#things and that's one of the major reasons a lot of women started to quite frankly feel like shit regarding their own role

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

One of the biggest problems with women is that they measure their worth based on how much they "can be and do stuff like a man".

[samkerrworshipper]

exhausted | barca femeni/alexia putellas x reader

reader has insomnia… but doesn’t tell her teammates alexia begins to figure it out though

was gonna make yall wait till tomorrow butttt i rlly can’t fucked lol

Sleep is something that has never come easy to you.

No matter how hard you try, no matter how much melatonin or herbal teas or meditation you tried, none of it worked.

You, quite simply, could not sleep.

It was fine when you were just a student, when you could dip out of your morning classes or sneak in a nap here and there between classes, when you didn’t have to make it through full days of work.

It was fine when you were playing for London City, when nobody cared about what you were doing, only if you could stop other players from getting past.

It had all changed though when the Barca offer had come in though.

It was known to every single footballer in the women's league that Barca had major injury problems, specifically in their backline, injuries that wouldn’t be resolved until long after the season was over.

You’d never thought though that some absences in Barcelona’s star squad would crate an opportunity for you, but for whatever reason, the Barca selectors had seen something in you, and even though it was mid season, had been desperate to sign you, it was a big move to go from England to Spain, but one you were more than happy to make for the sake of your career.

You’d never thought that the move from home would be so much more detrimental to your sleep schedule, but slowly you’d found yourself becoming more exhausted as you struggled to keep up with your new life.

There were a lot of things that were different about Spain, or more specifically the Barcelona Women’s team. When you were playing in London, training every couple of days and playing once a week, you could afford to miss some hours of sleep during the night, especially considering that nobody in London was concerned about making school a priority over there. You could take some naps during the day, laze around as much as you wanted and go to school whenever you could be bothered.

Barca was different, and not in a good way.

It was good for your football, internationally and just in general. Before Barca, you’d been more of a bench player then a starter for the England under 17s, but your game had lifted and you’d been a consistent starter in every tournament and friendly since.

You were exhausted, more than you’d ever been in your entire life, and you were sure it was starting to show.

It was hard enough being 16, in a foreign country, getting hardly any hours of sleep, training at least three hours a day as well as gym sessions and playing twice a week. Trying to be a full time student as well, it was completely unrealistic and it was starting to show.

“Nena, do you want to slow down on the energy drinks? Someone so itty bitty and young like you shouldn’t be consuming any caffeine, let alone two red bulls before noon, we’re lucky you aren’t pinging off the walls yet.”

Mapi’s hands are on your cheeks, pinching and squeezing them as if you are a baby. Instead of paying her any kind of attention you keep your eyes fixed on your laptop screen and lips pressed to the can of red bull that you’ve been tirelessly sipping at for the past couple of minutes.

Integrating into the team had been hard, but you’d actually become far closer with the crew of injured girls, mapi specifically, as well as her girlfriend Ingrid. Frido had also been one of the first people to welcome you, accompanied by two familiar English faces, Keira and Lucy.

Mapi particularly, had taken you under her wing, or had sort of adopted you in an older sister type fashion. It was sort of annoying, the older Spaniard was constantly talking, to the point where you’d learn to pretty much drown out everything that left her lips.

“If you keep touching my face then it won’t just be your knee that’ll be injured, your hands will be broken as well.”

Mapi frowns at you, her pinching fingers moving to brush loose hair from your face and rub at your temples, trying to rub away the frown lines deeply ingrained on your forehead.

“Wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning did we, nena? You know you’ll get wrinkles if you keep frowning like that, it’s not good for your little baby face.”

You shake your head in an attempt to get Mapi’s hands off of your face, it partially works, but not fully.

“María I am serious, you’ve got three seconds before I tear this can in half and use it to cut off your fingers, don’t you have rehab to do or something more entertaining than bothering me?”

Mapi’s hands fly up in surrender, something you are infinitely grateful for.

“Fine, you want to be grumpy then you can be grumpy by yourself, don’t come looking for me later when you’re bored of school and looking for some fun.”

You don’t bat an eyelid as Mapi retreats from your table.

You take another sip of your drink, praying that it’ll somehow make it easier for you to read the words on your laptop screen, even though it does absolutely nothing.

You’ve read the same page, over and over again and yet it’s done absolutely nothing to make you understand what it is you are supposed to be learning. It’s a mess of consonants and verbs, jumbled up words that just can’t seem to resonate in your brain.

Whilst Mapi has left, unbeknownst to you, you aren’t completely alone in the recovery room.

Alexia has been sitting on one of the massage tables, doing her exercises for the last hour, watching as you’ve gradually been getting far more frustrated with your work.

Alexia’s relationship with you so far has been… rocky.

The captain had made it clear from day one that whilst the club needed you, that your studies were going to be a priority alongside football. If you had known that you’d be going from doing as much school as you liked, to hours of online school everyday, you probably would have reconsidered your move to Spain, but you were here now and struggling more than you cared to admit.

Alexia knew something was up, beyond your clear hatred for school, she just wasn’t sure what yet but she was determined to find out why.

“Everything alright pequena?”

You practically jump at the sound of Alexia’s voice, hand clutching at your heart as you suddenly become aware of a presence in the room that you were unaware existed.

“Perfectly fine.”

You do well to recover from the shock, your eyes darting straight back to your screen almost as quickly as they had left it.

“You’ve been staring at the same page for the last twenty minutes.”

Alexia notices that your hands are shaking slightly, most likely due to the insane amounts of taurine that your body is processing.

“There’s a lot of writing on one page.”

You take another sip, finishing off the can and sliding it across the table.

“Mapi’s right, it’s not good for pequena’s like you to be drinking stuff like that, it’s bad for your brain cells, and don’t get me started on what it does to your body.”

Alexia moves to take a seat beside you at the table, her concern for you growing even more when she took a look at your face and realised how exhausted you looked.

“I don’t need the lecture, I’m poisoning my body, I’m aware of it, now can I please have slime peace so I can finish this off before training starts?”

Alexia isn’t anywhere near satisfied with your answer, she wants you to argue with her, not admit your wrongdoing like it’s nothing.

“Yes, you are, you aren’t an adult, you don’t need energy drinks, you will do perfectly fine without them.”

Your eyes leave the screen to look at Alexia for a second, a little exhale huffing out between your lips.

“Okay, whatever.”

Alexia can’t get past just how tired you look, so tired that you’re seemingly agreeing with her just to avoid conflict.

“Pequena, how about you take a break for a couple of minutes, go get some fresh air, I’m sure you can finish this up later.”

Alexia’s never let you finish school early, you don’t understand why she’s deciding to today.

“I need to get it done.”

Your body is so tense, Alexia’s scared that you’re going to pull a muscle just from how tight your body looks.

“I’m sure it can wait till later, you’ve been sitting here for two hours now, you need a break.”

Your hands are still shaking, and you’re as hunched over as possible without being asleep on top of your laptop.

“Alexia, I’m fine, I’ve just got to finish this and then I’ll be done.”

Alexia’s hand reaches up to meet your shaking one, somehow hoping that it’ll stop the frantic tremors.

“You’re taking a break, just go and spend some time in the team room, or go for a walk, just take fifteen minutes and I’ll next you when you need to be back. Go, now, I’m not asking.”

You slam your laptop closed with more aggression then Alexia’s seen from you all morning, your body dragging itself out of the room without any regards for your captain whatsoever.

Alexia begins to get worried when twenty minutes later, after multiple text messages, you are yet to return.

She knows you’re stressed, that school isn’t what you want to be focusing all of your energy on. But Alexia knows from personal experience how easy it is for somebody of your age with your kind of talent to disregard things like education, something that she believes is so crucial to any adult's life. You need options, Alexia is trying to give you them, even if you seem to hate them with every single fibre in your body.

Alexia decides to go looking for you once twenty five minutes have passed and you are nowhere in sight and have ignored every single one of her messages.

It doesn’t take her long to find you, although she does almost miss you.

Alexia peeks her head into the locker room, simply to ask if anyone has seen you, the room is silent and empty though.

She almost leaves, but just as she’s about to close the door, she spots your body, tucked up inside of your locker, your head tucked into your knees.

You look frightfully unrestful, you don’t look like most people look when they’re sleeping, most people look peaceful, you look bothered, like your body is fighting against the sleep that you so clearly need.

Alexia walks over to you, now more than ever she’s certain you’re sick, that you’ve caught some kind of cold that’s causing this exhaustion and the short tempered mood you’ve been in.

She brings the back of her palm up to your forehead, an action that has your eyes snapping opening immediately.

Alexia’s sort of surprised when she realises you’ve got no fever whatsoever, although she’s well aware that not all sicknesses result in fever, something about it is putting her off.

“Hola pequenita.”

It takes you a few seconds to realise where you are and what’s happening, but as soon as you do you are shaking Alexia’s hand from your face and pushing yourself out of your cube.

“Sorry, time completely slipped past me, I’ll head back now.”

Alexia’s hand grabs your forehand before you have the opportunity to slip past her, tugging you backwards until you’re standing directly in front of your captain, forced to look at her.

“Are you sick?”

Alexia isn’t sure what’s wrong, but it’s clear something is up and sickness is the clearest option. She knows that you are no stranger to energy drinks, she spends most of her time heckling at you to try and put down whatever drink you’ve got in your hands. She’s never seen you down two in such a short amount of time though and sickness would be a good explanation.

“No, I’m fine.”

Alexia can’t find any deceit in your words or mannerisms, it appears that you are being completely honest with her, something that makes Alexia even more confused. None of the tell-tale signs are there, you are telling the truth.

“I know you aren’t a stranger to a midday nap, but it’s unlike you to be so tired.”

Alexia’s arm moves from your forearm up to your face, gently tracing the deep purple bags that are sitting below your eyes. Her thumb is soft, it feels like she’s mending all of the fatigue that lies there, but as soon as her thumb moves it all comes back.

“I’m fine Capí, just stayed up a little bit later last night.”

Alexia can tell that’s a lie, a cover up from whatever it is that you’re hiding from her.

“Well see to it that you get into bed earlier tonight. The team is out on the pitch, I told Jona that you’d join them once finished up with your work that you’d head out but I think you need some fresh air. Better get moving.”

Alexia’s voice is ridged and your body reacts to it, reaching into your locker with more speed then she’s seen you work with all day, you grab your cleats and before Alexia has the chance to speak anymore you are marching out of the rooms and out towards the pitch.

It’s perplexing to Alexia, she hates being lied to, especially when it’s clear something is wrong. She waits in the locker room for a few minutes, trying to piece together the mystery yet she comes up with nothing.

Eventually she makes the decision to go out and watch the training, pitchside, maybe you’ll have perked up now that you’re out doing something you enjoy.

The first thing Alexia notices is how frantically you are playing, it’s unlike you to be sloppy and yet as she watches you it’s all she can observe.

You are sloppy, messy and uncalculated, something that you are normally the opposite of.

You are a technical player, something that has helped you settle into the Barcelona squad with ease, you adjusted to the Spanish way of playing without much fuss.

What Alexia is watching though, you look like a completely different player. You’re practically passing the ball directly to Salma, goal after goal being put through your legs and around your body. It’s embarrassing, and she’s certain other people are picking up on your abnormal behaviour, multiple people, specifically Ingrid coming to check on you and make sure everything is fine.

You shake all of them off, even though it’s clear that something is up and whatever that something is, it’s big and it’s affecting your game and mood majorly.

Alexia’s not surprised when Jona drags you from the field, already yelling at you and sending orders your way, what she is surprised by is the way that you don’t even flinch as he throws never ending criticism your way.

You just stare at him, neither nodding or trying to reply to him, Alexia’s not even sure if you’re hearing him, if you’re present enough to be listening to the words that are leaving his mouth. For a second she considers the possibility that you’re violently hungover or acting under the influence of some kind of substance, it would explain the drowsiness and weird behaviour.

The idea makes Alexia instantly filled with anger, you are 16 and she will take you to the grave if you’ve been touching any kinds of substances. She’s mad enough as it is over the energy drinks, and she’s going to express that when the two of you are in private later on, but the chance that you’ve consumed something illegal for someone of your age, it sends shivers down her spine.

Jona has you back out on the field before you can even begin to respond to his critiques, back into defence where you are brutally humbled time and time again by the likes of Aitana, Salma and Caro.

Alexia cringes every single time, she knows that you are struggling, what she’s completely unprepared for is for you to fully collapse on the field.

Caro volleys another ball over your head and for a second Alexia doesn’t even notice you crumpled up on the ground of the pitch, she’s too busy watching the sight of Caro’s ball perfectly managing to slot in behind Cata. It’s a truly beautiful goal, and truly there isn’t much you could have done about it.

She only notices you when Cata doesn’t turn around to grab the ball, instead, she rushes forwards, leaving the ball long forgotten beside the bottom right post. She’s rushing forwards, down to her knees, directly beside your crumpled up body.

Alexia jumps up from her spot immediately, running faster than she should considering the current state of her knee, it doesn’t matter to her though, seeing your tiny little body all clumped up against the grass terrifies her.

Cata’s smart, and apparently fast acting because before Alexia is sitting down next to you, Cata’s already got her shirt off, drenched it with her drink bottle and has it folded up over your forehead. The cold water seems to bring you back a little bit, your head jerking upwards in reaction to the sudden change of temperature across your skin.

Just as Alexia’s crouching down next to you, the medics are pushing everyone out of the way, kneeling down next to you and doing the same as Cata had done, placing wet towels across your skin. They’re treating it like you’ve got heat stroke and whilst Alexia is aware it’s a warmer day, she knows that whatever is wrong with you, it most definitely isn’t heat stroke.

One of the medics squirts some water onto your face, something that Alexia doesn’t like the look of, but it seems to bring you back awake, your eyes bursting open and blinking furiously as you take in your surroundings.

Alexia can see you panicking immediately, your eyes flashing to the multiple faces that are crowding your vision.

“Everyone take a step back, give her some space.”

The medics and your teammates take a step back, leaving Alexia to skoot herself closer to you. Her hand comes to rest on your face, gently brushing the water residue off.

“Hola nena, stay calm for me, you had a little fall, we’re going to get you inside now, do you think you can get up for me?”

You nod at Alexia, you can’t remember what happened but you don’t want to be on the floor any longer than you have to be.

Alexia helps you up and off the pitch, the medics leading the two of you inside.

Alexia immediately gets you situated on a table, the medics immediately getting their hands all over you.

“Test her heart for me please, and her caffeine and sugar levels. I’ll be right back nena, I’m just going to grab something from my locker, text me if you need anything.”

Alexia is inexplicably angry and she knows that if she spends any more time in a room with you she’s going to yell, or say something that she’s going to regret. If it wasn’t for all the doctors, she probably wouldn’t care but she doesn��t need to air out private situations in front of people who have no business in your private life.

So she stomps her way to the locker room, set on trying to detangle the mess of emotions that has developed deep in her gut ever since this morning.

It’s been longer than this morning, Alexia’s noticed oddities in your behaviour, ever since you’d arrived. The energy drinks, the constant eye bags, power naps whenever you could fit them in. You live by yourself, something that Alexia deeply disapproves of and after today she doesn’t think it should continue on like this. You’d requested your own apartment for two reasons, privacy and because you didn’t want to disturb the private life of your teammates.

Alexia wanted to punch a wall, or throw something. That was all that was running across her mind as she paced back and forth in the locker rooms.

All Alexia could think about was your body, crumpled up on the pitch and she had no idea why and no idea how to help you.

You were sitting in the medical room, by yourself, beside the many doctors and physios who were poking and attaching you to different things.

You were exhausted, you were finding it hard to keep your eyes open. You’d felt the same way all day, hitting the pitch had been too much, too hard, too much energy for your exhausted body.

You wished that you’d feel the same every night when you tried to go to sleep every night, but alas, it felt like as soon as you got into bed, or as soon as you tried to close your eyes sleep just avoided you.

Alexia was probably two laps of the locker room away from throwing her phone at a wall when Mapi walked in, weirded out by the sight of her best friend grinding her feet into the floor as she walked back and forth in the locker rooms.

“Ale?”

Alexia’s pacing doesn’t stop, but she does take a second to look up at María and for some reason the concernedly smiley face of her best friend seems to help the anger bubbling up inside her simmer down slightly.

“Alexia, what’s wrong?”

Alexia’s hands are fidgeting wildly in front of her, her fingers clicking and toying with each other.

“Somethings wrong with Nena, she’s exhausted and frantic and she looks like she hasn’t slept and she’s downing all those energy drinks and maybe they’re getting to her heart? Maybe that’s why she collapsed or maybe she’s sick but somethings wrong and I don’t know what and she collapsed right in front of my eyes.”

Normally, out of the two, Mapi is the one who confides in Alexia the most. Alexia isn’t an openly emotional person and when she is it’s with Olga, because for some reason that woman can get everything and anything out of her. Here though, it’s clear Alexia needs someone to de stress with and Mapi is happy to take up that role.

“It’s just her Alexia, she’s always tired and drinking energy drinks, it’s how the kids these days do it.”

Mapi’s words are supposed to soothe Alexia, honestly they do the complete opposite.

“But she shouldn’t, she’s an athlete, she shouldn’t need them. Mapi, I am telling you, something is seriously wrong, I can feel it. I know she’s always tired, but she looks like she hasn’s slept in weeks and I don’t know why.”

Mapi, for the sake of trying to calm Alexia down, decides that instead of trying to invalidate her worries, it’s best to just try and reason with Ale.

“Ale, how about we go see her, if somethings wrong I’m sure she’d tell us.”

Alexia nods at Mapi, taking the extended arm that her friend gives her and allowing the Zaragozan to lead her back to the physio room she’d previously been in.

When she returns, she’s relieved to see that you look a lot better than how you had on the pitch. There are still grass stains across your face, but you’re less pale than you were before and you’re sipping on a gatorade which somehow makes Alexia feel less guilty about the whole situation.

“Hola pequena.”

Your eyes manage to meet Alexia’s, something that kind of shocks her, considering just how weighed down your eyes seem to be by the deep purple bags underneath your eyes.

“Bon dia.”

Alexia would not call this a good morning, she couldn’t even call it an okay one.

“What’s wrong?”

Alexia’s focus is on the physios, not you, she’s saving you for later.

“Luckily, not a lot. I checked her heart and I couldn’t find any abnormalities, it’s clear that she’s tired, she’s told me she woke up a little bit earlier than normal this morning which paired with the warmer weather and some minor dehydration is probably the main cause. She’ll take today off, rest up, but I can’t find anything that would indicate any serious underlying problems so there isn’t any reason why I would say she couldn’t be back on the pitch tomorrow.”

It’s a positive sign, but not what Alexia wants to hear, she wants something to be wrong, so that she can get to the bottom of whatever is happening to you.

“Good, thank you, do you think you could give us the room for a couple of minutes, por favor?”

The physio smiles at Alexia, giving her a nod before leaving the room discreetly.

As soon as Alexia is certain he is no longer within hearing distance, she pivots on her heel, so she’s facing you directly.

“What are you hiding?”

It’s so ominous, even Mapi thinks it’s a little bit far-fetched, as a 16 year old, Mapi was probably hiding more than she was sharing, it’s not really a fair question.

“What am I hiding?”

It sounds like you're even struggling to get words out, your voice is just so tired, like it’s taking up so much energy for you to speak a few simple words.

“Somethings wrong, you’ve been drinking all these energy drinks, which are not only far too caffeinated but also extremely bad for you and you look like you haven’t slept properly in weeks.”

You want to tell Alexia that she’s right, you aren’t sleeping properly, you haven’t been your whole life, but she wouldn’t be the first person who tried to help you and has failed miserably in the process, it’s quite simple, sleep and you just simply do not work.

“Anyone from England would tell you that I just drink energy drinks, it’s not that deep Alexia.”

Mapi is teetering on the edge of having to hold Alexia back from causing you bodily harm.

“Deep? Collapsing on a pitch is not deep? It seems pretty deep to me amor, you can hardly talk, you could hardly read this morning, it’s clear something is wrong and I want to know what.”

You don’t know how to tell Alexia that something isn’t wrong, this is just you, or the new version of you in Spain. Your insomnia had always affected you, moving to Spain had seemed to make it worse but you’d always lived like this, ever since you could remember, sleep was just something that you could never have consistently.

“Nothings wrong, I am fine, I don’t know what you want me to tell you.”

Alexia’s jaw sets and for a second Mapi does truly worry for you.

“I want you to not lie to my face.”

You visibly flinch at those words, you don’t want nor mean to lie to Alexia, but you figure you are saving yourself from a merry go round of painful conversations.

“I’m not lying.”

Alexia knows you are, she’s not stupid.

“Right, well you’ve got the day off, you’ll be coming home with me and staying with Olga and I until you look less like you are on the brink of a coma. María will go get your things.”

Mapi nods quickly at Alexia, walking out of the room as quickly as she can manage, leaving just you and Alexia.

Even though Alexia is mad, she begrudgingly helps you up from the bed, draping your arm over her shoulder to give you somebody to lean on as she walks the two of you out to her car. She’s just gotten you seated in the passenger seat and closed your door when Mapi pops up with your things. Before Alexia can hop into the car and get going, Mapi stops her.

“Be easy on her, si? She’s going through something and I know you want to know, I know you want to help her but whatever is wrong, she’s not talking about it for a reason. Maybe she doesn’t need you questioning her, just take a look, a proper look at her and see if you can get a better idea. For me?”

Alexia knows that Mapi won’t let go of her shirt without some kind of acknowledgement that she’s going to agree to her.

“Okay, I’ll go easy on her.”

It’s a half truth, Mapi seems to accept it though, letting go of Alexia’s shirt so that the Catalan can take her seat in her car and begin to drive the two of you home.

The car ride home is eerily silent, Alexia keeps her eyes focused on the road, her knuckles whitening from the grip she has on the steering wheel and her jaw so set that you begin to worry that her teeth must hurt from the constant clenching.

When the two of you pull up to Alexia’s house you’re feeling a lot better, your head is clearer and you don’t feel as broken as you had earlier.

You clamber out of the car, walking your way slowly to Alexia’s front door. Alexia bothers around with the keys, twisting them in the hole before opening up the door for the two of you.

“Ale? You’re home early.”

Olga’s voice filters in from the kitchen, the two of you making your way through until you spot her.

“Nena, is that you? I didn’t know we were going to have company, if I had I would have cleaned up a little bit for you.”

You shake your head at Olga, giving her a small smile that you’ve reserved just for Alexia’s partner.

“Go sit down on the couch, get your feet up.”

Alexia’s voice is stern, it immediately makes Olga frown at her.

Alexia allows her girlfriend to drag her from the kitchen and into their pantry.

“What’s with the mood?”

Olga’s happy space is her and Ale’s house, it’s supposed to be the one place that the both of them can get away from football and stress.

“Nena is hiding something, she collapsed at training and we don’t really know why but she does and she won’t tell us.”

Olga nods her head, the somehow younger but wiser woman putting on her thinking hat and trying to rationalise what Alexia is telling her.

“Don’t you think it would be smarter to try and be nice to her? I know that she’s fucked up, but it’s clear she just needs some love right now, maybe you should be giving it to her.”

Alexia thinks that Olga doesn’t understand the whole situation, she doesn’t see you everyday, doesn’t see how ragged you are and how deep this issue stems, but she also can’t not listen to her, the woman somehow tends to always be right and she can’t see why that would change now.

“Okay, okay.”

Olga smiles at her, getting up on her tiptoes to press a kiss to Alexia’s jaw before pushing her out of the pantry and back into the kitchen.

Alexia is unsurprised to find you dead asleep on her couch, your head lulled against one of her couch pillows. She’s glad, and decides to pocket the inevitable conversation she is going to have to have with you, instead opting to help her girlfriend make lunch.

You sleep for a total of 40 minutes, something that Alexia is less glad about. As soon as she notices you’re awake she’s forcing a bottle of water into your hands and two aspirins. You take them before she shoves them down your throat, taking multiple gulps of the water so Alexia didn’t have another reason to be mad with you.

To be fair, she looked a lot less mad than she had earlier, you wouldn’t even really describe how she looked as mad, more concerned.

Alexia sat down in front of you on the couch, taking a deep breath before she started speaking.

“I’m not going to force you to tell me anything, I understand that you are going through a lot, I just need you to know that I’m here for you, anything you need nena I am here to support you and try and help you however I think best.”

Alexia’s words cut deep for you, it’s a struggle for you not to break out in tears, as much as you really want to.

“I know Ale.”

She nods at you, holding back her own tears, there’s some kind of understanding between the two of you, that you aren’t going to cry or speak, just acknowledge each other for now.

“Olga’s made up the spare room for you, you’ll stay here until you’re in a better place. You’re welcome here and you’ll be no bother for the next couple of weeks.”

You nod your head, biting down on your tongue to stop yourself from arguing back to her.

The rest of the afternoon is fairly similar, you are fed by Olga and then spend the majority of the rest of the day lounging on the couch, occasionally falling asleep, but as Alexia notices, never for longer than 40 minutes. It’s like your body refuses to properly rest.

When dinner comes around you look just as exhausted as you had this morning, you just look a little bit less dead.

After dinner, you head off to bed, alexia’s glad, she’s hoping that you’ll have a nice long proper sleep and that all of this will be solved.

She’s wrong.

Instead of hopping into bed, you pull out your laptop, knowing that if you stand a chance at getting even two hours of sleep it’s not happening any time soon.

You work at your school work, completing the things you hadn’t finished earlier. When 12 o’clock rolls around, you force yourself away from your laptop and underneath the covers of alexia’s extremely comfortable spare bed.

You stare at the roof, every now and again you’ll twitch and for some reason it’ll hurt your brain. You play your favourite song over and over again in your head, praying that it’ll somehow lull you to sleep, it neves does. You stare at the ceiling and try to focus on the sound of the fan. You stare at the ceiling and wonder if the swirl pattern in it is mobing. You think about your favourite film and how the characters used to provide you so much peace. When you remember how much they meant to you, you let a few stray tears fall.

You stare at the ceiling.

Every once and a while, you’ll roll over and press your face into the pillows and pull the covers over your head and hope that if you hide somehow you’ll fall asleep.

Eventually, you’ll fall asleep.

Sometimes it takes hours, all for you to wake up half an hour later feeling as unsatisfied as ever.

It’s how you live, it’s the same routine every night, it’s your normal.

When 4am rolls around and you’ve managed to get a measly twenty minutes or so of sleep, you climb out of the sheets, annoyed that your glass of water is empty. Your eyes are dry and itchy with the feeling of needing to cry, you push that feeling deep into your gut, ignoring the desperate need to ignore your feelings in favour of keeping a strong face.

You try to be as quiet as possible, filling up your glass and taking a seat on Alexia’s couch, looking out of the window of her lounge room at the Barcelona skyline that lights up along her back fence.

“Nena is that you?”

You nearly jump out of your skin.

Alexia is standing in the kitchen, leaning up against the island, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and staring at you inquisitively.

“What are you doing awake?”

The words trigger something in you, it’s probably the half dazed state you’re in, the complete exhaustion and annoyance you’re experiencing at your inability to sleep, but all of a sudden, tears are dripping your face and you don’t know why or how.

Alexia freezes for a second, she’d expected something obviously, but crying was not one of those things.

She’s never seen you cry, she’s never had to deal with a teenager who is breaking down right in front of her eyes. She doesn’t know what to do, or how to help you, all she knows is that you are crying a lot and she is just standing and watching.

The problem solver in Alexia tells her that she has to do something, so she paces her way over to the couch, sitting down beside you and tentatively wrapping an arm around your shoulder. She doesn’t know whether or not it’s the right way to go, but it seems to pay off when you immediately relax into her, your head craning into the pocket of her neck and shoulder. Fresh, warm tears drip down onto Alexia’s skin.

Alexia is tense, her back as straight as a board. She doesn’t normally have to deal with this kind of thing, she doesn’t have to try and sympathise with feelings. She’s not an emotional person herself, she cries once a year normally and that’s on the anniversary of her fathers death.

“Nena, it’s okay, I’m here.”

Alexia’s words are calculated, strategic, like she’s reading them off of google or something. Truly, she doesn’t intend for them to come off that way, but it’s kind of just how they do.

Alexia waits for the tears to stop coming, she figures it has to happen, you can’t just cry forever.

The two of you sit like that, crisscrossed on the couch until you manage to compose yourself, until you’ve cried out all the annoyance and grievances over your current predicament.

In the past, your insomnia would stop you from sleeping for days, but eventually the exhaustion would catch up with you and you would get a good night or a few of sleep, but it had been weeks now of you living in Barcelona and sleep had been avoiding you the whole time.

“Nena, what’s wrong?”

Right now, it feels like everything is wrong, it feels like your whole world is upside and you want it to be normal, you want to just be able to close your eyes and get some fucking sleep.

“I can’t sleep.”

Alexia’s brow furrows.

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have had so many energy drinks, no?”

It’s the kind of reply you should have expected.

“No Alexia, I can’t sleep, I have insomnia.”

Alexia struggles with the translation in her head, in-som-ni-a?

“Sorry, what?”

You take a deep shaky breath, pulling your head away from Alexia’s chest so that you can rub the tears from your eyes with the sleeve of your shirt.

“Insomnia, I can’t sleep, medically. I have a condition that stops me from being able to sleep regularly.”

Alexia’s head all of a sudden starts working, she’s a little bit behind, it’s 4am after all and she’s struggling to keep her eyes open.

“You can’t sleep?”

You shake your head, Alexia wants to tell you that you’re being silly, but when she sees the pure heart break and exhaustion in your eyes she knows that you can’t be lying. You look so young, tear tracks all over your face and body caved in on itself.

“I can’t sleep.”

It makes more sense to alexia now, all the energy drinks, the exhaustion, the power naps.

“Have you talked to the team doctors about it, I’m sure they could give you medication or something that could make it better, this can’t go on forever, nena.”

You shake your head at Alexia, your exhaustion turning to fear.

“No and you have to promise you won’t either. I’ve been through it, the sleep tests, all of it. I won’t take drugs, you can't make me and I refuse to.”

It’s like you go from being a mellowed out version of yourself to an attack dog.

“Nena, you need help, you can’t keep playing when you can hardly keep yourself standing.”

You shake your head, so fast that Alexia worries you might pass out from the sudden and frequent movements.

“I’m not taking drugs, you can’t make me, I won’t do it.”

Alexia doesn’t know where this sudden defensiveness has come from, but she knows two things. She needs to make sure that you understand that she can be there for whatever you are going through whilst also trying to figure out what is your random refusal to not take medication.

“Wouldn’t it help some?”

It’s hard to explain your complete hatred for any kinds of drugs. You’d grown up in a household where your mom might as well have been a druggie with how little she was invested in your life and where your dad was a legitimate druggie.

You struggled to take paracetamol, let alone any kind of prescribed drug.

You were scared shitless that somehow, you would turn out like your father and that was the last thing you could ever want.

You didn’t come from a loving home, you didn’t come from a place where you got the newest cleats every year and the best training. You came from a home where grocery money was spent on cocaine and any football money was spent on heroin. You’d been lucky enough that you were good enough for England teams to notice you, for academies to notice you. You were always good enough that you didn’t have to fork out the extra money and if you did it was your own money.

That’s why you’d been so eager to get out of England, to come to Spain. It saved you from the lifestyle that you had been so desperate to get away from.

“I’m not going to take medication Ale.”

For a long time, you’d blamed the insomnia on the constant partying that happened at your house as a kid. Your dad was a revolving door house kind of person, there were always people inside of your house, women, druggies, sex workers, partiers. It was never ending, and for a logn while you’d just thought you couldn’t sleep because of the constant noise inside of your house. When you went away for your first camp at 11, you realised that just simply wasn’t it, you had a serious problem. Maybe it was a byproduct of always being in a house full of noise, or maybe it was just your fucked up ness, you just knew that somewhere along the way, everything in your brain started working backwards.

“Nena, you don’t have to take medication, but can you tell me why?”

You figure that you’ve already told Alexia too much, why stop now?

“My dad has drug problems, always has, probably always will. My mom was never really home as a kid, when she was it wasn’t pretty. I don’t want to turn out like them. That’s why I didn’t go home over the break”

Alexia’s heart drops. She’s been through her own problems with her family, her fathers death and so on. But she’s always had something and that is a safe place to go if she ever needs it. Her parents loved her, they did everything to protect her as a child, Alexia grew up in a space where she could be whoever she wanted and her parents would support her. You, to some extent, clearly didn’t and it explained a lot to her. It explained why you were so hesitant to accept help from anyone, and why you were such a lone wolf, you had to be for survival.

Alexia suddenly wraps her arms around you, all of a sudden feeling an overwhelming sense that she has to protect you, that you need her to keep you safe.

You’re crying again, it hurts less this time, it comes more from a place of exhaustion than annoyance and anger.

“I just want to rest Ale, I just want some peace.”

Alexia’s grip tightens, she’s compressing your bones in the best way possible.

“It’s okay nena, I’ve got you, it’s going to be okay.”

Alexia just holds you, until you exhaust yourself so much from the crying that you fall asleep.

She doesn’t want to wake you, not after everything you’ve just confessed to her, so she lays herself down on the couch, keeping you pulled tight to her chest as she drapes a blanket over the two of you and rests down against the pillows, deciding that she might as well get a few hours in for herself.

You wake up to the sun in your eyes and the smell of bacon and pancakes.

You feel better than you have in weeks, blinking the sleep away from your eyes and slowly sitting up as you adjust to your surroundings.

Alexia and Olga are in the kitchen, talking hushedly as Alexia cooks over the stove and Olga rocks with her from behind. It feels and looks intimate and you are so tempted to sneak out of the front door to leave them to their peace and avoid all the obvious issues that are going to have to be unpacked with your captain.

You’re seriously considering, but your plotting is stopped when Olga turns around to grab something and she spots you on the couch, conscious and awake.

“Bon Dia, nena.”

Alexia pivots as well, sending a smile towards you.

“Good morning, what time is it?”

Olga detaches herself from Alexia, moving towards the fridge.

“It’s just past six.”

2 and a half hours of sleep, that’s not bad at all, it’s better than you’ve had in weeks.

“Breakfast is almost done, if you want to take a seat at the table.”

You nod at Alexia, standing up from your spot on the couch and walking over to the dining table, taking a seat at the table and trying to tame your bed head whilst Alexia plates up the food.

The plate she hands you is full of food, bacon, toast, pancakes, sausages, fruit. It reminds you of home in a weird way, it’s not a truly traditional Spanish breakfast, more English and it seems like Ale’s done it for a reason.

She waits until you’ve started to tuck into your food before she starts speaking.

“I’ve scheduled a meeting with Jona and the medical team this morning, for you.”

Your boyd goes from relaxed and at peace to tense, Alexia knows it’s breaking your trust in a way, but she also knows that she’s now obligated to protect you.

“I told you I don't want doctors or drugs.”

Alexia takes a deep breath, looking over at Olga and being reminded that sometimes she has to do hard things.

“I know nena, and i’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to, I don’t think I could if I tried, but this can’t keep going. I did some research, there are some really good drugs for people that struggle like you, that aren’t addictive and can help lots. I’m not a doctor and neither are you. We don’t know about these things, it’s not our job, but there are people who do know about this stuff and they can try to help you, really help you. You can’t live like this, it’s not sustainable in any way, we need to find some way to fix this. Whether it’s therapy or medication or resting, you need something and you can’t provide it yourself.”

Alexia words are a punch to the gut, but they also make sense, she knows what she’s talking about.

“You promise that I won’t have to do anything I don’t want to?”

Alexia nods her head, she’s shocked that you’re already sort of agreeing with her.

“I promise nena, I just want to help you somehow, however that may be.”

You take a big bite of your food, and a gulp of the orange juice that Olga has set down next to you.

“I slept better than I have in months last night, because of you, I don’t know how or why but something you did made me sleep and if you think that I need help, then I can’t really argue with that. It needs to be on my own terms though.”

Alexia nods, this is so hard for you, accepting help, accepting that you have a problem that needs fixing.

“Of course nena.”

You nod, drawing all of your thoughts together.

“I think I need help Ale, I want help.”

[lovesuhng]

fake

fake dating, strangers to lovers, fluff w.c: 4.5k

The college exams were really getting to Johnny, but another complicated situation was troubling his mind: his parents' pressure for him to seriously date someone. It was no secret that Johnny was focused on his studies, but he also didn't miss a chance to have fun with friends and even get involved with some people, yet he never started a serious relationship.

One of Johnny's cousins' wedding was approaching and his mother asked him to be there, once again bringing up the fact that he wasn’t dating anyone. In response, Johnny ended up saying he was in a relationship, which was a big lie.

“Why did you tell your parents that?” Jaehyun, Johnny's friend and classmate, asked him while they were in the cafeteria.

“To see if they would stop pressuring me so much, but now I have a week to find a girl to pretend to be my girlfriend.”

“But that’s easy, look at how many women you’ve hooked up with here.”

The fact was that Johnny was well-known and very desired at college. His charm, good humor, and his sculptural body attracted a lot of attention.

“Yeah, but I don’t want to and can’t just take anyone. It’s a wedding!”

So, Jaehyun started suggesting various possible candidates, but Johnny had very convincing excuses. Then Jaehyun looked around the cafeteria and spotted you.

“Why not talk to her?”

Johnny looked in your direction, seeing you laugh at something your friend was saying. You both were in the same major, but you started college after Johnny, making him your senior. You and Johnny had talked a few times, but you were far from being friends. You were known for being a dedicated and very reserved student, not fond of attending the college parties, which made contact with him rare.

“But how am I supposed to ask her? I can’t just go up to her and say ‘do you want to pretend to be my girlfriend for a few days?’”

“That’s not my problem. Think about it, maybe fate will bring her your way in the next few days.”

And it seemed fate was indeed on Johnny’s side. He had gone to talk to the professor of the subject he had been a teaching assistant for the previous semester to resolve some issues. Upon arriving at the office door, he found you talking to the professor, saying you had some questions and needed help to finalize the final project for the subject.

“Unfortunately, I can’t help you because I need to make a short trip to take care of some personal matters.” That’s when the professor noticed someone at the door, directed his gaze to Johnny and asked him to come in. “But it seems you’re in luck. I think you know Johnny. He was my TA last term, and I think he can help you.”

“Really?!” You said, quite excited and hopeful.

“I can help, we just need to figure out some days and times that work, so I can also study for the final exams.”

“Perfect. Are you free after classes tomorrow?”

And so, you arranged to meet in the library the next day for Johnny to help you with the project. He was already waiting for you and it didn’t take long for you to arrive, a bit flustered trying to balance your notebook and notes in your hands, which made Johnny chuckle.

“Sorry for the delay, but the professor wouldn’t stop talking.”

“It’s fine, I just got here.”

After organizing your things on the table and turning on the notebook, you started asking questions and sharing some ideas you were considering for the project. Johnny proved to be very helpful, definitely more than you expected. After some time in the library, you left together heading to the exit, when Johnny offered you a ride since he had a car and saw you were heading to the bus stop. Initially, you tried to refuse but ended up accepting with the condition that you would stop at a coffee shop near your house.

Once there, you placed your orders, which you insisted on paying for, and began talking about various topics, like the similarities of being only children, your tattoos and their meanings, the reasons for choosing that major, and so on. You were discovering more about each other's lives when suddenly Johnny heard someone call his name and recognized his mother’s voice.

“My dear! It’s so good to see you here.”

“You too, mom. What are you doing here?”

“I came to buy some things for your cousin’s wedding and decided to stop for a coffee.” She then looked at you with a very friendly smile. You stood up to greet Johnny’s mother.

“Mom, this is…”

“Don’t tell me she’s your girlfriend?!”

You were about to say you were just a university colleague when Johnny interrupted.

“Yes. My girlfriend.”

Confusion was written all over your face. While being pulled into a hug by Johnny’s mother, you looked at him, seeking an explanation, he just whispered, “I’ll explain later, but please help me.”

“I can’t believe Johnny is finally dating and with such a beautiful woman like you.”

“Ah, thank you…”

“I’m leaving now. It was a pleasure meeting you, dear. And I look forward to seeing you at the wedding.”

“Of course, mom.” Johnny hugged you by the shoulders, startling you a bit. “We’ll definitely be there.”

After saying goodbye to Johnny’s mom with fake smiles, you pulled away from him and demanded an explanation.

“Long story short: I lied to my mom saying I had a girlfriend and she wants me to bring her to my cousin’s wedding. I hadn’t said who it was yet and I was going to talk to you about it before, but then my mom showed up and all this happened. I’m sorry for putting you in this situation.”

“And you think this will work?”

Johnny held your hand and kept his gaze on your eyes. That gave you butterflies, something you didn’t understand why it was happening.

“They say desperate times call for desperate measures. Will you help me?”

You took a deep breath and said, bringing a smile to the man in front of you, “You helped me, so… we have a wedding to go to.”

-

Since you had only a few days before the wedding, your meetings became more frequent, both inside and outside the university. Johnny helped you finish the project, which you presented impeccably and you also studied together for exams, each for your respective subjects, keeping each other company, thus forming a friendship between you.

Already on vacation and on the eve of the wedding, some final details were decided: the wedding and the reception would be in a neighboring town, so Johnny asked you to bring comfortable clothes for the trip and you created a story about your relationship in case anyone asked (you studied at the same university, Johnny always saw you in the corridors and fell in love with you, asked you out, and you had been dating for 2 months).

On Saturday morning, the day of the wedding, Johnny was already at your doorstep, waiting by the car and laughed when he saw you walking towards him with curlers in your hair, holding the dress and a small suitcase.

“Why are you like that?” Johnny laughed as he helped you put your things in the car.

“To speed things up, of course. We would be late if I did this at the hotel and I hate being late. And this isn’t the way to greet your ‘girlfriend’ on a saturday morning.”

“You're right. Good morning, my dear.” Johnny said, putting his hands on your waist and then laughing at the face you made. So, you decided to be as affectionate as he was. Standing on tiptoe, you gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, leaving him very surprised.

“Good morning, honey. Now let’s go, the road is long.”

That little kiss, innocent as it was, significantly affected Johnny, who took a while to process everything and got into the car.

A little over two hours later, you were at the hotel, and since you were returning the same day, Johnny only booked one room for you to get ready for the wedding. You checked in, ate something, and started preparing. You had already showered and were now doing your makeup. Johnny was in the shower but soon came out, complaining that he couldn’t put on the tie.

“I have no idea how to do this, I think I’ll go without it.”

“Calm down, Johnny, I’ll–” You stopped talking when you saw him with wet, messy hair, the first four buttons of his shirt open, giving a glimpse of his chest, and pants perfectly fitted to his body. Even like that, you thought Johnny was the most attractive man in the world and didn’t want to imagine how he would look when fully ready. You approached him, hoping he wouldn’t notice your blushing face, started buttoning his shirt and tied his tie perfectly. Unlike you, who was very “focused,” Johnny looked at every detail of your face, how your eyelashes were long, how your eyes were mesmerizing, how your lips seemed so soft that he wanted to kiss you right there, but he was snapped out of his trance when you patted his shoulder.

“How do you know how to tie ties?”

“I had to wear one for an event and watched some tutorials online.” You said, smiling. “I’ll add the final touches to my makeup and put on the dress.”

It didn’t take long for Johnny to get ready, so he waited for you until he heard, “Johnny, can you help me?” from the bathroom. He entered the room, seeing you struggling to zip up the dress, and quickly positioned himself behind you. This was your moment to hold your breath at his proximity as he slowly zipped up the dress. You felt your arm hair stand up when his breath touched your neck and when his hands touched your waist. You looked at each other in the mirror, and a smile appeared on your lips.

“So, how do I look?”

Johnny, even nervous, tried to talk to you more casually. “You’re so beautiful we might end up going from a fake relationship to a fake marriage.” He laughed at what he said, knowing he was trying to give you confidence. Johnny turned you to face him and said in a more serious tone, giving you goosebumps for the second time that day, “But seriously, you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met.”

Arriving at the wedding venue, Johnny extended his hand to help you out of the car. You held his hand, intertwining your fingers with his, after all, you had to appear as a couple from the moment you stepped into the wedding. You started to get nervous about it, but when you looked into Johnny’s eyes, you felt calmer. As the wedding was about to start, you only waved to Johnny’s parents, who were radiant with the fact that their son was “dating.” The wedding proceeded wonderfully. Mark, Johnny’s cousin, and his bride were happy, and from a distance, it was clear they truly loved each other. His speech made most people cry, including you, which Johnny noticed. In an unthinkable act, he wiped your tears and held your hand, caressing it afterward. You were startled for a second but then gave a subtle smile.

After the ceremony, there was the reception, where you had to really act like a couple. Johnny’s parents greeted you right away. His mother kept talking about how beautiful you were as a couple, made for each other, while his father said he was delighted to see that you made Johnny very happy. A few minutes later, your “mother-in-law” took you to meet Johnny’s aunts, leaving him alone with his father.

“I’m so happy for you, son. It’s clear how happy this girl makes you.”

“Really?”

“Of course. Just by looking at you, it’s obvious you’re head over heels for her.”

Johnny didn’t respond to his father, unsure of what to say. He just looked at where you were, cheerfully chatting with his aunts, fitting in like family. Your eyes crinkled as you smiled, your contagious laugh making him smile unconsciously. You noticed his gaze, smiled genuinely, as if to say everything was fine, and it was then Johnny realized he was actually falling for his fake girlfriend.

The party continued. You had already had a lot of fun with Johnny's aunts, talked to the newlyweds and even danced a bit. Now you were sitting next to Johnny, just waiting for the right time to head back to the hotel, after all, the weather was turning and you would need to hit the road before it started raining. That’s when the bride announced that it was time for the much-anticipated bouquet toss. You weren’t planning to join the others, but your “mother-in-law” pulled you in, you gave Johnny a look pleading for help, but he just gave you a "can't do anything" expression.

There you were, in the middle of some women, trying to give polite smiles but clearly not wanting to be in that situation. Then, you heard the bride’s voice saying that the next one to catch the bouquet would have to get married and soon started the countdown.

3

2

1

And by the irony of fate, the bouquet came your way and you caught it before it hit your face. Your wide-eyed expression made Johnny laugh as he rushed towards you. He was about to speak when his very excited mother arrived, saying:

“I knew that bouquet was yours! Now I want a photo of you two.”

You approached Johnny and whispered for only him to hear: “You two are the same, love taking photos of everything!” In the days you spent more time together, you discovered that photography was one of Johnny’s passions and that he was incredible at it.

When you saw Johnny’s mother positioning the phone for a picture of the two of you, you felt Johnny’s hand on your waist, pulling you closer and you felt a kind of warmth there. You posed for the photo, but you didn’t look like a couple. That’s when Johnny’s mother, quite cleverly, said, “Son, kiss your girlfriend!”

Johnny’s eyes widened. Now what? He couldn’t make you do anything like that. He couldn’t keep up this act. He was about to tell his mother the whole truth when he felt your hand on the back of his neck. There was a brief exchange of looks and you said, “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t have time to respond as your lips on his prevented him from doing so. It would be cliché to say that “it seemed like everything around had disappeared and only you two were there,” but that’s what was really happening. The gentle touch you gave to the back of Johnny’s neck with the hand not holding the bouquet was reciprocated by the way he held your waist. Johnny knew he was in trouble but didn’t want to think about it at that moment. For him, it was like a dream, but he was “awakened” when you pulled away, only to see the man in front of you with his eyes closed. You couldn’t help but smile when he opened his eyes and you ended up wiping the gloss that had stayed on his lips.

After a while, you decided to return to the hotel and, just as you arrived, a heavy rain started.

“It’s like we predicted this would happen,” said Johnny. He asked you to go to the room to start organizing your things while he settled a few things at the reception. The time you spent alone in the room was enough for you to think about everything that had happened, how much you loved being near Johnny, how welcomed you felt by his family, how nervous you got when you had to pretend to be his girlfriend and how much you loved that kiss. But, did he feel anything for you? Did he feel something with that kiss?

Some time later, Johnny returned to the room, and he didn’t look very happy. “The rain is getting worse and some trees have fallen on the road, so we’ll have to spend the night here.”

“Oh, that’s fine then.”

“You don’t mind us sharing the room?”

“Of course not, John, it’s okay. I’ll sleep on that little sofa and you can take the bed,” you said, pointing to the small sofa in the corner of the room.

“Are you crazy? I’ll sleep on the sofa and YOU can have the bed.”

“I think you’re the crazy one. Look at your size and the size of the sofa.” You were right. The sofa was too small for him, so you thought of a simple solution that made you nervous. “If you don’t mind, we can share the bed.” Johnny looked at you as if to say, “Are you sure about this?” You understood his expression completely and said, “It’s fine. We’ll put some pillows in the middle and it’ll be perfect. The bed is huge.”

After showering, Johnny was arranging the bed while you were combing your hair.

“Did you enjoy the wedding?”

“What? So much! Seriously, Johnny, your family is so lively and funny. I talked for ages with your mom and aunts.”

“I noticed. You even danced with them. You spent more time with them than with your boyfriend.”

“What’s up with that? You should have pulled me to dance.”

“Oh really?”

Then, Johnny picked up his phone and selected a song, specifically “More Than Words” by Extreme and, in a very exaggerated manner, extended his hand to invite you to dance with him in the middle of the hotel room. You couldn’t help but smile, which he noticed, and took his hand, accepting the invitation. The dance continued, Johnny made some exaggerated moves, leading you along with him. With each twirl he made you do, your laughter increased. It was amazing how, even in such a short time, you felt light and happy around Johnny, as he didn’t have to make any effort to make you smile, he just was… himself. The “exaggerated dance” went on for a few more minutes until Johnny lifted you and spun around, but ended up tripping and falling onto the bed, taking you with him. Despite the scare, you both laughed at the situation. But the smiles faded as you realized how close your faces were. You had been this close before, after all, you had kissed earlier, but it was all part of a “show”, now you were alone. Your mouths were almost meeting when Johnny’s phone rang, bringing you back to reality for the second time that day. You got off Johnny and went straight to the bathroom to catch your breath. Meanwhile, Johnny answered the call, discovering it was his mother, just asking if everything was alright.

When you left the bathroom, Johnny was already lying on his side of the bed, ready to sleep, and you did the same, wishing him a good night.

-

Although Johnny’s mind was racing because of everything that had happened the day before and because of the new feelings in his heart, he had a great night’s sleep, except he felt some weight on him. Because of the sun rays entering through the curtain gaps, he slowly opened his eyes and realized that the “weight” was your leg over his, your head using his arm as a pillow and your arms hugging him like he was a giant teddy bear. Johnny noticed that the pillow barrier you had made to divide the bed had fallen and now you were in that situation. He couldn’t help but smile when he saw your squished face, sleeping so peacefully and comfortably in his arms. As much as he wanted to stay there, he had to get out of bed. He tried to do it in a way that wouldn’t wake you, but it didn’t work, and your eyes started to open.

“Good morning, sleepyhead. Is this pillow comfortable?”

“Good morning, sort of, it’s just a bit hard…” The next second, you realized you were clinging to him and jumped out of bed. “OH MY GOD, JOHNNY, I’M SORRY! You must have slept all crooked because of me. How embarrassing!” You said while running your hands over your face, while Johnny, still in bed, just laughed at your “panic.”

-

As the days went by, you exchanged messages with trivial updates about what was happening in your lives. With each message you received, you could feel your heart beat faster just thinking it was from Johnny. All your friends knew when you were talking to him because you always had a silly smile on your face, like a lovesick teenager. Missing him so much, you decided to ask him out and he accepted right away.

You arrived in front of the chosen place: a homemade food restaurant where you had once worked and were still friends with Joe, the elderly owner. A few minutes later, Johnny arrived and he couldn’t help but smile when he saw you, especially because of the sunflower-patterned dress you were wearing. He didn’t miss the chance to joke, “Is that dress in my honor?” knowing that he had a sunflower tattooed on his forearm.

Upon entering the restaurant, you took Johnny’s hand to introduce him to the owner.

“Mr. Joe, it’s been so long!”

“Hi, my dear, I’ve missed you.” With a friendly smile, he turned his attention to Johnny. “Did you come to introduce me to your boyfriend?”

Lately, you two were so often mistaken for a couple that Johnny didn’t mind what was said but couldn’t help but feel sad when you stated that you were just friends.

“I see, well, enjoy the evening and maybe things will change tonight.” The elderly man shook Johnny’s hand, winking at him. Was it that obvious that he was in love with you?

You took the lead, followed by Johnny, who found it strange that you were heading somewhere other than where the customers were eating. He was about to ask where you were going when he was surprised as you reached the restaurant’s terrace. It was a rarely used place but very well-decorated and had an incredible view at night.

“Wow, this place is amazing!”

“I think so too. It was one of my favorite spots. I used to stay here during my breaks and sometimes came here to study or just think about life. The owner doesn’t use it much, but I asked a friend who still works here to set it up, just in case I brought someone here.

“And do you often bring people here?”

“To be honest, you’re the first person I’ve brought here.” Johnny gave a restrained smile, feeling special for some reason.

After placing your orders, you talked about various things. It was incredible how you always had so much to talk about. Then, a cold breeze passed, making you shiver and complain about wearing a dress and forgetting your jacket. Within seconds, Johnny promptly got up, took off his jacket and put it on your shoulders, making you momentarily forget how to breathe due to his sudden closeness.

When he returned to his seat, Johnny found it odd that you started laughing for apparently no reason.

“Please don’t get me wrong, I just think it’s amazing how you can sometimes be so sweet despite being so...” You gestured to indicate his height.

“Tall? Handsome? Hot? No need to be at a loss for words to describe me. They say that’s my charm: being sweet to balance out the fact that I’m extremely attractive” Johnny said in a charming tone and you decided to play along.

“For sure, and very modest too.”

After dinner and more conversation, you suggested to Johnny that you go to an ice cream shop near your place.

“What? But weren’t you cold?”

“No cold can make me refuse a good ice cream.”

And that’s how you ended up on your street, heading to your building with your ice creams, you looking like a happy child finally eating your favorite dessert and Johnny laughing at everything you said.

“Well, I guess this is where we say goodbye,” you said, but deep down you didn’t want the night to end.

“The night was amazing. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time.”

“Oh! Before I forget.” You said while taking off the jacket and handing it back to Johnny. “I swear I’ll bring mine next time.”

“So, there will be a next time?” Johnny said provocatively while putting on his jacket. You pretended to be thoughtful for a second and replied, “Maybe… Wait a second.”

You stepped closer to Johnny to adjust his jacket collar, bringing you just inches apart. Your eyes locked, but this time in a more intense way. You could admire Johnny’s beautiful honey-colored eyes while he examined every detail of your face, which looked even more beautiful in the moonlight. You made a move to pull away, but Johnny placed his hands on your waist, preventing you from leaving. Your gaze dropped to his mouth as he said, “You’ve already kissed me once, what are you waiting for to do it again?”

“Now it’s your turn to take the initiative. Kiss me, John.”

Closing the minimal gap between you, Johnny kissed you. Unlike the first time, you felt the intensity of this kiss, and when Johnny’s tongue touched yours, you could swear you would explode with happiness, so much so that it made you smile in the middle of the kiss, causing Johnny to pull away, laughing. “Are you that happy to kiss me?”

“Of course. Because now we’re really kissing.” You kissed Johnny again, unable to believe he felt something for you too. “Hm, does this mean we’re really dating now?”

“Hmm, let’s see.” Johnny made a mock thoughtful face and listed what had already happened between you two. “I’ve introduced you to my family, we went to a wedding as a couple, we slept together… so I guess we are dating.”

“Good.” You threw yourself into Johnny’s arms, standing on tiptoe. “I won’t have to pretend anymore for your family because next week I’m going to play golf with your mom and your aunts.” You said, giving him a peck.

“YOU WHAT?”

“That’s right, I’m going to spend some quality time with my mother-in-law and show her that I’m the best girlfriend her son could have.”

Johnny’s laughter made you smile even more, he couldn’t believe how quickly you had won over his mother. He hugged you tighter, lifting you off the ground.

“Get inside before I end up kissing you all night, girlfriend.”

“There’s nothing stopping you from doing that, boyfriend.”

You both smiled and kissed once more, savoring the moment that was more real than ever.

[pleaseeeimjustagirl]

You Need A Resting Season

What is a resting season?

As women, we pour so much into others (family, friends, siblings, pets) forgetting about ourselves. We work ourselves into overdrive feeling empty like life is passing us by and we don't know who we are or what we want. And if you feel this way you need a resting season, a resting season is like going into hibernation pulling away from the world and all of the unnecessary stress that we put on ourselves. While in your resting season, you are going to be quitting a lot of the things you used to do. A lot of high-stress activities that aren’t a priority such as school and work. This is the time for you to rest and pour into yourself. Work on the issues you have with yourself maybe you lack self-love, self-esteem, self-worth, or confidence maybe you want to lose weight and better your skin. It is time for you to invest in yourself and fix the things you can change and not worry about the things you can’t change. For every woman a resting season is different so it is important to know your priorities, the improvements you want to make, and what your resting season is for.

Signs you may need a resting season 

♡ You are burned out. Even though are getting a full night of sleep you have this never-ending feeling of being tired of life, your daily cycle, your environment, and so on.

♡ Life isn’t fun anymore. You feel like you are in a never-ending cycle going from school/work to home. You could be giving too much of yourself to others, leaving no room for enjoyment, hobbies, and self-care.

♡ You're always worried. You may be feeling overwhelmed by all the tasks and obligations you have in life. You constantly have too many thoughts circling in your head never giving you the time to think.

♡ You don’t know what path you're going down. Maybe the dream career you thought wanted you do not want anymore, you have switched your major a bunch of times and still don't feel connected to it. 

♡ Social media Is taking over your life. You spend hours on end on social media watching and reading toxic content and you need to step away and reconnect with yourself and the real world.

♡ You want to level up. You lack self-love and confidence you don’t like the person you see in the mirror anymore. She is tired, overworked, unhealthy, and doesn’t take time for herself.

These are just a few but there can be so many more reasons why you need a resting season. 

I am currently in my resting season 

Some of the reasons above resonated with me a lot I woke up one day and realized I was burned out I was stressing myself out with so many requirements to be perfect, rich, and live a certain lifestyle by a certain age. I switched my major in college a bunch of times I plan on graduating in 2025 with a bachelor in science of psychology but after I'm going to accelerated nursing school. I felt like a failure for a little while thinking I wasted 4+ years of my life chasing a degree that I don't even want now. I didn't like what I saw in the mirror and I had a lot of negative self-talk. But then it clicked to me I needed to check out from life for a little while and focus on myself and work on me. I wrote out my goals, what I needed to fix about myself, and the women I wanted to be coming out of this resting season. And I started that day working on myself  I have changed a lot. I'm still in my resting season working on myself, investing in myself daily to become that woman of my dreams this is why I made this blog<3. 

You can work on yourself without being in a resting season but I recommend resting seasons because they are better for focusing with no distractions other than things you must. If you feel a connection to this post maybe it is time for you to get into your resting season 

I'm open to any comments or private messages if you can relate and please let me know any further topics you want me to cover

[heavenlymorals]

Why are you always trying to paint Arthur as a misogynist? When he clearly isn't??? I like your posts by why do you hyper fixate on stuff like that?

Hello anon and thanks for the ask.

Well, quite simply, I "paint" Arthur as someone who actively believes in and enforces gender roles because he does so in the game. It's a part of his writing and his character. The canon Arthur is NOTHING like how the fandom here on Tumblr portrays him as. That's also a reason why I started making these posts because I honestly hate when fanon becomes the accepted truth of characters and not the actual canon. It happens all the time.

I'm a very pragmatic person and this will show in my posts. I don't care about what characters COULD be and I focus more on what they ACTUALLY are. That's why my retrospective posts are usually looked at through a psychological, sociological, cultural, feminist, and/or literary point of view. I look at characters and learn things about them through their actions and words, as well as the time period that they are a part of. I do not care at all about making characters seem morally better, especially when it comes to historical attitudes because those historical attitudes aren't as historical as we make them out to be.

They still affect us every single day and only recently have we started pushing back- that's also not mentioning cultures where these attitudes are STILL encouraged, which then changes the way people think. Understanding historical attitudes allows us to understand not only our own cultures better, but people as well and why they do the things they do.

Now let's talk about Arthur. Arthur is a man born in 1863. Women couldn't even get a credit card by themselves without a man till 1974. To put it quite simply, he lived in a time era where women had almost 0 rights and those women who did succeed in life usually had some sort of male support. People supported this system, both male and female. Did you know that when the suffrage movement began, most American women didn't give a fuck because they believed that was men's duties, not their own? Point is is that even if Arthur is a lot more lenient regarding this stuff, he still actively believes in it because of how pungent it was in the society he lived in.

The first mission we have with the female gang members is heading to Valentine. The first thing he says to them is whether Miss Grimshaw could spare them from their domestic chores, already showing that in the gang, the girls' main duty is the domestic work and that Arthur supports this. Later in that mission, when he chases down Jimmy Brooks, he puts Uncle in charge of bringing them back home, even though he is an old ass man and they are three young, healthy, and capable women. In one mission, you got two examples of Arthur being an active encourager of gender roles.

And then there is Sadie- when she expresses her frustration over the work she has to do, he tries to shut her down. When she gets her pants, he mocks her: "You get a pair of pants and all of a sudden you think you're Landon Ricketts?" When she asks Dutch when she can go robbing with them, both him and Dutch laugh her off. When they bust John out of prison, he does it with her cuz literally no one else would help him and when they escape on the boat, he gets visibly annoyed that she doesn't take his hand. There are even more examples of things like this when he antagonizes her, but that's just the main game.

And there is the antagonizations of women performers. "Women shouldn't be doing this." "Go make someone some supper." "Go back to the kitchen." "This ain't ladylike." I'm sorry, but these need no explanations. His antagonize lines are just as canon as his greet lines and the fact that he says stuff like that shows that he believes in gender roles. It's an active part of his belief system.

There are so many more examples of this and the majority of them are subtle but I come from a culture that still treats its women like the 1800s treated theirs so when I ever pick up on these things, it's cuz I've lived it before.

And my final point- this is a historical game. Rockstar made sure to be as accurate as they can in regards to the time period- so characters not only react to historical attitudes but they are a part of it as well. Same goes for Arthur. He's a historical character with a historical background and historical attitudes- and that comes with the good, like chivalry, and the bad, sexism. You shouldn't play a game like RDR if you're expecting characters to feel modern in their thought processes.

Thank you and have a great day.

[scekrex]

IM BACK WITH ANOTHER REQUEST

i will most likely appear often so HAH

So like adam has a band right? And they make copious amounts of merch, like think adam plushies and shit, and ftm or male reader finds this merch in a random store and just decides to splurge on adam plushies and shirts and all this crap because he wants to support his boyfriend yea? It can be fallen adam or angel adam, adam’s adam lmao

(i wanted to add ftm because i am ftm, u can make it just plain male if that works better!)

Nuh uh bitch, you want ftm so we're making it ftm also this turned out a lil short but I hope you like it nonetheless.

That’s my fucking boyfriend, you intolerant cunts

pairing: Adam x trans!male!reader

warnings: language, reader gets misgendered (once)

note: not beta read bc fuck you

Having a famous boyfriend wasn’t always a good thing, especially when said boyfriend was Adam. It was bad enough that basically all of Heaven knew him for being the first man, the fact that Adam had decided to also be the lead singer and the face of his own band made it even worse, because that gave strangers an actual reason to walk up to Adam and talk to him. And now people did not only know Adam, they also knew you. He wasn’t very subtle about dating you - not that you wanted him to be, you found it quite adorable how proud Adam was of having you as his boyfriend. But Heaven’s people could be complicated and less tolerant - a thing you had to learn the hard way.

The intolerance of people had been way worse when the brunette and you had just started dating years ago, back then people didn’t even know Adam was bisexual. You and him were walking through Heaven’s streets, having a nice chat while also enjoying each other's company. The first man had his arm wrapped around your waist, he made it quite obvious that he liked you, not only by the way he looked at you every now and then, but also by his body language. The tip of his wing rested on your shoulder, he had you pressed close to his side - seeming a little overprotective and maybe even possessive.

That was when a small crowd of people surrounded the both of you, taking pictures of you and your boyfriend without your consent and asking Adam a million questions. Out of reflex you pressed your body against Adam’s side, trying desperately to escape the curious eyes and the flashing cameras. Adam was quick to raise his wing and shield you from their view. “How are you?” one of them asked Adam, not noticing that they were interrupting a sweet moment between boyfriends. “Can we take a picture together?” another angel asked as they took a picture of Adam without his consent. “Who’s the chick you’re hiding?” And that question made you tense up. A chick. They thought you were a woman. But before you were able to correct them, the first man pushed the noisy people out of the way - and let’s just say that he wasn’t gentle about it - as he hissed, “That’s my fucking boyfriend, you intolerant cunts.”

But then there were the bright sides of having a famous boyfriend - the merch. Well, actually there were more bright sides than just merch, but seeing shirts with your boyfriend’s face printed on it was quite hilarious to you and the fact that multiple stores in Heaven sold the merch of Adam’s band with such pride made it even better. The store you were in that very day made it even better. The brunette had told you a couple weeks ago that he and his band were working on selling plushies of themselves - he had explained that chicks loved cute shit and given that the majority of their fans were women that made a lot of sense. At least to you and Adam.

You stepped up to the shelves and took a closer look at the new plushies and you chuckled how inaccurate they looked. You didn’t know whether Adam and his band mates wanted them to look like that or if the production simply fucked up, but knowing your boyfriend and his friends, they most likely were too lazy to design them to look accurate. You grabbed one of the Adam plushies off the shelf - it was surprisingly soft - and without thinking twice about it you put the soft plushie in the shape of your boyfriend in your shopping cart. The other plushies on the shelf followed and the shirts hanging from the wall didn’t remain untouched either - let’s just say that you were quite surprised by how many different printed shirts they had with Adam’s face on it, because fuck, there had been a lot.

When you got back home from grocery shopping a couple hours later, Adam chuckled at how you tried to drag the quite heavy bags into the kitchen before he decided to help you with it. “The fuck did you buy? Rocks?” he joked as he lifted the heavy bags onto the kitchen counter. The brunette opened one of the bags to help you put away the groceries and when he was met with one of the plushies he and his band mates started to sell not so long ago, he raised an eyebrow at you. You simply shrugged, grabbed the bag filled with merch and pulled it off the counter, “Someone’s gotta support your ass after all.” And Adam couldn’t really argue against that.

[morlock-holmes]

Part of my confusion about "Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria" is that it's really just... not a good term? It doesn't really reflect what it's supposed to, which is the idea that some teenagers essentially take on a trans identity as a sort of social role spurred on by friend groups.

I think that this is likely to be actually true in at least some sense, so I was amazed at how unconvincing the Littman paper which coined the term actually is. The parental narratives advanced in that paper are just unbelievable on their face.

Ever since the gay rights movement I've felt that our vocabulary for talking about this stuff is deliberately incredibly stupid, for reasons I haven't quite been able to suss out.

In the gay rights battles, everybody got together and agreed that there were exactly two possibilities:

Gay people are born that way

Gay people made a choice to be gay

I think this is really dumb because those are really obviously not the only two options, and also because there's lots of biological "born this way" things we still treat or try to eliminate, and lots of choices that are still incredibly important to protect.

But also, like, okay, think about sexual fetishes. Say you have a guy with a cheerleader fetish. Cheerleaders are a contingent social phenomenon; no 12th century Breton had a cheerleader fetish. The possibility of such a fetish arose with the invention of the cheerleader.

But it's just as obvious that people do not choose their fetishes the way that they choose, say, a new car. Nobody says, "After listing out the pros and cons, I felt that having a cheerleader fetish was the best choice, because it combines a little bit of exotic spice while still being mainstream enough that it can't be used as blackmail if people find out about it."

No, one day you just realize that you think cheerleaders are really hot.

I do tend to think that gender identity is, for most people, a lot less immediately set in stone than sexual orientation is. My personal impression is that the vast majority of people start to understand very quickly whether they are attracted to men, women, or both, and that they only tell themselves differently because they fear social censure.

I'm not really convinced that the same is true of gender identity; I think that for an extremely large number of people it does function a bit more like a fetish, in that there are people who encounter the idea for the first time, go, "Huh, yeah that's cool or whatever" and after repeated encounters come to think, "Actually I am really into this."

I'm very, very suspicious of the tendency to then assert that this must inherently, then, be a discovery of something that always existed within the person since birth.

There's also the fact that gender roles exist, and people want to be legible to people around them.

For a lot of people, dressing up as a vampire on Halloween is fun, but dressing up as a vampire to go grocery shopping in June would be deeply embarrassing. Because on Halloween all the people around you understand why you're dressed that way and your dress makes you part of a larger social whole; in June you're going against the grain, marking yourself out from the people around you, probably drawing stares and hidden smiles.

Because sex roles in our society are so set in stone, there is a certain extreme dissatisfaction with not following them, even when allowed to do so.

I can wear chokers and frills and pretty hair ribbons if I want, but the women around me can do that anywhere in the country and have people think of it as normal, as obvious, rather than *a statement*.

Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria, from reading the Littman paper, seems to refer to a parental conviction that their child essentially got the idea to be trans from a peer group who convinced them they were trans despite a lack of gender dysphoria in childhood.

Like I said, the general narrative is really, really hard to believe at face value, for example:

A total of 63.8% of the parents have been called “transphobic” or “bigoted” by their children for one or more reasons, the most common being for: disagreeing with the child about the child’s self-assessment of being transgender (51.2%); recommending that the child take more time to figure out if their feelings of gender dysphoria persist or go away (44.6%); expressing concerns for the child’s future if they take hormones and/or have surgery (40.4%); calling their child by the pronouns they used to use (37.9%); telling the child they thought that hormones or surgery would not help them (37.5%); recommending that their child work on other mental health issues first to determine if they are the cause of the dysphoria (33.3%); calling the child by their birth name (33.3%); or recommending a comprehensive mental health evaluation before starting hormones and/or surgery (20.8%)

So, like, the whole tenor of the paper is that these are basically very liberal parents who are sort of being cut off by their kids for no reason, but like...

This is typical of the general weasel wording used by Littman. Are the third of parents who called their kids by pronouns they used to use going, "She - Oops, he, I'm sorry" one time and getting blasted? Do they claim to be trying but just get it wrong literally every single time? Or do they just flat out refuse to call their child by their preferred pronouns?

When my brother was first entering high school, he joined the Sea Scouts, a division of the Boy Scouts dedicated to learning about sailing. He later entered a maritime college and has had a succession of maritime jobs, which will likely be his career for the rest of his life.

Is that the result of social contagion or was he born that way?

I think the question is obviously both absurd and irrelevant.

[depravitycentral]

Yandere Machi Komacine General Profile

Yandere! Machi Komacine x fem! reader

Tw: kidnapping, stalking, violence, decapitation, murder, slight infantilization/Machi thinks you're incapable but it's more frustrating than creepy, Machi has some emotional issues processing and she can't regulate her feelings well, mentions of assault, mentions of non-con, Chrollo plays a major role in your kidnapping because he's a nasty man, threats, explicit depictions of torture, fem reader, MDNI

I do not condone any of the actions described in this post - this is fiction and should be treated as such. If you or a loved one is in a similar situation to anything contained in this post or my blog in general, please seek help. You're in charge of your internet consumption; please make responsible choices. With that, enjoy!

WC: 10K

Shy

In general, Machi likes the idea of being a protector.

 There’s something endearing about the idea of having a sweet little thing to call her own and to keep hers, and having a darling who isn’t as prone to interacting with others is ideal for her. It helps quell her possessiveness, acting as an additional comfort to know that they don’t willingly start interactions with most people.

Plus, this is helpful for her, specifically, because it means that her darling won’t be constantly trying to talk to her.

It’s not that Machi doesn’t want to speak with them – she does, desperately – but rather that it’s so difficult for her to be vulnerable that a darling that isn’t excessively talkative to strangers helps bar her from saying something embarrassing or weird or scary.

It helps calm her nerves, knowing that her darling is more withdrawn and struggles to effectively communicate with strangers, and in a lot of ways it makes Machi’s heart warm.

Because in some ways, they’re similar – Machi isn’t shy, per se, but she’s not the most talkative, and a darling who shares this trait is adorable to her, someone she wants to wrap up in her arms and keep protected from the world.

(And keep the world from seeing them, of course, but that doesn’t sound quite as poetic or romantic.)

She just likes the idea of a shier darling, not only because their easily flustered state in social situations is endearing, but also because it makes her job much, much easier.

Optimistic

In a lot of ways, Machi wants someone who is the opposite of her.

She needs someone who is soft, warm, fuzzy, and – above all else – not nearly as pessimistic as her.

Machi has good reason to be so negative – a tumultuous childhood coupled with a life of crime hardens a person and makes them expect the worst case scenario, but even she can admit that there’s something endearing about a darling who sees the world with rose colored glasses.

It’s refreshing, something she’s utterly unfamiliar with given her lifestyle and companions, but it’s sweet in a way.

Perhaps a bit naïve of them – something that makes Machi silently scold them for – but cute nonetheless.

It’s like her darling is a ray of sunshine, one she desperately needs to keep her from falling into a void of negative thoughts, death, and theft.

And really, it’s this trait above all else that prompts her infatuation to form – her darling is just so damn positive, always trying to make the best of situations, even to a degree of irritation.

It makes Machi want to throttle them, anger growing in her veins because they need to be more realistic about others’ intentions, if only for their own safety.

But it also makes her want to envelope them in the tightest hug, keeping them firmly against her chest and hearing their soft breaths and warm voice, her skin prickling pleasantly because it feels so good to have someone so happy in her arms.

It makes her happy, too – no easy feat.

Homebody

Similarly to her ideal darling being shy, Machi really likes the idea of a darling who isn’t constantly out on the town.

She has no inherent issues with women who like to club or party or even frequently go out for a meal or drinks with friends, but for her darling, a homebody is preferable.

It’s simply a matter of Machi feeling confident that her darling is being safe – if they’re at home, the chances of them being assaulted or killed or mugged is significantly lower, and it helps quell the constant paranoia that eats at her regarding her darling’s wellbeing.

It means they’ll probably be wrapped up in a warm blanket with their phone perched in their hands, or the TV on, or a good book holding their attention rather than meeting someone, potentially speaking with them, dancing with them, or – god forbid – touching them.

(It hurts her deeply to imagine someone touching her darling, of course, but there’s something worse about the idea of her darling touching someone else – a sense of foreboding and anger over their safety, of course, but also a sense of rejection, a feeling of deep-seated and buried insecurity washing over her.)

And this just makes life easier once she eventually steals them away; it’s much easier to mitigate any sort of escape attempt or desire to return to the outside world if her darling is naturally not especially eager to be in crowded spaces.

Besides, Machi doesn’t mind the idea of spending time at home with them – give her time, but eventually she’ll be more than happy to sit beside them on the couch, a few inches of space between her body and her darling’s, enjoying the quiet atmosphere and the feeling of simply being together.

It’s cheesy and cliché and she knows it, but she doesn’t care – her darling turns her into a sap anyways, so what’s another addition to that sentiment?

Capable

Of course, as Machi’s darling, you’d never, ever have to worry about any sort of personal care.

She’ll do absolutely everything for her beloved; she’s already got their favorite foods stocked in the cabinets (but only the healthier ones – her darling can’t be having too much sugar or salt, no matter how much they like it), enough menstrual supplies to last the rest of her darling’s life, and more blankets and fans than imaginable to keep her darling at a comfortable temperature and not overheat or freeze.

She likes the idea of taking care of her darling, and while they’ll never be able to escape this aspect of being the object of her affections, Machi does like the idea that her darling is somewhat able to take care of themselves.

She likes the idea that they aren’t utterly incapable, that they’re able to do the bare minimum to make sure they stay healthy and in reasonably good physical health, with minimal scratches and injuries marring their pretty skin.

It calms her slightly when she’s still initially just stalking them, her worries and anxieties calming slightly every time she sees them drinking water or stepping into the shower.

It just makes her feel good, and while she’ll still oversee all their care once they’re under her captivity, it almost makes a small swell of pride bloom in her chest because yes, they know how to take care of themselves, and yes, that’s wildly attractive to her.

A capable darling is her ideal – and likely a major part of what attracts her to her darling in the first place.

GENERAL YANDERE TRAITS:

Distant

In general, Machi has an incredibly difficult time being vulnerable.

She’s grown up under the impression that to show any sort of love or softness is a weakness, something that can be exploited and will ultimately be her downfall. It’s led to her being closed off, holding her emotions so close to her chest that sometimes she doesn’t even realize what she’s feeling, becoming so blinded by the need to hide her emotions that they almost disappear.

And where romance is concerned is certainly no different – though, there’s certainly no way to mistake or miss the emotions you spark within her, coming up and rising up the back of her throat and demanding her attention all the fucking time.

She’s completely floored by how intensely you make her feel, how fast her heart races around you, how her palms grow sweaty and her nen spikes ever so slightly in your presence, and to be honest Machi hates it at first. She hates how weak you make her feel, how her every sense is heightened the second you walk into a room, and while she knows it’s stupid to blame you for the way her body just seems to react to you, she can’t help it.

She’s never been the best at displaying emotion or really even reconciling how she feels at any given moment, and for a long time she pushes off her feelings for you, playing them off as nothing more than a passing interest, a few ‘she’s cute and that’s it’s being pounded into her mind.

(All the while she tries to ignore the way she wants nothing more than to make you laugh and smile, to see your eyes light up and hear that lovely chiming voice you have directed solely at her.)

(The whole time she’s trying to pretend like her eyes don’t automatically wander to you, focusing in on your hair, face, figure, and oh, when you wear that certain top with the low neckline… It’s embarrassing how strongly such a simple article of clothing can affect her, and it’ll often make her huff and desperately try to stop staring, glaring at anyone nearby just as a distraction from her racing heart and pink cheeks.)

And even once she eventually realizes that repressing those urges and emotions for you only make them stronger, she does no better at letting herself really succumb to them – she’s fighting tooth and nail, terrified of the way you make her feel, of the depth and intensity of the feelings that you give her without you even trying.

She’s honestly afraid of herself in moments where her desire for you grows stronger – every part of herself seems foreign once you step into the picture, even her most basic emotional responses to things like blankets (would you like this blanket? It’s soft, and she knows you like the color – you’d look stupid all wrapped up in it, though. Stupid. Cute. But stupid.), or even frying pans (would you let her cook for you? She’s decently talented in the kitchen, and while she’d be too embaressed to watch you eat something she herself made you, the pride that would swell in her chest makes looking at the nice, black, shiny frying pan in the store a little flustering.)

She’s afraid of her urges to care for you and protect you because you’re so fucking weak compared to her. She’s never been this nice before, this caring or genuinely invested in the wellbeing of someone outside of possibly Chrollo or a few other members of the Troupe, and the realization that hits her late one night as she’s staring aimlessly up at the ceiling (her mind running in circles around you as it so often does) startled her to her very core.

You bring out the side of Machi that she’d buried down so many years ago, that was only alive when she was very young, stupidly foolish and naively willing to hope against hope that someday she’d find someone to love, someone to be happy with and live a full, perfect life.

You make a piece of her that’s long been lost return, and once she understands that she has to face this new part of her head on, that she can’t keep turning a blind eye because it’s literally killing her to not give into the urges and feelings this new part of her is impressing, Machi is pulling back even further, trying to wade through the thick waters of her own feelings and wants.

And poor, poor you will be left to wonder why she always seems so angry, why she always seems to be glaring at you, one step away from killing you. She must hate you, you rationalize, and when you begin trying to act more colloquial and not as friendly or sweet as before, it’ll only further Machi’s confusion and the swirling of emotions brewing inside her.

It will only further her internal battle about whether it’s okay to let herself be vulnerable (as long as it’s for you, there’s a large part of Machi that thinks she could be anything and everything so long as it makes you happy), or only further her distant behavior.

It’s a miscommunication that Machi isn’t sure how to fix, and while she’ll eventually grow warmer towards you, let herself get more and more vulnerable around you, it’s a slow process – one that can only happen in the context of her being around you constantly, something that sounds simultaneously terrifying and wonderful beyond belief.

Selfless

Despite her internal wavering on whether it’s really okay to embrace the sick dependency she’s developed on you and against everything she’s ever tried to be, there is one thing that Machi is absolutely sure about.

That is, she will be making sure that you live the easiest life you possibly can.

She genuinely cares about you, and Machi is fiercely protective of the very few that she holds near and dear to her heart – and you, being the one who very much holds her heart, become the apple of her eye, her main focus in her day-to-day life outside of Troupe work.

She knows that as a member of the Troupe, she’s putting you in danger simply by existing in your presence, and with her feelings towards you being so strong, so painfully obvious?

Well, it’s a worry constantly eating at the back of her mind that someday you’ll be used against her, that you’ll be leverage or that someone will hurt you (or, god forbid kill you) just to get back at her and the rest of the organization.

There’s a constant sense of paranoia Machi feels when she thinks about all of the horrible, unforgiveable acts she’s committed, because while her conscience doesn’t harbor any guilt, she does harbor guilt towards you, because she’s now made you a target. She’s effectively placed a bulls eye on your back, and while it may be difficult for everyday strangers to tell that Machi harbors feelings for you, those committed to the downfall of the organization will be able to tell.

(Her longing looks and the way her nen gets a bit unpredictable around you are dead giveaways – you don’t notice, bless sweet little you, but the Hunter that’s been trailing the Troupe’s activities for the last few months will. And despite all the moral high ground the Hunters seem to tout about having, Machi knows for a fact that your death would be a welcome sacrifice in order to hurt the Spider.)

She’s painfully aware of all your flaws in terms of defending yourself in the position she’s placed you in, and the thought honest to god terrifies Machi. The guilt at knowing you’re constantly in danger because of her is almost too much to bear, and the only way she can help alleviate some of it is by becoming your guardian angel of sorts.

(It’s ironic, truly, and it’s something that she would rather die than admit, but despite her criminal status she’s actually a good force for you – at least, she hopes so.)

She does a lot for you behind your back.

Some are large favors, things that take up a decent amount of her time and effort, but she doesn’t mind because it’s for you.  

(That group of men who’d been eyeing you up on your walk home from the subway station? Well, they aren’t exactly smart, are they, when they so blindly and naively follow Machi into a dark alleyway, their leering gazes and hands poised to grope making their deaths a much slower and more painful process than she’d normally bother with. After all, she knows exactly what they were planning on doing; the crude whistling and licking of their lips not hiding their intentions especially well. And  although she’d never touch you without your eager consent – and perhaps not even then – she’s well aware of their intentions because she wants to touch you and fuck that cute cunt of yours, too.)

Some are smaller favors, things that aren’t too big of a deal but make Machi feel better about endangering your life, because at least she’s trying to better it, too.

(It takes hardly any time or effort at all to slip a vitamin or two into your drinks or food, just because she’s noticed you’ve looked a bit more tired these last few days, that there’s bags starting to form under your eyes, and how could she possibly live with herself if you were being neglected under her care? Besides, she knows you wouldn’t go out and buy these things for yourself – or at least not with the consistency you really should have.)

You likely won’t notice anything at first – Machi is a part of the Troupe for a reason, and though she doesn’t possess Shizuku’s abilities, she’s most definitely able to not leave a trace. So by the time you start noticing how there seems to be a steady supply of vegetables in your refrigerator that you don’t remember buying (only your favorites, of course), or when your bottles of shampoo and conditioner never seem to run out, Machi will have already been at her job of making sure that you’re well taken care of for months.

She doesn’t particularly want you to know that she’s the one so diligently taking care of you, if only because she’s still so afraid of the intensity of her feelings for you, and she’s scared that if you were to know how deeply she feels for you, how much she absolutely fucking loves you, you would run for it and never step foot in her life again.

You would reject her, something that she’s never had to face in her life, and something she hopes she never will have to – especially not from you.

She doesn’t want you to have any inkling for the way that she feels for you, at least rationally.

(Internally, however, she can’t deny how wonderful it would be to have you safe and sound in a shared home with her, protected and well fed, happy and comfortable and being oh so cute while you greet her at the door, welcoming her home from work and telling her how much you love her… It’s a guilty pleasure thought, one that often hits her as she goes about getting her hands dirty all for you, and as she stares at the lifeless corpse of the man who’d made a joke that he’d ‘hit that’ in regards to you to his friends, she can’t help but smile a bit.)

You make her happy – nervous, yes, and paranoid, true, but also this warm, burrowing feeling she knows is happiness. It’s a foreign thing that she isn’t completely sure she’ll ever get used to, but fuck it all if she doesn’t want to try.

So really, isn’t it only fair that she gives you something in return for everything you give her, even if you don’t know it?

Possessive

Despite the cloudiness that rests in Machi’s mind about how exactly she feels about you, one thing she is sure about is the anger that flares up in her chest when she thinks of another person interacting with you.

There’s something about the idea that makes her jaw get tight, her teeth pushing tightly together and her shoulders getting stiff because you should not be speaking with someone else.

She loves you in her own twisted, obsessive way, but in many ways Machi finds you irritating. You’re weak, you’re naïve, and god, how can you take your own safety and health so casually?

You’re incapable, if she’s being honest, because you’re simply unaware of how truly cruel the world can be. You live in your own glass cage, under the false assumption that the glass will never crack or splinter, that nothing will ever hurt you or affect you in a negative way – and while Machi takes as many precautions to keep this fantasy alive, it doesn’t negate the fact that you’re wrong.

You think you’re safe, sure, but you really need her, don’t you? If it wasn’t for her, you’d probably be dead by now, either by some wayward criminal, a magical beast, a Hunter, an accident, a stranger with nefarious intentions, or your own stupidity.

It’s cynical and mean and frankly not true, but Machi firmly believes that the only thing standing between you and certain death is herself. And while she still doesn’t want you to be aware that she’s the one protecting you and keeping you safe and healthy, she does start to grow a bit antsy when other people enter the picture.

In her perfect world, she would simply be caring for you and taking care of you from the shadows for the rest of your lives – your silent savior, content with the knowledge that you need her, and being needed is enough for her. At least, she thinks so.

But the world isn’t perfect, and you aren’t aware of her feelings – so of course, there are people who try to take advantage of your kindness, of your beauty and charity and naivety.

And when this happens, Machi finds herself very, very upset. Jealousy roils deep within her, making her fists clench and her eye twitch and narrow. It makes her nen spike and her aura become oppressive, her rage struggling to stay under control when she sees anyone looking at you, speaking with you, or just being near you.

It’s about your safety, more than anything – she does genuinely fear that every person you interact with has bad intentions towards you, and that in itself is neither particular delusional nor particularly surprising. Surely some of them want something more than just a polite greeting from you – hell, Machi’s been pursued by more men than she can count that most definitely wanted more and weren’t afraid to force what they wanted.

But can Machi really be blamed for being possessive over you? She’s grown up with absolutely nothing to her name – scavenging for food, living in dismal conditions, dealing with very real adult issues, and surviving against terrible odds. She’s turned towards the path of power and materialistic gain, and while she doesn’t explicitly see herself as owning you, there’s a certain allure to the idea of calling you hers.

You’re her partner – her woman, hers to care for, hers to love, hers hers hers.

And so yes, it’s about your safety, and yes, it’s understandable why she would grow attached to you in response to her origins, but there’s also a small part of her that grows horribly jealous every time someone interacts with you because it’s them, not her.

How come they have the confidence to speak with you, but she doesn’t?

(Of course, she’s interacted with you a few times before – back when her obsession had taken root, the very interactions that led her to her current state – but it’s different when it’s purposeful interaction, when she’s looking at you and your attention is on her. Why is it so hard to speak to you? Why do you make her so nervous, her fingers not visibly shaking but still having the same affect? Why do her words always sound harsh, demanding, blunt when she’s speaking with you, not a hint of the warmth or longing she feels for you? Why do you always seem to jump a bit and sheepishly nod at her commands, looking terrified and anxious and scared?  Why can’t she just talk to you like normal, dammit?

How come they can so casually get you to laugh, but she can’t?

(She’s never been funny, even when she’s not feeling like her tongue is swelled up and her heart is on fire. She tries so hard to keep her cool around you and not give away anything about how she’s feeling for you, and that doesn’t exactly translate into being funny. And yet, she does find herself wishing that she’d thought of the joke the stranger on the bus had told you about the weather this morning, because while it was stupid and you’d only laughed a polite amount, why won’t you do that for her?)

How come they can so easily and organically reach out to brush your cheek or tap your arm, but she can’t?

(She’s petrified of touching you, despite wanting to so badly, and the most you’ll get from her for a long, long time is just quick, phantom touches of her fingers against your clothed back when you’re busy doing something, her skin barely even brushing the fabric of your shirt. It’s just too hard, too scary to let herself be in a position where you could reject something as intimate and loving as a touch – it leaves her too vulnerable, so what does she do? Repress it.)

It's a certain amount of insecurity that fuels her possessiveness, which simultaneously frustrates and scares her. She’s never been unconfident – she can kill dozens of fully grown men in mere seconds, can heal impossible wounds, and is an integral member of an elite criminal organization.

But you – you make her insecure. And it’s stupid and makes her scoff and cross her arms, but she can’t deny it. Despite her numerous, numerous attempts.

So really, Machi’s possessiveness is not to be overlooked – whether it’s paranoia, greed, or insecurity fueling it, it can have disastrous consequences. She will kill those she feels threatened by, and she does not care if that person holds value to you.

She’s your guardian angel, sure, but some angels fall – whether from heaven or for you is arbitrary.  

DEALING WITH RIVALS:

Her jealousy is nothing to sneeze at, despite the fact that she isn’t as obvious and in your face as some of her fellow Troupemates.

She won’t yell and punch like Phinks, nor will she threaten and coddle like Nobunaga. Rather, she’ll let her jealousy simmer, slowly growing stronger and stronger, making her feel hotter and hotter until she explodes, unable to take another second of you being looked at by another person.

And so while Machi generally is of the mindset of ‘if it doesn’t involve me, then I don’t care’, where you’re concerned her entire philosophy is uprooted, if only because she absolutely believes that everything involving you involves her as well.

It’s her duty as your protector, as your loving partner – even if you aren’t aware – and she intends to hold up her end of the deal, to make sure that no one and nothing can ever touch you or harm you.

And so, she takes every precaution she can to make sure that no one ever gets to chance to spark her jealousy.

She watches each and every interaction of yours that she possibly can, often trailing behind you with those sharp eyes alternating between staring at you and sizing up all the people around you to catch anyone in their tracks who may cause problems.

(Shalnark had been quite generous in giving Machi a specially designed tracker just for you, already calibrated to your minimal nen aura so that it would stay true to you no matter where you went. She’d been grateful, though the blond hadn’t let her get away without a bit of teasing about how oooh, you’ve got a crush, don’t you Machi! She’s embarrassed to admit that she very faintly blushed at his words, swatting him down with a roll of her eyes and hissed fuck off, but the excitement of having a way to know where you are at all times even during Troupe work outweighed the irritation coursing through her veins).

She’s using her nen threads to keep your clothing in place while you’re out and about – making sure your skirt stays put or your top stays up, anything and everything to make sure that not a sliver of skin is shown to the prying eyes of those around you.

(Of course, a small part of her wishes your skirt would flip just a bit or the top of your areola would be just barely visible, if only for her viewing pleasure, but it’s more important that the men you walk by on the street don’t see anything. Much more important.)

She just feels responsible to make sure that you don’t have any negative contact with anyone (though ideally there’d be no contact of any kind, including positive), and she takes her duties very seriously, even going so far as to spend nearly every waking moment she has outside of Troupe work a good ten feet behind you, her eyes fixed on you like prey.

And after all, isn’t that a little representative of your relationship? You, the naïve, cute little thing being stalked and followed and wanted by something bigger, stronger, more dangerous and much, much more adept at simply taking what they want. 

When she spots the man chatting you up in the local park you’d been walking through as a means to clear your head, immediately her nen is spiking up, her eyes narrowing as she stays hidden behind a nearby tree and watches the two of you speak.

He’s nothing special by any counts – generic, a simple pair of shorts and a t-shirt appropriate for the hot summer weather. His face is fine, all things considered, but there’s nothing particularly special about him – you wouldn’t look twice, she’s sure.

Except, you must have looked twice, because he’s standing in front of you, that irritating, ugly smile plastered on his face that makes her own lips tug into a deep frown, her teeth clenched tightly together.

And on top of that, you don’t seem to be mad at all. In fact, she can see the smile on your own face – much, much prettier, endearing, beautiful, something that momentarily traps her focus.

She’s not sure why you’re acting so happy – what could possibly be that funny about the terrible jokes this stranger is telling you?

What could this boring, useless waste of space be to you that makes you grin like you’re the happiest woman on Earth?

(Why didn’t you look like that when she first randomly met you on the street? Was this man better?)

Machi doesn’t get it, but she knows that it’s making her more than a little upset - more than a little pissed, really,  as the man takes a small step forward, beginning to close the space between the two of you.

Her eye twitches as she watches you make no move to step back, and though her heart sinks like a stone when she realizes that maybe you want him to be that close to you, she briefly shakes her head, pink hair whipping her in the face as she wills herself to concentrate, to have enough patience to wait until you’re done talking to do what her fingers are aching for.

It’s torture, simply watching this interaction play out, her whole body begging for her to move and every muscle tensing in anticipation of physically breaking up your conversation, but she wills herself to stay put, closing her eyes and taking a few deep, unsteady breaths through her nose.

Fantasies and thoughts of how she could end the man’s life flash through her mind, helping kill a bit of time.

And the second that you walk off, throwing a small smile the man’s way along with a shy little wave that Machi would give fucking anything to be aimed at her, she’s making her move.

The man smirks and tucks his hands into his pocket, looking thoroughly pleased with himself as Machi murmurs curses under her breath, promises of death and words of hate tumbling past her lips as she tracks the man down past a bundle of trees on the opposite side of the park, well hidden from the view of the other patrons and – most importantly – yourself.

Once the man steps into the little forest and leans against a tree, she’s springing into action, her movements so quick that even she herself is shocked.

She charges at the man and has him tied up in less than three seconds flat, her hand placed firmly over the man’s mouth with a glare harsh enough to paralyze directed right into his brown eyes. Her aura’s crushing, the man’s body physically pushed against the tree hard enough to leave a slight dent in the bark.

His whimpers of pain make something in her gut twist pleasantly.

You’re disgusting, she growls, threads tightening more and more as she lets her anger begin to consume her.

Flashes of the way you’d smiled and laughed at the man come rushing through her mind, fueling the rage and hurt simmering in her chest.

Disgusting, worthless, don’t you know that some girls don’t want you? Couldn’t you see that she’s too fucking perfect for someone like you?

She knows she’s probably talking more than she should, more than this man deserves, but there’s something about the look of pure terror in the man’s eyes and the way he struggles against her threads that makes the blood rush to her head.

When he doesn’t respond, only wiggling harder and harder, Machi only clicks her tongue and, with a flick of her wrist, tightens the thread around the man’s neck enough that it slices it clean off.

The dull thump of his head landing on the ground next to her has her wiping her hands against her tunic in irritation, a small amount of his blood having sprayed onto her pale fingers, but she can’t deny the satisfaction of seeing the man who was so openly flirting with you dead and bloody now – just as he should be, for ever thinking he’d have a chance at getting at you while Machi’s around.

She gives a firm kick to the man’s groin, now slumped down onto the ground alongside the rest of his decapitated body, before spitting onto it.

And so, after shooting a quick text to Shizuku to ask her to come clean up a body (Shizuku’s response of why would I do that? had the pink haired girl rolling her eyes), Machi makes quick work of locating you via the tracker, making sure to follow you home and ensure that no other creeps try anything with you, lest they meet the fate of Machi and Blinky.

Chrollo can scold her all he wants for the body she leaves behind – it’s worth it, the satisfaction simmering in her veins making her feet carry herself faster and faster, the tracker slowly beeping faster as she gets closer to you.

TAKING HER DARLING AWAY:

In most regards, Machi values the idea of you being your own, semi-independent person.

She does a whole hell of a lot for you in the shadows, but she isn’t particularly fixated on stealing you away or kidnapping you. Part of the reason why she fell for you in the first place was because of who you are, and there’s a worry eating at the back of her mind that if she were to force you into a relationship or take you away from your life, you would no longer be the person she’s come to love, the person she’s come to live solely for.

It’s scary, the concept that you could just be gone, that her selfishness could be the reason why the glimmer in your eyes fades, or why you no longer smile and laugh so hard you snort a bit.

So while the idea of stealing you away and making sure that you’re constantly protected, safe from the outside world and the horrible people inhabiting it (people like her and the Troupe, she’ll admit) is appealing, she won’t ever make a move to imprison you with her unless an outside force comes into play.

She’s just too nervous and hesitant, because although what she currently has now with you isn’t ideal (the fact that you aren’t under her constant supervision or just within reach to touch – if she ever got brave enough to do so, that is – is certainly not her dream), it’d be even less ideal to have you a shell of your former self.

And those outside forces rally could be just about anything – if it threatens you in some way, she’ll begrudgingly decide that stealing you away is the only possible option.

For example, if someone were to figure out her connection to you; she’s worked tirelessly to make sure that any trace of her obsession with her and her feelings is invisible, to the point where not even anyone in the Troupe is aware of your identity.

(Some, like Shizuku and Shalnark, are aware that there’s someone that’s got Machi all up in knots, that she’s willing killing for and wants to keep constant surveillance on. Otherwise, Machi wouldn’t have just asked Shalnark about the best quality cameras that can be easily concealed available on the market – and she’d been blushing, even, a very light pink on her cheeks that made him stare for a moment, gaping like a fish because who the hell could you possibly be to affect Machi so much? Shizuku, for her part, just knows there’s something a little different about her fellow member – Machi’s smiling more, and while Shizuku is forgetful, she remembers the little things about her friend – and when she’d brought it up Machi, she’d only huffed and firmly told Shizuku to be quiet, her voice still snippy but just slightly wobbling.)

There’s a few cracks in her careful hiding of you, but for the most part Machi is frighteningly good at making sure that no one will ever know about you.

But the impossible has a way of happening, and if by some stroke of ill luck someone does find out about you and tries to attack you, torture you, kill you or use you for leverage?

The moment that she gets you back, safe from the threat of death, immediately she’s putting you under her care, locking you up tight in a small home in a small town where you’ll be utterly, completely safe.

However, the more likely scenario of an outside factor forcing her hand is that Machi will be approached by Chrollo himself – his words are simple, an are you alright? You seem to be a bit off your game, Machi. Whatever it is, please don’t let your duties to the Spider slide.

And when Machi takes a deep breath, she can’t help herself from spilling it all to her boss – the words come out fast, splutters of her feelings for you and how she can’t get you off her mind, how the constant worry over your safety eats away at her every moment she’s away from you, but Chrollo listens diligently, nodding every once in a while.

And when she finishes, her breathing slightly ragged, he can only place a comforting hand on her shoulder, asking her if she’s considered keeping you in a secure location, in which you’ll always have the comfort of knowing she’s alright?

And while she had in fact considered – and immediately discarded – the idea, something in that moment clicks; her life is dedicated to the Troupe, and maybe it really would make things easier to keep you locked up, to keep you safe and sound and completely protected.

Chrollo’s words are enough to have her agreeing, slipping into your room late one night and gently hitting a pressure point, only to leave you snuggled up in your new bed in a collection of the warmest, newest blankets that she could find.

You’re so cute, and while there’s a small amount of guilt eating away at her, Machi can’t deny how right it feels to have you completely aware of how dependent you are on her. Just as it should be.

As a captor, Machi’s air of distance and emotional invulnerability doesn’t simply disappear. Habits can’t be unlearned that quickly, after all, and while every glance at you leaves her stomach feeling weightless and her heart hammering in her chest, she’s too overwhelmed to really be able to talk to you normally – much less touch you as a means of expressing what she’s feeling.

She’s still so used to not really expressing herself, and while you’re quite literally in front of her, looking as precious and pretty and sweet as you always do, she can’t quite find it in her to openly admit how deeply the love swirling in her chest for you runs.

The possibility of you rejecting her is something that scares her to her core, and while the idea of you lovingly hugging her, kissing her and telling her in that flustered, sweet voice that you love her is something that actually makes her blush, the anxiety that you won’t return her feelings eats away at her. 

There’s a constant war happening in her mind, really – she’ll dream about holding you at night, her eyes flicking under her eyelids as she imagines how warm you’d be, how good it would feel to press a kiss against the crown of your head, your hair tickling her lips as she whispers an I love you, only to wake up and immediately scoot away from you on the bed, hopeful that you hadn’t awoken during the night and seen the way she’d crawled in beside you.

She’s still distant and impossible to read, and for a good portion of your time under her care, you’ll have absolutely no idea why she’s stolen you.

She obviously doesn’t want to hurt you – she’s threatened you once or twice, sure, but never once has she actually laid a hand on you with violent intent.

(The threats even seem to be accidental, really – as soon as the words slip from her mouth, her eyes widen almost imperceptibly, as if she’s shocked by what she’s said. She’ll always be a little skittish afterwards, avoiding you more than normal and struggling to maintain eye contact, but you’ll always end up with a small, token gift by your nightstand that makes you wonder just how much she seems to know about what you like and dislike – the gifts may be unnerving, but they’re always things you love. Even if you don’t recall having mentioned it to her.)

She doesn’t want to hurt you, and you’ve pretty much ruled out the possibility that you’re being held as a hostage with some larger goal in mind.

After all, why would she bother to make sure you’re comfortable and taken care of if she was just planning on using you?

Why would she invest in buying such high quality sheets for your bed (your preferred blend/texture, of course), or such nice clothing for you?

(It’s all in shades of dark reds and pinks, a mixture of loungewear that fits you perfectly, and a frilly, lace nightgown that only comes down to the mid-thigh and makes you look positively angelic – if it weren’t for the way the sheer fabric does nothing to mask your nipples or the curve of your ass. Don’t ask Machi about the nightgown – she’d stolen it late one night, back when her obsession with you was in full throttle and she was constantly wanting, not quite having you kidnapped yet but still needing to be around you more and more. It was a split second decision, and a part of her hoped you wouldn’t even find the thing in your closet – but the moment she sees you for the first time, that thought disappears and she’s only left with the wonderful, explicit image of you standing in it, her eyes examining every inch of your body.)

You’ve considered everything from a ransom to becoming a future murder statistic, and yet nothing quite seems to fit the situation.

Because Machi’s not affectionate, either – in fact, she hardly ever touches you unless she absolutely has to.

When she’s patching you up after you fall and scrape your knee on the edge of the chair, her fingers almost recoil the moment your skin and hers meet. She avoids any hand you reach out with to grab at her wrist or tap her shoulder, jumping nearly out of her skin and whipping around to face you, this look crossing her face that seems like anger and yearning. It’s confusing, and after a while you’ll stop trying to initiate any form of physical contact, and Machi notices.

It frustrates her, this nagging feeling in her chest begging her to do something, to just reach out and place her hand on your shoulder or wipe away a few crumbs of food from your lips when you’re eating (she made the food, of course, after having watched you cook yourself dinner countless times through your kitchen window).

She won’t do it though, too embarrassed and scared you’ll reject her – so you’ll be left to wonder exactly what the hell her goal is. She doesn’t want to hurt or kill you, and she doesn’t seem to want to assault you or use your body either – what does she want?

You won’t know for a very, very long time – potentially even years, if Machi is left to her own devices. She’s just too scared to come clean; the chance of your rejection or your disgust makes her anxious in a way that has her picking at her nails and pulling out pieces of hair, the anxiety of it all just too much. But as time passes, things will get better.

She’ll slowly – very slowly – begin coming out of her shell, letting herself stand just a hair closer to you or let her gaze linger on your for just a moment longer than before. Eventually she’ll get to the point where she’ll sit directly next to you on the couch, your thighs pressing against each other’s and both of your faces looking straight ahead, both of you unwilling to broach the subject of exactly what’s happening. (Machi’s too nervous, and you’re too confused.)

It’ll take her a long time to admit that she cares about you, but she expresses that sentiment in different ways – she’s a woman of action, and you can tell that she holds just a sliver of fondness for you from the way she provides for you.

Instead of sleeping on a cement floor in some dark, wet, cold basement, she’s outfitted a modest, simple room for you, with a nice twin bed in the corner and a fully stocked closet, along with some art supplies to keep you entertained and a few others items corresponding to your hobbies.

Instead of restricting your meals or feeding you expired, questionable food, she’s always arriving at your doorway with a steaming bowl of soup (she didn’t make it – she can’t cook, but she did personally pick it out from the takeout place or pick it up at the store), her eyes meeting yours for a brief moment before they flick away.

Instead of invading every inch of your privacy like you’d expected, she’s respectful when you have to change (turning away, though the throbbing that forms between her legs begs her to turn around because you’re five feet away from her and you’re naked and fuck fuck fuck -).

She won’t force you into any kind of affection (no unwanted kissing or sexual touching, not even any comments about how attractive you are or how much she desires your body (because the thoughts are there, oh yes, and it’s difficult to keep them at bay, but she tries her best).

She’s even able to predict what you want before you know you want it – she’s spent so long stalking you and paying attention to every small habit in your daily life that she knows exactly how much body wash you lather yourself with in the shower, or how heavy your menstrual flow is, or even

PUNISHMENTS:

Doesn’t like seeing you in pain, and generally you’ll be too afraid to act up because she’s so cold and distant most of the time. She also has no problem intimidating you, whether it be by having a conversation with Feitan in the same room and playing up hearing him talk about new torture methods, even though she hates putting scary ideas into your head (she would never let Feitan touch you or anyone hurt you, but she figures that if you’re scared or have the idea that you will be hurt if you try anything, you’ll probably behave)

Generally speaking, Machi honestly does not enjoy causing you any sort of discomfort or harm.

She’s overbearingly protective, anxious at just the slightest fraction of a possibility that something could hurt you (the amount of times she’s jumped into action and harshly snatched the semi-sharp pencil you were using out of your hands has told you exactly how deeply her paranoia regarding your safety really runs), and she doesn’t have a moral compass that allows her to genuinely believe that any harm she does to you is somehow different than the danger she’s always trying to protect you from.

She doesn’t see herself as being a disciplining force; rather, Machi more wants to keep you safe and pristine, and though she knows it’s a bit of an impossibility, at least towards the beginning of your captivity, she wants you to be as happy as possible as well – she didn’t kidnap you just for the hell of it, and she didn’t uproot your whole life just for shits and giggles.

She wants you to behave, to be safe and sound and still enjoying what little life you have in her clutches, and frankly, punishing you is something that probably won’t happen too often. Machi is scary as a captor at first, if only because she’s just so cryptic, so unwilling to admit to anything regarding her feelings or obsession with you that could be used against her, your smarts coming in to play to manipulate her into letting you go or allowing you to be hurt.

She’s terrifying, cold, calculated and incredibly impersonal, so while the urge to try and escape, to fight her, to do anything to stand up for yourself is incredibly strong, you’ll likely be extremely hesitant to do so.

Because really, while she tries not to show any blood in front of you or explicitly talk about her job, you’ll be able to see the signs – she’s not the best at washing the blood off of her shirt before she returns home from particularly difficult or gruesome jobs, nor is she good at keeping the irritated mumblings under breath about Shalnark being so damn happy, he kills like it’s candy especially quiet.

She’s not subtle, so don’t act out – because while she knows that she’ll never, ever hurt you, you don’t, and do you really want to test that?

When she changes in front of you (something that takes her a while to have the confidence to do, if only because the idea of you seeing something as vulnerable as her body makes her flush lightly and avert her eyes), the spider tattoo is glaringly obvious, and you’ll be left to face the reality – there’s absolutely nothing you can do to her to get her to leave you alone, and there’s nothing you can do against her in order to leave.

So if you’re stuck, why make the situation any more of a living hell than it already is?

That being said, you are only human – Machi works so damn hard to keep you safe, healthy and vital, to give you as good of a life under her care as she feasibly can, and the moment that you do something to threaten that sense of safety she works so hard to upkeep?

Well, Machi may not like seeing you upset, but there’s only so much patience a mass criminal can have, only so much leniency and exceptionalism she can exercise towards you – which is why, as she sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose when you refuse to stop going near the oven (even though she makes a point to turn the breaker off and cover the oven in such a strong field of nen that there’s no way you could even try to put your hand inside), she decides that difficult situations call for unfortunate measures, that she’ll have to go to the extremes to get you complacent, pliant, behaving.

She still will never purposefully physically hurt you, if only because she genuinely can’t stomach the thought of being the cause for any of your blood to be drawn, but your mind is still oh so vulnerable, oh so exposed for her liking, pliant and susceptible to a bit of manipulation, to a bit of rerouting.

And so, while she doesn’t feel good about it, it’s not difficult to get a troupe member to come to her place, to speak about the latest or newest job, what Chrollo wants stolen, how many people can be killed or in the body count, asking them (with a well hidden wince and a sinking feeling in her gut) to be as explicit and specific as possible, to speak loudly enough that you’ll hear from the next room over.

She does this to prove to you without physical pain that she is still more than capable of shutting you down, that while she may have not done anything to you besides stealing you away, she could kill you at the drop of a pin, and you should really listen to her if you know what’s best for you.

It feels dirty and Machi honestly hates doing it, but it’s the only way – and so, when Feitan reluctantly agrees to swing by (after Machi’s promise of a few million Jenny for his trouble), Machi’s setting him up close to the wall separating the kitchen from the bedroom, asking him to face the plaster and tell him about the latest torture method he’s been experimenting with.

Feitan doesn’t like pointless talking or really helping Machi out at all, but as he begins talking, narrowing his eyes as Machi silently pumps her palm up to show he should speak louder, you’ll be sitting in the next room over, the slightly muffled words chilling you to the core.

First locate the spine, take the long knife and cut from neck to tail bone, should wait five to ten minutes for enough blood. Take oven and heat to 500 degrees…

You’ll be traumatized for all thirty minutes of the conversation, and while Machi fucking hates that she’s filling such gruesome and violent ideas in your head, it’ll get the point across, and get you listening to her again.

 After she bids him goodbye (a clipped next month, see you then and a slammed door in his face), she’ll take a deep breath and adjust her ponytail lightly, closing her eyes and preparing to face you.

She’s not surprised to see you curled in on yourself on your bed, eyes wide and your fingers trembling, but it still doesn’t make her feel good, a sick feeling settling in her stomach as she bites her lip and leans against the doorframe, hurting inside knowing that she’ll never, ever let Feitan anywhere near you to enact the torture he was detailing, but knowing that she can’t tell you that.

She’s noticeably silent after every ‘punishment’, letting you stew over the information on your own time, but she’s pleased to see that you begin avoiding the oven like the plague, not a single glance spared at the appliance without copious amounts of mumbled apologies and nervously twiddling fingers.

Of course, Machi doesn’t enjoy breaking you down like this, scaring you into submission, but in her mind it’s the only way – she won’t slap you or bruise you, but don’t mental punishments work better, anyways?

Isn’t it more effective to make you afraid, so that the only thing you feel is safe and dependable is her?

OVERALL DANGER:

7/10

The thing that makes Machi so dangerous is genuinely that she’s absolutely, thoroughly and scarily committed to making absolute sure that you’re taken care of, that not a single thing can hurt you or otherwise affect you.

She’s terrified of the idea of you being hurt, because now that she has someone she actually cares about, a connection that makes her chest feel warm and her cheeks feel flush, she is absolutely not willing to let anything happen to fuck it up.

She’s paranoid, overprotective to a fault, and so painfully detached from being able to properly express herself, to properly showcase just how deeply and horribly her obsession and love for you runs.

She’s terrified of being emotionally vulnerable, of letting you in for fear that you’ll somehow use it against her, and so Machi becomes a bit like your guardian angel – only much, much bloodier, and one that will eventually lock you up and treat you like you’re made of the finest china, able to break at even the slightest poke.

Honestly, if you can deal with her being essentially emotionally unavailable (until at least a year or so into your captivity, if all goes well) and not letting you do much of anything for yourself, life with Machi won’t be so bad – you’ll get adequate, homecooked food (though it tends to a bit bland for nutritional reasons), a clean space to live in (one that she honestly won’t intrude on too much, if only because the concept of sleeping in the same bed as you makes her feel pathetic and weird for being so excited and nervous about it), and a protector who considers your safety to be the most important thing on Earth.

If you can deal with it, Machi isn’t too bad – just remember that ice takes time to melt, and can freeze up again at any moment’s notice, if you’re not careful enough. 

[dukeofdelirium]

I will never believe Zu/tara shippers when they say they hate Kata/aang because it's "heteronormative" since one of the main complaints Kata/aang gets from them is that "no 14 year old girl would wanna date a bald boy who's younger and shorter then her" or how Aang gets called a bald lesbian as an insult. Idk man I think Katara ending up with the bad boy with anger issues who is most stereotypically masculine of all the Gaang boys and who she spends most of the story hating for hurting her and her friends (who also personally betrayed her trust when she tried to help him). Idk man I think if these two got together that'd be a lot more heteronormative, especially since they only became friends an ep before the finale started. I think Katara and Aang's relationship has writing issues too (I have a lot of gripes I'm not coming at this as a shipper) but it takes a particular kind of ship brainrot to argue Zuta/ra end game would have made more sense or been a better end game with the canon we are given. And arguing it's somehow less heteronormative to make Zuko get together with Katara. I can't with this fandom.

if either of these two ships fit the definition of heteronormativity, it’s zvtara, not kataang. Aang does not fit the western male character type. He is short, shaves his head, is pacifistic, and quite feminine compared to the other male characters. He gets insulted for doing things that characters deem as “feminine”, like weaving jewelry for one.

the show doesn’t actually support this idea that femininity is bad, but characters like Sokka who have narrow viewpoints early in the story try to ridicule him. toph also makes jabs at Aang’s femininity.

Zvtara shippers argument has never been about heteronormativity. It’s always been “misogyny”. The only reason they’re adopting heteronormativity in their list of vocab words they still don’t know the definitions of is bc most of us kataang shippers on here (tumblr) are gay, bisexual, etc. And because we, as majority lgbt ppl have stated that their ship is heteronormative, they just want to flip that to use against us even when it doesn’t apply.

Kataang simply doesn’t follow a typical m/f ship in terms of writing, characters or how they interact with one another. Which is by and large why it has been so hated by these idiots. They wanna say “muhhh heteronormativity” but in the same breath ridicule Aang’s femininity, say he isn’t masculine enough for her, call him a lesbian etc to undermine the ship. Just as they say “muhhh male gaze” when most kataang shippers are actually women, because most ppl involved in shipping communities and fandoms in general are women.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I only know of a couple of male kataang shippers on here, myself being one of them. Ships and fandoms are very much and have always been a female dominated community. That’s for any fandom or any ship I’ve seen.

Their arguments are ridiculous and make no sense. It’s just like when some zvtara idiot was in my inbox harassing me for being a man and was saying that I’m an incel and that I hate women and want to rape women….. when I’m fucking GAY! Nothing they say makes sense or is canonical, so I’ve long since stopped taking anything they say seriously. It’s just free entertainment at this point.

Full offense but I don’t need a bunch of straight girls to tell me what heteronormativity means 😂

[frankiebirds]

re one of ur last posts - what are ur nonbinary elle and spencer hcs?? :))

AH i actually dont have that many so a lot of these literally just came into my head. also i'm very sorry this mostly became "elle helping spencer realise he's nonbinary" headcanons, i'll have to think more about elle :((

this one is not my headcanon. i tried to find whose it is but for the life of me i cannot track it down, so if anyone knows please tell me so i can link them: they share a wardrobe. the only one who remembers which clothes initially belonged to which person is spencer, for obvious reasons. EDIT: got this from this post by @/spritehouse

elle has her shit figured out pre-canon but isn't doing anything about it because it's 2005. spencer does not have his shit figured out until after he gets with elle

well. he has it a little figured out. he knows there's something to figure out, he knows he isn't a cis man, but he's just like. i have way too much going on in my life already to think about that so i will ignore it <3 because that's worked out so well for him

pre-figuring his shit out, spencer is constantly (and largely unintentionally) mixing "menswear" and "womenswear". i really struggle to see a version of spencer where he and diana didn't experience serious financial issues after william left, and even as an adult, high-quality private psychiatric care like diana's is expensive. so, the majority of his clothes are thrifted (yes, i know about the $500 cardigans in later seasons. gifts from rossi <3) and he doesn't really care what section of goodwill he finds them in. so he's constantly wearing, like. a men's shirt under a women's cardigan over men's pants held up with a women's belt. post-figuring his shit out, this becomes intentional and he starts blatantly mixing styles. the kind of thing that gets him stopped in public by someone going "hey you know that's a women's...?" and he goes "yep! :D"

by contrast, elle, while she largely has things figured out, does not present the way she wants to for safety reasons. spencer helps her gradually feel more comfortable presenting the way she wants while she helps him figure out his gender stuff

as for reid's gender stuff, i think for a long time he's really overly fixated on labelling himself. the closest any label comes is bigender but that doesn't feel quite right and he has a lot of unnecessary angst about it. (not projecting at all shut up). eventually he's venting to elle one day about how he feels this and this and this about his gender and if he was to describe it he would describe it like this but he just can't figure it out. and then elle gets genuinely confused because it sounds to her like he very much has figured it out. it takes a long time for him to understand and accept that there isn't a magic word that will describe all parts of him, and he may never find one. and that's fine

elle does spencer's makeup. he looks in the mirror and cries.

penelope is the first person they come out to and she is DELIGHTED to have other trans people on the team. one more and they outnumber the cis people...

morgan is next. spencer says "we're nonbinary" and morgan says "is this like a 'we're pregnant' situation or are you actually talking about both of you" and elle hits him in the head. spencer immediately feels many times less anxious than he did before. i love u morgan

morgan asks spencer in private if he wants him to stop calling him pretty boy. spencer tells him to please never stop. calling him "pretty", an adjective usually used to describe women, paired with "boy" makes him very happy. with this in mind, morgan starts calling elle "handsome girl". elle pretends to be nonchalant about it, but it makes her really happy.

they never tell gideon. spencer can't handle the thought of him reacting badly. (gideon was under the impression that spencer was just closeted this whole time. oops!)

like i said, spencer REALLY likes being described as masculine and feminine in the same breath. when elle first introduces him to her friends, she says "this is spencer, she's my boyfriend" and spencer runs away to stim in private. elle's friends are very confused.

[kerubimcrepin]

A random analysis of the Japanese subs.

This post is so, so self-indulgent, but I hope it'll be fun.

The reason I am making this is simple: I am a linguistics major, I like Dofus and Wakfu, and I really like the way the Japanese language allows one to express themselves by using pronouns and honorifics, both for oneself and others.

It's always fascinating to see what can be said about characters through their usage of Japanese language: both in translations, and in original texts. I'm sure you've heard about the Japanese translation of Undertale, and for a good reason.

...Just like every other post on my blog, this will only be about Kerubim, Atcham, and Joris. But this time, not just because I am so hyperfocused:

Our main sources for Japanese translations of Wakfu are fan subs (hard to find), the lost media dub that has been wiped from the internet (impossible to find), and the official Netflix subs. I do not have Netflix, so I had to employ @dullard's help in this endeavour... except Dullard doesn't know any Japanese, and since Netflix is very anti-piracy, we couldn't screenshare it, which means he had no help from me. It made finding interesting dialogues hard, and the thought of covering more characters is actually scary.

I hope you will enjoy this regardless, and mind the fact that I am not a Japanese speaker — just an enthusiast. (I do study foreign languages for my future profession, but they are English and Chinese, not Japanese...)

A cursory Japanese lesson.

In Japanese, there are many pronouns that mean "I" and "you", instead of just a singular word for each, like in English. It is a little bit similar to the tu/vous system many languages have.

In Japanese, it's quite rude to say "you", and usually, people just use each other's names: "[asking someone named Alice] Does Alice want tea?" is the polite, proper, normal way to ask people things. Saying "you" is usually either something done between people who are close, or people who are way above you on the social ladder.

(For example: "anata" is used/was used by wives towards their husbands, is a generic word when you don't yet know someone's name. It can sound arrogant. "kimi" is used by older male superiors towards employees, older friends towards younger friends, and boyfriends towards girlfriends. It can convey the feeling of closeness with one person taking care of another, or, it can show that someone doesn't respect the other person. "omae" is used to express anger and hate, or to playfully show affection between close friends and family. As you can see, all these words imply a degree of intimacy, when used positively.)

The most common personal pronouns are "watashi" (neutral in polite settings, feminine outside of them), "boku" (soft masculine, light polite), and "ore" (harsh masculine, not polite)

It is normal for pronouns to change with age. All young boys start out using "boku", and usually begin using "ore" or other pronouns later in life. Besides that, many people use different pronouns in different situations: a man might use "ore" with male friends, "boku" with family and women, and "watashi" at work.

However, in a lot of fiction, a character's most used pronoun (and sometimes, the ways they deviate from those pronouns — with whom, and why?) is a part of their character design. Besides pronoun usage, there are also sentence ending particles that exist to show emotion, or speaker's attitude, and their personality. Really, the possibilities are endless. This usage of Japanese is rarely realistic, and is instead something unique to anime, and it's called "yakuwarigo", or "role language".

So, today we will be having a look at the ways the three guys this blog is about were translated in Japanese.

NOTE: Due to anti-piracy functions of Netflix, the screenshots came out completely blank, save for the subs. For this reason, I just added the official Japanese subs to screenshots of the English fan sub + added some colours to a couple of them, in longer sentences, so you can see the boundary of different words.

Atcham

"Ninmu kanryōshita zo" [Mission accomplished]

"ぞ" [zo] is a rough masculine sentence ending particle Strongly asserts one's will, opinion or decision. Very masculine, and at least in media, almost always seen paired together with the usage of "ore" personal pronoun.

Speaking of which...

"Asshu ni fukushū suru chansuda. Ore mo iku!" [It's a chance to get revenge against Ush. I'm going too!]

"俺" [ore] - I, me. Masculine personal pronoun, and like everything masculine, in japanese it's associated with a certain degree of arrogance, antagonization, and rudeness.

PERSONAL NOTE: This pronoun is not something one can use in polite speech, but imagining Atcham resorting to using "boku" or "watashi" gives me psychic damage. If Wakfu was a Japanese series, I assume he'd be a character who is always a bit rude.

We can also observe the usage of the informal "だ" particle, and "行く" [iku], which is a verb that means "to go" in an informal conjugation.

Kerubim

"Washi-ra o hīrō hyouzou no korekushon ni kuwaeyou to" [He wanted to add us to his hero ice sculpture collection, pretty much.]

"わし" [washi] I, me "わしら" [washi-ra] - we, us Here we can see the personal pronoun "washi" with the pluralizing suffix "ら" [ra]. In media, "washi" is used by well-learned, elderly men. If there's a white-bearded centuries-old wizard-king who gives out quests, he probably uses "washi". Gandalf from Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit uses "washi" in the Japanese translation.

PERSONAL NOTE: I think Kerubim, as someone who perpetually dies and is reborn and has to re-age, would probably spend most of his life switching between "ore" as a "young" man, and "washi" as an "old" man. He cares a lot about appearing a certain way, and "a strong man" as well as "a nurturing mentor" are his two favorite images of himself.

"と" [to] is a quote and opinion marker. Japanese language favours vague statements, instead of saying that you're sure of something. There will be a more interesting usage of it later, but here it simply shows that this is being observed. It softens the statement, in a way.

"Washi mo iku, hisabisa no Ekafurippu da. Kono neko ni makase toke!" [I'll go too, it's been a long time since I've been to Ecaflip. Leave it to this kitty!]

There isn't much to say here, besides noting another usage of "washi". The only interesting thing is that Kerubim isn't using official speech, — especially with the informal だ [da] ending particle, which fits him, and the situation itself, well, — as well as the fact that he explicitly calls himself a kitty. (cute)

Joris

"Arumando Ōji, dengon-o otsutae-shitaku, ekken-o oyurushi itadakemasu ka?" [Prince Armand, I would like to deliver a message. Won't you please grant me an audience?]

Three words of this sentence use polite conjugations usually reserved for royalty (shocking, I know...), or someone else much higher than oneself on the social ladder.

"伝える" [tsutaeru] — to report, to convey. This word has had the honorific prefix "お" added to it

"許し" [yurushi] — pardon, forgiveness, permission. This word has had the honorific prefix "お" added to it.

"いただけます" [itadakemasu] — to be able to receive. This is the polite (kenjougo, humble form showing being lower than the person being spoken to) version of multiple other verbs. (don't confuse this with "いただきます" [itadakimasu], which is said before eating food.)

"Desuga! Bonta no masutā kara tsuyoku iwaremashita. Sheran Sharumu-ō e chokusetsu todoke nebanaranai to." [Nevertheless! The Master of Bonta had strongly insisted. It was said to me that the message must be delivered directly to King Sheran-Sharm.]

"ですが" [desuga] - nevertheless, however, alas. It is a polite word, mostly used in official written texts and not in casual conversations, which is befitting this conversation.

"言う" [iu] - to say, to speak, to tell This word is heavily conjugated into the next forms: "言われる" [iwareru] - to be told (impolite) -> "言われました" [iwaremashita] to have been told (polite)

ねばならない [nebanaranai] - must, should, have to This word is mainly used in literature, and is not the typical way to say "must/should/have to" in day-to-day life. It is not just polite, but downright literary/stiff language.

"と" [to] - grammatical quote marker, "it was said..." particle marking a quote that the speaker heard.

"Sagare. Watashi ga aite suru." [Get out of my way. I'll handle him.]

"下がる" [sagaru] - to move away. The word is conjugated with a "-re" ending, which gives it an extremely strong and authoritative tint, as if used by someone in a position of power towards someone below them.

"する" [suru] - to do, to take on, to perform Has no polite ending here. and is very casual/impolite.

In this "heat of the moment" situation, he drops all politeness out the window, and commands Armand to get out for his own safety's sake.

Here we also get Joris's personal pronoun:

"私" [watashi] - I, me (polite, feminine) Because it is used here with someone Joris has used polite language with, like Armand, it doesn't mean much. But when used with people he otherwise drops his politeness with, — or is supposed to drop it, —  this pronoun takes on a different tint. It sounds cold, distant, and aloof, — like he is treating even casual conversations like a buisiness exchange. And if it's not aloof, then it might sound a bit feminine.

"Maa, ochitsuke" [Heey, calm down]

"まあ" [maa] - well, I guess, just, now, This is an adverb used in casual speech, used to express things like a mild level of hesitation or uncertainty, or to soften a sentence or a request into a more gentle, relaxed one.

"落ち着く" [ochitsuku] - to calm down The conjugation here is, once again, the commanding imperative. However, it's less of a big deal in this situation, considering:

rough language is good and normal, in casual, friendly speech between men.

it's not him using it with a prince that he was previously showering in highly polite speech, but instead a man he's been living with for 600 years (even if said man is his father).

"Watashi no nou wa mada koutteru rashi" [My brain is still frozen it seems]

This sentence is neither polite nor rude. Mostly notable as a yet another usage of "watashi" in the translation.

"kimi-tachi mo issho ni tsurete ikitaiga, mada keiken ga tarinai" [I'd really like to take you two (affectionate, derigatory, arrogant) with me, but you're lacking in experience]

Here we can see the first translation error: plus tous jeunes being translated as "too young", instead of "not young anymore". But we'll disregard this, and instead focus on something that deranges me:

"君" [kimi] "君たち" [kimi-tachi] - you (plural) "たち" [tachi] is simply a pluralizing suffix, identical to "ら" [ra] in usage.

Yeah Joris "君" [kimi]'d them. He kimi'd them to death. He looked at his dad and called him kimi. He looked at his uncle and called him kimi too.

I know it's likely that the translator just doesn't know better about their relationship, but Joris WOULD do that. he DOES do this by calling them "kids" in french here, so it fits! (I have a huge analysis of this entire scene in my drafts...)

...What is even wrong with him. I love him.

[onecantsimply]

RoR High school general headcanons for Heracles, Jack, Hermes, and any other characters you want please. If they had a girlfriend included.

You got it-

Also, I’ll just put the gf as the reader, because why not-

-

ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕒𝕔𝕝𝕖𝕤:

• One of the athletes of the school, most definitely. He catches a lot of girls’ attention. Mans unintentionally doesn’t leave any crumbs for anyone else-

• Think he plays football-? Maybe baseball from that one fanart with him, Brunhilde, and Göll-? We know fully well he smashes any sport, and destroys any other school in any major game-

• Still, there is quite a reason for him catching their attention. Of course, Heracles does know he’s attractive, but he doesn’t know it that much- Also, he’s kind of oblivious, so when he gets a request for help from anyone, he always agrees. Practically everyone loves this man.

• While he is a good athlete, he slacks in grades, even with how much he tries. So he might just get a tutor-

• Heracles always rejects love confessions as kindly as he can. Mans feels bad that he can’t reciprocate their feelings, but he doesn’t want to lie to them-

• Oh, but when it comes to you, he’s very obvious with his feelings- The mans will probably always have a heat on his face, and may try to show off for you. He may even request for you to be the one to tutor him.

• His friends, perhaps Shiva or Valkyries like Brunhilde may try to hint of his feelings to you. It did get pretty easy to catch on in the first place though, so whenever you are alone with him, he may try to strike small conversation.

• You give him one kiss and he’ll sputter for a second before looking at you with wide eyes.

• He’s glad you love him back, but that seemed a bit too sudden-

• Still, starting from there, you may as well stick with the man. His fangirls probably know something’s wrong, especially when they saw him ask you for tutoring. The second you two stepped out, you could immediately feel the stares from certain women.

• Heracles would gladly defend you from anyone, and sometimes gives you scary dog privileges. He’s patient when someone tries to get with you, but knows damn well when to start intimidating, because he’s not tolerating anyone trying to take you from him.

• Supportive girlfriend. Supportive boyfriend. Best pair when your energy practically brightens the entire school-

• He’s glad you love him though. Enjoy watching him show off at his games against another school- He’ll protect you from his fangirls-

𝕁𝕒𝕔𝕜 𝕋𝕙𝕖 ℝ𝕚𝕡𝕡𝕖𝕣:

• If we’re going from the fanart of him at school, which is him being a president of the Student Council, it’s definitely going to be hard to catch his attention.

• The man takes Buddha’s candy away. It’s basically official in the highschool arc. Jack has his eyes on the male every time he sees him, because every time, Buddha has a sort of snack with him.

• It’s rumored that Jack wasn’t a goody two shoes when he was younger. Instead that he was a sort of delinquent that took pleasure in seeing others in fear. Yet, that was never uncovered. People never bring it up around him either. They always get a silent stare. Yet, no one can tell if he’s lying either. He always answers as normal, never cracking a smile, nor does he show a frown of any kind while doing so. It’s impossible to catch him in any kind of act as if he’s a delinquent. Not anymore, at least.

• Jack happens to be friends with Heracles as well. But it’s odd to others as to how they had been through that said process. Perhaps it could have been an enemies to friends type of thing in middle school? Heracles never did confirm anything, even if he’s close to giving it away in some shape or form. Yet, Jack always silences him before he can say anything else, and leads the attention away.

• He himself is a student of both good grades, and tends to be polite as he speaks. He makes for a good enforcer, as he knows exactly when people lie, or when people are doing what they’re not supposed to be doing. But still, Jack isn’t a teacher’s pet. He does things his own way, and doesn’t need a teacher’s help unless it’s truly necessary.

• The man is usually closed off to all people that approach him, even if he is polite, and smiles at times. Which is why certain people love him, and certain people hate him. It’s honestly debatable to others because of how he is and his standing at school.

• However, it’s not as if he’s completely closed off. There are some like Heracles that have managed to get past his own closed off walls. And that goes for you too. You are someone that has managed to slowly get past him, and of course knows what he was in the past. Yet, you never do talk about it either unless he wants to, in which he’s glad of.

• Work as a Student Council President can be tiring, even with other people in the group helping along as much as they can. But it isn’t too bad when you come in every now and then to give him tea and a few minutes of affection. He’s glad for you, and wants to let you know, even if he really only has time on the weekends.

• It does have him slightly sad though. To know he only has time for you in weekends, with only rare days for him to stay near you. Those days seem to go so fast, especially when he enjoys them so much with you. However, he gets relieved whenever you look at him with that same color. You always wave or greet him whenever you see him, whether that be while he’s in the halls or you see him in a certain room.

• Of course, he smiles softly or waves in reply.

• It’s rumored that whenever someone tries to flirt with you, they will feel a burning gaze in the back of their head. However, whenever they turn, they don’t see anyone around unless it’s Heracles. But if someone is bold enough to flirt with you while Jack is next to you, they’re getting the most dead stare of all from the man.

• Of course, no one has ever seen him mad. Which was why the thought itself was terrifying to pretty much anyone. And is also why they don’t mess with you unless someone is a new student, and a sort of bully. They’ll learn though-

• In short, Jack does tend to be very busy. However, when he’s available, he’ll make the time with you as worth it as possible.

ℍ𝕖𝕣𝕞𝕖𝕤:

• Ah, the music teacher. Hermes does tend to be mysterious, even to his own students, which already has him in the infatuated category. But, from what the people rumor, he already has a special someone. Yet, it’s never been confirmed, as he never tells anyone of his personal life. Not even Zeus, the Principal, would tell anyone about Hermes’ personal life, and would shake the question off with a weak laugh.

• Though, while no one knows anything about him, mostly, he knows every single speck of tea that goes on. Someone cheated on their significant other? He knows. Someone got caught sucking dick in the second floor bathroom? He knows. There’s going to be a fight somewhere? He knows, and will watch in a private spot. But, he will eventually stop said fight if it goes too far.

• As normal, Hermes I’d more talented in the violin or viola, but does know how to play other instruments, as he does get bored of certain ones. So, it’s no wonder that he’s a Music Teacher. But the amount of times he has to tune instruments has him regretting becoming a music teacher at times. The band students are also sometimes very… crackhead-like-

• Naturally, Hermes us very respectful of others. While he does get somewhat annoyed at times, he always keeps his calm exterior until he gets home. That man definitely sighs and removes his tie once he gets home.

• But still, he does seem to spend more time with Ares, a sub for the Physical Education. In fact, those two seem to spill tea, which is where others get the info. From Ares, because he never seems to know when to keep his mouth shut- Still, Hermes doesn’t mind. In fact, he gets amused whenever he hears the gossip. It gives him better chance to hear new tea as well-

• Well, you remember that rumor that he has a significant other of his own? That was confirmed when a student had saw him with you. You yourself are a teacher. And whenever in private, Hermes goes over to you and likes to serve you tea, or whatever you’d like.

• Girls are hating because all the hot guys are getting stolen. Because like god damn Shiva has three girlfriends too, like, shit-

• Hermes seems to be slightly distasteful for when he knows your relationship with him was found out. However, he just decides to go along with it. At least he can be more open with you now. It seems like it were for the best as well, since you won’t get messed with in any case.

• People seem to move on when seeing how happy he is with you. He seems much more blissful and in love, while in regular class, he’s of course as mysterious as ever, but slightly stern with how he teaches. That completely turns around with you. He definitely has a better sweet spot for you-

• He even plays you things on the violin, so do enjoy the show while drinking your favorite tea and enjoy eating your favorite treat-

[abyssalzones]

I would love to hear more abt your college pre-egg-breaking fiddauthor thoughts if you'd be open to it

oh BOY would I

so when I think about college fiddauthor nowadays I mainly think about both my own experiences with ~navigating identity~ and how I would approach a gay FTM relationship from a semi-realistic 1970's angle, where you start to see a lot of what you'd call "milestones" I guess in LGBT history and public awareness. wait okay here's something I said to mer that can set a precedent for what I'm talking about

when it comes to me and my own journey of self discovery irt sexuality and transness, I feel like those two things are very intertwined, because the concept of identity in my eyes is very socially motivated. I've previously identified as a nonbinary lesbian and a transgender gay man respectively before getting to the point I'm at now, and don't feel like either of those things were incorrect necessarily, just how I felt at the time (and what I wanted out of a relationship, really). I think I literally got an ask ages ago questioning how I went from one to the other but Idk I don't think the gender journey is as simple or "logical" as people coming from a hetero-patriarchal perspective (that's a mouthful) seem to think.

and, And, from a Historical perspective, FTM experiences and butch lesbian experiences have Always been very intertwined, especially back in the early 70's when more people were starting to have some awareness (even in LGBT spaces) of this thing known as the Transgender Lifestyle. I'm flattening things quite a bit here and I know for a fact there's a lot of variation between experiences, especially depending on your social circles, but from what I can glean a lot of the time transgender men weren't very well known and so a lot of the time you would just ID as a butch lesbian and/or present as a man socially, sometimes for safety reasons. and there's a lot of overlap there too that continues into contemporary transmasc spaces today :]

historical justification aside I basically think college would be a major turning point for self-discovery in both of their lives, but more-so for fiddleford than ford? I've always assumed based on everything we've seen that fidds was basically the only friend ford had in college, which definitely would have influenced him in important ways, but other than that I think he invested most of his time in studying and developments in gender were an afterthought. ford's FTM identity starts from a place of "failing to be a woman" and then develops with his pride in being a huge weirdo. in my mind that can only really happen once he's in gravity falls and has basically sacrificed his connections with other people/the world to live as his truest self, whether that's researching anomalies or living as a man.

fiddleford, however, I always think of from the perspective of someone bucking to societal expectations for safety reasons. this is because of a lot of things: ford's possible feelings of abandonment in favor of Normalcy (who can forget "Go back to your doting family and a life of fear and compromise!"), his jumping into a nuclear family immediately out of college, But also packing up and driving to oregon in a matter of days after ford asks for his help... when he has a kid who could be no older than 5 or 6 at home...? I sort of see his presentation as a foil to ford's, trying to mimic cishetero ("hetero") normalcy vs. being the Lone Transsexual Freak. I've gotten horribly off topic from the college thing hang on

basically I imagine them in their uni days like two weird butch gay women that are just, totally socially unapproachable. fiddleford is the more outgoing of the two as he's been voted "most likely to actually have other friends" in my mind, so if anyone was going to gay & lesbian student association meetings it would've been him, but otherwise ford is too busy ignoring his feelings. "I don't care if I'm a man or a woman I'm too busy studying. go away." but of course they find enough solace in eachother's company and their different-but-distinctly-similar weirdness that it forms an unbreakable transgender bond. freak4freak if you will. fidds settles on a bisexual identity without thinking about it too hard because honestly the conclusion here is that it doesn't matter if his roommate is a woman or a man he just knows he needs to do terrible things to him over d&d&md (sorry) (not really that sorry though.)

it's actually funny you bring this up because I'd been workshopping a short comic set in their college era that touches on this stuff a lot. not sure when that will ever get done but I can tell you it's. uhm

yeah they're kind of weird.

[tangerinesgf]

Silent Screams

Tangerine x fem!reader

Summary: A job gone wrong makes Tangerine live his worst nightmare

Wordcount: 4.5k

Tags/warnings: major character death (yes again, I know just bare with me pls), lots of angst, blood, language, asshole cartel leader, lots of tears (please tell me if I missed something)

A/N: I apologize in advance, this is gonna be an angsty one. So be warned.

I told you this was gonna be easy, you worried for nothing."

"We're not out of the woods yet, love."

"I'm just saying, if getting in was this easy how hard can it be to get out again?"

"Jus' 'ave a bad feeling about this is all." his eyes were scanning the room from corner to corner even as he closed the door behind him.

Tangerine couldn't shake the feeling that something was up with this job. Not necessarily if it was a trap or not, although he wouldn't discard that option entirely. He and Lemon had been in a lot of dangerous situations, he wouldn't be able to count them all if he tried, but something about this felt wrong.

Maybe it was the fact that you were currently infiltrating one of the most dangerous organizations on the planet apart from the White Death's. The three of you were tasked with stealing an envelope which contained important letters regarding Girardi Ludano, the boss. They didn't ask what was in it or what it would be used for, but it was safe to assume that the goal was to destroy him and his reputation.

You had been going on jobs with the Twins for a while now. You weren't officially a trio, but you were with them more often than not. However when presented this particular one Tangerine has asked you to stay home just this one time. Ludano was known for being ruthless, he didn't care who he killed even if they had been by his side for years. If he found out you were fucking him over you're a goner.

He was also known for being careless with women, Ludano thought himself above them and with him most of the men that worked for him. Hence the reason Tangerine had asked you to stay put. Unfortunately you wouldn't listen, no matter how hard he tried to convince you, saying that you didn't need protection from a bunch of pathetic men.

Tangerine knows you could handle yourself, he really does, he just didn't want to take any unnecessary risks if he could avoid them. After a long and exhausting argument, Tangerine realized that you were not gonna let this go and decided to bring you along anyway.

It was a fancy gathering, all the most important people in the cartel were invited as were their partners. Small blessings he thought, because that way you wouldn't stick out as the only woman in the crowd. He wanted to get out as quickly as possible, because sooner or later someone was going to notice that there were a bunch of strangers among them. He held onto your waist the entire time, keeping you close to him, away from those lingering eyes. In return he could feel your hand on his back, trying to calm his nerves by drawing circles.

Ever since the two of you started dating his urge to protect you has grown immensely. If it was up to him no one else would ever lay a hand on you again. And that went both ways. He remembers one day where you'd told him that if it came to it, you would take a bullet for him.  It started out as a laugh, but turned serious quite quickly.

"I'm serious, Tan, I would."

"Yeah, well, before that happens I'm already not gonna let it happen, so don't even think about it, love."

And Tangerine was intent on keeping that promise, no matter what it took. He doesn't know how to do this life thing without you, not anymore. He was pulled away from his thoughts by your voice.

"Mhm?" he mumbled. He could hear her voice in front of him but none of the words held any meaning as they flew in through one ear and out through the other.

"I asked if you're just gonna stand there the entire time? This would go way faster if you actually helped me look for this fucking thing."

"Right."

After about a minute of searching you spoke up again. "What were you thinking about?"

"Nothing." he mumbled as he scoured through some documents.

"It's never just nothing with you."

"Just keep looking, alright? The faster we find this thing the faster we can get out of 'ere."

"Fine, keep your little secrets." Your tone was playful, trying to lighten the mood. It didn't help calm his anxiety, but he did find a small smile creeping up on his face.

Tangerine was looking behind the clothes in the man's closet next to the door when he heard a 'eureka' coming from the other side of the room. "Tan, I found it!"

Just as he was about to turn around the door to the office opened. Tangerine instantly went for his gun, only to recognize the man as his brother.

"Lemon, the fuck are you doin' in here? You're supposed to be fuckin' look out."

"Oh excuse me for trying to save your lives here, I'll just get back at it then." Before Lemon could turn around again Tangerine yanked him back into the room by his arm.

"The fuck is it?"

"Oh, now you wanna know?"

"Just fuckin' spit it out, would ya." Tangerine was already high strung from this fucking job and Lemon just playing around was not something he was willing to put up with right now.

"He's coming this way." Lemon stated.

"Shit." you cursed from the other side of the room.

"You couldn't have fuckin' led with that information?" If Ludano found them in here, they were dead fucking meat.

"I wanted to but you were being an ass about it."

"Okay fuck, we need to hide. Fast." His eyes scanned around the room and finally landed on closet he was just searching. He was sure that would be big enough for the tree of them.

Tangerine fully opened the closet he was previously searching and urged Lemon inside of it before joining him. He gestured for you to join them, but before you could make it to the other side of the room the door opened. Lemon instinctively closed to the closet, keeping the twins out of sight from the cartel leader.

"Fuck." His voice was low, only audible for Lemon to hear. This was exactly what he had been so afraid of, why he asked you to stay home where it's fucking safe. Now you were trapped in a room with a fucking psychopath who degrades women and all Tangerine can do is watch. He has to let it play out until it becomes too risky, which is an understatement because this whole fucking job was a risk since they walked through the fucking frontdoor.

"Can I help you?" Ludano asked you as he slowly closed the door behind him, his strong Italian accent filling the room.

The man was clearly startled to find someone in his office who is clearly not supposed to be there. Tangerine trusted your ability to get yourself out of this, you could sell hay to a farmer with that mouth. The one he didn't trust was Girardi Ludano. Tangerine knows the man wouldn't hesitate to kill you at the slightest suspicion that something was off or hell, even just for the fun of it. He could feel his heart beating in his throat as the watched the interaction through the shutters of the closet.

"I was looking for you actually, I'm a big fan of your work, sir."

"Who let you in here?" Ludano was cautious, almost hesitant and he had every right to be. As one of the biggest cartel leaders he couldn't trust anyone but himself, not even his own people. Right now though it was working to their disadvantage and Tangerine had to stop himself from just stepping out this box and shooting him point blank.

"The door was open actually, I got curious I guess, but I see that might not have been very proper of me." Your hands were behind your back, trying to shove the letter underneath your dress before he could see it.

"Step away from my desk please and show me your hands."

Tangerine was able to see the gun on the inside of the man's jacket as he walked closer to you. Apparently Lemon must have seen it too, because he placed a hand on Tangerine's shoulder, wordlessly telling him to calm down. "I'm sure you understand I have to be cautious with people who break into my office when there's a perfectly enjoyable party downstairs."

"Of Course yes, although technically I didn't really 'break in' if the door was open, you know?" you quipped, stalling to safely hide the envelope without him noticing.

"I said show me your hands." Ludano reached for the gun inside his jacket as you quickly stashed it and threw your hands up for him to see.

"What do you want?" his voice was firm but not especially demanding, still not sure if you were completely innocent or not.

"Like I said, I just really wanted to meet the big man behind the organization." You smiled innocently at him, as if you were truly just here by accident. It even threw Tangerine off.

"Anyways I know I overstepped and I apologize." You gave him an apologetic smile and walked past him and his still pointed gun to the door. Relief flowed through Tangerine when your hand reached the doorknob, turning it over and slowly opening the dark wooden door.

At least until Ludano walked over and pushed it shut again. He was now leaning over you, trapping you between himself and the door. "I've never seen you here before, think I'd remember a pretty little thing like yourself."

You were squirming under his piercing brown eyes, trying to think of a way out. In the meantime Tangerine thought of all the painful ways he could kill this man when they got out. "Which of my men managed to win you over?"

"My husband is just downstairs, but I don't think you know him, he's fairly new." Despite the situation, you held yourself together pretty well.

"I know everyone here, darling." Tangerine was crawling in his skin, desperately trying to get out of it as he watched Ludano move even closer to you. 

"Just like I know when someone is trying to steal from me." His hand slowly slipped up the back of your top and snatched the envelope from underneath it, holding it in front of your face.

"Wait, I can-" Before you could finish your sentence, Ludano pressed his gun underneath your chin, forcing you to look up at him.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Tangerine reached for his own gun, this fucker wasn't going to lay one more hand on you. Until suddenly Lemon stopped him, placing his hand firmly over his brother's. Tangerine looked up at him, giving him a questioning and irritated look.

"The fuck are you doing, she needs help." he whispered as aggressively as he possibly could. 

"If you go out there guns blazing he'll not only kill her but you too or worse." For a second Tangerine considered the 'or worse'. If he was honest he couldn't care less if he died, what would actually kill him is having to live without you. But Lemon had a point, if he just stepped out now he might not just kill you but take you hostage or some shit. He could only imagine the things Ludano would do to make you wish for something as sweet as death. No, he wouldn't let that happen, but he couldn't just step out there without a plan.

"I'll just fuckin' shoot him in the head through this door, end of story." Tangerine said bluntly, trying to get his hand out of Lemon's grip.

"His entire fucking organization is here, no fucking way we would make it out alive after we killed their boss." Tangerine's eyes keep flickering between Lemon and the scene outside the closet, not wanting to miss anything that may happen. He could only hear small fragments of their conversation over his own with Lemon.

"Well the fuck do you suggest we do then, eh?"

"I don't think there's anything we can do." Lemon admitted. His eyes held a look of sorrow and pity for him as if he seemed to have already made up his mind. Tangerine couldn't believe his own ears.

"You just want me to stand here and let him do whatever the fuck he wants to her?" his eyes were comically wide as he stared at his brother in disbelief.

"I won't let you get out there, you'll only make things worse for both of ya."

"I couldn't give a rat's ass, I'm not just gonna let her die." No way he was just gonna sit here and watch, completely useless.

"If you go out there, she's surely dead." That shut him up.

Even though Tangerine knew deep down that Lemon was right, he didn't confirm or deny anything. For now he decided to listen to his brother and wait. He knows you, you've got this.

Both brothers turned their full attention back to the situation at hand. Ludano was still looming over you, only now instead of the gun he had his hand wrapped around your neck, the rings on his fingers no doubt leaving marks on your skin.

"I'll ask you one more time, and think carefully before you answer, okay?" You nodded slowly in response.

"Is there anyone else here?"

"N-no, just m-me, I swear." your voice was raspy from the lack of air flowing through your lungs.

"And no one knows you're here? No knight in shining armor coming to save you?" Not trusting your voice anymore, you decided to just shake your head.

"Good. Good girl." Everything they had heard about this man was true. He was a real sick fucking bastard. Tangerine wanted to rip his fucking arms off as he moved a strand of hair behind your ear. He needed to get you out of here as soon as possible.

"What am I supposed to do with you then, huh?" His voice was scaringly playful, as if he wasn't deciding the fate of your life at the moment.

"Just let me go, I'll forget everything, this never happened."

"As much as I'd like to, I don't think I can do that." Fuck. 

"Why can't we just forget about this?" You suspected that he wasn't just gonna let it go, but some part of you had still hoped he would.

"Why?" He laughed at you. "Because you tried to steal from me with the intent of ruining my reputation and my organization and then lied to me about it."

"I promise you'll never have to see me again, I'll be as good as dead to you." You pleaded with him.

"See the thing is, now I just can't trust you anymore." he released his grip on you entirely and took a step back. You could see the hold on his gun tightening. "But you are right about one thing."

The cartel leader took a deep breath before raising his gun, pointing it directly at your chest. 

"You will be as good as dead." Your mind was yelling at yourself to do something, anything as he removed the safety off the gun and rested his finger on the trigger. But nothing happened, you were frozen with your back against the door.

Alarm bells were going off in Tangerine's head. This wasn't happening, he wouldn't let it. But before he could even think about doing something he felt two arms wrap around his waist, holding him back. "I swear to god, if you don't let me go right now-"

"Then what? You wanna go out there and let yourself get killed too? I'm not losing both of ya today." With this the grip on his brother tightened.

"Goddammit Lemon, I can't just let her die." He tried to work himself out of Lemon's hold but it was no use. Lemon had more weight behind him, making it impossible for Tangerine to get loose without giving themselves away.

"She's gonna think we fuckin' abandoned her, Lem."

"Why do you think she told him she's alone, huh?"

"I don't care."

"Because she wants to protect us."

"She shouldn't have to, Lemon, I'm supposed to protect her." Tangerine was still trying to get free from his brother's arms, but his eyes were glued to you. He could see you shaking in fear, but making no move to get away. He wanted to scream at you, tell you to at least try to save yourself, but nothing came out.

Every word died on his tongue as Ludano slowly walked closer to you, the gun in his hand never once leaving your form. He leaned over you, leaving no room between the two of you, and pressed the gun against your abdomen. "Don't scream."

Tangerine trashed harder against his brother, it was now or never. But as expected it didn't work. He could see your eyes darting around the room, finally landing on his, only where Tangerine could see you through the shutters, but you couldn't see him. You couldn't see the tears already threatening to fall down from the corners of his eyes or the way he was still fighting to get to you. But as you were looking at the closet, not knowing if he would be watching, your lips curled into a small smile.

At that a tear rolled down his cheek and he stopped moving. You were about to give your life for him, but even now you were still trying to comfort him. To tell him that it's okay, that you've accepted it. It wasn't as convincing as you probably hoped it would be, given that your eyes were still laced with fear.

For a moment there was peace as Tangerine looked into your eyes. Those beautiful eyes that held his entire world.

A second later it was over.

Even though the gun had a silencer and he couldn't see the movements from how close you were standing, he could see the exact moment Ludano pulled the trigger in your eyes. There was a soft thud and your eyes went wide.

A broken scream ripped itself out of Tangerine's throat, but before it was even finished Lemon brought his hand up to cover his mouth. Where a second ago the tears were only threatening to flow over, Tangerine has now completely let go. He didn't care that his tears were rolling down his cheeks over Lemon's hand or that he couldn't stop screaming for you even though no one would be able to hear it.

As per Ludano's request you didn't scream, but tears started rolling down your face like a waterfall as well. He finally stepped away from you, leaving you with no form of support as you fell to the ground clutching your stomach with your hands. Ludano quickly cleaned his gun from any blood that might have stained and then made his way to the door. "I'll come back when you're done." Done. More like dead.

Because you were still sitting with your back against the door, he not so carefully moved you to the side before walking back downstairs. The second the door closed Tangerine ripped himself out of his brother's hold and almost broke the closet door as he rushed towards you.

He tore off his suit-jacket and crouched down next to you, replacing your blood stained hands with the jacket to stop the bleeding. God there was so much blood. 

"Lemon please keep an eye out if he's coming back." They shared a look and the next moment it was just the two of you.

When he turned his attention back to you, your eyes were shut. He brought the already blood stained hand that wasn't applying pressure to the wound up to your face, cupping your cheek.

"Hey, hey look at me, you're okay, love, you're okay." he kept on repeating it, not knowing if it was for you or just to reassure himself.

"Tan?" your voice was weak and every grain of color had drained from your face. "Where-?"

You frantically start looking around you, for what though Tangerine has no idea. He holds your face a little firmer now, making sure you're focusing on him.

“Just look at me, okay? Don’t worry about anything else. It’s only you an' me.” A worried smile formed across his face.

You slowly nodded in response.

Tangerine looked down to your stomach, his jacket now almost entirely red. As he turned it around, looking for a clean spot to press to your wound, he noticed your blood had started to turn darker.

"No, no, no." The bullet must have pierced an organ.

Tangerine rips your dress around the wound, giving him a better look at it. He tells himself that it looks worse than it is, even though it doesn't quite convince him. Blood kept pouring out with seemingly no end to it, it made Tangerine sick to his stomach.

Panic started to settle in and he started to look around for anything he could use to stop the bleeding or perhaps stitch it shut, anything would be helpful right about now. You must have noticed the panic in his eyes, because suddenly his effort to stop the bleeding was paused when  your hands reached for his. 

"It's o-okay." There was a content smile on your face, you had accepted your fate. Tangerine however had not and was everything but content with this situation.

"No, no it's fuckin' not. You're not supposed to die." 

He was supposed to die for you, to save you, protect you. Not the other way around. One job, as your partner he had one fucking job, protect you, and he had failed at that. He would have happily died knowing that you were safe. You would need time, but eventually you and Lemon would be okay, picking up your lives again.

Only now it was him that needed to get over you, knowing that he could have saved you if he just hadn't let you come on this job or if he had just fought Lemon a little bit harder. He has loved you for about 3 years now and he couldn't imagine a world without you in it anymore. 

You were his world, without you there was nothing left for him.

"You were my heaven o-on earth, did you k-know that?"

"Just stop, okay? I'm going to get you out of here and you're going to be fine. No stupid goodbyes." The fact that he had no idea how he was gonna do that was abandoned in the back of his mind. 

"It's not your f-fault. I-I need you to know that, I chose this-s." He could see you were in what must be incredibly pain as you pushed the words out of your mouth.

"Well that was one stupid fuckin' decision, love." Tangerine tried to joke. A slight smile formed on your face. It only lasted so long before you started coughing uncontrollably, one hand gripping your stomach as you bent forward.

"Hey, hey just don't talk, okay? Save your breath." Tangerine helped you sit back up against the wall as you slowly got your breathing back under control.

"It hurts." You croaked out against Tangerine's requests to save your breath.

"I know love, just hang in there." He didn't know what for. He couldn't call an ambulance, it would give them away instantly, but there was no way he could treat this wound himself without the right supplies. He was pretty sure even the bullet was still in there. 

Tangerine was so focused he hadn't noticed that your eyes had slid shut, your head leaning backwards against the wall. If this was any other situation he would have thought she was just calmly sleeping, but his blood stained hands painfully reminded him of their current reality. 

 "No, no, no.. don't. Don't l-leave me alone, please." He had grown so used to having you around these past years that just the thought of waking up in your shared bed, finding your side empty over and over again scared him to death.

"Come on... wake up. Please, please wake up..." He begged, slightly shaking your shoulders in an attempt to wake you up again. Failing. Once it starts to sink in that you're not gonna wake up, Tangerine broke down.

Every emotion, every tear he had tried to hold back came rushing back up, after all he didn't have to be strong for you anymore. Act like everything is going to be okay.

As long as you were still alive he held onto the fact that everything was gonna be okay somehow. He didn't know how exactly, but it was gonna be fine and the two of you were gonna walk out of here together.

Now that was all gone, just like you.

As the tears blurred his vision Tangerine looked over at you, that faint smile still on your face. He moved over to sit next to you against the wall. After a moment he carefully laid you down in his lap, holding onto you like a lifeline.

He doesn't know how long he had been sitting there, crying over your dead body when the door opened again, Lemon walking through it.

"I'm sorry." He knew Lemon meant it. It's not as if he wanted this to happen, he only did what he thought was right. Although it would take Tangerine some time to come to terms with that.

Tangerine quickly wipes the tears from his eyes in an attempt to look stronger in his brother's eyes. "No, it's okay. I'm fine."

A moment of silence passed before Lemon spoke up again. "We can't ehm- you know."

"Yeah, no I-I know." Lemon didn't need to explain what he meant for him to understand.

Slowly he got up, making sure to carefully move your body with him. He slowly placed you back against the wall where he found you as if you had been alone the whole time. He's not particularly religious, but he thanks God for the fact that you hadn't been alone. That you had been able to spend your final moment with the person you loved instead of that fucking twat.

Girardi fucking Ludano. In that moment where he was still crouched down next to you like before, he swore to avenge you. That bastard was gonna pay for what he did and Tangerine wouldn't rest until it was done.

Finally he got up, trying to clean his bloody hands on his suit pants. The suit was ruined anyways, not just by the blood but also by the memories it now held. 

"We gotta go man."

"Yeah, yeah.." It came as more of a whisper than anything else. 

As much as he would have wanted to take you with them, give you a proper burial, they couldn't. Ludano would know and sooner or later he would come after the Twins. Better to just let him think you operated on your own. He took one last look at you before closing the door, leaving you behind.

A/N: Maybe next time I should kill Tangerine off to switch it up (although I don't think I can handle writing that)

Taglist: @waiting4ffng4ff @venusthepirateusthepirate @megumisbabymomma @bratdoll666 @assmaster37 @wrendermeuseless @kpopgirlbtssvt @dontknownameauthorthor @earth-elemental18ntal18 @thirstyfortangerine @ilovetangerinewithallmyheart (Lemme know if you wanna be added or removed)

[underestimated-heroine]

sure this has been said before and said better, but we get into dicey territory talking about romantic/sexual preferences--or "types"--a lot of the time because...well firstly, the subject is obviously intensely personal, but also because quite frequently what's happening isn't:

someone has a preference/type

they are hated for it.

but instead:

someone has a preference/type

they go around talking about it in inappropriate settings and in ways that are hurtful; badgering people and even "testing" them (ex. demanding to know if they're "bad" for not liking [x])

people are disgusted, hurt by them, wary of them...and well, yeah, maybe hate them (especially when systemic oppression plays such a significant role in influencing one's "type.")

to me the most revealing element of this is the power dynamics that are almost always at play; people only get away with it safely if they're "type"-badgering one way...and it ain't up. it reminds me of a well-spotted maxim i read about here the other day:

I’m especially interested in how people police each other’s reactions, and how the accumulation of that policing at the individual and societal level leads us to start policing our own, with disastrous results. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The “national pastime” in the USA isn’t baseball, it’s debating exactly how much other people are allowed to react to something that hurts and upsets them. There’s almost a formula in play, where, the more power I have (or assume I have) relative to you, the more I expect you to keep your reactions to the things I do to you to a decorous mumble that I can safely ignore without having to change anything about myself (but also, the louder I will yell about how “dramatic” and “over-sensitive” you are). 

women can tell you they absolutely don't safely get away with saying they prefer certain things in men. no matter how carefully or how long they avoid hurting anyone, giving the truth demanded of them will very likely lead to anger, manipulation tactics, and quite possibly abuse and violence.

trans women not being considered "allowed" to be "picky" is a major vehicle of transmisogynistic abuse. this is how and why so many trans women are preyed on by violent men. "they're just grateful for anything, "they'll do anything to please", "nothing's off limits"...these are common fallback lines of the transmysoginistic predator. a trans woman who defies this by rejecting someone for not being her type, no matter how nicely, is in a very scary position.

we hear white people say they're "not into black people" all the time. not only is it much more commonly said and accepted than when black folks say they don't want to date white people, but white people are incredibly eager to condemn black preferences overall, barging in on discussions which are really intracommunal.

and radfems use "type"-badgering to "prove" the "men" (trans women) who get angry and upset at them for doing this are "violent misogynists", that "maleness" is violence, and to indoctrinate each other. stories of the angry reactions their "type"-badgering got, screenshots from lgbtq+ spaces where people "ganged up on them" for saying they don't date trans women (usually they also said something along the lines of "i can tell when they're trans") are passed around in radfem spaces as Evidence that the Shadow of Maleness is infiltrating womanhood and preying on them...

...yet they're the ones invoking the maxim.

and sure enough, they are not going to cishet male-dominated spaces to do so. they are "type"-badgering specifically in queer/trans-inclusive spaces. functionally, it is nothing more than reactionary maintenance of a power structure which benefits them, and a bid to provide depth to the sense/fear of victimhood they've externalized and phenomenalized (this is a big part of why we say just don't engage.)

these are just a few examples, obviously. the last one is a good chunk of the reason i really made this post. because despite the fact that i'm sure most of us feel all this should go without saying, or can be shortened to "don't be an asshole", i really think it's relevant enough to the conversation about transphobia and exclusionism in leftist & queer spaces that it does need to be addressed, and probably more often.

[ititledit]

Terrible headline choice, but overall I'm glad child free women are getting some mainstream coverage

________________

The number of women choosing not to have children is growing and the global birth rate is plunging.

While their reasons vary from climate worries to financial concerns and health complications, those making the decision to be "child-free by choice" say societal acceptance is yet to come, often leaving them feeling ostracised.

The BBC spoke to members of Bristol Childfree Women, a social group with more than 500 members, set up by women and for women who have decided not to have children.

While Caroline Mitchell always knew she never wanted children, she wasn't prepared for how hard reaching "child-bearing age" would be.

The 46-year-old, who lives with her husband in Brislington, Bristol, said while it never bothered her when she was younger, she had not anticipated the barrage of personal questions she would face as friends and acquaintances started to have children.

"I have felt like a freak because of it," she said.

"I feel like my perspective and my experience is just not acceptable."

In Caroline's eyes, society is set up for motherhood.

"You realise how you're quite excluded from a lot of life," she said.

"It's really hard for me to meet people, because it's all about the women you meet at the school gates or the writing clubs for mums."

Caroline said she thinks that sometimes women with children believe the "whole world" is set up for child-free women.

"Actually, it's really exclusionary," she said.

Many in her circle of friends have children and while they have never knowingly done anything to make her feel different, she says, the fact they are "all doing one thing" and she is doing another has been "quite hard".

While Caroline is "100% certain" and "very comfortable" in her identity, she admits she has, on occasion, “agonised" about her decision.

She said that was down to the "cultural expectation" of what was normal and the concept that if you were a woman, having a child was "the natural thing to do".

Official figures released in 2022, external show record numbers of women are reaching the age of 30 child-free.

More than half (50.1%) of women in England and Wales born in 1990 were without a child when they turned 30 in 2020, the first generation to do so, according to the Office for National Statistics.

Megan Stanley, who is originally from Oxfordshire and lives in Bristol, was so certain about her decision to not have children, she has been trying to get sterilised since the age of 19.

When it comes to her painful periods, Megan said it feels "cruel" to go through the "suffering every single month for a body function" she feels she does not need.

"I know that sterilisation doesn't solve periods but it does alleviate a lot of those major symptoms," she said.

But the 31-year-old said she has come up against hurdle after hurdle.

“The doctors would say ‘you're still a bit young’ or ‘you might change your mind’,” she said.

The furthest Megan got was when she was 29 and had an appointment with a surgeon.

"I'd prepared everything - my medical history, prepared all my line of reasoning. I'd even gone as far as to get a testimony from the therapist I was seeing. I'd gone the full mile," she said.

However, permission was not granted once the gynaecologist asked about her relationship status.

"At the time I'd been dating my now long-term partner for maybe three months," Megan said.

She told the doctor that her partner also definitely did not want children and he had already had a vasectomy.

Megan said the doctor then told her that if her partner had a vasectomy, “then you don't need to have this done, do you?"

It was then that Megan said she realised it was "inescapable" and they were "just not going to do it".

"Why should what happens to my body be beholden to what he's done to his?" she said.

"It's got to the point now where I long for the menopause. That's what I'm looking forward to."

Caroline believes women without children may be “complicit” in keeping cultural expectations as they are.

"We don't talk about it - so there's still this thought that it's what everyone does," she said.

"Motherhood is just everywhere all the time, in your face."

She said it was hard not fitting in with the "norm of society" and at times, she had wished she was "different".

"My life would have been easier in some ways," she said.

Yet for many women, whatever choices they make, they seem to beat themselves up about it and "seem to be not very accepting of everyone's choice", Caroline added.

Fiona Powley said she knew she did not want to be a mother from the age of 12 after seeing her own mum struggle with motherhood.

“I just thought motherhood didn't look like lot of fun," she said.

Now 49, Fiona runs the Bristol Childfree Women group, external and while she is currently experiencing menopausal symptoms, she has "no panicking feeling" that she did not use her ability to reproduce.

"It feels very comfortable," she said.

Ironically Fiona now looks at herself and thinks she could have actually done “quite a good job of parenting" but she "never really wanted it enough".

However, like Caroline and Megan she said new people she meets can react negatively when she tells them she chose not to have children.

“There's being told you'll regret it. What's your point of existing? If you don't have children you're not valid as a woman," Fiona said.

Fiona has even been called "selfish" and some have questioned who will look after her when she is old.

“It's almost like people feel uncomfortable," she said.

“It's probably because it never occurred to them that they also had a choice.”

Megan can sympathise.

In the past, the reaction to her not wanting children has been quite "visceral", she said.

She claims some people have painted her as "a child-hater, or a mean person” because of it.

"I think my not wanting kids is just an innate thing to who I am," she said.

Fiona said there were so many reasons why people decide not to have children.

Looking back, she thinks her own reasons were "probably quite unhealthy", but she knows that she is not going to "suddenly wake up as an old lady and feel bitter and regret".

Caroline said she would be a "resentful mother", adding there were a "huge amount of upsides" to not having children, like focusing her time on her relationship with her husband and her hobbies.

Megan agrees.

“There’s a lot of joy to be had in not having kids," she said.

“It isn't all about freedom and money. It's about choice."