. He was barely hanging on. You’d failed to keep her out of here when he passed, but maybe she needed to be with him.

“He was,” you looked down at what you took out of the small bag… “Ellie,” looked back at her… “Where the fuck did you find this?”

“Oh,” she paused, scrambling for words, but struggled to find them. Already you were filling the syringe with the fluid, trying your best to remember what regular doses of penicillin would look like. You think you drew too much, but to be fair, he probably needed it. “I found it.”

“What do you mean you found it?” She had to be bullshitting you. This stuff was impossible to find, not to mention you’ve searched every house on this block and the next over the past few weeks, trying to find anything that could help him. “This stuff doesn’t grow on trees.”

You knelt down and found a suitable entry point on his skin, flicking the needle to get the air to the top.

“It was in a cabin a few blocks away,” she shrugged, watching your movements with intensity.

“You better be telling me the truth right now, I swear,” you shook your head, knowing that if she stole it off of a passing stranger, it might bite you in the ass.

“I am,” she said, but then refused to look you in the eye. Maybe she was lying, maybe she wasn’t. It didn’t matter right now. You injected the needle into Joel’s skin, pushing the plunge on the syringe just slow enough to watch for a hematoma. “How do you even know how to do this?”

Her subject change was to avoid more questioning, but you didn’t catch that detail.

“I used to watch House with my dad…” You chuckled, your focus never broken until the entirety of the dose was injected. You wiped the entry poke when you removed the needle, letting his shirt cover it all when you were finished.

“You watched- wait what?”

“It was a show about doctors,” you explained, putting the needle and the medicine back in the pouch they came in. It was a very dramatic and very interesting show about doctors, and truth be told, you barely remember it. “Last season aired about a year before outbreak day. If I ever find a DVD box set, we can watch it. Tommy found me a blu-ray player a few years back.”

“I’m gonna pretend to know what all of those things are.”

You nudged her in the arm, laughing and thinking and letting your mind escape you. Just minutes ago you were frightened Joel was going to die. Now you have hope he’ll live, and that after this journey is over, you’ll all return to Jackson and become a tight knit unit. You know already. You have two spare bedrooms in your house, and a bungalow in your backyard. They could settle themselves however they wanted… and you’d finally have someone to come home to everyday. You’d have people that you cared about that would fill the dull air in the quiet house you lived in. They could help you finally make it a home.

Joel would probably be the new handy man of the commune, since old Ricky Thompson was getting way too elderly to wear that title. You’re sure he’d be helpful, as it’s just in his nature.

Ellie would be friends with Kat, you think… They have complimentary personalities, and they both seem to like comic books. She’s also around the same age as Robin’s kid Jesse, you’re pretty sure. He’s a sweet boy, although a little rambunctious. Just like Ellie.

You let these thoughts circle your mind as you lay back down beside Joel, Ellie doing the same on his other side. It’s not quite late enough to sleep, but you find yourself drifting off, anyway.

You were wailing and crying your eyes out, biting down on the sleeve of your shirt to try and quell the screams. It hurts so bad, and the contractions are so close together… you don’t have a shot. This baby is coming within the hour.

Your eyes shot over when you heard the lock on the front door being undone. You were so thankful, to know that in your time of need, God hadn’t completely abandoned you. Maxine dropped everything in the entryway as soon as she saw your state… the rations she’d just traded for were spilling out over the sacks against the door which she threw shut.

“How long has it been?” Was her first question. Asking what happened would clearly be a dumb thing to do.

“Three hours,” you said, leaning forward and breathing the best you could. “It's getting worse.”

“Those are your contractions, remember I told you about the timing?”

“Yeah, they’re close… I don’t know what to do.”

“Shit,” she muttered, which had to have been the first curse word you’ve heard from this woman. She was so clean cut and down to earth, not a swear in sight… But these were trying circumstances. “I have to move you.”

You nodded, grabbing her outstretched hand and letting her tug you to your feet.

She set you up onto the couch where you’d been sleeping, helping you out of the baggy men’s shorts you’d been doomed to wear since you got here. They were the only thing that fit comfortably around your stomach, ever since you ditched the dingy old jeans that had been too tight to button or zip.

She went and knelt down by the bags against the door, pulling out the disclosed black t-shirt full of items that were harder to come by. She must have traded with some slightly shadier people in order to get rubber gloves of all things. She also had a mini bottle of antiseptic liquid, and some plastic pads that she placed beneath your bottom. She ran to her bathroom and pulled two dark towels from the racks, hoping they would be able to hide the stains that were about to be made.

You started shrieking again, trying to muffle your face to the side and let the noise be absorbed by the cushion next to you.

Maxine checked the time, clocking in the contraction at a half minute since the last. Too close… She just hoped you’re dilated enough.

“On my count you gotta push, and it’s gonna hurt like hell,” she told you, placing your feet in a way that would make the angle easier. “You’ll be tired and feel like stopping but you can’t.”

“I just want em’ out,” you cried, throwing your head back. The sweat dripping from your forehead ran back into your hairline, and you felt the cool air over the wetness a moment later. You closed your eyes, hoping for peace to overtake you, but it never came.

Your eyes shot open when you heard the faintest sound of voices outside. You’d become a light sleeper over the years, your senses being dialed to eleven for all the years you spent on your own, or in the company of people you didn’t trust.

Ellie was already awake, cursing under her breath as she was perched on top of a cabinet, looking to the outside window from the basement’s corner.

“Ellie?” You sprung to your feet, meeting her where she was and watching several men crowding the street outside. “What the fuck did you do?”

“I’m sorry,” she shook her head, trying to slow herself down before rambling. “I didn’t think they would follow me. I had to get Joel’s medi-”

“Get down!” You shouted, shoving her shoulder. You watched to make sure they didn’t see you, but looking at their numbers, it wasn’t going to be an easy fight, and there would be a fight. They were searching the houses on the block. “Must’ve caught the horse prints.”

“We have to get them away from Joel,” she muttered, her entire body shaking from anxiety of what she’d done. She was careless to think the snow would cover the horse’s tracks. It hadn’t snowed heavily enough in the past week, so it wasn't going to start up now.

“Alright, let me think.”

It was a bad idea, but looking back at Joel, you only had one option.

“You ride out on Joel’s horse. He won’t buck you and can probably get you further than Casper. I’ll try and sneak around the block and lead them to the houses across the street. If I can, I’m gonna shoot em’ down.”

“Where should I go? I can’t ride around forever…”

“Just keep riding until I come to find you. If I can take them out, we can come back and move Joel tonight.”

She didn’t like the idea of moving him, but so far, things weren’t looking good right now, and if these assholes followed her here, they would come back and finish their sweep, probably bring more men as backup.

“...Okay.”

She got a move on, grabbing her backpack and slinging it over her shoulder before heading to the garage.

You helped her adjust the saddle bags, making sure she had food incase you were separated for longer than a few hours.

“Be careful, stay alert… and try to keep your head down. I’ll cover you.”

She nodded, and you slowly and quietly opened the garage door.

She left one way, and you left another, giving each other a final glance before going separate ways.

This was a terrible idea. Putting a child… much less your child, in harm’s way like this was probably one thing that would never be taught in a parenting book. But it’s not like you had access to one anyway. You just had to make things up as you go.

You were able to get to the second yard over, making way for the third when you heard yelling and gunshots. You hopped the fence, taking your gun and shooting straight at whoever else had a weapon. You saw Ellie take off down the road, men chasing her as she went. You’d managed to take down three attackers so far, but it wasn’t doing you any favors so far, as they sprouted up like ants from a dirt hill.

You were barely missed by some incoming fire, the men finally growing enough brains to realize that you were now the threat, and not the teenage girl riding away on a horse… although she had also taken down a few men.

Ellie was out of sight to you, but you kept running in her direction, wanting to protect her however you could. You had hoped they wouldn’t see her right away, and maybe just follow the tracks that her horse was making… but nothing ever went according to plan.

You weren’t sure where you were going, but when another man came into view, you took aim and pulled the trigger. Again, and again, and again… it had been a while since you’d killed a person who wasn’t infected. It came back all too easily.

You’d been walking for hours it seemed, following the footprints and noticing that Ellie’s ended after a certain building. Now you were following large and heavy footsteps, the marks leading you to believe the men were carrying her somewhere.

For everything that you would allow to happen, letting her go through what you did at that age was not one of them. She may not be innocent, but that sort of bodily torture never leaves a person, even years after its over with. You have yet to really recover from everything, and it stands to reason that you’ve never had a partner since… but you won’t let it happen to Ellie.

Even though you can’t feel your fingers, and the gun in your hands feels like ice, you refuse to lower it as you trek quickly over the snow. You will find her, and you will save her. You should have probably gone back to the house to get more rounds or to add a layer to your body… but you can’t waste the time.

She needs you, and for the first time in her life, you are going to be there. You are going to start making amends for every lost year that ever passed you by. Every day and every hour that you missed in her life. Her first steps, her first words, and everything after.

When you found that the footsteps lead up to a door in a secluded town area, you looked around, scanning the surroundings before trying to enter the establishment… except it was conveniently locked, and the windows were too high to reach, even if you could break them.

You started circling the place, looking for another entrance point, when gunshots could be heard firing at you. You ran back towards the forest, trying to grab cover, but you winced in pain, feeling the searing affliction of a bullet hitting you in the leg. You bit your sleeve to try and relieve some of the pain, but it was too prominent to feel anything else. You immediately pulled your belt from your hips, securing it as best you could around your leg before looking at the damage. The bullet had gone through, so you’re almost sure there won’t be any permanent damage.

The undershirt you have on is torn on the bottom, and you use the sloppy piece of fabric to wrap up the entry and exit point, trying to stop the blood. The good thing about the cold weather is it will speed up your coagulation.

The bullets are still firing from behind you, but they seem to have lost your movement. So you chance a look at the area and see a single man trying to snipe you out from a rooftop. You can see him but he doesn’t see you, so you point and shoot, three shots leaving your gun before he fell from his bird’s nest view and his head splattered onto the concrete ground.

It’s hard to walk, so you take a few moments to recuperate before you even attempt to move on… little do you know that one of your travel companions is slowly making his way through the forest to find you and Ellie, after he brutally and mercilessly tortured answers out of the stragglers in the neighborhood.

“I can’t do this,” you cried, looking down at Maxine with tears completely clouding your eyes. You could barely make out the shape of her, much less your own body and what you were trying to do. “I can’t.”

“Yes you can, and you have to,” she nearly scolded you, realizing that though this is hard, it will be worse if you give up.

You’re exhausted, and you’re worn. Your body hurts like hell and the anguish this kid is putting you through feels like it’s going to last an eternity.

“It’s so hard,” you tried to reason, but it wasn’t going to get you far. It’s not like she could just magically give into your requests and bring everything to a halt.

“I know, trust me I do… but you don’t have a choice, you have to keep pushing,” she went on about the encouragement but nothing she said or did could soothe you into serenity. Nothing could calm your nerves or the aching between your legs as you were on the verge of a new life.

This baby was about to take breaths for the first time. About to cry and wail and break your heart into a thousand little pieces before putting it back together with every glance.

You wondered for a long time if you should even hold them, or look at them. You knew it might be too hard to leave after that. It would be too hard to say goodbye. You wanted least of all things to go back into the world without your little bundle, the life you carried for nine months and four days.

You tucked your chin to your chest, biting the inside of your mouth while breathing heavily through your nose. You beared down into your lower abdomen as much as you could, contracting the muscles needed in order to push. You gave it everything you had, and you instantly felt when everything pulled back into place and the pain started melting away.

The sound of a little cry and shallow breaths filled your ears before you could even look.

“All done, you did it,” she praised, her eyes unable to meet yours as she kept them downwards to the newly born baby in her hands. “She’s gorgeous…”

“She?”

You garnered the strength to look, and there she was. Perfect, and healthy, and the most beautiful thing you’d seen in your fourteen years of life. You nearly froze, but she saw the awestruck look on your face as you dropped your legs from the couch cushions, leaning in just slightly to get a better glance.

“Do you want to hold her?” She asked willingly.

You were hesitant, you had no idea what holding her would mean.

“Should I?”

“It’s up to you. You don’t have to…” she trailed, but the look in your eye turned sad at the thought of never even touching the baby you just birthed. You already looked at her, what more harm could be done?

“Okay,” you nodded, reaching your hands out. She was still crying just slightly, the noise calming down after she adjusted to taking in oxygen for the first time. Maxine handed her to you, wrapped only in a dark towel that had amniotic fluid patched in certain spots. You had to be adjusted a few times, having never held a baby since you were seven years old. But this was different. She wasn’t just your own flesh and blood, she was genetically crafted from half of you. She was your own little creation that was made within the safety of your womb.

There was nothing that could have prepared you for the instant love and adoration you felt… but it was most certainly there.

“She’s so tiny,” you whispered, and Maxine laughed a bit under her breath.

“They do tend to be small,” she joked, but you didn’t even really hear her response, too taken with every breath the baby in your arms made.

“You’re alright, babygirl,” you smiled, genuinely. It felt like the first time in forever that it wasn’t forced onto your face. It felt like back before everything went to shit. Back when your family was still alive. Probably because now, it is.

She’s the only family you’ll ever have again…

Just for now, you postpone the thoughts of leaving. You come up with a mindset that leaves that all for your future self to deal with. Right now you couldn’t be happier for the fact that you were cradling a softly crying baby in your arms, and she’s your own.

Joel found you before you found Ellie. You nearly put a bullet in his head as he limped around the corner.

“Shit, you’re okay,” you breathed out, dropping your arm and reaching for him to make sure he was steady. You’d left him only hours ago and already he was up and about. Those meds must have hit pretty quick.

“You’re not,” he his eyes dropped to your leg, where your belt was still holding in place, and your torn off shirt was soaking through with red stains. “You get shot?”

“I’m alright,” you waved him off, but he kept checking you over, making sure there was nothing else you were underreacting to. “Been shot before, so…”

Though it was meant as a joke, he gave you a cold glare, his hands immediately going to the fabric on your leg and tugging it tighter.

“You shouldn’t be walking, s’not stitched up, could get infected,” he rambled, but really, he was the last person who should talk about having an infection.

“I’ll be fine until this is over with.”

“What the hell happened?”

You sighed, watching as he pulled the rifle from his back, and began scanning the area for possible enemies.

“When I thought you were about to die, I let Ellie go hunt for something to eat… she came back with a brand spankin’ new bottle of penicillin and a syringe instead.”

“Why did you let her go out on her own?”

“She said she wasn’t going far, I told her to stay in the woods behind the house and not go looking around the neighborhood,” you explained, checking your back and then following Joel as he led around the next building. “When she came back she told me she found the meds in a house a few streets down.”

“And you believed her?” he asked with a bit of an anger in his tone.

“Look, at the time, she’d come back safe and brought the stuff that saved your life, I wasn’t exactly worried about too much else,” your defensiveness poured over your words, and his glance at you over his shoulder was less stone cold than before. “They must have followed the horse tracks back to the neighborhood. They were there when we woke up, I tried to let her ride away and make more tracks that could give us time to move you… but they took her and shot the horse.”

“And where were you in all of this?” He started to get irritated again when he heard how reckless you’d been, letting her ride off by herself.

You stared searingly into the back of his head, already barely able to trudge through the snow on account of the gaping hole in your leg, you didn’t need his sass on top of everything you’d been through today.

“I was shooting the guys that tried to get into the house, jackass. Maybe I should have just taken Ellie and run, let em’ get you, instead.”

He stopped in his tracks, not turning to look back at you, but sighing in contrition. Maybe he’s just angry and anxious about Ellie’s safety, and shouldn’t be jumping to conclusions, but he can’t help himself. Ever since the outburst in Jackson, his protective nature was leaping outside its bounds wherever Ellie was concerned.

“Did you see the men that took her?”

His change in demeanor was like a light switch, on and off. You figured he was just delightful to have full blown arguments with. Hot, then cold again the next moment.

“No, but I followed the horse tracks until I saw that the horse was dead. From there Ellie’s tracks and a few others. When I got to a building her tracks stopped but their's got heavier. I'm guessing they carried her off.”

“Do you think she's-?” He didn't even finish his thought, too scared to even try.

“I don't think so. There was no blood inside or outside, the tracks were clean.”

He breathed a sigh of temporary relief, but tensed rught back up a second later when he turned his head to you.

“You smell that?” He said, looking over the buildings to find the source.

You stopped for a moment to pay better attention to your surroundings, and with a deep inhale, you understood what he was talking about.

“Smoke?”

You went backwards from where you came, the smell more prominent that direction.

“Over there,” you signaled him, and he followed behind. It looked like a restaurant had completely caught fire, snd the closer you got, you could hear yelling inside.

God, please don't let her be hurt, or worse.

“Stay here,” he commanded, about to kick the door through after tugging on the locked handle.

“Like hell I'm sitting out here, asshole… you need my help.”

“Don't argue with me, you're shot,” he thought he'd ended the conversation, stepping back and kicking the door once. It didn't break through completely, but the bottom hinge broke off.

“Yeah, and you're definitely in better shape than me,” you replied sarcastically before throwing all of your body weight by your shoulder against the door. You nearly fell over for the stinging in your leg, but when you took in a whiff of the smoke, you realized this was not a good place to be trapped in.

Joel took the lead, his gun pointed at anything that moved.

“Ellie,” he whispered, taking off towards the back of the restaurant. You followed after him limping as you went, and finding him knelt down, his whole body engulfing her in his safety.

You looked over at the man on the ground, likely her kidnapper. His face was unrecognizable to that of a human, and you figured it had something to do with the machete that was sticking out of his chest. She killed him.

“Ellie?” You asked, your eyes filling with tears as you realize what she may have gone through.

She peaked her head out of Joel's shoulder, and you could see clearer now that the smoke was venting out the open door. Her face was covered in tears, overflowing streams were coming down her cheeks.

She stood and ran to you, and you held her as soon as she was in reach. You cradled her head and soothed her cries, beginning to usher her out of the burning building. “It's alright, baby. We're getting out of here.”

You didn't even catch your use of the specific word, but she did, and she clutched you tighter.

Once you were all outside, she paid closer attention to your wounds, being able to see clearly and in a better environment. Joel was still watching the surroundings like a hawk, his gun raised to cover you both in case someone popped up.

“What happened to you?” She couldn’t pull her eyes away from the messy tourniquet and bloody fabric on your thigh, the red too prominent to ignore.

“Took a hit from one of those shitheads, but I'm alright. Doesn't hurt much from the cold…”

“Did you wake him up?” She gestured to Joel, now walking side by side with you both on Ellie’s side.

“Woke up myself,” he shook his head, recalling the fear he had when he sat up on the mattress and neither of you were there. “Found two men outside, had em tell me where you were.”

He skimmed over the part where he tortured both men to death, unsure if that was the right kind of mood setting topic for the trip back to the house. You'd be soon on your way again, traveling to the next lab in Utah. Hopefully it would be the last stop on the journey, and Jackson would be the final destination.

You were beginning to miss it for a few reasons, mainly the food and the shelter. The electricity and running water was also a plus. You longed, however, for something else that hadn't been there before you’d left. Normalcy. You’d loved your life in Jackson but it never felt normal, nor did it feel fulfilling. Even though it was the best conditions you'd ever lived under post outbreak, it still somehow felt like the survival days. Only living for the next day ahead and never having things to look forward to or be truly happy about.

You were anxious to get back because you knew that when you did you’d have a family to return with. You’d have someone to sit on your couch and watch old DVDs and VHS tapes with. You’d finally be able to go to the dining hall and sit at a table that didn't invite you over out of obligation, because you would have a table of your own, with the people that want to be there with you.

You glanced over at Joel, his eyes jumping from the town then to Ellie, over and over. He looked toward the woods before he finally chanced a look at you, concern written on his features.

“You shouldn't still be walking on that leg,” he said nonchalantly before looking back around, his gun never leaving his hands.

You smiled once you were sure he wasn't going to look back. It felt nice to know he was at the very least, worried for your wellbeing.

You'd all ridden Casper several miles west, finding a slightly less frozen place to camp out for a day or two. It wasn't anything fancy, just a small cottage home in the woods that had likely been abandoned a few years ago. There was still food on the shelves of the pantry, and actual bedding on the mattresses in each room, though dust had gathered on everything. There were only two rooms, so Joel volunteered to take the couch… until you started arguing with him.

“You should take it, your back is getting worse.”

“I need to be closer to the door,” he protested, setting his backpack onto the couch and leaving it at that. He was still weary on his feet and would likely keel over if someone attacked during the night… but you stopped fighting him. He was too stubborn for your logical reasoning.

“Fine,” you let out, limping towards the door opposite the one Ellie took.

“Where are you going?”

You threw him a severely annoyed look over your shoulder and scoffed. “The room you refused to take.”

He rounded the couch and pulled one of the chairs forward.

“Sit down,” he said, but you were unsure of what he wanted. When he read the confusion on your face he elaborated. “Gonna check your leg.”

“Oh,” you had almost forgotten about it. Each painful step you took was the furthest thing from your mind when you got to the house, simply happy enough about finding decent shelter. “Yeah, okay.”

You stripped your backpack off, sitting back into the chair carefully. Your leg skin was starting to numb from the belt around it, but it had gotten looser over the day, and probably wasn't even doing its job anymore.

He dragged another chair up close, taking a seat before leaning forward to see the damage. He undid the belt with careful hands, taking the bloody cotton fabric off with a few tugs here and there. Most of it had dried over, but there was still a terrible opening. He grabbed under your knee and lifted upwards, and there was a similar spot on the backside where the bullet went through.

“Needs stitches,” he muttered. He looked up at you, and you weren’t phased. You’d been shot before, as you told him so earlier. “Do you uh-”

He coughed awkwardly before trying again with his sentence.

“Do you mind taking these off?” He averted his eyes from yours, loosely gesturing to your jeans, now soaked on one side with dark blood stains.

You snorted out a laugh, unbuttoning the top and unzipping the materials before attempting to slide them down your leg. The bottom of your shirt was long enough to cover you down to the tops of your thighs, but you still think it's funny how he got so flustered to ask.

“Damn Miller, take me to dinner first.”

He shook his head and rolled his eyes as he shuffled through your backpack. You were the one with the better first aid supplies. He imagined Jackson was full of stuff he hadn't seen in half a lifetime. You were a walking testimony of that.

“I ain't got much to clean it with, but there was some whiskey in the cabinet,” he stood up, going back into the kitchen to find the bottle. It had barely a few tablespoons left, but it could work for now. He poured some onto a small scrap of fabric, hoping it would be enough to clean out any traves of potential infection. You didn’t need to repeat Joel’s last situation.

You winced and turned your head away when he finally went in with the harsh liquid, the sting of the alcohol was intense on your skin and beneath it.

“Shit, forgot how much that hurts.”

He tried to be gentle, but no matter how little pressure he applied, the whiskey itself was the culprit.

He did the same to the back of your thigh, averting his eyes as best he can when your shirt lifts a little. It's not his right to look, so he doesn't.

You see the focused expression on his face when he starts threading the needle. His hands shake slightly when he lowers his hands to the skin, but he steadies his hand by letting his wrist lay across your leg, grabbing skin of the opening with the other and trying to pull it closed.

You didn't have as much of a reaction to the needle, you remember it not being as bad as the sting of alcohol.

“So you've been shot before… how bad was it?”

He was attempting conversation, likely to distract you. You supposed you could indulge him.

“A whole lot worse than this. Almost died,” you squint, trying to recall the events as they happened. “Me n' Tommy were still in with the fireflies. There was a raid on one of the campuses we were hidin’ out at. Lost about two dozen people, most were injured or at least roughed up.”

“Tommy was there?” he wasn't surprised, but wanted to keep your story going.

“Yeah, he dragged me out. Our boss told him not to, but you Miller boys are really stubborn.”

“Sounds like him, he's the soldier that'll never leave a man behind,” was a line that sounded a little more personal. He was branching out of the distraction now.

“I got hit twice below my ribs, started seeing lights and all that. He knew I would slow him down but he got me out anyway.”

He nodded, looking up at you for a second and pausing his work.

“I guess I'll have to thank him when we get back.”

“Nice to know you don't hate me after all,” you joked, giving a slight chuckle under his breath. He was right back to stitching you up a moment later.

“Nah, you're not so bad.” he muttered softly.

“You're just saying that because my pants are off.”

He laughed heartily, shaking his head and tying off the first knot.

“They didn't suit you much, anyway.”

You didn't have the will to respond after that one. You just huffed a small chuckle and let the blush take over your cheeks. He was joking, but it was still fun to imagine that after the world has gone to shit, a man can still flirt with you as if it hasn't.

Tags: @orcasoul

#joel miller #joel miller x f!reader #joel miller x reader #joel miller x you #joel tlou #reader insert #the last of us #joel #ellie the last of us #ellie williams

60 notes · View notes

charlessmiths-wife · 3 months

Text

CASSANDRA DIMITRESCU HEACANNONS

because nobody but me gets her. she's mine. what I say about her is correct I'm right and everyone else is wrong.

** joking, obviously. these are my own personal opinion. some of these hcs are NSFW... but none of them are too explicit ** they’re also mostly x reader

UNDER THE CUT

-> she's nowhere near as evil or sadistic as people make her out to be.

-> yes, she's a sadistic murderer, she's a Dimitrescu... after all, it's in their... blood?

-> she is the huntress of the Dimitrescu name. but that doesn't mean she hunts any and every human who gets in her way... sometimes when a maid fucks up minorly she just, yknow, moves on.

-> sure, she'll scowl and roll her eyes, making some kind of sarcastic comment about how "poor" the help has gotten - but she usually won't resort to murder over something small.

-> however, if the maidens crime is bigger OR if its been a while since her or her family have fed... then the poor maid can count on them becoming her next meal.

-> and she does find s sick sense of thrill in it, undeniably. i can't and won't try to argue with that.

-> she's incredibly protective of her family... especially Daniela.

-> many people portray Bela as being constantly worried about impressing her mother, and whilst this is true... I'd risk to say Cassandra is actually more worried about it, in a way. Canonically, Cass is the one Lady D calls upon for help in getting rid of Ethan... so I imagine she feels a lot of responsibility to defend them. when she fails to do so, this results in her becoming insecure she's let alcina down.

-> just so so SO cold to you when you first meet her 😭

-> and it’s gonna take her a while to open up properly… so if you’re lucky enough to get close enough to be even somewhat of a friend, then even at that - it’ll be a solid 6-8 business months before she even CONSIDERS properly opening up

-> but once she does, I do think she’s capable of being emotionally intelligent

-> I will say that this especially will take a while (after all, one of the cons of dating someone who murders people for sport is probably a lack of emotional maturity) but it could definitely happen

-> though only with people she cares about

-> she’d still be an asshole to everyone else (my asshole though)

-> do I think she could grow to be a good listener though? 100 fucking percent

-> LIKE JUST IMAGINING VENTING TO CASS AND HER SOFTLY HUMMING WHILST RUBBING YOUR BACK STOP

-> do I think she’s big on physical affection in general?

-> not particularly

-> like I feel like she enjoys it least out of the three sisters, with Dani enjoying it the most and Bela also growing to love it with time

-> I’d say Cass more so enjoys quiet moments of physical affection, small examples of pda such as hand holding or a kiss on the cheek she’ll tolerate, but unless she’s looking to show who you belong to, she typically won’t go for big acts of affection in public, and even at that the most she’ll usually go for is a kiss.

-> in private, she can be cuddly, but again - not as much as her sisters

-> I also do personally disagree with the idea Cassandra Dimitrescu is sex mad. I disagree with this for all the sisters, personally, but especially Cass. She enjoys it, yes- but I don’t think it’s the be all and end all for her.

-> However, she does enjoy it, and I reckon she does have some solid enough experience.

-> and trust me, once she’s spent enough time sleeping with you? I’d risk to say sex with Cassandra Dimitrescu would be so good it would be a damn near spiritual experience

-> (you just know she prioritises making her partner feel good.)

-> plus she deffo does aftercare. and I refuse to accept otherwise. She may be a murderer but she cares x

#resident evil village #re village #re8 #resident evil #cassandra dimitrescu #cassandra dimitrescu x reader #x reader #dimitrescu sisters #Cassandra!!!#the loml #I plan on doing this for the other sisters #feel free to request for any of them at any time!

90 notes · View notes

besuggestion · 1 year

Text

(for the ask from @hornybiaussie7 )

A college girl lives alone, next door neighbors to a mother whose children have grown up and moved out. The neighbor offers to cook for the girl, and she quickly agrees to the free food.

But, the girl doesn't know--she's being slipped lactation hormones, and over time it starts to affect her... at first, her chest feels heavier, and a little swollen, but then she starts to leak...

She confides her problems with her neighbor, who gives a warm smile and says she has the solution. She leads the girl to her house, and asks the girl to hold her hands behind her back. The girl does so.

The neighbor ties the girl's wrists together.

"What...what are you doing?" the girl asks, confused.

The woman only pushes up the girl's shirt in reply, exposing her leaking breasts, and reaching up, clamping something around the girl's nipples.

"Wh--what--mmn!" The girl moans as she realizes what just happened--the clamp blocked her milk from leaking out, and she could feel the milk slowly build up inside.

"I wonder how big you could get," the woman whispers. She watches as the girl sits there.

At first, the girl only feels annoyed, but she begins to realize the growing pressure as the milk inside kept building up, more and more, until her thoughts start to get fuzzy,,,

"Nng," she moans as the pressure hits its peak, and her chest jolts, before starting to slowly stretch, growing bigger, heavier...

"Aww, you're finally growing," the neighbor coos, reaching out to touch the girl's chest.

The girl whimpers, her body already sensitive as the pressure continues to grow, until all she could hear is pounding in her ears as her chest keeps stretching, pushing against her clothes, and straining against the buttons as much as it can, until--

Her chest bursts out, her buttons going flying. She stumbles, almost losing her balance, but her neighbor comes up behind her, holding her up.

"Don't worry. I've got you," the neighbor whispers, her hands reaching down to the girl's ass.

"Ah!" the girl moans, grinding her hips against her neighbor's hands, as much as she can. She needed to be touched, she needed it--

Her chest grows bigger, popping out of her bra and swaying, the milk sloshing inside,,,

The neighbor now freely plays with the girl, teasing both her asshole and pussy, until she slips a few fingers in and starts to fuck her, all while the girl's tits keeps swelling without releasing, as her moans get louder and more desperate,,,

Until finally, the neighbor pauses to pull off the nipple rings.

Milk instantly gushes out, and the girl screams incoherently as the neighbor returns to fucking her. Her insides clench tight around her neighbor's fingers, and she starts to whine and gasp, her body twitching as the milk keeps pouring out, and out, and out,,,

#breast expansion #lactation #replies #from the ask you sent

796 notes · View notes

jjngkook7 · 1 year

Text

Choices (4)

Werewolf Au! Jungkook x Reader / Enemies to Lovers [Angst and mature content. Not smut but almost smut.]

Summary: Jungkook finally found her. His mate. His lifelong partner. But she’s a human. Does he have to stay with her or can he stick it to whatever and whoever binds mates together and make his own decision?

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3

The sounds of wolves howling in the distance and twigs snapping nearby didn’t phase her because the drumming of her heart and Jungkook’s intense stare was all she could focus on. When Taehyung and Jennie found each other, they were so happy and were immediately in love. It felt like they had known each other their entire life. When Taehyung looked at Jennie, he always looked like he was in awe of her. Like he couldn’t believe that she was his. He held her like she was the most fragile thing in the world and spoke to her in the softest tone. She had just found out that her and Jungkook were mates but everything was wrong. He avoided her, looked at her with disdain and didn't want to touch her. The way he told her was void of affection or desire. Jungkook almost looked sick explaining their circumstances to her. She didn’t feel that great either. Jungkook was great to look at and made her physically feel things she had never felt before in all her relationships but he was unapproachable and made her so angry with how unpredictable he was.

“Are you okay?” Jungkook asked.

She didn’t reply, instead choosing to bask in the noises of the forest. With the sun set and no source of light nearby, it was pitch black. She could only see Jungkook’s amber eyes and even if she couldn’t see him, she’d know if he was close because she could feel him. She knew she should be terrified because of all the unknown creatures in the forest but Jungkook made her safe even if he basically hated her.

“I’m just confused about one thing.” she finally spoke.

She took Jungkook’s shift in his position as an answer.

“How do you know that we’re actually mates? I don’t know much but I’ve heard that when mates meet they instantly like fall...in love. We seem to just not be on the same page ever,” she hesitated before continuing, “and you seem to be avoiding me at all costs.”

Jungkook scoffed, “You should’ve stopped at, ‘I don’t know much’.”

And there it was. His attitude and hurtful comments only continuing to confirm that he hated her.

“You’re so-“ she dug her nails into her thighs, needing some sort of way to release her frustration, “you can’t put your arrogance aside for one minute? You’re right, I don’t know much about you or your world but I just don’t think we’re mates. You are too much of an asshole to even have one!”

Jungkook wanted to laugh at her attempt to make him feel bad. He had the ability to outrun a car and uproot trees yet she thought by calling him names she would make him feel any sort of way. On the other hand, Jungkook really did not know why he was being so stubborn. His goal was to get her to stay for a couple more days until it was safe for her to go home but he was pushing her closer to the edge with this conversation. He would have to circle back to getting her to stay but for right now, he was going to take advantage of the fact that he was able to see her crystal clear despite the darkness. With her being a human, her eyes couldn’t adjust to light and dark the way he can and that was okay for now. She was kind of cute all riled up. A little human angry at a werewolf in his own domain; even the tree stump she was sitting on was bigger than her. She looked cute with furrowed brows and a concentrated stare. Her bottom lip was all red from her biting it out of frustration and Jungkook didn’t like how that made him feel. He had taken notice of how hard she was digging her nails into her thighs and couldn’t help but imagine how easy it would be for him to leave marks of pleasure on her body. Jungkook blamed his upcoming heat for making him a slave to his lust and thanked the darkness for shielding his very obvious desire.

“Honestly Jungkook, I don’t care. Tell everyone I said thank you but I’m leaving.” she sighed, pushing herself off the stump.

She was determined to go home tonight no matter what. It was already hard admitting to herself that she was jealous of Jennie’s life but this was another kind of hurt she was not prepared for. She already felt like an outsider barging into what was an already established group but having someone that was supposed to be her soulmate who hated her was a full force punch to the gut. She thought about calling Jungkook more hurtful names just to get it out of her system but decided to conserve her energy. Besides, he didn’t care what she thought of him anyways.

“Do you know where to go?” she heard Jungkook ask.

She stopped in her tracks, embarrassed. In the midst of her anger, she forgot that they were in the middle of fucking nowhere and she couldn’t even see her own two hands in front of her. The hairs on her body stood when she heard a group of wolves howling in the distance. Not only did she not know where to go, she couldn’t see and she would most likely die if she went alone. Mirroring Jungkook’s pride, she didn’t turn around and took little fearful steps forwards. Her anger level was at a point of not caring if she got attacked because maybe then and only then would Jungkook feel bad. Jungkook held back his laugh as he watched her ball up her fists and walk in the wrong direction.

“You’re going the wrong way.” he teased in a singsong voice knowing that it was probably making her more and more irritated.

Jungkook planned on letting her embarrassment drag on for a little while until he heard her sniffling. He then started to feel a dull ache in his chest. This ache wasn’t as bad as the one from earlier but it was enough to make itself known. Combined with the sudden scent of salt, he realized she was crying again. Her crying was the one thing he couldn’t and didn’t want to deal with because he could feel all the pain she felt when she did. If she wanted to cry, he didn’t care but the fact that she also had to make him physically feel what she did was a problem. And pain? Emotional or physical, pain is the worst thing anyone could go through. In his case, it was also annoying because it wasn’t even his pain that he was feeling. Jungkook wouldn’t say he felt bad but he felt responsible for how she was currently feeling. He also wanted to stop the ache in his chest as soon as possible because it was a sensation he did not enjoy.

She felt so stupid crying but she couldn’t help it. She was so frustrated and confused and scared. She just wanted to go back home and stay in her bedroom for maybe half a year. As she strained her eyes to make out any shape in the darkness ahead, she felt Jungkook’s hand slip into hers and immediately had to shut her eyes due to how powerful the sensitivity from his touch felt. Bright orbs began to dance behind her eyelids and all the negative feelings from just seconds ago began to fade into oblivion. Jungkook had to take a deep breath himself just to regulate his own senses that were going into overdrive. He gently pulled her towards him and grabbed her other hand, placing both on his chest. She slowly opened her eyes hearing him whisper her name. Jungkook was looking at her with a gaze she had only seen on him with his pack. It was still so dark and she couldn’t make out a thing surrounding them, but his face was crystal clear in front of her. She could suddenly make out all the features of his face.

“This. This feeling,” Jungkook began to say, his eyes never leaving hers, “I know you feel it too.”

She nodded and felt the butterflies in her stomach swarm when she felt him squeezing both her hands.

“This is how I know we’re mates.” Jungkook finished, his voice barely a whisper.

Jungkook knew he had to pull away at some point but just feeling her felt so…good. His body felt warm and holding her made every muscle in his body relax. He slowly placed his forehead against hers and listened to her breathing. He noticed that both their hearts were beating at a steady pace and not racing. It was as if their bodies needed each other to calm down. Jungkook fought the urge to get closer and take her frame into the safety of his arms. The line between what his body instinctively wanted versus what Jungkook wanted was beginning to blur and he knew that he’d be playing a tricky game if he let this continue. The silent deal he made with himself of allowing them to be so close for just a few minutes began to slip when she pulled away from him slightly to look up at him. Their heartbeats continue to steady as their lips inched closer. A howl that seemed closer than it should be pulled Jungkook back into reality. He pulled away from her body and scanned the area cursing at how he left time get away.

“We have to go now.” he ordered, eyes fixated somewhere she couldn’t see.

The walk back to the cabin remained silent between them only this time she felt safe with Jungkook’s fingers still intertwined with hers.

__________________________________________

The next few days went by quickly. Jennie convinced her to stay for her whole break saying that it would be fun to spend Christmas and New Years with the pack. She agreed, realizing that if she said no, she would be all alone during the holidays as Jennie was her only friend. It was a sad realization because if she decided to go home, Jennie would still have a whole group of friends to be with while she would only have herself and Netflix. At least if she did go home, her body was now fully healed and she didn’t have to worry anymore about whether or not moving a certain body part was worth the pain.

“Don’t venture too far!” Mina said with a worried look.

She smiled and shook her head to reassure Mina. After much pleading and bargaining, Mina agreed to let her go out for a little walk as long as she didn’t go past a certain point in the forest and if she came back within the hour. Some of the pack members had left to go hunting while the rest were lounging in the living room barely paying attention to what was on the TV screen. She waved back to the members who were saying bye and only got a glimpse of Jungkook before walking out the door. His eyes were set straight at the TV, barely noticing her presence. She took a lung full of the crisp winter air before walking along the path directed by Mina.

The land the pack lived on was breathtaking. Situated on a hill, she only saw acres of the tops of trees and the city in the distance. The snow proved to be difficult to walk through as it engulfed her legs and by minute five, she was already panting and getting hot. Thankfully, if she did get lost, she could follow the trail she was leaving behind back to the cabin. She found herself going off the path Mina wanted her to stay on instead, making it back to the spot Jungkook and her were at a few nights ago. She pushed the pile of snow off the same tree stump she sat on that night and took a seat. This area was so beautiful and tranquil during the day. She closed her eyes and let her mind replay the events of that fateful night. After that night, Jungkook became more distant and cold. She hated how much she missed him and how much she wanted to just be near him. She had never felt so full and warm before in her life. It was as if all the puzzle pieces in her life fit when they touched. All her stress and anxiety were taken away in an instant because of him. She knew he felt the same way because he told her and also because of the way his eyes looked. They were kind and soft, void of any angst or anger. She opened her eyes and groaned at how embarrassed she felt despite being alone in the forest. She didn’t even know if she liked the guy but she liked the way he made her physically feel. Perhaps it was better this way. She knew that once she went home, she’d never see Jungkook ever again and whoever she ends up dating would never make her feel the way he did. It would only make things harder if they didn’t avoid each other. Until she went home, she’d keep this memory to herself and replay it in her head every chance she got.

Her body froze with fear when she heard a branch crack behind her followed by footsteps. Too afraid to turn around, she tried to quickly come up with an escape plan only to feel her heart sink remembering that if it was another rogue wolf, she would probably just die. As the footsteps got closer, she decided that her only escape plan was just to scream and hope that the pack members could hear her. When the footsteps sounding like they were right behind her, she finally turned around only to see Namjoon carrying firewood.

“Jesus Christ…” she gasped and clutched her chest.

Namjoon laughed and carefully placed the firewood on the ground before approaching her.

“Sorry I scared you. I thought taking small steps would make you feel less scared but I guess everything in this forest would be scary huh?” he smiled, “What are you doing out here alone anyways?”

She scooted over to make space on the tree stump for Namjoon. He gladly took a seat next to her, taking off the hat he was wearing and placing it on her head.

“I just needed some fresh air.” she answered, adjusting the beanie on her head.

“The guys too much for you?” Namjoon asked.

“Something like that.” she laughed.

“I’m sorry Jungkook’s being so difficult,” Namjoon sighed, “I’ve never seen a wolf so indifferent towards his mate.”

Her eyes widened as she looked over at Namjoon. Namjoon mirrored her wide eyes and covered his mouth as if he just told her something he shouldn’t have.

“I’m sorry did you not know?” he asked, his voice muffled by his hand.

“No I know! I just didn’t know you knew.” she said.

In an instant, Namjoon’s concerned expression turned into one of amusement as he let out a laugh that would’ve echoed through the forest if it weren’t for all the snow. Namjoon patted her head and gave her an endearing smile.

“Of course I know. I’ve known Jungkook since he was very young and he’s not very good at hiding anything. Besides, I think everyone knows,” Namjoon’s eyes squinted in thought, “maybe not Jimin, he’s a little slow…or Yoongi but that’s probably because he doesn’t care.”

“Everyone?” she asked, her eyes still wide with shock.

Namjoon nodded and let out another sigh, “Jungkook is…he’s just having a hard time wrapping his head around this whole mate thing. You’ll just have to be a little more patient with him.”

She let Namjoon’s words process in her mind before speaking. Jungkook never explained to her why he was acting the way he was but she figured it was just probably because he didn’t like her very much. She wasn’t going to try to get him to like her because what would be the point. Besides, she was still trying to figure out her own feelings about him.

“It’s okay,” she answered, “he doesn’t have to like me. He can like anyone he wants.”

Namjoon shook his head and let out a chuckle only this time, it sounded forced.

“It’s a lot more complicated than that. It’s not about liking you or liking anyone, it’s about choice. His own choice. It has nothing to do with you.” Namjoon said. He looked over at her to find that her gaze was fixated on the snow below their feet.

“But it feels like it has everything to do with me.” she thought out loud.

Namjoon didn’t have the heart to confirm what she just said. He also didn’t feel like it was his place to have this conversation with her. Jungkook needed to learn how to handle this new territory and he had to quick before he hurt both of their feelings.

“Come on, you’re all red from the cold. Let’s go home.” Namjoon said, stretching his arms as he stood up.

He picked up the firewood he placed down earlier and took the lead. When her footsteps became faint, he turned around to check on her only to see her struggling to maneuver through the snow and keep up with his pace at the same time.

“Stop laughing at me!” she whined when she saw Namjoon laughing as he watched her make her way towards him.

“Get on my back.” he sighed, feigning annoyance.

She shook her head pointing out that he had to carry an armful of firewood and that she’d be okay. Namjoon countered this by reminding her that he was a werewolf. After more bickering, Namjoon resulted in using scare tactics and fabricating a story of how a rogue could get her. The same level as telling a child about how the bogeyman might come get them if they didn’t listen to their parents. She couldn’t say she was shocked at how stable Namjoon was carrying her on his back with the firewood in his arms but she was definitely impressed. She still had to learn how to accept this new reality that was once only in the fairy tales she read growing up.

“Why can’t you be my mate?” she groaned as she rested her head on Namjoon’s shoulder, “you’re so nice and Jungkook is such an ass.”

She heard Namjoon’s chest rumble with laughter, “That’s very nice but I’m taken.”

Lifting her head from his shoulders, she teased him with a series of “ooo’s” and “ahh’s”.

“Where is this mystery mate then?” she sang.

The laughter and fun was suddenly sucked out of the air when Namjoon became quiet and his pace slowed.

“She’s far away now.” was all he said before changing the topic.

By the time they made it back to the cabin, they were able to steer the conversation back to something more entertaining and pleasant. Jungkook tried his best to ignore her laughter and the fact that she was draped on Namjoon’s back but the tensing of his muscles and the veins protruding from his arms gave away his irritation. Jungkook's patience was at the edge when he started to taste blood from biting his tongue so hard when Namjoon entered the cabin spinning her around on his back. Her chimes of “Namjoon is so strong!” and “He carried me all the way home!” in response to Jennie and Mina’s concerns had him grinding his teeth. Oblivious to Jungkook’s body language, Jimin jumped up from the couch and pulled her away from Namjoon.

“I bet I can squat you!” Jimin chimed.

Everything happened so quickly. One minute Jungkook was seething on the couch and then he had Jimin pinned on the ground with his hand on Jimin's throat the next. He didn’t know what led him to do this. He thought it was the squeal that came out of her mouth when Jimin lifted her in his arms but perhaps it was the sight of her arms around Jimin’s neck and his hands around her waist that now had the older one gasping for air on the floor.

“What..the fuck!” Jimin gasped as Jungkook’s grip tightened.

Her and Jennie were backed against the wall, hands to their mouths as they watched the scene before them play out. Jungkook’s eyes were bright red and his canines had unsheathed themselves.

“Come on, let’s go.” Mina tried to shield her and Jennie from the sight as she ushered them to their bedrooms.

Her and Jennie walked down the hall hand in hand as Mina did her best to soothe them with her comforting voice despite being shaken up herself. The three of them flinched as a loud bang followed their leaving.

“Jungkook, off now!” Namjoon roared, trying to peel Jungkook off Jimin.

Jungkook heard his leader order him but his body didn’t want to listen. All he saw was red and he wanted to kill Jimin at that moment. He felt himself pull against Namjoon’s grip which only added more pressure to Jimin’s neck. Namjoon began to panic when he heard Jimin’s breath get shallower and shallower. Wolves were very defensive over their mates but something significant had to happen for something like Jungkook’s reaction. Knowing that he couldn’t get Jungkook to listen by force, Namjoon racked his brain to figure out another way to get Jungkook to listen. As Jungkook’s mind ran wild with rage, he heard Namjoon say her name.

“Do it for her. Don’t scare her even more than you already have.” Namjoon said, praying that this would work and not rile Jungkook up more.

Namjoon let out a sigh of relief when Jungkook released his hold on Jimin. Jimin’s head fell to the floor as the wolf tried to catch his breath. Namjoon noticed the slight tremble of Jungkook’s body as well as the veins protruding all over him. He gently took a hold of the youngest one's face and turned it towards him. Jungkook was breathing just as hard as Jimin and his shirt was damp from sweat. One look into Jungkook’s frantic red eyes was all Namjoon needed to see.

“Jungkook, you’re in heat.”

#bts smut #jungkook smut #bts fanfic #jungkook fanfic #jungkook werewolf #bts werewolf #jimin #taehyung #yoongi #hoseok #namjoon #jin #choices #i-dont-give-a-fok #taeyongzodiacwinkiri

416 notes · View notes

am-i-the-asshole-official · 11 months

Note

AITA for the way I help my boyfriends mom?

Background: my bfs (26M) mom is in decline with Parkinson's Disease, she has the usual progression (you can Google it, explaining it all here would be a lot) but part of that is cognitive decline because Parkinson's affects the brain not just the body. My bf was recently made power of attorney medically because of that decline & they couldn't be confident she could be in charge of her own medical decisions anymore.

We also recently moved in with his parents because they're low income and can't afford home aids for her so my bf and I do what we can to help through the days and nights since his father is also elderly and with his own health issues. I spend a lot of time with her, I love his mom just as if she was my mom and it infuriates me how they all step over her and completely disregard her wants and needs just because she has those cognitive issues and excuse it as "she's senile you can't be listening to her she just doesn't want to do what the doctors tell her to do". The poor woman doesn't even get to decide for herself what she eats in a day, what gets put on the tv, or what she can wear. I know that contributes profoundly to the depression she feels, and previously I tried very gently to tell them both that they should make more of an effort to give her some control, even if it's just menial stuff it has a profound impact for her.

They completely ignored that, and if anything have taken even the last scraps of dignity from her. It breaks my heart when she asks even for a little piece of chocolate to have with her dinner and they refuse so coldly. I sneak her things here and there, a little blush that I put on her when we're home alone so she can feel beautiful still, chocolate she can eat in bed while watching whatever she tells me she wants on tv, even sneaking some of her most requested dinners like popeyes chicken if I know it'll be just the two of us.

The other day my bf found out and confronted me, saying I was spoiling her and making it difficult for them because "she's already combative and refuses to do anything". She's "combative" because they trample over her on every little thing but when I said that it turned into a bigger argument. Then it became about "taking sides" and if I was really going to get roped in by a senile old woman and go behind everyone's backs to help her ignore the doctors orders.

I haven't spoken to him at all today because I just don't understand how trying to give her some happiness in her days is such a bad thing, and otherwise we all do make sure the specialists recommendations are followed. I just believe everyone deserves to have even tiny spots of joy in a day, no matter if they're senile or not.

So am I really an asshole and just being manipulated into helping break doctors orders?

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

189 notes · View notes

miraculouslbcnreactions · 1 month

Note

About the Adrienette relationship and how Adrien became the therapist trophy bf… idk if I can explain my thoughts right, but I feel like this is the result of a bigger issue with where the writer’s priorities lie regarding Adrien‘s obstacles?

Adrien‘s issues with his family are kind of not that important, or at least don’t affect him that much. When Gabriel does something shitty like not letting Adrien leave the house, it either gets resolved by the end of the episode or it‘s forgotten about. Gabriel‘s abuse feels to me more like a plot device to remove Adrien from the plot until the akuma shows up than a serious issue that affects Adrien mental being and needs to be resolved with therapy and Gabriel loosing custody over him. Adrien almost never talks bad about his dad, it‘s always „oh he‘s just overprotective of me“ or something. It’s like Adrien doesn’t recognize how crappy Gabe is, which does make sense for an abuse victim, but I don’t feel like the show frames this opinion as wrong.

Meanwhile in his relationship with LB, he takes everything super personal. He acts mean and entitled when she rejects his advances (even though he comes around in the end… only to try again a few episodes later) and he gets very angsty about LB… having more than one superhero friend. I know I sound dismissive, mostly because I though the whole arc sucked, but I do understand that it happened because Adrichat has abandonment issues. It makes sense why he feels that way. And he goes off to her in the s4 finale. So suddenly he can realize when he‘s treated badly in a relationship and talk about it? It‘s not like Lb treated him worse than Gabe, not even close!!

Adrien‘s main source of problems is his relationship with Maribug. This gets resolved in s4 on the Ladynoir side, and then in s5 Adriens biggest goal is resolving the Adrienette side, aka getting with a traumatized Marinette, aka the whole point of the show and probably the writer‘s only true priority. And when Adrien actually has a problem with his dad, it‘s only in the context of Gabe trying to sabotage the relationship, because who cares that he‘s an abusive asshole regardless of Adrien‘s relationship status? We need to save the relationship you guys!!

I guess what I‘m trying to say is that Adrien is the therapist in the relationship because (according to the writers), he doesn‘t really have problems. His only problems are when things are obstacles to his relationship with Marinette, which are her trauma and in the second half of s5 Gabriel being a dick to Mari. Other than that? Nathalie dying was a little important for like two minues, Emilie doesn‘t get brought up by Adrien in s5 at all, Gabriel dying and Adrien literally becoming an orphan is cool. None of these things have any influence on Adrienette, so they don‘t bother him and he doesn‘t need to talk to anyone about it or get therapy.

Love conquers all !!

So, confession time: I often tone Gabriel's abuse down when I write him specifically because of a lot of what you brought up (there's also the fact that it makes for a more compelling story if Gabriel's behavior is actually driven by grief and not just how he's always been, but let's not get into that). I've always considered it glaringly obvious that the writer's never meant for Gabriel to come across anywhere near as controlling and abusive as he's actually written. It really is just a plot device even though there are episodes that would have played far better if Gabriel had been less controlling.

For example, Glaciator would have been a far stronger episode if Adrien chose to not go see his friends in order to wait around for Ladybug because then he'd be super clearly in the wrong for flaking on a commitment and the lesson could be "don't put romance above your friends."

As-is, I have no idea what the moral of that episode is supposed to be because Maribug did nothing wrong outside of being a little rude to the ice cream guy, but Chat Noir also isn't really in the wrong because he was banned from going out as Adrien. There's a solid argument to be made for not wanting to risk punishment by going to a very public location with his friends. In episodes like this, it really felt like Gabriel's controlling, unreasonable nature wasn't being used to develop his character, but as a way to absolve Adrien of blame.

Along similar lines, the Adrigami plot in season five feels less like a thing that was included to make Gabriel feel evil and more like the writers desperately padding things out because Gabriel actually does very little to keep Adrien and Marinette apart. He could have pulled Adrien from school! He could have demanded Nathalie give back Adrien's ring so that his commands stuck! He could have interrupted the video game date and banned Marinette from the house. But he does none of that because he's not actually being controlling as a character thing. He's doing it so that the writers can add cheap drama to the Adrienette plot.

The clearest evidence of this is the wacky season five ending. That's not an ending you give to a person you consider abusive and evil beyond all hope of redemption even though that's arguably who Gabriel was by the end of season five. The writers are either ignorant to just how abusive he actually was or they know that he got pretty bad as the seasons went on, but they didn't want to change their planned ending so we got the ending they wrote when the show had less seasons and they'd done less to make Gabriel abusive.

It's just another case of that inconsistent characterization problem I've discussed before. By letting Gabriel be whatever they needed him to be for a given plot idea to work, they created a monster and made Adrien into a victim, but that's pretty clearly not the dynamic they actually wanted to write, so it all comes across as strange, wacky, and insensitive.

This is getting long, but I'll end by noting that I fully agree on the Maribug stuff. The conflicts they give Chat Noir and Ladybug make me super uncomfortable because they tend to center around her being a bad partner for... not reading his mind. Which is a massive personal pet peeve because so many people do this shit (myself included) and it's wildly unhealthy. Not saying she behaved perfectly or that this isn't an understandable flaw to give a character like Chatdrien, but it is a flaw and the show fails to treat it as such. It especially annoys me because it's a terrible conflict to give two people who are trying to keep the world safe. I've mentioned this before, but a big reason why superhero shows aimed at kids tend to develop both the civilian and superhero sides is so that the civilian side can focus on interpersonal conflicts and learn valuable life lessons, many of which will then be applied on the superhero side. Miraculous really needed to use this tool to help Adrien learn to communicate his very valid feelings. It's just bad writing choice after bad writing choice, adding up to a mess of a show no matter how you look at it.

Quick side note: I have nothing against people writing Gabriel as abusive as the show often makes him. I hope I've made it clear that I fully agree with that take, it's just not the take I like to use in my own stuff because it doesn't suit the kind of stories I enjoy telling. I prefer the happy family broken by Emilie's death route that the show pretty clearly wanted, but failed to write.

#Gabriel deserves better #adrien deserves better #marinette deserves better #ml writing critical #ml writing salt

32 notes · View notes

marie-swriting · 8 months

Text

Confession Of Love - Jake "Hangman" Seresin [1/2]

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

Speak Now TV Masterlist

Part two

Part one - two (French version)

Summary : You've been seeing Jake for four months but you're still not officially dating. It's going to happen soon, though, right ?

Warnings : Jake is an asshole (it's not against him, I love him, I swear), angst, cheating, alcohol consumption (be careful with your alcohol consumption), maybe some grammatical mistakes as English is not my first language, tell me if you see some or if I missed any warnings.

Word count : 4.7k

Song inspiration : Foolish One (Taylor's Version) (From The Vault) by Taylor Swift

you take the new arrival of books in the box next to you and put them in the correct shelves. You pay attention to place them in alphabetical order and sometimes, you take a look at the back cover, adding then a new book to your - long - to be read list. You set the last book of a saga in its place when a masculine voice comes behind you.

“Sorry, would you have a book on how to apologise after cancelling a date last minute ?”

“Jake !” you exclaim, taking him in your arms. “What are you doing here ?”

“I felt bad about yesterday. Those are for you.” he says, breaking the embrace and handing you a big bunch of red roses.

“Oh, thank you ! They’re beautiful.” you smile, pecking his lips, “But I already told you it was okay. You were tired because of your day at work, I get it. We can always plan something another time, like tonight for example. My shift ends at 6:30 P.M, you can come pick me up at seven.”

Hope can be heard in your voice on top of nervosity. Jake and you can’t see each other frequently because of his job as a naval aviator and he’s also often hanging out with his friends. You’re aware it’s normal for Jake and you to not spend every single day together though, two or three times a week would be a good start you think.

You look at him, waiting for his answer impatiently but as soon as you hear him sigh, you guess his answer. Even if you expected it, you can’t help but feel disappointed.

“The problem is I already told my colleague I would spend the night with them.”

“It’s okay. You can send me a text when you’re free.” you affirm, forcing a little smile.

“Perfect. I’m not gonna bother you much longer. See you.” he says and kisses you.

You lovingly watch Jake leaving. Once he’s not in your line of sight anymore, you smell the roses and your disappointment leaves your body to let affection take over. It doesn’t matter if he wasn’t able to have some free time for you that night, he always makes sure to make it up to you like today. You stay in your bubble and walk in the direction of the backshop to put the flowers down. You find a container to put your roses in when your colleague Cora blows your bubble.

“Who gifted you those roses ?”

“Jake. They’re pretty, aren’t they ?”

“Wow, he must feel ashamed about a lot of things.” she comments, gazing at the flowers while you put them in the makeshift vase.

“Not at all. Why do you say that ?”

“Like they always say, the bigger the bouquet, the bigger the guilt.”

“No one says that.” you state, frowning.

“He cancelled again, didn’t he ?” she says, her question sounding more like an affirmation.

“He has a good reason.”

“I bet he does ! I don’t understand how you can still be with him. If my boyfriend was always cancelling dates, I-”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” you interrupt her, avoiding her gaze.

“What do you mean ?”

“We’re not really dating.” you inform and she gives you a look so you quickly add : “We’re taking things slow. Jake can be on a deployment any day so we don’t want too many strings attached.”

“Wait, you’re telling me you’ve been with a guy for more than four months, you go on dates, you kiss, you sleep at each other’s house but you’re not official ? He’s worse than I thought. I mean, Y/N, don’t forget about his reputation ! Jake doesn’t do serious relationship. And just to prove it to you, has he finally presented you to his friends ?” Cora asks and you stay silent. “That’s what I thought. Why are you still with him ? He’s going to break your heart just like Logan.”

“He’s different !” you say, angry by her words and the mention of your ex. “Look, you don’t know him and you know nothing about my relationship with Jake so stop giving me unsolicited advice. I’ve learned from my mistakes, I know what I’m doing.”

On that note, you pass by your colleague and go back to your work. While you keep reorganising the books, you can’t prevent yourself from thinking back to your conversation with Cora. You know she didn’t mean any harm but you’re annoyed by the way she thinks you’re too foolish to know how to handle your love life on your own. You’ve known men… stupid ones, to stay politically correct, however you know better now and Jake has proven to you he’s different from your exes. It’s not because he cancels a lot of dates that he’s a bad guy. He is a nice guy. You’re sure of it.

At the end of the day, you take back your roses and bid Cora goodbye without adding anything else, still pissed off by her words. Upon arriving at your place, you put the roses in a real vase and set it on your dinner table.

That night, you spend it alone eating, watching Pride And Prejudice. As you’re watching it, you can’t help but melt because of Mr.Darcy’s confession of love to Elizabeth. You’re waiting for the day where it’ll be your turn, the day where, like those cheesy romances you read, you will get your confession full of love by the love of your life. You know you look like a hopeless romantic but you grew up with this idea of great love stories where the man is perfect and you’ve been searching for him since your teenage years. Maybe Jake will be this man and he’ll confess his feelings to you soon. You like him a lot and you wish you could share the future you have in mind with him.

Once your movie is over, you take your phone and check your notifications. You haven’t received anything. Not a call, nor a message. You thought that maybe Jake would send you a text to tell you about his day or at least say some nice words but nothing. Radio silence. It should be a good sign he’s having fun with his friends and yet, you can’t stop yourself from thinking this silence sounds like some bad signs ; he doesn’t seem to miss you. Sure he’s with his friends, you know he’s not spending his night on his phone though, a text wouldn’t be too much ! With mixed feelings, you put down your phone and start watching another romantic movie.

During the whole night, you keep checking your phone without any change. When you go to bed around midnight, you keep on sighing and your mind starts thinking back to your relationship with Jake and to doubt it.

Once you’re laying down on your bed, you glance one last time at your phone and when you see nothing new, you groan and aggressively put your cellphone on your nightstand. You change position in your bed and try to fall asleep, in vain. You toss and turn and yet, you don’t seem to be comfortable enough and your mind who is currently overthinking doesn’t make things better. This lack of message from Jake hurts you more than you care to admit. One thing is certain, you won’t get your love confession tonight. Maybe you shouldn't have gotten ahead of yourself so much ? Maybe your relationship with Jake won’t last ? Maybe there was a little bit of truth in Cora’s words ? You shake your head, hoping to get rid of these voices who start to make you more puzzled. If you discuss it with Jake, surely the situation will get better. Right ?

At least, you feel like the situation gets better the following week. You haven’t really talked with Jake but you’ve been able to see each other more often.

Today, you spend the afternoon together. You don’t do anything special. Jake just came to your apartment and you stay on the couch watching movies and talking about random things.

Your head on his shoulder, you think you were right to trust Jake. When he has the time, he’s the perfect… boyfriend ? Partner ? Friend ? Whatever the word may be, he is perfect. You never argue and your conversation knows no awkward silence ; everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds. You even feel like you’re getting closer and closer to the moment where you’ll finally be official. You’ll finally be able to call him yours and you’ll be able to share more than some hours here and there with Jake. You can imagine a whole future with him, that’s why you want to believe so hard that what you have is something good, despite the particular circumstances.

As soon as it’s getting late, Jake gets ready to go back to his house. From time to time, he stays to sleep at yours however when he has to wake up early the next day, he prefers to go home, his apartment being closer to his workplace. Once he’s set to go, Jake walks to the door while you follow him, tiredness visible on your face.

“Send me a message when you’ve arrived.” you say, yawning and Jake tenderly looks at you.

“I will.”

“Can we see each other next Saturday ?”

“I’ve already got something planned with my squad at the Hard Deck.”

“And do you think it’d bother them a lot if I came with you ?” you ask with a small voice before embarrassment catches you. “Sorry, it was rude. I shouldn’t have invited myself like that. It was stupid. I… Tell me when you get home. Good night.” you exclaim, ready to close the door but Jake stops you.

“It wasn’t stupid. Actually, I’ve been thinking of introducing you to them for a long time now.”

“Really ?”

“Sure. We’ve known each other for four months, it’s normal for you to meet them. I’ll pick you up and we’ll spend the whole evening together.” he states, putting his hands on your cheeks.

“Perfect.”

“Goodnight, Y/N.”

Jake gives you a smile before pressing his lips on yours. Your kiss only lasts a few seconds and you enjoy it as much as possible, celebrating this new milestone in your relationship. You’re still not official, nonetheless he wants to introduce you to his friends, you’re on the right track. Once Jake breaks the kiss, he tenderly strokes your cheek before turning around and walking away. You watch him leave then close your door, a goofy smile on your face.

When you get to the Hard Deck, Jake’s arm around your waist the following Saturday, it’s not a goofy smile you have on your face anymore but a nervous one. You know Jake is close with his colleagues and you want to make a good impression. You hope with all your heart this moment will go well. For you, this is a key moment and you can’t allow yourself to make a wrong move.

As soon as you find the group of people wearing Khakis, except one man is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, your hands become a bit more clammy. Jake quickly introduces you to every member of his squadron and you do your best to remember their names. For now, you only know Natasha’s name, as she’s the only woman. Jake proposes something to drink and judging you need to relax, you ask for a beer. He kisses your cheek before going to the bar, leaving you alone.

“I can’t believe you’re real.” Natasha starts with eyes wide open. “When Bagman told us he wanted to present us to someone, I thought he was joking. I never thought he was the kind of guy to settle down and I have to admit, I’m surprised to see you can put up with him.”

“Once you get to know him, he lets the arrogance go and you realise he’s a nice guy.” you respond, laughing.

“Hangman said you two met four months ago, right ?” Bradley questions.

“Yes, at a café. I had just gotten my coffee when Jake bumped into me and, long story short, he offered me a new coffee with his number on the cup.”

“I see he still knows how to make a good first impression.” Natasha jokes. “What do you do in life ?”

“I work in a bookshop. I’m paid to be surrounded by books, I couldn’t have dreamed of anything better.”

“That’s so cool ! I should come sometime. I haven’t read a new book in a long time.” Bradley informs you and instantly, your eyes shimmers with excitement.

“Oh ! I can give you recommendations if you want. What genre do you prefer ?”

Ensued then a conversation about your favourite topic : books. Bradley tells you some titles he likes, novels he’s been meaning to read for years and you listen to him with passion. You give him a whole list of authors and books to check out and he writes them down on his phone. Thinking you might have some other recommendations for him later, you ask him to give you his number. At the same time you’re saving his contact, Jake comes back to you and puts his arm around your shoulders.

“You’re not stealing her from me, aren’t you Bradshaw ?”

“We were talking about books, a subject you might not be familiar with.” Bradley retorts and Jake smirks.

“Oh no, she talks about it all the time. You haven’t finished getting new suggestions.” Jake says, faking desperation in his voice.

“Hey ! You’ve discovered good books thanks to me.” you defend.

“True. Anyway I’m going to play pool. You’re good here ?”

“Yeah, I am.”

Jake smiles at you before going to find his friend at the pool table. You stay with Bradley, Natasha and Bob, who just came next to you. You keep getting to know each other and you feel better, realising you don’t struggle to fit in - you’re not really the social butterfly, preferring your books more than people.

As the conversation goes on, you learn that Bradley is a good pianist and you ask to see him play. He doesn’t need to be asked twice and walk to the piano before playing Great Ball Of Fire by Jerry Lee Lewis. Natasha, Bob and you sing with him and you’re quickly followed by the other people in the bar. Jake comes to you and sings by your side and sometimes he spins you around.

Once Bradley finishes the song, you laugh with your new friends, glad to realise you’re having a good time. Jake asks you if you want something else to drink and you inform him you haven’t finished your beer yet. He tells you he’s going to grab another drink, leaving you for a moment.

“Natasha wasn’t joking when she said you were an outstanding pianist ! Very good choice of song, by the way.” you compliment Bradley.

“It’s my favourite. My dad used to play it when I was a kid. I have good memories with this song and my parents.”

“I can see that. Your parents seemed to be cute together.”

When you talked earlier, Bradley quickly told you about his parents and you have to admit the way he speaks of their relationship, it looks like a story from one of your favourite books.

“They were !” Bradley confirms with nostalgia. “Maybe too much. I’d like a relationship like theirs.”

“I’m sure you will. You seem like an amazing guy. You deserve a love story as beautiful as theirs.”

“You too.”

Bradley smiles at you before talking about his pianist skills while you’re searching for Jake next to the bar. You expected to see him with a drink in hand, but it’s a vision of Jake with a woman who has her arms around his neck that you find. Your eyebrows furrowed, not knowing who this woman is and why she’s so close to your… to Jake. Jake gets rid of the woman’s arms then tells her something. He comes back to you at the same time where Bradley excuses himself to use the bathroom.

“Who was she ?” you question, not giving him the time to start a conversation.

“Who ?”

“The woman who was literally in your arms.”

“Oh, huh, I don’t know. She tried to flirt with me but I told her I was already in good company.” Jake explains with a flirty smile yet, you stay sceptical. “Y/N, I swear I don’t know her. You don’t have to worry.”

“I’m not. I’m curious, that’s all.” you lie.

Not fully convinced by your affirmation, Jake put his hands on your cheeks before leaning in and kissing you with passion. Even if you still have some doubt, Jake’s kiss helps you to calm down.

However, it’s really during the following weeks that you feel much better. Jake is being more present, casting away every doubt you have in mind. He’s managed to have some free time for you and you’ve even spent three days together, something never done before in your relationship. This time, you’re sure, everything is alright. Everything Cora told you or even everything you thought was fake. No matter what people say about Jake and his love life, you are the exception. Jake cares about you and he’s honest. Your relationship has a real future.

You’re so over the moon that you’re not as sad as usual when Jake tells you he can’t spend the evening at your place because he’s exhausted. You wish him a good rest before reading your book again. You’re in the middle of a chapter when you receive a message from your friend Laura who you haven’t seen in months. She asks you if you want to come to the bar next to her place. As you miss your friend, you accept without a second thought before getting ready.

Once you arrive at the Scented Sky bar, you have a big smile on your face, impatient to meet Laura. Once you leave your car, your eyes find their way to a vehicle not too far away who looks like Jake’s. At first, you think it’s just a mere coincidence then you pay attention to the licence plate and recognize that it is Jake’s. Instantly, you frown. You don’t understand how he can be there when he told you he wanted to sleep, not to mention the fact this bar is far from his place.

You keep searching for a rational explanation while you go to the bar. Before you walk through the door, you glance at the window and your eyes get teary at what you’re seeing. Jake did lie to you. He is at the bar and far from being tired as he presses his lips on a woman, the same woman at the Hard Deck he swore to you he didn’t know. The world is crumbling down your feet as you’re looking at them kissing passionately and being in each other’s arms. Tears are running down your cheeks and you can’t stop them. You want to go in and insult Jake with every bad word you know yet, the shock is so strong you turn around and go back home, trying to understand what you just saw.

When you close your door, you lean on the wall before sliding down and bursting into tears. You have your head in your hands, totally desperate and angry, not only at Jake but at yourself too. You wonder how you couldn’t see the signs. Now that you think back on it, you realise that, indeed, every element was in front of you : he keeps an emotional distance, he never uses pet names, you’re never his priority and so and so forth. You thought you found someone honest and you feel like a fool as you realise it isn’t the case. You should have listened to Cora, you should have listened to your instinct. You thought you learned your lesson, especially after your relationship with Logan, apparently you still have a long road ahead of you.

Once your sobs calm down, you stand up and throw yourself on your bed, not really taking the time to change your clothes. You stay there, laying on your back, staring at the ceiling, without understanding what’s happening. In the end, you are not the exception. As always. And you never will be. You will never have your love story, your confession of love, your happily ever after.

Your phone notifying you of a new message interrupts your downward spiral. You take it and when you see it’s a text from Jake wishing you a goodnight, you want to answer him with a long paragraph, explaining how much you hate him. However, you don’t have the strength so you delete his number and block him on your social media. You feel lighter but still miserable. You don’t want to see him ever again.

Your wish is not granted. You’ve been able to avoid Jake only for a week. Despite all your efforts, Jake forces the hand of destiny by coming to your workplace. You see him entering the bookshop but you keep working, pretending to be too busy. You don’t even react when he’s in front of you. Your lack of reaction confuses Jake. He expected you to throw yourself in his arms and yet, he is taken aback by your silence.

“Hey, Y/N, it’s me.” he starts with a big smile, “I saw you weren’t answering my texts and I can’t reach you on social either, weirdly, so I got worried. Everything okay ? Are you ignoring me ?”

“I don’t know, did you give me a reason to ignore you ?” you question looking up to him, forcing a smile.

“Huh, no. I mean, I don’t think so.”

“Then no, I’m not ignoring you. You’re such a nice guy, I don’t see why I’d want to ignore you.” you exclaim, ironically.

“Ok, I’ve missed something. Can we talk about it ?”

“I don’t want to talk to you !”

“If you don’t want to talk to me anymore, I think I deserve at least an explanation. I mean, we’ve had something for four months.” Jake demands and this is your last straw.

“In the back shop. Now.”

Because of your authoritative tone, Jake doesn't dare to make an inappropriate comment and follows you while you go to the backshop. Cora looks at you from afar, completely confused by the angry expression on your face - you haven’t told her anything about your discovery, feeling too ashamed.

Once you close the door behind Jake, you cross your arms on your chest and glare at him.

“So, what’s up ?” Jake casually asks.

“I don’t know, you tell me.” you start, trying so hard not to scream, “I thought you were too tired so why were you at the Scented Sky ?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Don’t try to outwit me ! A week ago, I asked you if you wanted to come to my place to which you gave me the stupid excuse of “I’m too tired to come”. And yet, when I went to the bar, I saw you, in great form.”

At your last sentence, Jake’s eyes widen, panic visible on his face. His brain tries to find a rational explanation however before he can say it to you, you quickly add.

“And do I need to specify you weren’t alone when I saw you ? You were with the woman from the Hard Deck. You know, the same woman you didn’t know at all. And not to mention you were kissing her.”

“I have a good explanation,” he fastly says.

“Oh yeah ? Which one ?”

Jake stares at you and chooses his words carefully before speaking, as if he was in front of a wild animal. He never saw you mad before. He didn’t even think it was possible so he doesn’t know the way you could react if what he says came out wrong.

“She was flirting with me again and before I could react, she kissed me.”

“I just told you I saw and you keep taking me for a fool ?” you retort, shocked by his lie. “You were the one who pressed his lips on hers, your hands were on her hips ! How can you think I’m gonna believe what you’re telling me ? How could you do this to me ? I thought we had something !”

“I…”, he stutters before starting with a calm voice, “Look, I told you I wasn’t ready for a relationship, nothing was official between us and-”

“And I get it !” you cut him off sharply, “But It doesn’t give you the right to make me believe you care about me just for you to go see someone else. You know, if you had told me you weren’t ready for a relationship and you wanted to meet other women at the same time, I would have told you I didn’t want that and we would have called it quits ! You haven’t been honest with me when I’ve given you everything ! You’ve betrayed my trust just like the others.” you sigh, your eyes getting teary.

“I didn’t mean for this to happen. I swear I had the best of intentions.”

“If that is you with the best of intentions then I don’t want to imagine how you’d act if you didn’t care about the person ; you’ve ruined everything. You’ve taken me for an idiot for months and you have no remorse about it ! All I did was defend you, repeat to everyone you were someone nice and you’ve proven to everyone you live up to your reputation and that I am the stupid and desperate woman who only sees the best in the worst guys. Tell me honestly, were you even gonna tell me one day you didn’t want anything serious with me or were you gonna let me guess it by ghosting me ?” you question and Jake doesn’t answer. “Your silence says it all. I can’t believe I could have thought you were good. But, at least, you were useful for something. I had to learn to listen to my instinct when it tells me to walk out from a relationship instead of persisting. Thanks to you, I’ve finally learned my lesson. I hate you, Jake.” you pronounce, staring him right in the eyes. “I don’t want to see you ever again.”

“Y/N, wait-”Jake tries to say.

“No ! Leave and never talk to me again.”

Jake doesn’t add anything and leaves the room without looking back. Once the door is closed, you let your tears run freely down on your cheeks. You sit down, not having enough strength in your legs when the door opens once more, letting in Cora. She doesn’t wait before taking you in her arms. She affectionately strokes your back while you’re sobbing.

“I didn’t know what I was doing. You were right, Cora.”

“I wish I wasn’t.”

“I’m so stupid.”

“He’s the stupid one here, he doesn't know what he’s lost.”

Cora’s words should be comforting and yet, it makes you feel worse. Jake might not know what he’s lost but you sure do know what you’ve lost, time, love, energy and above all, trust. You know you’ll need time to heal from it.

And indeed, you need several months before you can spend a day without thinking about Jake. Now you can finally start to move on. This relationship, though short, has left a trace in your heart, just not like you wished. Since your split-up, you’ve decided to put yourself first instead of waiting for a man to show you his love. You need to understand what you want and what you deserve in a relationship and you can only do that alone. You need to know how to exist and to love without depending on the gaze of a significant other.

For the first time in your life, you are your own priority and you feel good as a single woman. You wouldn’t be against the idea of living your epic love story one day but you are satisfied with your current life. You’re self-sufficient and that is the most beautiful confession of love you could ever have.

Top Gun Maverick Masterlist

Speak Now TV Masterlist

Part two

137 notes · View notes

cookstorys · 5 months

Text

Moonlight

Character: Felix

Show : Love, Victor

Warning : Its supposed to be cute but sorry if it came out cringy 😭

—————————————————————————————————————

The moon shined above as you walked Felix back to his apartment building. You both decided to take the rather long way since you didn’t mind each other’s presence. “So you and Victor? You guys have been getting pretty close lately.” You nudged. “Yeah, we have but we don’t see each other like that. At least I don’t think?” He questions. You laughed at his utter stupidity. “Felix I’m just kidding. If Victor liked you I’m sure he would’ve kissed you on the faris wheel by now.” Felix laughed at the obvious tease. “Stop asshole, that’s my friend you’re talking about. So what if the whole thing was kinda rom-com-ish” He playfully hits your arm smiling. As if on queue, silence fell between the two of you again.

As you walk the sidewalk you notice the slight shiver Felix tried to ignore. “You cold?” You asked the fluffy-haired boy. “Yeah, I’m fine just a tad bit chilled.” He smiled shaking a little. “Felix, here. You’re gonna freeze out here love.” You commented, quickly taking off your jacket to put it on him. The jacket fitted him loosely and oversized but neither of you mind, you found him fairly adorable in bigger clothes, specifically yours. Felix was too stunned to even react, ‘love’. Words like that were commonly used by you regularly. ‘Babes, you’re embarrassing yourself.’ , ‘no love.’ Felix had gotten pretty comfortable with the words of affection but this time it felt different. This time his heart jumped out of his chest, his palms were starting to sweat, and he couldn’t control the urge to hold back his toothy smile.

“Thank you [Name].” Felix smiled, praying that the oversized fabric covered most of his blushing face. The attempt was cute but you could still see the heat starting to spread across his cheeks. However, you chose to ignore it for his sake. “So, how’s your mom?” You were questioning if you should ask or not but chose to ask. “She’s good, she decided to take her depression more seriously and just checked into a hospital. So, I should get to see her in about a month or two, depending on her progress.” You were beyond happy with the news. You and Felix were childhood best friends, you knew Felix’s mom way before the depression, even before his father’s death. So to hear that his mother was finally getting the help she not only needed but deserved was amazing. “Felix that’s fucking amazing.” Felix nodded. “Yeah, it is.”

10 minutes later you found yourselves in front of Felix’s apartment building, grinning awkwardly at each other. “I hope you had fun tonight, I had to fight a very aggressive old man for those tickets.” Felix laughed, genuinely intrigued about the situation. “I did! I’m happy all your hard work wasn’t in vain.”

“Well, I’m happy you had fun.” You smiled. This was always the awkward part, the departure. “Well, I guess I should get inside now. Here’s your coat.” Felix was in the process of taking his coat off but you chose to stop him. “Keep it, you look cuter in it than me.” Felix blushed at the statement. The moon’s light illuminated your eyes, making most of your small features stand out. For example, your lips. He really couldn’t stop looking at your lips and how amazing it’ll be to kiss them. Meanwhile, you were having the same thought. Felix looked stunning in the light, his eyes met yours and you could tell both of you were sharing the same thought.

Your hand found its way to the side of his face pulling him closer until your lips finna let his. They move perfectly together as if they were made for this. As the kiss deepened, you pulled away. “You’re a really good kisser.” Felix smiled still hypnotized by the taste of your lips on his. “You’re the one to talk.” You both laughed. Felix pulled out his keys and rushed up the outdoor steps as you watched. “You coming in or what?” He giggled to which you quickly caught on and ran after him

#cookstorys #Felix x male reader #Felix #love victor #Love Victor x male reader

24 notes · View notes

scientia-rex · 9 months

Note

Hey saw your post about weight loss and I'm a big fan and it makes total sense. Just curious how being overweight affects pregnancy. I feel like because I'm overweight I'm going to have a high risk pregnancy. Not pregnant at all right now but it's been on my mind lately

Oh boy. Weight in pregnancy is a WHOLE other topic, and not in my wheelhouse--I haven't delivered a baby in over two years now. (They love to show up at 3am and I love sleeping.) The short answer is that if you gain more than the recommended amount of weight during pregnancy, baby is also likely to be bigger, and that's a problem because your pelvis is not capable of expanding, so you run a higher risk of shoulder dystocia, which is where the baby actually jams in the pelvis on the way out, which is typically fatal to the baby within 5 minutes if we can't get them out because they can't breathe and their umbilical blood supply is cut off so the oxygen is not available. There is also a higher risk for gestational diabetes, aka high blood sugars in pregnancy, which also raises the risk of a larger baby. HOWEVER, a lot of this raises questions current research doesn't really answer--are fatter people at more risk in pregnancy because they're fat, or are they fat because they're high-risk? And a lot of people who deliver babies, whether they're OBs or family medicine or midwives or, God help us, lay midwives, will go full-on raging fatphobia, which makes it difficult to parse out genuinely helpful advice from terrible bullshit. Obstetrics in general is the least evidence-based medical field, because no one wants to be the asshole who ran a study that somehow hurt babies, so instead we just fumble around blindly in the dark a lot of the time going "well this SHOULD work" and hoping. Also, racism! Huge thing in obstetrics. Black women have 4 times the risk of dying in pregnancy/childbirth as white women, and of course racism and fatphobia dovetail, where fat Black women get treated particularly badly by the medical establishment.

Long story short, the best way to prepare for possible pregnancy is to take the best possible care of YOU--that means exercise and eating lots of veggies, not because that will make you thin, but because it improves your blood vessel and heart health, your bone health, your stash of nutrients that baby will raid during development, your muscle strength, and so on. And take the time BEFORE you want to get pregnant to find a doctor who delivers babies (whether that's an OB/GYN or a family doctor) who treats you like a human being.

And, controversially, I do think it's best to have a doctor for most pregnancies. Not because midwives can't provide excellent care, but because obstetrics is all about the situations where something goes wrong, and we are very bad at predicting who will have something go wrong. The worst delivery I was ever in looked fine on paper. First-time mom, dilated fine, pushing went great, no problems on the fetal heart monitor, baby descended just fine. Then baby crowned, got shoulder dystocia, my attending had to take over for me and do the maneuvers to free the baby, baby comes out and has to go straight to resuscitation, and I look back over at mom to realize more blood is coming out of her vagina than should immediately after delivery, by A LOT, and we almost had to call a massive tranfusion protocol for her. She hemorrhaged 2 liters of blood in minutes. Then she developed post-partum preeclampsia, which can be fatal if you don't have medical management right there. We had to put her on a magnesium drip to prevent seizures. That was the worst delivery I ever did, and I'm counting the 17-year-old primipara (first-time mom) I worked with while a med student, who delivered in the back-ass of nowhere, spoke Spanish only with an attending doctor who spoke English only in a hospital that didn't bother with interpreters until active labor, and needed forceps, a technique fewer and fewer doctors even practice. No epidural. Forceps without an epidural is, no joke, something that scares me to the point where I simply would not do an unblocked birth.

One of the major causes of maternal death is hemorrhage. If you have an IV in someone's arm pouring in fluid, you can survive with as little as about 1/7th of your original blood. Red blood cells can do a LOT of heavy lifting. And that buys you time for someone to get up to Labor & Delivery from the first floor with the on-hand packed red blood cells that then go into the IV and save your life. Blood transfusions are life-saving, and they are life-saving every single day in the US.

And hemorrhage risk goes up with subsequent babies. Someone giving birth for the first time is at higher risk for a lot of things, but someone giving birth for the 5th time who figures they're OK with a home birth because their other births went fine can bleed out in minutes.

I don't like or trust the medical establishment, and I think OB care has a LONG way to go in the US, because we create PTSD in about 11% of people who give birth. Maternal PTSD is far more prevalent in the US than combat PTSD. I would still have a medical doctor be my obstetrical care provider, because I don't want to die like that.

#the attending dr. kristophine #birth tw #blood tw

51 notes · View notes

veliseraptor · 1 year

Note

Soft/hard head canons for Shen Jiu 🙌

finishing off the last few of these in my inbox...this is an interesting one because like with other characters I feel like my headcanons for Shen Jiu in particular are less "hard" and "soft" than "malleable and story dependent" outside of, like, what we know textually. but let's see what I've got.

also sometimes as usual I don't know that I have headcanons one way or the other until I run into someone contradicting them, which I think has happened here but struggling to think of something specific...

hard headcanon: While the personality change from Shen Jiu!Shen Qingqiu to Shen Yuan!Shen Qingqiu is undoubtedly pretty drastic (and I really can't think about that plot point too long, it makes me feel Real Bad), I think a lot of the original goods' behavior is more self-fulfilling than inevitable or unchangeable. I mean, this feels like a definite theme in SVSSS generally (and in MXTX's works as a whole) - that people are not definitively and unchangeably Bad, that change is possible for people, even seemingly awful ones. (I mean, the entire arc of Luo Binghe's character transformation, for one.)

I actually think a lot of Shen Qingqiu's behavior was self-fulfilling prophecy - I mean, this is pretty firmly textually canon as of the Shen Jiu extras, I believe. He decides that people are going to hate him and therefore he acts in a way to justify and confirm that hatred. I love a self-sabotaging, self-isolating bitter asshole! I really do. That then calcifies, but not actually as much as I think Shen Qingqiu believes - he seems convinced that all his fellow Peak Lords will hate him forever so why bother trying, but we see in canon that they actually turn around on him fairly quickly when his behavior changes, which suggests to me a willingness to change their minds that I don't think Shen Qingqiu would believe in.

It is so firmly entrenched in Shen Qingqiu's head that he is loathsome and rotten and there's no changing that, that he can't imagine anyone seeing anything else. Given that, his expressed hostility is a way of warding people off at least from seeing any vulnerability, because it's not like he has anything to lose: in his head, he never had their affection or even respect. I think Shen Qingqiu would always be kind of bad at being a person and not terribly sociable, but I do think if he made an effort he would get more of a response than he would expect or believe would happen.

Also I think that at least one of the reasons he continues to push Yue Qingyuan away so hard despite the fact that he cares very deeply for him is because he wants to see if he'll keep coming back. Even if it's just out of guilt, and that's the last thing he wants, at least he does still come back, and that is, pathetically, better than nothing. Which just makes him angrier and makes things worse. Good times!

soft headcanon: The Ning Yingying question is one that I feel like I have a few different potential reads on - by which I mean to say, the particularities of the accusation that he was somehow inappropriate with her. The firm part of it is that I don't think he actually would make sexual advances on her (or any female students); my read on Shen Jiu is pretty firmly gay but sex-repulsed to the point that he's situationally ace. Where I do have headcanon variations is what, exactly, did happen - whether there was a misread somewhere by Yingying that got blown up as the forming picture of Shen Qingqiu as a lecher became more defined and absolute (i.e. reinterpretation of a past event that maybe felt funny in retrospect even if it seemed innocent at the time, or even something that felt a little awkward or inappropriate at the time but wasn't meant sexually, but that then becomes something bigger), or whether it was entirely false rumor, boosted by Shen Qingqiu treating his female disciples better than his male disciples and being particularly fond of Ning Yingying.

If the latter, then why doesn't she say anything? That seems like a pretty clear answer to me: in PIDW she's very much pushed into a passive role, and Luo Binghe is a strong enough personality with enough force of will that I can see her not feeling able to contradict him, and/or I can see her being convinced that it doesn't matter what she remembers, everything else is true and bad enough that one more thing is just going to ensure that Shen Qingqiu can't hurt anyone else, and/or that it's only fair if upsetting for Luo Binghe to have his revenge.

Basically: while I pretty firmly don't think Shen Qingqiu (original flavor) made any advances on Ning Yingying, I can see a few different ways that situation might have played out leading to it becoming another point against him at the trial.

I also wobble on how far I think the abuse went with Qiu Jianluo - whether it went all the way to rape or just ("just") the threat of it up to the point when Shen Jiu killed him.

#conversating #thebeingofeverything #wow i was like 'do i have headcanons' and then wrote a short essay #OKAY ME #shen jiu #svsss #aggressively headcanons #lise memes

72 notes · View notes

slocumjoe · 1 year

Note

PLeaLSE gage headcanons LITERALLY ANYTHING fluffy I BEG

*cracks knuckles*

Separated into normal, shippy, and miserable. Everything nasty is below the big red banner.

Will whistle at songbirds when he sees them, if its safe to do so/won't attract anything. Knows a lot of different calls/songs. One of the few times a random person will see him genuinely smile, is when he gets a back-and-forth with the little things.

Have said before, but enjoys whittling. Crotchety asshole, but he did it to make toys for his younger siblings (of which he had a lot) and friends. If a kid wanders up while he's doing it, curious, will offer to teach them how and gives them whatever it becomes. He doesn't need it, it's just wood. But it seems a waste to just chuck all that work in a bush or whatever.

Knows how to be helpful in a kitchen/campfire/general cooking affairs. Also said this before, was a mama's boy, and always helped her around the house. Very good knifework. Has a habit of going 'behind' whenever he's...well, behind someone while cooking. Their kitchen was small and god forbid you bump into Ma and she spills something.

Knows a lot about creepy-crawlies. Dislikes your standard wasteland bugs, but spiders, bees, ants, stick bugs, etc, from the Old World? Like snakes, very into them. Would be the type to approach arachnaphobes with his hands closed, telling them to guess what he had. It would be nothing. But you wouldn't know that from his grin.

Related, good with animals. He was raised on a farm, after all. Likes most of them. Out of all of the other companions, Dogmeat is the one he likes the most.

Also have said before, but will keep an eye on a buddy/associate/whatever if they're drunk. Like, Gage won't let you walk off with a stranger while you're pissed. And he certainly won't let a stranger walk off with you, if you catch my drift. He hates alcohol and alcohol drinkers, but fuck, he doesn't want that kind of shit happening. It's a remenent of being the eldest child, gotta look out for everyone even if they're pissing you off.

shippy stuff

Extremely physical, but reserved. Won't initiate anything, not even to hold hands. Rarely acts like he needs/enjoys it. It takes time for Gage to be open like that, visibly affectionate. Once he is, though, clingy. Cuddle-every-night kind of guy, doesn't understand why you'd sleep in the same bed if not touching.

Cat-like. Will kinda...nuzzle, bump their foreheads together, lean his head on theirs, etc. If this is brought up he will stop doing it forever.

Will fall asleep if given a massage. Gage would let someone touch him like that only if he trusts them more than himself. Its not a much bigger leap for him to fall asleep with his back to them.

Preferred sleeping position is laying on his partner in some capacity, either on their shoulder, chest, stomach...again, cat-like. Not often he initiates affection, but once he does, personal space is a foreign concept.

Hug-from-behinder

All of these have something to do with sleeping, you might notice. Gage does not let people see him sleep, know where he does it. The ultimate sign of trust from Gage is being unconscious around them. And if he wakes up unharmed, unfucked with? It would take a fucking lot for that person to lose his loyalty and love. They're basically married now.

Seriously, Gage doesn't do 'downtime'. He can't relax like that. It's his partner's presence that helps him feel safe enough to rest for the sake of resting. Doing nothing is more meaningful to Gage than doing anything. Gage is always going, or planning his 'going'. Getting him to stop is a triumph.

Will share food with them. Have half of this fruit, eat the rest of this stew, finish these eggs for him. Won't even realize he's doing it. Gage is kind of a control freak, always wants to make sure everything is running well, taken care of.

His partner helping him shave his hair. Just consider that. Consider them with their hand on his jaw, tilting his head. His stubble scratches their fingers. Their hand is so close to his throat, they could feel his slow pulse with one little movement. In their other palm is a razor. They stand behind him, diligently scraping. His eye is closed, his own hands idle in his lap. Maybe someone talks, maybe they don't. The bathroom is small and the door is closed, and Porter Gage gives them sharp metal and bares his throat.

^ this is the lewdest, vilest, indecent, most embarrassing thing I've ever written, and I once wrote a fic where character A was described as using character B's prostate as a "character V deserves better" button.

❗trigger warnings start here❗

S/A victim and will not recognize, acknowledge, process, or accept it

Part of the thing with Conner...Gage says how Conner made him feel, how closely they worked together. Even if you get that story out of him, he's not going to mention just how close they would get.

Same thing happened with Colter. Gage always wants to be close to the boss, the guy making the choices. He thinks its of his own volition with Colter—but either way, Conner and Colter got theirs. Regardless how Gage felt about it.

Had something of a drinking problem when he was younger. Did it mostly to feel mature, adult. This stopped when he joined his second raider gang, after the Conner incident.

Every so often, has an episode of some kind. Angry, manic, depressed, paranoid—its very rare but Gage gets into these spells that last about a month. They usually involve him looking over his shoulder, so to speak, looking at the path he took to get where he is. Looking at the shadow he has and the demons in it. Thats largely why Gage is a workaholic, always going. If he stops, he might glance at all of the shit he's been through, and he loses his mind for a while. No one knows, it's wholly private. Gets through his day normally. Its all in his head, no external expression. Nothing in his face, his tone, movement, behavior...you couldn't never see it. You'd only know if he told you. God knows he wouldn't.

Another thing he won't acknowledge—misses his family. Absolute fucking liar, he was really close to them before bailing out of the blue one night. He didn't think about it until he almost died to Conner, and had that one moment where he seriously regretted leaving, and wanted to go home. He rarely ever thinks about his family, and even more rare does he recognize the empty hole in his chest as homesickness. When he does, has one of those episodes.

These episodes end with Gage hardening even further. He shaves off a little more of his humanity each time, whatever he considers a weakness. Its just like whittling.

His emotional walls are a two-way street—it keeps everyone else out to protect himself, but it also cages him. Build up enough walls, you have a labyrinth. You'll lose your way around eventually. If not found by a Sole, or anyone else who befriends and gets close to him, Gage would end in a bad fucking place. Whether dead or alive, he would barely be a person. Just a husk with no rhyme or reason to what it did, running purely on autopilot. He's a raider, so he raids things. No thought of survival or anything like that anymore. Mechanically going through each day until he eventually died. He's about 3/4s of the way through this internal withering at the time of the Nuka World DLC.

#porter gage #you can tell if i like a character based on how much i think about their traumas

69 notes · View notes

alexlestar · 8 months

Text

Muted!Blue AU part 2

Okay, Reguri fans, it time for more of my mute!Blue headcanons. This time focusing on how he is with other gym leaders and some of the E4 members. This is how he sees them and things that happen while Red is on Mt Silver

Starting with Brock: Blue sees him like an older brother. When Red is away, Blue just wants to communicate to another guy his own age, and Brock is the closest to his age. Because their gyms are close enough, they meet up about once a week to just hang out.

Misty: Blue loves to tease Misty about her fear of bugs (I know that's Anime Misty, but this is my headcanon damn it). By showing her bug, Pokemon. When he isn't being an ass, the two of them have friendly swimming races. The current score is a 75 wins to Misty and 25 to Blue.

One time Misty had enough of Blue's bs, captured a Misdreavus and call it out right in front of him. No one had ever heard Blue scream that loud before and didn't talk to Misty for a month. They apologise to each other and promised to only verbally/sign tease each other about their fears. The older gym leaders do get tried of this and try to stop them, but together they are a pair of gremlins.

Surge: Blue thinks he's an asshole who is too full of himself and only ever talks to him during rematch battles. Surge doesn't know sign at first so Blue insults him in sign to his face. Surge soon learned and gives him a clip around the ear for being a little shit.

Eirka: No strong feelings. When they run into each other they exchange pleasantries but nothing more then that.

Sabrian: Blue loves having Mirror matches with their Alakazams. Despite being an early gym leader, Sabrian tends to win because she has a closer bond with hers while Blue's ace is either his Blastoise or Pigot

Janie: Since she became a gym leader shortly after he did, the two help each other out on tips on how they deal with different kinds of trainers that come to fight them. He jokingly calls her a nepotism baby due to how she got her gym. Red and Blue did hang out a lot with Janie during their journey since the boys would spend a lot of time in the safari so the three of them became friends during this time.

Blaine: Blue enjoys his over the top quiz loving attitude, but hates it when he forces it on Blue to get him to be more verbal.

The only elite four members Blue really knows is Koga and Lance. Koga is often telling Blue off for teasing Janie and Misty but Blue is a little shit and doesn't listen.

He does listen to Lance though who basically adopted Blue when he found out how much of a dick Oak was to him. After Red, Lance was the first person to find out how to tell when Blue is lying. (I'll get to that). Lance is firm with the younger gym leaders to keep them in check and and ensure they are doing a good job.

Now it's time for things Blue does.

1: He signs everything, no matter if he's verbal or not. This is from when he wasnt verbal so it's like second nature to him. Though when he's tired he sign stutters (I looked this up, this is a thing thought I'm not sure if sleep affects it)

2: If he lies his signing is slightly slower then normal. Not by much but Red and Lance have noticed and often calls him out on it. He normally lies about being a little shit to Lance and if he's feeling okay to Red. He can verbally lie just fine though. He has tried not signing while lying but that was a bigger give away. He doesn't know that's how they can tell he's lying. But he expects it.

3: He hates his hands being confined for too long because of point 1. To him it's the same as covering his mouth. He doesn't mind hand holding as long as one hand is free.

4: If he has a challenger on a none verbal day he forces himself to talk if they win. Thankfully for him it doesn't happen often.

5: For the first mouth of being a Gym Leader, he would fall asleep at the gym in his chair so he didn't get enough sleep. Daisy grilled him for this because his sign stutter got so bad during the day. Every so often, Blue does it again, but only for a night

6. He'll never admit it, but he loves it when Lance says he's doing a great job as a gym leader because it makes him realise how much Oak was a dick to him. And having a father figure give a damn about him really boosts Blue's confidence. Lance knows anyway but doesn't make a big deal, so the boost can be more natural.

7. He hums a lot when not speaking. Most of the time, he doesn't notice he does it. Sometimes it's just a small hum while other's it's drawn out. It's low enough that people have to be right next to him to hear.

8. During none verbal days if he wants to get someone's attention and their in the same room. He will grab hold of whatever their wearing and wait for them to notice. If it's important he'd tug hard.

Part 1 Part 3

This would be more polished but my computer has no Internet so I'm using my phone to upload this. I do plan on doing a post like this for Red but not as long.

#reguri #trainer blue #trainer green #pokemon au #namelessshipping #muted blue #text post #long post #this is my new hyperfixation

22 notes · View notes

haechanhues · 9 months

Text

chapter eleven : yuta nakamoto

S I D E : A (written)

word count : 1k

warnings : strong sexual references. Yuta is an asshole and he’s a disgusting human being in this - i’m sorry. Cheating. Implications to bullying. (Not to be confused with the real Yuta)

Yves tried to tell you. Both blatantly and implied it. She personally made a Spotify playlist named ‘cut the bitch off’ with songs that referred to shit boyfriends, cheaters and assholes.

All of which lead to your own shitty boyfriend, Yuta Nakomoto.

Yuta Nakamoto was older than your whole year group, but stayed behind a year. He was a ladies man. Had every girl and guy on campus somewhat enamoured by him. He had a killer smile and hair that you couldn’t stop staring at. Whether it be in envy or admiration or both. You had heard rumours and he neither denied or agreed to them. They were just rumours that he didn’t feel the need to discuss. You wished you had listened to them then, and stayed away.

He liked you, for reasons he did not name and in retrospect he liked you because you were a girl he hadn’t had before and Yves was out of the picture entirely (as she has never ever set her eyes on a guy and thought she liked them nor a woman but she preferred them much more). He helped you a lot with what you were lost with and maybe if you weren’t such a dumbass when it came to P.E and Languages maybe you wouldn’t find yourself in one of arguably the worst situations you could have found yourself in.

Yves wasn’t wrong, not really and you knew it. Yuta barely made an effort if it wasn’t sticking his tongue down your throat. He was basically a body in which you could kiss and have sex with. Only, you protected your virginity with your life when it came to him. It’s not like you were saving yourself, but you just didn’t trust him enough. Nothing about him or your relationship was trustworthy. A red flag to everything about you and him.

You knew all these things but- you couldn’t help but want the toxicity. You grew addicted to it. He treated you well enough. Took you on dates that lead to almost fucking in the public bathroom or kissing at the back of a dark cinema. You figured he practised with the girls that did put out. He presented you to his friends (the ones that knew about you, of course) and kissed you gently on the cheek during pillow talk.

You caught him with Chuu at his house once, making out on the kitchen counter, a condom between two of his fingers, presented like a gift. Your Chuu. You wondered if you should be angry at her - you weren’t necessarily friends with her or Gowon anymore. But you didn’t hate her and you still held a fondness for her you didn’t want to let go of.

You also came to the conclusion that he probably stayed with you for one thing only; your virginity. He wasn’t all bad, trust. That’s what hurt the most when he started hooking up with Chuu. A girl he knew meant a lot to you. He became nicer and kinder. Actually conversed with you over real things. You learnt about his vulnerabilities, about what made him tick, his fears, his ambitions. All of it. He learnt about yours.

Except you got the fake shit. Every bit of vulnerability and himself he showed you was a straight up fucking lie. When you went to look at the bigger picture - you couldn’t connect the dots. He was as ever grey as he was at the start of the relationship.

Everything he got was real and you were fearful he’d use your secrets as a weapon. All of your doubts, your aspirations, everything about you… you were scared he would weaponise it and he did. From the moment you dated him you were scared because you felt like you could change him.

And maybe that was your fatal flaw.

Thinking the pile of shit could cease to be a pile of shit. That the asshole could stop being an asshole. That his moments of gentleness, of affection could keep the monster underneath at bay. But really it was the opposite. The gentleness was what was buried and the monster ran amok in the forest killing all that ventured through it.

You thought you could change him and you fell in love while doing so. Not a good love, not a love that you’re proud of or will admit to. But it was love, a sick and toxic kind of love. But it was love and that was the most unfortunate of the whole thing.

When you broke up with him, you were angry and upset. So fucking rage induced and fiery and everything. You wanted him out of your head, heart and fucking text messages. But he was like a looming shadow, made to make you feel like shit. You had been strong when you saw him in person - snarling remarks to his face that had Yves beaming with pride and an anger on your face he had never seen before.

But he didn’t crumble like you hoped he would - he made you smaller. He didn’t need to spread rumours or anything. He let speculation do it for you and he smirked the whole time. Like you deserve the whole mess. Deserved all the cruelty. Deserved each and every one of his girlfriends or whatever the fuck they were smile at you full of malice and misplaced pride.

The reality is this: you were his arm candy whilst he got to fuck and play to his hearts’ content with other girls. A pleasure without the effort. A fact you knew but was a fact strong enough to wound and maim through your sensitive skin.

But the fact he went the extra mile to hurt you? It made you feel so much worse than anything. You had loved that boy at one point and it would take a lot of time and effort to bury him right where he belonged - in hell.

But Yuta didn’t have a Yves like you did. And even if he did, you had the most powerful of all.

S I D E : B (social au)

THE SERIAL LOVER

in which a girl farewells every boy she’s ever loved (or at least had romantic feelings for) in order to prove that her feelings for one particular boy are very real and unwavering.

chapter eleven : yuta nakamoto

masterlist | prev | next

taglist: @matchahyuck @haisuken @dinonuguaegi @replayenthusiast

#kflixnet #nct social au #nct fic #nct 127 fic #nct yuta fic #nct x reader #nct scenarios #yuta scenarios #nct imagines #yuta imagines #nct fluff #nct angst #yuta fluff #yuta angst #nct yuta fluff #nct yuta angst

31 notes · View notes

anhed-nia · 8 months

Text

BLOGTOBER 10/8-9/2023: HELL HOUSE LLC, MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE

*I'm fudging the dates a bit here just so I can combine movies with like-themes. MONSTER INSIDE wasn't actually out until 10/12, but what can I say, October was a beast and this is the least organized Blogtober has ever been!

Also, I'm kind of fudging my genre constraints. Every year I consider logging one honorary horror movie--something that wasn't intended to horrify but that definitely does, like certain romantic comedies whose ideals are so inhuman that any thinking, feeling person should object to them. So one of these reviews is for a documentary, which I don't really think should be considered a horror film, but it's relevant to my Halloweeny interests, so it stays in the picture.

I don't have very much to say about this movie except that it drives me fucking crazy. On so many levels I really kind of hate it; I hate all the characters, I hate the tired old /scary clown/ thing, I find the story totally predictable, and I just object to having to spend THAT MUCH time with douchebags saying douchey things to one another. But what I hate about HELL HOUSE LLC more than anything else is that I find it really scary! I don't want to have to give it the credit. And I don't think it should be neurologically possible for me to be sighing and cussing and rolling my eyes through most of a movie--and then to be suddenly, uncomfortably frightened through some of the actual scenes of horror. I almost wonder if I should even be admitting how much this scared me, but it's worth surfacing movies that affect you against your better judgment and taste, I think.

That said, I'm also a reasonably sensitive viewer. People who are not interested in horror media (and even some who ARE, unfortunately) have this misconception that the genre is for desensitized assholes, and my response to that is always just to ask: If I didn't react to what I saw in horror movies, then why would I watch them? Wouldn't I gravitate toward something else that I DO react to? Obviously not everyone is like me, but the assumption that the average horror fan doesn't experience appropriate feelings of horror is pretty ridiculous. I often think about when I first saw Lucio Fulci's CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD; I was huddled under a blanket watching the infamous guts-barfing scene through my fingers, when my super normie yuppie roommate shouted to me, "WHAT IS THAT NOISE?" I cried out "DON'T COME IN HERE!" and she replied, "ONE OF THESE DAYS YOU'RE GONNA SEE SOMEBODY'S HEAD GET CHOPPED OFF AND YOU'RE JUST GONNA LAUGH!" I have no idea what would make her think that that would happen, or that laughter would be my reaction. Honestly I thought she was a pretty desensitized, disturbing sort of person; she was a 24 year old life insurance salesman who scanned the obituaries for funerals where she'd go prey on the bereaved graveside ("It just makes me feel so good to help people!"). But in general, I think I'm more sensitive than the average person, with a bigger imagination for what life can threaten you with. I won't go in a haunted house attraction, actually. I went in one when I was about 11, and I regretted it almost immediately. I mean, when I go to a party, I'm usually afraid I'm going to have to endure the horror of unwanted hugs, so you can imagine how I'd feel if I go to a place where people are pretending they're going to kill me. I enjoy the idea of haunt attractions, I think it's a cool sort of folk art, but I'd rather hear about it than experience it.

So in the name of all that, I really appreciate documentaries about haunts, which allow me to enjoy this art form from the safety of the other side of a screen. There's a really good one from New Zealand called SPOOKERS, which is about a haunt that occupies an old, storied mental institution--so there are some folks who feel like this use of the location is hurtful and exploitative, while at the same time, the haunt itself is a center of gravity for local misfits who have found themselves and their chosen family by working there. It's complicated and moving, and I strongly recommend it. There is also the pretty-good HAUNTERS: THE ART OF THE SCARE, which examines the history of haunted house attractions, including the emerging trend of "haunts" that are more like torture dungeons that continue to stretch the limits of what a person can even consent to legally. If you're up to date on this topic, you may have guessed that Russ McKamey is one of the main subjects of that movie. He has been made more famous, or maybe infamous is the right word, through a recent documentary called MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE.

The title makes it sound like a run of the mill unscripted TV special, but MONSTER INSIDE is an examination of Russ McKamey's questionably legal, escalatingly sadistic haunt--which, as many have pointed out, isn't really a haunted house attraction, but something called an "immersive horror experience". McKamey used to run something more like a proper haunt, but even in its earlier days McKamey Manor was the most outrageous available version of the haunt experience; in HAUNTERS we see patrons begging for their freedom, some of whom are visibly bleeding, a few of whom are forced to eat their own vomit, and one of whom experiences a psychotic break and grabs an axe from one of her tormentors to try to escape. Since that time, it seems that things have only gotten worse, with literal waterboarding as part of its standard operation. MONSTER INSIDE features a set of interviewees who have been through one of McKamey's "tours", and who feel the need to speak out about what they were put through. Each of them experienced a sort of grooming process during which McKamey made them feel as if they had been specially selected from among the tens of thousands of prospective victims on a waiting list; he buddies up to them, pumps them full of ego-inflating talk about how they could be the one to put on "the best show ever" for his ever-present video camera, and gets them to sign a waiver agreeing not to press charges if they incur a whole encyclopedia of mental and physical injuries, including many things that an individual doesn't really have the legal ability to consent to. They are then tortured--there is really no other way to put it--for up to 12 hours on McKamey's property. They are not released until he is satisfied with a humiliated admission of total defeat; even in its earlier incarnations, McKamey Manor has prided itself on having no safe word. And, with some customers so traumatized that they can't remember things like where they are or who was the first United States president, retaining a safe word seems to be out of the question anyway.

One might ask, why would anyone subject themselves to this? MONSTER INSIDE does its best to address this mystery. The question of why anyone likes to be scared is always at the heart of the horror conversation, and common answers range from the catharsis screen scares can provide, to more intellectual motivations for exploring darkness. This line of inquiry may extend to why we enjoy Ouija boards despite (or perhaps because of) the popular warnings about how easily they can be misused, and why we agree to crowd into a darkened bathroom and chant the name of an evil spirit who will supposedly spring out of the mirror with murderous intent. Early in the found footage movie WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR, the naive young protagonist explains her participation in a cursed internet game reputed to have all sorts of terrifying effects, saying, "I love horror movies, and I thought it might be cool to try actually living in one." This may not be a truly satisfying reason for sacrificing one's connection to reality, but it is an honest one; Those of us who chase scares do it for personal, emotional reasons that may not translate into entirely rational statements. Still, the survivors of McKamey Manor make an effort: One horror fan is trying to launch her acting career, and knows that Russ's streamed footage of her ordeal could make her famous. One is a war veteran whose PTSD pushes him toward extreme sadomasochistic experiences. Many express a desire to prove something to themselves by facing their worst fears, of which McKamey collects a detailed list. And while scrutiny always seems to land on the victim who "must be crazy", one shouldn't forget the $20,000 reward offered to anyone who survives one of these indefinite "tours". No one was ever won this prize, though not for lack of trying; MONSTER INSIDE shows footage from the end of a session with an unyielding customer who McKamey belittles and berates despite his obvious win.

MONSTER INSIDE: AMERICA'S MOST EXTREME HAUNTED HOUSE is a fascinating, and continuously frustrating experience. It's a worthy project just to expose the true effects of McKamey's possibly illegal business, although it is also clear that exposure is what he wants more than anything. Early in the documentary he happily declares, "I probably wouldn't do the haunt if I wasn't able to film it, because I want the world to see what I'm doing." He does not appear to be making a fortune from this business, despite his legions of cultish fans who are happy to stalk and harass people who speak out about his abusive practices; at one time (and perhaps still?) a few cans of dog food were the cost of admission. Watching McKamey's antics are a good reminder that much of what we commonly think of as psychopathic behavior is really rooted in a desperate, insecure need for attention. Especially-men who identify with fantasies of merciless machismo, who insist on having everything their way and who do not take No for an answer, are really revealing a kind of extreme fragility. Despite their fantasies about being the alpha wolf, in their intolerance for anything that isn't exactly to their liking, they demonstrate a morbid lack of hardiness. If you can't take rejection, you're weak. If you can't handle even meaningless insults or negligence from people you don't even respect, you're weak. If you cannot ever be alone, if you need attention so badly that you're willing to hurt and disgust people to get it, after failing to genuinely impress or endear yourself to anyone, you're weak. You're infantile. Darwinism would weed you right the fuck out. You are not an apex predator, you are not the epitome of masculinity, if you are nothing without attention. I've known men like this, unfortunately, and when I see a guy like Russ McKamey in the midst of this power-mad hysteria, I see a wilting orchid who wouldn't last a second outside of his self-created greenhouse, and I wish I could tell him that.

But maybe no one has to. Maybe he already knows. In HAUNTERS, his wife laughs affectionately about McKamey's extraordinary wussiness; she tries to list his various fears, and doesn't seem to know where to start, but the documentary helps us out with footage of someone chasing him up and down the block with a snail. Russ is begging for mercy and appears to be in genuine distress, which is enormously satisfying, all things considered. I wonder if he would take $20,000 to let the reasonably angry survivors of McKamey Manor indulge in a little mollusk-flavored revenge.

#horror #found footage #supernatural #documentary #haunt #haunted house #immersive horror #russ mckamey #mckamey manor #hell house llc #spookers #haunters: the art of the scare #monster inside: america's most extreme haunted house #blogtober 2023

10 notes · View notes