#this is so dumb but despite every awful thing happening in my life at the moment

[teethrotter]

panic

[espinosaurusrexex]

Flooded

SteveRogers x Female!Reader

summary: There was something off in the air that morning - Y/N should have known. But bad things always happen when you least expect them. The life she was living was threatened by the one secret she hoped would never be revealed. And now that it had, there was no going back.

a/n: Welcome to heartbreak city! This is dedicated to my 2015 teen wolf obsession (make sure to tell me when you find the passage). I know it's sad and angsty; but I put a bunch of fluff in there too. I hope you enjoy - as always, feedback is appreciated!

word count: 5.5k

warnings: torture, trauma, drowning, experimenting on people (in flashbacks), mentions of abuse, mentions of dying, angst (in case that wasn't clear), swearing, idiots in love, fluff, and a happy ending :)

I don't think the bad parts are super descriptive, but please do not read if anything mentioned in the warnings makes you uncomfortable (18+ only!).

･ﾟ✫* 𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ｡✭･ﾟ✶ 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐎𝟑 ✧*･ﾟ

This just captures the vibe too well. You'll know the passage... i'll never fall in love with myself - Zeph

It’s normal to feel your heart in your head right? Like it’s pounding so hard that it literally makes your veins jump beneath your skin? There was a rush of adrenaline shooting through Y/N‘s Body. Pain sharp as lightning zickzacking its way down her spine and up again. Her lungs felt tight. Solid. As if they were of stone weighing her down and not giving in to her urge to breathe. It felt like that. And the look at the rusted metal door with the white number ’15’ brought back an awful lot of pain. Blue and green splashing their way through her brain, voices layering over one another, and a distinct smell of chemicals in her nose. Oh no. She was back there. Right now. How was that possible? How did it get that far? Were there not a bunch of people making sure that this would never happen to her again? A shiver overtook her but at the same time, sweat assembled on her skin. The room was wet and moldy and sterile all at once. No. No. No. She escaped, she was safe - fought her way through hell to get there. There was no way this was really happening.

Dull voices broke through to her. “We’re at 12 Minutes”. “180, going down”. Beeping of sorts and then - somehow, through all the water and noise, the unremarkable sound of pen on paper. What an odd thing to remember, right? But Y/N recalled thinking ‘what an odd thing to hear’ back then. Not now, though. Now it was… normal. But that day it wasn’t. It was in fact the very first time it had ever happened and the moment everyone had seemed to work towards. Even if Y/N didn’t know it back then, she was the breakthrough Hydra needed to create yet another group of human weapons. One that luckily never saw the light of day.

They didn’t know. And it should stay that way. Y/N didn’t want to be associated with Hydra anymore. She never did. She wanted to be herself when she joined the Avengers. A woman with power and endurance and, well, certain enhanced abilities. There was one person that knew how she got them, and that person was Nick Fury. But he had promised to keep his mouth shut. Y/N held onto that promise because it kept her from losing her mind - reminded her that she became who she was without their help. She had escaped, and fought, and grieved, and wept in order to get over that old self. And yet, despite all the hard work, she was in that old skin again.

It shouldn’t be possible though. She had put a recognizable amount of time into burying every piece of evidence of her past life - Her dumb anxiety included. But here it was: dark and strong and the thing that would ruin everything, every piece of harmony she had associated with its absence. 

Y/N was frozen to the ground, the image of the door branding itself into her mind and leaving a burning hole in its wake that made her head feel blank. Because that’s how it had always been: at first there is so much going on in your head that it feels like exploding and then, all of a sudden, it's wiped off everything. And all you are left with is this shell of a body that is not responsive to anything.

She didn’t know how long she had been standing in that hallway. A minute? Maybe an hour? Time moves differently when you’re not really there. But after whatever amount of time had passed, another voice rang through to her. A deep, and reasoning one, pressing and dripping of worry, though. Y/N shook her head. Steve. Steve was here.

❁ ❁ ❁

“I can’t have my team zoning out on missions.” The impatient voice echoed through the room accommodated by an expensive pair of shoes clicking on the polished floor. “We’ve had the problem before and I don’t like being lied to. Tell me what’s going on or she’s off.” Toni was pacing the floor of the common room until he came to a stop in front of Fury with his hands resting on his hips impatiently. But the man dressed in black didn’t do so much as move a muscle. He was casually lounging on the cushioned chair, waiting for his employee to finish.

“This might not feel like a big problem to you, Nick, but wait until half the Avengers are wiped out because Will Byers over here risks their lives by not cooperating.” Fury’s eye twitched when it lifted to the woman tugged into the corner. She had already been staring at him, trying to drag out the unavoidable, but there was no stopping this. She knew that, and he knew that too. 

“I can’t.” He said while still staring at Y/N. Nick would have done everything to prevent this very moment from happening, he had kept his promise for years. But this - this was the signal for her to know: ‘It’s on you now. You make the call.’

Y/N stared down at her hands that were nervously fumbling in her lap. Though from a distance it might have looked like she was disinterestedly avoiding everyone's eyes on her. Because they were - especially a specific pair of blue ones. Every single person in the room was expecting her to say something. Even more so the man whose worried expression hadn’t faded ever since he had dragged her out of that base hours ago. And even now - away from harm and safely huddled in the confines of the compound, his unrelenting stare was drenched in fear and urgency. Y/N didn't even have to look up to confirm her suspicions. Steve had not moved ever since she sat down in that chair, his arms crossed, shoulders hunched, and eyebrow furrowed as his gaze locked on her. He probably tried to find something - a twitch of a brow or the corner of her mouth - something to tell him that she was okay. But Y/N fought with everything she had not to give him that - because she was in fact not okay. She was far from it, and the storm of emotions rioting through her stomach did very well prove it as nausea crept up her throat.

She was about to reveal the very thing she had kept hidden for years - something she never thought would get dug up again. But here she was: moments away from having every assumption about her changed for the worse. And Y/N hated it. She hated that this would be defining who she was from now on. Because it always did. It happened with Bucky and it happened with Wanda, hell even Steve didn’t get away without being associated with Hydra. Even if his story bore a different relationship to the World War II organization. 

Y/N didn’t want to tell them, but deep down she knew that she would. Because what were her other options? Leaving the Avengers and drowning in sorrow over the lost family she had gained not too many years ago? God, that sounded like the villain origin story. No, she had to come clean, even if it hurt her and her status and possibly every other person surrounding her right now.

A wave of heat overtook her body, but her hands were cold. There was no going back - Y/N owed it to the team. Tony had every right to know what had put his people in danger today, but that didn’t change the fact that it would hurt nonetheless. Because she would be brought back there in her mind. And when she slowly inhaled to talk again, she tried to remember what it felt like to be free, even if the rushing of water already flooded her ears.

“You know when you’re drowning you don’t actually inhale until right before you black out.” Y/N was still staring at her fingers, desperately holding onto something she could feel. She was nervous to say the least, even if she knew exactly what her next words were going to be. 

“It’s called voluntary apnea.” She had known it for years, starting with picking up pieces of conversation in the labs and ending with a reality-shattering file search that settled the gravity of what had actually happened to her. Y/N closed her eyes as she remembered that day, trying to hold the hot tears pooling in her eyes at bay. 

“It’s like no matter how much you’re freaking out, the instinct to not let any water in is so strong that you won’t open your mouth until you feel like your head’s exploding.” We’re at 12 minutes. 180, going down. Just fucking breathe. “Then when you finally do let it in, that’s when it stops hurting.” Her voice was shaky now but she was determined to pull through. Though her head was still hanging low - almost ashamed at what she was going to say next. “It’s not scary anymore, it’s… it’s actually kind of peaceful.” She shrugged weakly. “At least that’s what I told myself.” 

She paused then, mentally preparing for the next part was impossible, but for some reason, she still couldn’t get it over with. This was it. This was the moment she was going to change in their eyes. The moment she would turn into a charity case that deserved nothing but sad looks and encouraging shoulder taps. And the thought of that made the lump in her throat grow. One last shaky breath and then she finally looked up, eyes locking with that of a blonde Super Soldier whose posture had faltered drastically since she last looked at him. A grey and brooding shadow had overtaken his cerulean orbs and it was shaking with the plead that settled in between: ‘Please tell me that’s not true.’ 

The first tear found its way down Y/N’s cheek, goosebumps rippling through her but her next words were said steadier than ever before. “I drowned in that room. One hundred and eighty-six times.”

And there it was: pity. Thick and unmistakable - smeared all over their faces. Y/N didn’t want it - dismissed it like a hot plate, pushing it further and further away from her on the table until she, herself, was backed up against the wall. They should stop pitying her. Try to feel what she felt but that proved itself difficult. Because Y/N didn’t feel anything. She’d expected to hear the voices in her head shouting numbers or smell the sterile smell of sanitizer or be unable to move - anything. But her mind was blank. It had all stopped buzzing as soon as she had stopped talking. With that last syllable, all the flashbacks faded into darkness and all that was left was this huge empty space. And she reveled in the calmness in her head for a second, but then Steve stepped forward with a heartbreaking look on his face and when he said her name and reached out his hand, that’s when her pulse picked up.

Y/N couldn’t do this - not from Steve, who was the only person whose opinion really mattered to her. Those dreadful eyes bored into hers when she sprung up from the chair, legs screeching over the dark floor, and then, she bolted. 

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve watched as Y/N ran out of the common room, a blank stare covering his features while his heart grew heavy with every step she took from him. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?!” Tony screamed.

“She didn’t want you to know.” Fury answered, and his voice hosted a sense of sadness.

Y/N. A Hydra experiment. And Steve hadn't known. He would have never known had they not happened to raid the base she had been kept at. It killed Steve to know that he could have prevented today from happening. He could’ve told Fury what a bad idea it was had he just known. But he didn’t. Somehow it unsettled him that Y/n chose not to tell him. It was traumatic and painful but did she really think that he would judge her for it? He of all people. No, he would never.

A look at Bucky rattled another zap of pain through his bones. His friend had this distinct mystery etched on his face. And when Steve shot him a questioning glare, Bucky jerked his head to the side, signaling for the blonde to follow him. 

Bucky’s shoulders were stiff when Steve watched them leading the way to a private lounge area and the spring in his step slightly faltered. 

When he had woken up that morning, Steve would have never guessed that the day would bring such dramatics. It was a simple mission - one he had done several times, too. And yet it could have not gone worse than today. Steve couldn’t let his emotions get the better of him, he knew that. His position as Captain didn’t allow him to let them lead his choices. But right now, with Bucky visibly agitated and Y/N clearly upset as well, that duty seemed near impossible. He cared too much for both of those people. 

Bucky stopped by the window, his gaze focused outside where the rain pattered aggressively against the concrete. He swallowed thickly before his head turned to his best friend.

“I think I remember her, Steve... I remember seeing her in the base.” Bucky finally confessed, though there was a distance in his words. And despite the information doing fairly little to calm Steve’s nerves, he was glad that his friend condoned in him. 

“You do?” A hopeful wave of emotions washed him over, suggesting that he might get a little more information about Y/N’s situation. And that maybe... he had been looking out for her back then. Yes, Bucky was most certainly sedated by hydra at that time, but the Winter Soldier had proven time and time again that he was not completely clouding Bucky and his sense for the good.

“I was there. I was-“ Bucky stopped as if he had suddenly said too much. A dreadful look overtook his eyes before his jaw wired shut and Steve’s hopeful feelings vanished.

“What? What is it?” He pressed, but his friend remained silent. 

Panic rose in his chest with every second filling the quiet and Steve couldn’t help but feel like the words Bucky had withheld from him drew far heavier consequences than he had anticipated.

“I - I can’t tell you that, Steve. I think you should talk to her.” 

Why did everyone decide they had to hide things from him today? What could have possibly been so bad? 

“Anything else I should know?” Steve asked stiffly, a slight coldness overtaking his mind.

Bucky shook his head with what looked like guilt. Nonetheless, after a frustrated huff, Steve thanked Bucky and made his way to the dormitories.

❁ ❁ ❁

Steve leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed before his chest and a worrisome look pressing on his features. But Y/N just stared blankly ahead, ignoring the boring stare from the hallway. She didn’t want him to be here. Because he was - and that Y/N was 100 percent certain of - here to tell her things she didn’t want to hear. 

Their relationship had just recently reached the brooding edges of the pot. So close to overflowing into uncharted territory for the both of them. But for once in her life, Y/N had been excited about where it spilled. She wanted to feel the burning hot sensation on her skin and be dragged down into its endless abyss of warm feelings and excitement. But the information she had just dropped had taken the pot from the flame. She knew it the moment her eyes met Steve’s. They were dull, and lifeless, and sad. He had probably registered how much work she would be - would not see her as equal anymore. More of a menace than someone he could actually enjoy life with. And it broke her heart.

To say the least, there were far more parts of hers broken than her heart at this point. But Y/N didn’t know how to cope with them. For all her life, she had pushed it away. Brushed it off like it was nothing except a memory destined for her past, only allowed to creep to the surface when the dark corners of her mind leaked into the rational part of her. These times were not with people, especially not Steve - who was her captain and something more... up until now, that was.

Nonetheless, she needed a friend and Steve was the closest thing to that. Since more was probably not within her reach anytime soon, she decided to give into the nagging urge to spill every feeling on the floor before her. She looked up at him when he walked into the room and that’s when a dam of tears broke. She was ready to lay it all out bare for him. She had to, because for some reason - from one second to the other - all the things she had kept hidden for the past years felt unbearable to hold in. They seeped through her eyes in form of salty water and leaked through her nose and eventually built a big fat lump in her throat, one that was not possible to swallow. She had to get it out, along with all the other things hiding beneath.

Steve laid a warm hand on her trembling shoulder. A soft stroke pushed the last bit of reluctance from her body and prepared her to make it all go away. He was so close, but for some reason, she felt further away from him than ever before.

“You know I never stopped counting,” she whispered through ragged breaths. The nights in the dark cell encased her like a fog. Cold and moldy smells and the sound of dripping water echoed through her skull with every word she revealed to Steve. 

“I thought I would lose track at one point - maybe die,” she huffed, bitterness seeping through her tone, “but they pulled me back from the dead so many times… sometimes I feel like I got stuck somewhere in between.” Not really living - not really there. But she wouldn’t say that out loud. Not again, at least. She did it once - to the Winter Soldier, when she had thought to see a glimpse of humanity seeping thought the tough exterior. But it didn’t change a thing then too.

The movement of Steve’s hand stopped but he caught himself after a beat. He probably knew what she was thinking. And he probably also thought that dying was the cowardly way out of her situation, which was why a wave of shame came over her. 

“You know what’s funny? I’ve tried so hard to keep this a secret in order to have people like the real me and now... I feel like the only way I have any chance with the people I love is by giving this all away.” And it was true. Y/N felt like the last thing keeping her connected to Steve and the others was her cooperating and coming clean. She would be the prettied avenger, the one they always felt like they had to look out for - and she hated that because, really, the last thing Y/N wanted was to be babied - but if it was the last chance of keeping even a piece of them within her reach, she would have no choice but to take the deal. She would never be seen as an equal again. Always the inferior that never got over her trauma but if it meant staying with her family, she would be just that. Even if it was not even half of what she had made herself to be.

Steve’s eyes softened but at the same time, they filled with worry. His shoulders looked like they urged him to speak but his mouth closed as soon as it opened. And the last shimmer of hope vanished from Y/N’s consciousness. She wasn’t ready to let him go into pure friendship again, not when they had been dancing around the edge of something more for so long now. And she realized that now. So much, in fact, that she decided it would be better to just shut the whole thing off before the situation played out the way it was doomed to. Maybe that way she had a little more time to dwell in her fantasies. 

With that thought in mind, she licked up the last pieces of pride she had and patted her hand on Steve’s knee.

“Don’t worry about it, Captain. Thank you for checking in but I’m okay.” She said steadily, though she couldn’t help but notice the slump in the man’s shoulders beside her when she led him to the door.

❁ ❁ ❁

Captain, she had called him Captain. Steve exhaled on his way to his room. For some reason, he was devastated by that even more than the events that had taken place just half an hour prior. She didn’t trust him. She never trusted him enough, for that matter, to tell him about her past. A past he very well shared and understood better than any other person on the team - well, except Bucky... and Wanda.

He had wanted to tell her that she was okay now. That she should not let her past define her. That he would never in a million years even consider neglecting her because of it. But he couldn’t. For some reason, he had been still beside her like a stupid puppet. 

Tears brimmed in his eyes when he defeatedly sunk onto his bed. He wanted to stay rational. He wanted to think it through before burning up into flames, but his heart was pounding like a sledgehammer and his brain was running a mile a minute in opposite directions. There was no possibility to think straight. 

His body felt torn between the two most powerful organs within him and they were fighting like there was no tomorrow. He wanted to punch the wall and lay the softest kiss on Y/N’s lips at the same time. It was infuriating. 

For the first time in a long time, Steve had no idea what to do, or how to behave. There were no rules in the territory he and Y/N had created for themselves. There were times when he could come up behind her and press her into his chest and others when he wouldn’t even dare look at her. Right now, neither of these were an option, unfortunately. 

Of course, deep down Steve knew that he had to talk to her again. Make sure she knew where their differences lay and clearly state what he had been thinking about the whole situation. But his heart was screaming so loud into his head that that thought never reached his ears. 

It was strange, Steve was never the one to lose control over his emotions like this. But this situation felt as though it deserved every last drop of the feelings he had to offer. It was because of Y/N, of course. She tumbled up his feelings every time she looked at him. And to say that the look she had given him in the meeting room had shattered all his perceptions regarding her and her wellbeing was an understatement. He had been worried about her before. But never like this. Never in a way that had both his and her identity questioned. 

For some reason, he could deal with death threats and vital injuries - it was sadly a normal routine in his line of work - but the added emotions that came with everything concerning Y/N ordered a whole new level of consciousness to his duties. He no longer felt the need to care for his team and make sure they got out of and through missions unharmed because it was his job, he now had to care for them because his heart was involved if anything were to happen to any of them. And he had to care more about himself, too because there were people who would get hurt if he were to. Y/N did that - she had sucked him into her warm and welcoming self and Steve had embraced it with all his being.

Now, he saw how dangerous that was. But he wouldn’t have it any other way. Getting closer to her was the best thing that had happened to Steve in a long time. He was happier and more energetic.

It dawned on him, then, that he had to tell her that. No matter how rage fed his brain or love blinded his heart was in the moment. Y/N deserved to know. Much like he had deserved to know about her secret much sooner. This thought sent another wave of frustration through his body. Steve tried to push it away, but it lay heavy on his heart when he stepped into the hallway, trying to suppress the nervousness brooding up within him.

❁ ❁ ❁

Y/N twitched up when the door slammed into the wall. When it bounced back from the gray concrete, there was a sizable hole visible where it jammed. But as her ears picked up on something else, that’s when her eyes wandered past the door to the heaving man within its frame. Steve’s eyes were dull, his shoulders hunched but his heart was beating at a rapid speed. He must’ve heard it in his head from the pressure with which it traveled over to Y/N. 

Thumb, Thumb.

Steady and yet rapidly pounding. And for some odd reason, it had a soothing aspect on the woman. But before Y/N could register and ask what was going on, Steve stepped into the room. He was hesitant but still carried himself with a familiar confidence she’d only ever seen from him.

“I’m sorry,” he straightened up, “...for the door, I- I dint think it would open that easily.”

“It’s okay.” Y/N was still seated on her bed - hadn’t moved a muscle since Steve left.

“Y/N...” His voice was heavy with sadness, though she didn’t dare look at him. There was no going back. He would be saying what she had been dreading from the second she confessed. She didn’t also need to watch the disappointment in his eyes when he told her that itwas over - whatever it was. “I know what happened to you can’t be changed.” He sat down beside her, though there was a significant distance between the two Avengers now. “And I can only imagine how hard today has been for you. I don’t think I would be as strong as you are keeping this for yourself for so long. But you don’t have to shut us out. Please don’t shut me out, Y/N. We can help you, we can be there for you. Just... please. I don’t know how to-” he inhaled deeply but his speech didn’t continue like she had expected it to.

Y/N just sat there, her fingernails suddenly the most interesting thing to ever exist, even though there was a distressed man sitting inches away from her. Whatever he had said, because frankly, the words had swayed by her like a breeze, sounded like heartbreak to her - for her. There was pretty clear that Steve didn’t see a future for them. And if Steve thought this - the person she had grown closest to over the years - she could only imagine what the rest of the team was thinking. 

Tears burned in Y/N’s eyes and when the first one fell in her lap, she closed her eyes in pain. “You pitied me..,” she whispered, the burning in her throat threatening to swallow her whole, “You felt bad for me... you of all people, you decided I need comforting.”

Steve sent a confused look at her once her eyes met his. He was looking through her gaze as if the answer to his questions lay beneath them.

“Of course I do.” He spoke calmly but irritated. Y/N shut her eyes again, trying to ignore the confirming string of pain wash over her. Somehow hearing him say it out loud was worse than she imagined.

“It shouldn’t even concern you, Steve. I’ve managed very well on my own over the past years. There is no reason for anyone to pity me-”

“Not pity,” he interrupted, “concern, yes. Pride, worry, fear... I feel all of those things for you. But not Pity.”

“But why.” The words were barely audible through the stream of tears that had broken loose by now. Y/N couldn’t possibly comprehend why Steve would say that. Because she didn’t see how Steve could see anything but her past from now on. She had struggled to do so herself at first. It had taken years to finally become herself again, even if that self bore a terrible secret for everyone else.

“Because I admire your strength. And I care about you.” His hand hovered over hers, but he didn't dare touch her just yet. “I care about you more than I probably should.” He closed his eyes and retracted his hand when he saw the dread in her eyes. “And I try to ignore it, I really do but then you come at me with that smile and with your wit, and I... I can’t stop my heart from racing.”

“I know I can hear it.” She was whispering again, feeling like an intruder for listening in on something as personal as his heartbeat.

Steve looked at her with an indescribable look on his face. “I hear yours, too, you know? But for some reason, it’s telling me other things than your eyes are.”

“What are my eyes telling you?”

Steve’s fingers grazed her chin, moving upward until his thumb stroked the skin on her cheek. “That you are afraid of something. That you are waiting for something bad to happen... but I don’t know what.” Y/N nodded in awe - somehow this man could read her better than she could herself, which was scary and comforting at the same time.

“And what is my heart telling you?” She took his hand and placed it upon her chest, where a steady rhythm pushed through her skin.

“The same thing I’ve been trying to say.” His heartbeat was steady and sure as well. It was fast, yes, but not in a bad way. There was an unfamiliar glimmer in his eyes when they softened upon her love-dazed face. Maybe her intrusive thoughts had blinded her after all...

“And what-”

Suddenly, his soft lips pressed to hers. A warm and tingling feeling traveled over Y/N’s body as her arms almost automatically reached up to his shoulders. Steve pulled her closer by her waist, deepening the kiss with the lean of his head. He was warm and he felt like the hug she had subconsciously craved ever since staring at that white number ’15’ in the base hours ago. All the tension drained from her like a waterfall. Steve pulled the fear from her body with every stroke of his tongue against hers. And for the first time in a while, Y/N felt as though everything had fallen into place. She was right where she belonged. The squeeze of Steve’s fingers reminded her of that.

When they pulled apart, breathless and floating, she tightened the grip on his collar.

“But- I thought...” Y/N breathed out shakily. Her forehead was firmly pressed against Steve’s and her lips were grazing his with every word she whispered, sending waves of shivers down her spine.

“What? That I’d sign you off as a charity case?” Steve locked his eyes on hers for the hundredth time. There was so much emotion in them. “I would never underestimate you. I know you are stronger than half the people on this team... well mentally that is.”

“Stop,” she chuckled before pressing her face into his chest. Steve kissed the top of her head as his hand began to soothingly stroke up and down her back, leaving a warm trail of comfort in its wake.

“I really like you, Y/N... and if you’d let me, I would like to take you out sometime.”

Y/N smiled. It seemed silly how worried she had been about his feelings now. Considering hers were just as strong for the man in her arms, there had not been a reason to believe it was different for him. Though the edges of self-consciousness nipped at her brain every now and then. Those were the monsters pushing intrusive thoughts into her heart - convincing her of things, for which there was no indignation. She would learn it with time - that her past didn’t define her. It did to some extent, but it would never become her entire identity. And until she could tell herself that alone, she would have Steve to help her remember.

“I would love to, Steve.”

Steve pulled back and held her by her shoulders before leaning in again. A content smile etched on his lips before they sealed to hers again, capturing her in another searing kiss.

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[callmeklair]

I read your post about Ayato overhype and I 200% agree with you and appreciate you for writing it. I also read that other person's Ayato analysis and I just gotta say that that cursed fig defense is so dumb. First off that shit wasn't a thing when More Blood came out. It's not mentioned or referenced even once in any route. Because why would it be? It wasn't even thought of when the first games came out. Second even if it were a thing and Ayato truly was cursed, then why doesn't he experience the effects of the curse in any routes apart from his More Blood one (and, according to this particular Ayato stan, Ruki's)? Why doesn't he go crazy from thirst in Kou's route? Or in Subaru's? Or in Shuu's? etc etc. Also, if the curse is truly that excrutiating and debilitating then shouldn't Ayato be a complete and utter mess in the other characters Dark Fate, Lost Eden etc. routes? But he's not. He's totally fine. Because the stupid curse isn't canon to the games and you can not and should not use it to explain or justify his awful behavior in Ruki's MB route.

I'm sorry this got kind of long but I just needed to get this off my chest because it bothers me so much when toxic Ayato stans insist he is oh so pure of heart, an innocent victim and that he unlike the other characters can't be held accountable for his abusive acts 😑

(feel free to vent out in my ask box I don't mind. and sorry for the late reply, life is hectic)

the curse thing is such a loop/plot hole because in more blood EVERY diaboy gets thirsty after starting to have feelings for Yui, so yeah that curse thing isn't canon. and exactly! if that's the case, why isn't ayato suffering from thirst in other's route. okay let's not include MB considering the argument "they weren't close enough" but by the DF, all Sakamaki and Mukami boys warmed up to Yui, so Ayato should be suffering from thirst/curse in other's route????

I liked ayato, but after youngblood when I saw some people(not targeting to anyone, and I'm not just talking about Tumblr), not liking other people shipping Yui with any other boy because "they are not canon" made me slowly detach from AyaYui. otherwise they were in my top 5 a few years ago.

youngblood was just a fanservice. it was good for Ayato fans but Rejet messed it up. first the curse thing then the degrading of Shu and Subaru's character by making them "betray" ayato. which irks me because we all have read flashback scenes of these two from the VERY FIRST GAME, and we are completely aware with how sweet and gentle they were in childhood.

In CL, in Shu's route, it was shown how much he deeply cares about his brothers despite not showing it. so does it go for Subaru in Carla's route. you hear it? not in his OWN route but Carla's route.

the only difference is, because of trauma they weren't sure how to express it and always doubted/hesitated to trust or show true feelings to each other because of what happened to them. they all went through different experiences.

Ayato is Ruki's rival, just like how Subaru is for Kou, and Shu for Yuma. Ayato just came to take away Yui as a prey. "his thirst wasn't controllable and was locked in a dungeon. it was definitely the curse."

the curse didn't even exist at that time. it was just Rejet's plot to progress Ruki's route because if we remember, Ruki asked Ayato, before he took away Yui, if he had feelings for her and ayato replied with, feelings??? that's nonsense, the only value she has is her blood. It was a scene of confirmation to make Ruki realise his feelings and stop thinking "Adam is what she needs and not a snake" so that he can finally betray Karlheinz for Yui and run away with her, free her from this hell.

in conclusion, we have seen every diaboy saying how unique and special Yui's blood is, also a very rare thing (i guess?) so because of instincts as a vampire, Ayato only wanted to find Yui to drink her special blood.

the curse thing can never be canon because everyone gets thirsty in their route, EVEN SHIN in his BRUTE ending in DF. so are they cursed too??? no they aren't 😭

some actions can never be justifiable, I'll even say that about my own fav characters like Shin, Subaru, Carla, Reiji, etc.

[magician-kitty]

Wukong’s Lament

Plot: Wukong distance himself from everyone after his miscarriage.

Wukong woke up with a gasp, choking lightly on his own tongue as he gasped for air. He groaned loudly, trying to clear his throat with a shaky moan that scratched against his dry throat painfully. He lifted a trembling hand to his lower abdomen, biting his lip at the sensation of the cold, clammy skin.

Forcing himself to sit up in bed, the monkey leaned his whole weight on his palm. The sheets creased beneath it, but he tightened his grip as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, He looked over at his partner, snoring soundly next to him.

He squeezed his eyes shut, letting the hot tears drop, The same dream, he's sick of having the same awful dream he's been having every day,

Not since he....Since...

Wukong lay back down in bed, silently staring at the ceiling. Looks like another restless night.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, Wukong was sitting under his favorite tree, legs crossed, stared out into the horizon.

"Mr Monkey King?"

A voice snapped him out of his meditation trance, he turned around to see Bai He standing behind him. "Are you okay?"

"Oh, hey there kiddo. I was just...staring at the sun is all." He fakes a smile, Despite his words the small girl started moving forward, a determined expression on her face. Bai He jumped into his lap. "Easy, Kiddo!" He scolded the young girl. She ignored him, opting to press her back to his front and join him in gazing at the sunset.

After a moment passed she spoke. "Everyone is worried about you, you know," Wukong's tail flicked. "I hear you cry at night."

He looked down at the former host and sighed. "I...I'm sorry kid, I'm just going through some things and I doubt anyone can help me right now."

How does one tell these things to a child?

She looked up at him. "Then help me understand then, what's really wrong with you?"

Wow, Macaque was right, she really is mature for a 11 year old.

"Well, from all the stories you've probably heard that I've made a lot of demons and celestials angry with me, making regrettable life choices." He released a hollow chuckle. "I wasn't really the easiest to get along."

"Really? But you always seem so..." Her hands made a senseless gesture.

"Sweet?" He guessed, Bai He shook her head.

"No, Cute and Cheeky!"

Wukong threw back his head and laughed. "I know, I know. Anyway, I made a lot of bad choices, I thought I was doing good, but instead I just ended up hurting the ones I cared about." He grimaced, remembering Mei's words during the ritual site.

"We trusted you! All of us! How could you lead us into this fight without a real plan?! Time and time again, I've watched you put MK in danger, leaving her to figure everything out on her own! Don't you realize you're hurting the people who care about you the most?!" Mei sobbed,another wave of heat grew even more through all his emotions and built up anger letting out.

"This wouldn't happen to have to have anything to do with your miscarry, is it?" Bai He started fiddling with his tail, picking the grass out of it.

"Yeah. I thought that for once In my miserable century I could finally do something right, have something right for once," His tail wrapped around her waist, holding her close. "I guess I messed up on that too.

Tears started to escape his eyes, whimpering, His voice cracked. Bai He gasped and threw her arms around his neck, tucking her face into his neck.

"Please don't cry! It's okay. Im sorry you lost the baby and all the bad stuff happened to you. I think you're an amazing monkey and you just want the best for everybody. Heck people are big dumb, dumb brains if he can't see that, but I do! So does MK! Macaque! Rumble and Savage. We all love you!"

He stared down at the young girl wide eyed, his heart healed with the girl's words, The Monkey King nestled his face into hair, brushing the long white streaks. "Thank you Bai He, thank you so much."The child's arms tightened at his affection.

"You're Welcome, Mr Monkey King." She smiled and nuzzled her nose to his. He giggled and tickled her sides. "I think we're beyond past the "Mr" kiddo."

Bai He gasped excitedly, eyes sparkling. "Does that mean..." he trailed off.

He nodded, standing up with her in his arms. "Yeah, call me... Bàba. Or mom. I don’t really care.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bai He, kiddo where are you!?" Macaque called out, looking for his ward.

He entered the living room and to his surprise, Macaque found both Wukong and Bai He asleep on the couch.

He smiled, "Well, nice to know you're feeling better.."

[invisiblegarters]

I waffled for weeks about this show without watching, because I don't like Krist and frankly Gawin was just not enough incentive for me to get past that. I've only ever seen him in Not Me and he played a drip of a character and in my not so humble (or quiet, really, I've talked about this before) opinion let his onscreen partner carry the entire BL aspect of his storyline. Sorry but I believed that Dan was into Yok like I believe that there really is a pot of gold at the end of that proverbial rainbow. Nice try, Lucky Charms, but I'm not buying, is what I'm saying. And while that wasn't really that huge of a deal in something like Not Me, which had a lot going on besides the romance stuff, in a show like this where it seemed most of the point was the romance, I just wasn't into putting myself through it.

Anyway, despite my best efforts I kept seeing posts about how unexpectedly good this show was so I finally bit the stupid bullet and gave it a try. I figured at the very least it could be background noise while I did something else.

But then it happened. I, too, fell in love with this drama, and now I'm sitting here getting ready to write a small love letter to it. So what the hell happened? Did I discover a new appreciation for Krist? Did Gawin's pretty pretty face finally win me over? Was I just bored?

The answers are no, yeah maybe, and ha, yes but also no, respectively.

The thing is that the show is pretty cute. It is, I won't deny it. Both Krist and Gawin are actually very good at comedy, and hey, it turns out that Gawin as Pisaeng is actually really charming. Good to know. But if that were all this show wouldn't have burrowed into my head so much and I wouldn't be sitting here waiting for Friday for reasons other than the weekend.

So, here, a list of what I'm enjoying about this show.

1. Kawi isn't a likable character. No, really. I know people do like him, but to me he just isn't. And to be honest I'm not entirely sure he's meant to be, at least not yet. Kawi is a dumb shit who let his negative perception of his life color every aspect of that life and then turned around and blamed other people for what he's mostly done to himself. Yes, I do see where some of it was beyond his control, for sure, I'm not denying that. But to me, his biggest problem is that he let his own insecurities and worries cripple him and instead of seeing that and taking accountability or trying to move forward, he insists on believing that if he can change just one aspect of his life (namely, not confessing that he drew his crush's name from a "buddy" box while in uni), that everything will work out. And then he gets his chance and guess what? Things aren't actually that simple. Kawi has a ways to go, but watching him look back on his life and try to start working on his relationships (and then, through those relationships, himself) is a joy to see. I hope for even more growth as the show continues. He's not learning in leaps and bounds either, and I like that. He does stupid things. He tries to fit in with people that are just not worth being around. He says some truly awful things to people and he blames one specifically for things he isn't even responsible for. But when it's pointed out to him that he's being an ass, he listens. He internalizes and he reacts accordingly. Kawi is the type of person that resonates with me because I see how easy it would be to be someone like that, if I let my insecurities drive me and didn't credit my own opinion enough. I think that his instincts are good - the people he seems most drawn to are decent, straightforward people who are gentle but not so soft they let others walk over them. People who are very good for someone like him, and who will encourage him to trust in himself more, not just follow what they tell him. I look forward to seeing his development as we go on. I don't think he's likeable currently, but I think that I will grow to like him, and I'm looking forward to that, too. He may not be likeable, but I find him incredibly understandable.

2. Pisaeng. I have to give a ton of credit to Gawin here, because I love this guy. This last episode especially. Gawin is giving him all the nuance and layers that I didn't see with Dan, and it almost makes me want to rewatch Not Me again to see if I just missed it somehow (I won't though, because whether or not I missed it I like Not Me but it's not something I'm really invested in watching over and over again). I love that he went on a journey of self-discovery this last episode that was mostly not about Kawi at all, and at the end of it it gave him the courage to not only confess to his crush but also to come to terms with a part of himself that scared the shit out of him (and I can't tell you how much I love that his journey was explicitly about understanding that he's definitely queer, and that's fine. It's just fine. It's good, even. Thankfully Thai BL has been slipping farther and farther away from "I'm not gay/bi, I just like you" stuff that they used to pull like clockwork but I did not expect an explicit journey of coming to terms with sexuality. What can I say - that shit always gets me and gets me good).

3. Max - Kawi does not deserve a best friend like him, but he certainly needs him. No notes, I adore him and everything he chooses to be. I would love it if he became friends with Pisaeng too but I can understand the reluctance to be a gay guru to Kawi, let alone someone he barely knows (not that Kawi realizes that's how things are going down, really - dude is so repressed it's painful). I loved his exasperation this last episode, and how he visibly had to rein himself in after going off on Pisaeng. Nothing he said was wrong, either. Not one damn thing. But I appreciate that he chose to be kind in the end. It's hard, sometimes.

4. Pear - please please please show don't make her one of those evil BL girls. Right now she's so wonderful and lovely but still very human and I just adore her and I want her to stay that way.

5. What this show is saying about being kind to people, and how the way you treat others ripples out. In this episode specifically, they literally took arguably the worst character in the show thus far and told him "Everyone deserves encouragement and a little kindness. Even you." And honestly, I kind of love it. Maybe it's the optimist in me but I do believe that most people tend towards being decent, and often when you give them a little kindness they find it in them to give it to others.

6. Weirdly enough, this is the first BL I've watched in a long time where I honestly don't care if anyone gets together (funny enough, the last one might have actually been Not Me). I know that Kawi and Pisaeng are probably going to be together in the end because that's just how this goes, but if they weren't...it wouldn't be a big deal, really. The journey here is more important than the end game, and all I really want is for them both (but Pisaeng especially) to live well and happily. And I want Max to get everything his heart desires and for Pear to date her BFF (I...am probably not going to get that loveline, but a person can dream).

I guess there's still plenty of time for this to go off the rails, but I have to say right now I'm really enjoying the ride.

[sapphire-weapon]

Ada anon, yes, you're making a lot more sense than I am! In full truth, I'm biased and I'm happy to admit that. I've lived through my own horrendous sexist treatment and the OG arc and the way many fans of the ship hype it up just... gets under my skin. It reminds me so much of a forced "romance", the woman not being viewed as her own person, despite teasing so much excitement and a cool story arc. I'll be cringe and admit here that I find her OG portrayal and how she's treated in fandom spaces a bit triggering. It hits too close to home, and I think that for a very long time I just wanted to project onto this character and watch her "break free" from Aeon and go live her life. She always had this hyge story just on the edge of being told. We see her wnormous potential and independence. How crucial she is to the deeper roots of the plot, but it always only came back to Sexy Leon Accessory and little/nothing more. It hurt to see. That's ridiculous, but it's honest, lol.

Maybe it's an ott reaction and I'm open to hearing that, but you do make a much calmer and logical point, lol. Regardless, I'm excited for what both Separate Ways and other potential remakes (cough cough reboots) might do with the storyline. Not just in terms with redoing Ada and retconning Aeon, but Chris, Wesker, Sheva, Claire!! The future will tell.

Honestly, I find that fandom's attitude towards/portrayal of Ada makes the writing decisions around her seem way worse than they actually are. That's not to say that the writing around her isn't still bad -- it's fucking awful -- but fandom cranks it up to eleven.

Fandom treats Aeon like it's the single most important thing in either Ada or Leon's stories, but it's... not, really.

Leon is a complete afterthought for Ada in both Damnation and RE6.

As much as I dog on Damnation, it's by far the title where I enjoy their dynamic the most. Ada is not there for Leon; Ada is there to work, and Leon just happens to also be there. There's no master plan or grand scheme that she's prepared to rope him in to some dumb bullshit like RE4. He's literally just... there. She doesn't need his help when she gets captured, he doesn't need her help when the bullets start flying. They don't need each other. They are both existing independently and happen to run into each other.

That, I think, is what Capcom always wanted their relationship to be, but Damnation is the only title that actually pulls it off.

And RE6, like... tried to do it, too? While attempting to make it more emotional? But it just sort of came off as Leon spiraling off into a total meltdown that damn near culminates with him breaking from reality all together.

Deadass, I half-expected Ada to have a moment in RE6 where she just turned to Leon and went "This is not about you." She didn't, but she should have. RE6 is Leon sticking his ass into Ada's affairs uninvited, and Ada more or less just being like "okay you can help, I guess, but this really isn't any of your fucking business."

Fandom are the ones over here shouting shit like EVERYTHING ADA DOES IS ALWAYS FOR LEON like dude what the fuck

a. how do you not see that that's not a good thing? and

b. that's not even true???

Like, Ada's writing is still bad and garbage and sexist and racist, but fandom just makes it so much fucking worse.

I think that there's room within the canon material to have an honest, nuanced conversation about Ada's other relationships (Wesker and Simmons), but no one ever cares to talk about that, because Aeon fandom poisoned every single piece of discourse about her.

There is a reason why I have been low-key shipping Ada and Wesker for years. But no one wants to have that conversation. Because people look at Ada, and all they see is Leon. 60% of the reason for that is the writing, for sure, but 40% of it is because of the way Aeon fandom has treated the ship and the character for twenty five fucking years.

[akira-no-tsubasa]

I haven't blogged in a long time. I stopped writing because I felt like I didn't have anything to say but also too much to say.

In the past 6 years I've grown a lot and learned a lot. I fell in love three times.

The first time I fell in love with someone who was just kind. He was everything I needed after being in an extremely toxic and abusive relationship. We never fought and he never got angry with me. But in the end I had to end it because he had no motivation to pursue his goals, I couldn't bring up the things that were important because any argument would make him cry and I'm the type of person that is constantly trying to move forward in life. I was not content with staying just comfortable forever and I couldn't live with being the only one trying to make our lives better.

The second time, I fell in love with someone who was a kind and good person. He was like a knight, always saving me, always protecting me, always doing the right thing. I learned that I need more than just physical affection and protection. I need emotional support and sometimes just understanding. He saved me from the family that was killing me and he defended me against the people that were trying to hurt me. But despite everything, despite how hard we tried to keep it together, there have always been things about me that he wanted me to change. I was never the perfect person for him. I just wasn't enough for him... we weren't enough for each other. We weren't what each other needed. And because he's a good person and I'm a coward. He let me go so I could be with someone he felt would make me happy. The perfect knight until the very end.

It hurts more than anything in the world. I knew a long time ago... I fought so hard but in the end it didn't matter. I loved him, I still love him. I'll always love him. My life savior... and I couldn't give him a happy ending. I just want him to be free, I want him to be happy. Maybe now that he doesn't have to protect me anymore, maybe now he will be... now that he's free of me.

The last person I fell in love with took me completely off guard. At first he was a friend, he genuinely made an effort to get to know me. I've always been afraid of showing people how dark and twisted I am on the inside. Afraid that they'd run away if they saw all my flaws, afraid they would try to fix me and then realize I was damaged beyond repair and give up on me. But this person opened up to me first despite knowing I was too afraid and unwilling to open up to them in return. They trusted me 100% with their own darkness and insecurities. Each story shocking me because of how much I could relate to it all. It just gave me an urge to make sure he knew he wasn't alone. I didn't want him to feel what I felt when I opened up to people.

The first time he shared a really personal detail about himself and how he got through it and how he dealt with it made me see how strong he was as a person. He was the first person to ever make me feel inspired to be better and the first person to make me feel awe. I had never met anyone who went through similar if not worse circumstances than mine who still came out saying they were not only going to survive, but they would fight to be better, chase after their dreams despite all the odds, and bring other people up with them.

It was the scariest but most thrilling thing about him to me and I witnessed him do it. He makes things happen by pure force of will. He's the first person to earn my respect as a person. He's the closest thing to the ideal person of how I want to be, how I constantly strive to be.

He was the first friend I felt like may have greater aspirations in life than me and my expectations of myself are ridiculously high. But every time he says he's going to do something, he does it. Anytime I talked about anything, it didn't matter how small it was or how dumb it was, he was always a good friend. He always listened, he never pushed unless I needed it, and he always knew what I needed when I needed it. I could say nothing and he always understood.

The first real breakdown I had in years, he was the first person to check on me. The only person that knew what I needed at that time and actively acted on it. Instead of comforting me with a hug or telling me the standard "it'll be okay", he knew why I was spiraling, that I was blaming myself for things out of my control, and calmly explained to me why none of those things were my fault. He gave me encouragement and told me he was happy I opened up to him and happy that I trusted him. It was the first time I thought I loved him. I didn't know at the time what type of love it was, but I felt just pure admiration, respect, and affection.

When he suddenly had a major health emergency even without him saying anything to me about it, I just had a really bad feeling... like something was very wrong. When he told me what happened and how he was feeling, I felt his pain. And I did my best to give him the same support he gave me. I wanted him to know that there was someone out there in the world that genuinely cared. Somehow just that basic care was enough to make him treat me like I was worth more than the world.

All I did was validate his existence... there's nothing more simple and basic as a friend than to just support them when they're down. Things started to feel different suddenly when he started to point out every little thing he liked about me but when I'd point out all my flaws he told me I was perfect with my flaws and imperfections. He thought I was amazing just the way I am.

Suddenly I felt so much confusion. We were so far apart in age, he lived in a completely different country, and even if he'd seen pictures of me and we'd talk everyday, we were friends and I hadn't broken up with my boyfriend at the time yet. Even if we seemed perfect for each other, that isn't necessarily going to be enough to keep a long distance relationship going. I know more than anyone that love sometimes isn't enough to maintain a relationship. Plus I was so confused by the feelings in general, I tried to brush it off as just really strong feelings of friendship, it didn't mean anything. Because that would be better for me and be far less painful for everybody.

But I could only lie to myself for so long. The day I felt one of the most frustrating feelings of loss, I took time out to think and I realized I loved him. I couldn't even enjoy the feelings of being in love... all I could feel was pain because I knew what I would have to do but didn't want to.

I hid for 2 days, sitting on what I knew I needed to do eventually. I was terrified of the change and terrified of hurting someone. Even more than that I was terrified it would all be for nothing. I was terrified I would regret it. I was terrified of losing my savior and my best friend. I was terrified of doing something I knew had been coming down the line for a long time. I was paralyzed by fear. For the first time in my life, I couldn't do anything at all.

In the end, I wasn't strong enough to break it off myself. Once again, my savior saved me, but this time it was at the cost of his own happiness. He told me the break up was mutual but we both knew the truth. He gave me an out because he loved me and because I loved him, I knew I had to take the out. I couldn't hurt him more than he was already hurting. I couldn't lie and pretend like everything was fine and that we could keep going as we had been. Even with all our problems, I fell in love with someone else. He knew it and I knew it and it killed him. Watching him suffering killed me.

My third love has been extremely kind and understanding of everything. I told them both everything. I could never lie to the people I love. We're trying to work things out, long distance is hard but he visits me. He flew here and spent extra money just to see me. He loves me, it shouldn't be surprising since from the beginning, he always just understood me and accepted me. We always understand each other. He always tries to do whatever he can to give me the world like I'm important and special. If I believed in soulmates, I'd think he was mine.

I never imagined my love life would get this complicated or difficult but I'm slowly trying to get through everything one step at a time. Eventually all the bad emotions with fade and I'll feel only good things again... one day in the future

[oswednesday]

okay snap a picture of this

these horny posts take place in a spin off series set when the kid twins are 17 going on 18, like space time peta is like what has happened to bill and the fellow life forms is evil they are the last of their species so its established like a time-space lock zoo that gets attached to the mystery shack and if you Know you Know and you can take your higher being family to gawk at them at the fearrarium, i get hired to watch the store/zoo (unbeknownst to me) because i have a an Alarmingly low Affected By Weird meter like the range of like things without minds range and also i have great tits and im good at sales and have a good eye for when stuff is expensive despite being awful at numbers and i have no ties to anything (plot spoiler) perfect employee-housekeeper the twin kids come to visit earlier than planned to do a surprise party for their grunkles returning from their off season travel, they see that the place is like an abandoned mess like wasnt someone hired for this??? and realize i fell into the fearrarium, they look, assuming theyre going to see a gore show and theyre Riiight but its cause im playing russian roulette with the other henchmaniacs, doing the allotment of their daily party drugs (i was lured in, not getting the lock pad but seeing spaces where it was warn and just getting lucky, but its a one way lock without the proper tools so its like oh =_= because i step in and let it close behind me but im completely and utterly sold like i was persecuted by ALL people and im like thats so sad ACAB ) and dipper has promised mabel that they'd do the party first Then work and dipper relents, after being reminded that, they'd tell other people about that later and get the shack ready for their grunkles and their party this of course is focusing in on themes of the original show but making more sense because mabel isnt an elementary school student--like if you dont take responsibility and brush difficult things off with silliness something something morals

anyway all this to say is a formulaic antics are bill and the crew are trying to escape the fearraium like aquarium squids several running gags are: bill tells me to kill the protagonists and im like b,but theyre just kids! and hes like if you kill them all you'll get to do the second line of space coke off of 8ball's head Aaaaand if you get every headshot you can be the henchmaniac of the month and im like oh boy starts blasting (the joke here is that im Always the henchmaniac of the month, any time another character is in the gallery hall of the enclosure the series of framed images are blurred out and make people turn away, go oh god, retch in their mouths a little bit) the second running Gag is that stan and ford add details how much they fucked up hiring me like stan is like oh yeah they were from a mental hospital hiring program i didnt even have to meet minimum wage haha,,,ford like i thought they were a harmless barely sentient idiot (with a great rack, stan interjects and ford starts to agree and stops himself closing his eyes, sighing, rubbing his eyes behind his glasses) and so on the third most is bill and i get so caught up in larping husband and wife that we forget what we're doing and have to be reminded final bit of tone: close to the end of the spin off series it looks like the pines family have finally Finally convinced me bill is too evil to be with and Bad for me and im pointing a lethal space weapon at him or have some hand on some lever (etc you get the idea) having some kind of sobby wet monologue and hes like "babe cmon" then "babe"(more threateningly and my like we'll stop you and save the world is really hitting its climax when im like-- Just Kidding ^x^ (scampers like faster that they thought i could move back over to bill, turning the weapon around and undoes whatever bindings through sheer dumb luck) like oh my god could you even imagine

[selsbrainfarts]

Once again I'm sitting here, like any other evening since the last few weeks.

My mind is racing but empty at the same time.

I feel like theres cotton balls in my skull.

I dont know what to feel anymore.

Is it emptyness?

Solitude?

Grief?

Anger?

Or just a combination of it all, overwhelming me beyong sanity?

I guess thats the one.

I dont know what everything always has to happen at the same time, but it always does.

And every time I wish I could just escape this shithole of a planet.

Escape my fate.

But no matter how far I'd run, it will always be there.

I dont have any solution to this all.

I can just wait and try to numb myself on the weekends.

Yet the numbing never happens, no matter how sensless I drink myself, it donesnt go away.

I need distraction from my private life, yet work is just as crippling as the rest.

It seems like its always me, messing up, being involved, takeing the brunt of anger from everybody.

I know I'm a waste of space, I know I'm slow, I know I'm lazy, I know I'm dumb.

I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm disgusting.

I know.

I try to just avoid everybody because my heart cant take any more at the moment, but everybody seems to follow me just to take their anger out on me.

The problems I have just keep piling up, I dont even know what to work on first.

I want to visit grandma everyday, i know she doesnt want to die alone, but I cant bare it.

I love her so much and I owe it to her but my heart feels like it tearing out of my ribcage.

Grandpa believes he will die before her and the thought pulls the floor from under me.

I know he has had a lot of health issues lately but I didnt think...

They are my world, my safe place.

I cant bare to think about losing them.

Not so close together, not now, not ever.

But its part of life.

I know.

And all things that would usually distract me from that pain just pain me even more.

Because everything needs to happen at once.

I used to seek comfort in my animals.

But my bunny died this summer and my cat now has dementia and hates me all of a sudden.

Its rare she wants me near her.

I used to talk to my friends, I still do but I cant talk honestly.

Not sober.

And even drunk, its not the whole truth.

Because I dont want to burden anybody when they have just as many problems.

And then I find myself, sitting in the cold rain, listening to them and feeling my heart rip even more.

The words want to come out.

But I wont let them slip.

Pathetically enough, I'm still in love with him.

Despite receiving no interest shown towards me.

Despite him showing clearly how utterly stupid he finds me.

Despite not having exchanged a single word for almost 5 months now.

Despite being told and knowing it would never work.

He likes pretty girls, and I am not that.

He was in love with my best friend and she is the polar opposite of me in terms of appearence.

Its so pathetic but thats quite fitting for me.

I'm stuck in this feeling.

Wishing he'd be here, hug me close and just tell everything will be ok.

But it wont happen.

My mom is as bad as always, makeing me feel awful whenever she can.

Makeing fun of my feelings, destroying my comfidence day by day.

Reminding me that I'm not enough for her.

And I know when she is feeling low again and is deep in her manic depression, I will be the one caring for her.

But whenever I'm low or sick, I get even more attacked and hurt by her.

Because I cant do everything she wants me to.

And my dad?

He was honest to me, confessing he had a mental breakdown or even suffers from burnout.

Because even the one person in my life I counted on, knew was strong crumbles at some point.

The approaching death of my grandma pulls him back to 10 years agon, when his mother died.

And thats what broke the great wall of built up feelings and trauma.

I cant bare to see him so empty, broken and hopeless.

I want to help him so badly, but how does one help another when they cannot even help themselfes?

[rain-in-the-clouds]

I don't normally vent on this blog, despite it being my main, mostly I just try and share what I love and whatnot. But like so many my age, older and younger, I have a love/obsession/hatred of tiktok.

It's a fun app that can be so nice and a great place to build community, have fun and be silly. But my fucking gods, that is not what its like 99.99999% of the time. And no I know I'm no one special in saying any of this. But I gotta vent, and at least here I can scream into the void knowing if anyone is gonna scream back it's gonna be about something completely different and probably about cats, food, boobs, or Fandom, and honestly that's what makes this the best site.

Anyways, I've struggled with anxiety for the majority of my life, depression as a side helping, and a medley of other things. About six months before the pandemic my anxiety skyrocketed, I started having massive panic attacks every day multiple times a day. At one point it felt like I was just existing through the day to eventually deal with a night filled with the feelings of death.

It was awful, I was barely living.

This is a tangent, but if anyone knows the song Overkill by Colin Hay, I used to sing that song a lot as a kid, like 6-7 years old singing that song, one day to gorw up living the life the song depicts. The lyrics that stick with me: "I can't get to sleep. I worry over situations I know will be alright. Day after day it reapers, night after night my heart beat shows the fear."

It was night after night after night, months went by like this. By middle of 2020 I was.... I wasn't ok. A way I had helped myself during that time, before I got some help and the meds I need, I would use tiktok. Now I'd use its worst attributes to my gain.

It's short form content and use of short attention spans was, especially in the moment, very helpful for subduing (most of the time it just delayed the panic attack) but my goal was never to outright stop the panic attacks, cus I had no way to do that, but to distract my brain long enough to get tired and pass out. It worked for a good while. It especially worked for stopping an attack right as it was starting.

Fast forward to now. Just like prior to the panic attacks I use tiktok to have fun, goof around and see cool stuff, (don't get me wrong I'm all about activism, and I use tiktok like any other for that too, but that's for when I'm in a good place mentally) but now, idk it's like I've let it corrupt me. The past year especially, I've gotten into more arguments in tiktok comments then I've gotten into arguments irl, doesn't matter if the argument was valid or not or even worth arguing over.

And I know it's the internet, nothing stays innocent forever, yes I know. But what I'm saying is tiktok in particular has somehow become more toxic then the majority or surface level internet. To me, it seems like it's trying to become the next 4chan more then the next tumblr. And I had hopes that it was heading in the direction of this hellsite, the Fandom elements there, book lovers, science, all of it: seriously seeing people ask ScienceTok, or BookTok, just makes me flashback to the days of "Science side of tumblr what does xyz mean?"

But no, instead we get the love child of vine and 4chan, it's half cousin-brother reddit somehow looks better next to tiktok.

It's dumb, it really is, cus yes the simple answer is, get off tiktok. But it's not simple, my livelihood relies on social media, for many reasons, like many people. The answer I've been going with is limiting myself on time spent, and I've been successful, I go a week or two without even opening the app, then hop on to check in, post and get a good laugh. But somehow, even if it's just one day, it has the power, (that I give it by gods) to suck me in and make me mad at something, even if it is something to be mad about, doesn't mean it's something I have to let get so under my skin it causes this to happen, (the this being moving to my og site and venting my woes)

It's just such a disappointment. At least I'll always have tumblr.

[creek-cryptid-deluxe]

I'm sure you guys are tired of hearing about it buuuut.... I have genuinely never felt so seen and appreciated in my life.

L is somehow consistently surprised & in awe of what I can make, especially in the kitchen. Recently I made a charcuterie board type situation (on a parchment covered cookie sheet) which included 3 types of cheese (sliced), a dope spreadable cheese, hard salami, summer sausage, pepperoni (all also sliced), cresent wrapped little smokies, 3 types of 'fancy crackers', & various sauces/dips/the like. We sat & watched dumb shit while snacking. We made the decision that one kid free Saturday a month we will make ourselves a really decadent one & spend all day in bed snacking while gaming or whatever.

This lead to me mentioning that I can make really lovely feta stuffed olives, marinated in a mix of the olive juice, olive oil, & herbs. He did what he always does in those situations... got mildly hype while expressing a fair amount of doubt & disbelief about my claims. Well I made a very small batch & he devoured them. So the next day, I made an entire jar's worth. As I was making them, he came in and expressed how incredibly talented he thinks I am & how amazing it is that I can do all that.

Then yesterday I was lamenting a donut craving I had & mentioned that if I had the ingredients I would make some. It was met with a wide eyed "You can do that??" Ingredients were procured. Today the donuts were created with various glazes & sprinkles. He walked in & examined every tier of my baking rack, then said "Baby you are absolutely incredible. These are amazing. Like bakery level amazing. We should open a bakery." Of course I reminded him that I'm not consistently healthy enough for such a thing but I appreciate the sentiment.

There was also a fair amount of amazement when I cleaned out and reorganized about 2/3 of the garage over a 2 day period & managed to paint the base color on all the kitchen cabinets in less than a month (and that was during my bad season). He is slightly terrified of how productive my good season will be.

In other news, Vin has referred to me as his stepmom to friends repeatedly & actually asked if I wanted to meet a friend yesterday before they took off to play soccer.

My milk allergy of old has resurfaced. Apparently as a kid (think before teen years) any time i drank milk I violently threw up & got hives. That's not been an issue since i was about 15... until 2 days ago. I drink those carnation instant breakfast (now breakfast essentials) things for extra nutrients. Drank one that night & 10 minutes later was suddenly violently throwing up and my entire body was covered in hives. Dad said that's the exact reaction i had to milk growing up so that probably what happened. I haven't been brave enough to put that to the test though.

All in all, life is lovely despite me being sick almost consistently since November & the very nature of the months of November thru March fucking me up as badly as they do. I'm quite happy.

[ladywaifuuwrites]

Pillars reacting to their crush who’s small but strong

Request: male pillars reacting to a really strong female pillar whos like super short like 4′10-5′ and they crush on them.

Pairings: Male pillars x fem! reader

Synopsis: Their crush is a strong smol pillar ^_^

Warnings: manga spoiler

a/n: I smiled at your request since I’m small too. Like I’m 5′0. And I’m kinda scared to do face to face classes since the boys at my school will tease me for not getting taller. Hmph. SO HERE YA GO. You’re the first request! Have a nice day whoever u are!

And I am so sorry this is so long! ASJDAOFHHASK. I got carried away in some of those storylines. I hope this makes sense (wrote this when I was hungry).

This would be a headcanon I assume. 

I’m sorry if It’s taking me long to answer requests but don’t worry I’ll write those! I’ll probably upload rules for future requests :)

Giyuu Tomioka

yo this guy is tall not kidding

Giyuu is head over heels for you. He’ll want to protect you since you’re the most precious things he’s ever laid eyes on

Sparkles in his eyes whenever he sees you✨

He doesn’t want to lose you so he’s butting in on all of your missions. You get annoyed and you think he’s looking down on you.

You two get into a fight and doesn’t fix it since Giyuu’s communication is bad. It ends up in you walking away.

Nighttime and demons are lurking around in the forest as you take a stroll to clear your mind. Then a demon launches on you but thanks to your quick reflexes you dodge.

It’s a strong demon, close enough to become one of the lower moons. But nothing you can’t handle.

Giyuu senses a demon nearby and he frantically searches for you. *sim dads reaction when the mother goes into labor lmaooooo*

Lights fill up an area of the forest from the techniques you use. In like 2 strikes the demon dies.

He finally finds you as the demon’s ashes blow away. Your hair is dramatically blowing too.

He’s just staring at you then hugs you “I’m sorry. I’m not underestimating you…I just want to protect you.”  

Then all good. He’s amazed by how strong you are despite you’re short stature. You’re going to missions together and sometimes he just watches you finish off the demon. Just happy to see that satisfied smile you have when you kill a demon.

Muichiro Tokito

When he first met you at the pillar meeting, he muttered his thoughts, wondering how could someone be that small? You’re in the same age but you’re small.

Shinobu heard him since she was beside him and said “that’s rude to ask someone”. She’s lowkey offended.

Tengen retorts to Muichiro. “You’re small too…??”

Since it’s rude, he kept his mouth shut. You’re the same age as him when you entered the corps. He thinks you’ll grow up anyway. 

Surprise surprise you grew up, 2 inches. But still small. 

He gets nervous a bit around you since puberty did you good. Won’t admit it though.

Cue swordsmith village arc

He’s having trouble dealing with Gyokko. (I hate his face. It’s weird and ugly.)

Then minutes later, you show up out of nowhere, giving great damage to the demon.

“Are you okay?” you ask him with concern and you two fight off the fish demon.

He’s in awe because you actually took over the fight. Sure you have injuries but those are minor compared to his and you were very careful.

He’s injured so he couldn’t do much but you saved him and the civilians by defeating the demon. That’s when he realized how amazing you are and you earn his respect. 

Days pass by and you two along with the other demon slayers are commended by Oyakata-sama.

He thanks you when the both of you are walking together. He’s very grateful for what you did and you two become closer afterwards.

“Ah young love.” Mitsuri sighs blissfully as she watches you two leave the headquarters.

Kyojuro Rengoku 

Kyojuro knows you’re small and he knows you’re strong. You’re one of his trainees along with Mitsuri, so you’ve known each other for a long time now.

You rose to the ranks of the pillars with Kyojuro’s guidance. And now you’re looked up to by the whole organization because of your excellent swordsmanship despite your small figure. 

So you’re tasked to train 20 slayers ranked below Tsuchinoto. You take them to a clearing in the forest where training equipment are already placed. You train them by remembering what Kyojuro has taught you over the years. And you smile, seeing your past self in the struggling slayers.

You gave them a 10 minute break and after 10 minutes, you do a headcount to see if everyone is in your proximity. 

“18,19…?????” 

Oh no. A slayer is missing.

So you set off to find the missing one and there you found him. 

Hanging upside down from the arms of a large demon. The boy is muttering apologies for straying faraway and is begging for you to save him upon seeing you. 

You are annoyed at the fact that he has disobeyed your orders and is now at the hands of danger. But this was no time to be blaming someone for a boy’s life is at stake here. 

You jump into the air and you take down the demon pretty easily with one strike of your sword. And you catch the falling boy bridal style with your annoyed face. 

You put the boy down but suddenly a demon comes attacking you both. You kill it but more of it comes at you. They are easy to take down but it keeps coming, making you tired if you have to do this all night. It just won’t stop multiplying.

You think you’ve killed almost all of it but then the slayer screams “(L/N)-SAN!!!!!”. A monstrous looking demon bares its claws at you, but before you could react a flash of flames appears right in front of your eyes. 

“Kyojuro…” You whisper in relief as he slays the final demon. The bright flames sparkle in your eyes as you’re once again amazed at the man.

Kyojuro looks at you and comes over. “You’re so amazing.” You manage to say. 

He smiles and says. “No. You’re the amazing one.”. You always manage to face whatever challenge and it always ends up in you winning. Kyojuro knows how hard you proved others wrong by becoming a strong pillar. 

Super proud of you cause you’re strong. He actually watched you battle those before jumping in to save you.

Sanemi Shinazugawa

He doesn’t really care if you’re short or tall

The important things is that you’re useful to the organization

When someone teases you about your height, you end up feeling down and he’s there to beat that someone’s ass.

He doesn’t like to admit it but he’s a softie when it comes to you. You eventually break down his walls and now you can say you’re friends with the scary wind pillar.

You always tease him though and he’s always annoyed. But everyone thinks you’re both dumb since it’s very clear that you two like each other but you still deny it.

There’s this time where Sanemi is visibly struggling fighting demons as you watch him peacefully on a rooftop. He’s glaring at you and asks you “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”.

You just smile at him sweetly😊

Sanemi pretends his heart didn’t do a flip. But his heart stopped when he saw a demon behind you on the rooftop.

He was about to call your name when another blink and the demon’s head was cut off.

He was surprised since it all happened so fast. You go down to the ground, landing safely as you battle demons that the frozen Sanemi left.

It just took you 10 seconds to eliminate those demons and Sanemi’s mouth is left agape as he watched you.

You weren’t normally like this. So why the sudden surge of power?

“Sanemi hun. Close your mouth.” You say to him with a blank face, but before you could go past him, he gripped your wrist tightly and placed your small body in front of him.

He dragged you so easily lol.

He hugged you with your faced buried on his chest.

It was the comforting kind of silence. Sanemi was scared losing you to that demon but deep inside he knows that you’re strong.

Won’t admit that your moves are amazing.

Gyomei Himejima

This man is the strongest in the demon slayer corps and the tallest

Lmaoooo you would be like a mushroom beside him💀🍄

Gyomei actually gets out of tricky situations easily because he’s that strong

You’re a fairly new pillar who earned her spot 3 months ago. You two were assigned on a mission together. A gigantic demon appeared throughout the village that was between the regions you and the stone pillar were assigned in.

Gyomei knows your capabilities so he trusts you in doing a good job, but he can’t help but worry about you.

He doesn’t care if you’re small, he thinks that height isn’t the basis for an excellent demon slayer. But he’s still worried, so he looks for you. I don’t know how he looks but he looks.

Then he sees you fighting off demons very easily. A determined look is seen across your face. Gyomei feels he’s tearing up because he’s so proud of you. Proud boyfriend here somethin.

You were just a weak mizunoto years ago and now you’re a strong pillar who can fight with him side by side.

When you finish off the demons, you look to see Gyomei smiling at you. This were the fruits of the harsh trainings you went through, it made an excellent swordswoman.

Among the pillars, you stand beside Gyomei in rankings. So you’re powerful like wow. O_O

Obanai Iguro

He’s small but have you seen him fight? He’s a demon slayer with remarkable speed and you won’t know he’s attacking you because his moves slithers secretly like a snake.

You’ve always admired Obanai even you’re now both pillars. And that admiration bloomed into something more.  

He’s a strong pillar despite his small stature and that’s what you aim for to be like.

You’re trying to show off your moves to him every time you’re in battle together, to show him what you can do. To which he’s just “meh”.

So you give up on trying to show off and just do it for the sake of the people you’re saving.

You really gave up on showing off, but you can’t help it cause your breathing forms are flashy. Obanai doesn’t show it but he loves that display of power you have when you’re fighting.

Poor man doesn’t realize he’s in love with you even though others point it out.

He’s having trouble dividing his attention on protecting the civilians or fighting the demons. Luckily you were near the area so you came to his aid.

You slay the demons with your sharp and precise movements in just a short amount of time.

He’s like 😲 but when you turn he’s back to 😐😷

He’s one of the guys who won’t admit that you’re amazing and won’t admit that he likes you. You force him to confess though.

Tengen Uzui

If Obanai doesn’t admit he likes you, this guy would shout that he likes you

Would openly flirt with you because why not? There’s nothing to be shy about.

Always takes the chance to compliment and flirt with you.

“You’re cute (y/n)” “Thanks” Tengen finds your height cute because the height difference is HUGE.

Another mushroom like moment💀🍄

He knows you’re strong so he likes to train with you. Always ends up letting you win because he just likes it when he’s pinned down by your smaller figure.

When a demon invasion came in your area,, you fight them off while Tengen is called for backup.

He slays the lesser demons easily and found you fighting a stronger demon while protecting some children behind your back.

He smirks and leans against a tree, arms folded while watching you fight off the demon. 

You did it so easily making Tengen’s eyebrows rise.

Then you see him and ask him “what are you doing?”.

“watching you.” He finds you hot and sexy when you have that focused look in the middle of a battle. He won’t say it out loud because you might smack him in the face.

Super amazed at the fact that you’re stronger than the other pillars despite your small figure.(he thinks you’re stronger than him but dismisses that because pshhhhhh).

Will throw you over his shoulder at random times. Thinking that his antics will make you fall in love with him.

And it did…

[moemammon]

Since you're open for requests, how about a MC who cannot die no matter how much you try? The anime my sister was watching yesterday (I think it's Rezero or Re:zero, I'm not sure which one) had a character like this, apparently she comes back out of nowhere each time you kill her, no matter how. It's kinda creepy, but I think a MC like this would be very interesting!

MC Just Can't Be Killed! (Feat. The Demon Bros)

(Took some liberties on this one and tweaked it so MC just conveniently manages to escape with their life-)

Lucifer

He knew something was up the moment you first avoided being killed by Levi-

He thought it was dumb luck and pure chance that you could always talk your way out of things, or how you were always rescued by someone. But then he started getting suspicious.

How can you, a human, possibly survive so long? Not that he’d allow you do die while under his care, but even HE was impressed when you managed to bounce back from being clapped into the shadow realm by Belphie.

And then you just... kept narrowly escaping death. You crawled out of the jaws of Cerberus, completely unscathed. You tripped on a path (with Mammon) and went tumbling down a hill... and off a cliff. Yet when he went to get you, you were fine. You ate Solomon's cooking and lived to tell the tale.

What are you.... he demands answers...

Mammon

Probably?? Doesn't notice for a REALLY long time how many brushes with death you've had. Literally thinks your survival is all thanks to his great supervision skills.

When in reality, he's sometimes the cause of a few of your mishaps. Like the other day, when he playfully tripped you on your way out, and thought he fucking murdered you.

And the time he let you help him advertise a shady 'youth potion', and a couple of demons thought you were part of a promotional sampling platter.

How you were still in one piece after all of this was beyond him but hey, he's not asking questions! As long as you're alive, Mammon is a-ok!

Though, he seriously wants to know how you survived that thing with Cerberus. Can you give a guy some tips on how to avoid teeth-induced puncture wounds?

Levi

What kind of infinity lives glitch are you exploiting and how did you implement it in real life-

Levi knows a hacker when he sees one and he's NOT letting you off the hook. The moment he realizes that you haven't died despite being manhandled in every sense of the word, he's watching you.

But also hella thankful?? He wouldn't know what to do if you ACTUALLY died.

It's probably because you're so amazing that you keep managing to do impossible stuff, huh? As expected of his best friend!

Still lowkey worried though, and tries convincing you that you're less likely to die if you just stay in his room with him all the time.

Satan

Inch resting....

Satan would definitely notice right away that you seem practically unkillable, considering how you walked away from every single brother completely unscathed.

You were a human, attending a school for demons, sometimes completely unsupervised, and you were STILL alive?? Yeah, some thorns me not adding up.

He would purposely lead you into dangerous situations, just to watch in awe as you get out of it without so much as a paper cut. Until he starts catching feelings, of course.

As interesting as it is to test out your lucky abilities, the anxiety that swells in Satan's chest when he sees you doing something dangerous is enough to make him want to protect you. Isn't it safer to just sit down and enjoy a good book?

Asmo

Asmo literally tried putting you in Lucifer's way in the beginning so you'd get hurt, so he definitely notices how not hurt you are after a while.

But now that he loves you, all's well that ends well! He's sooo glad Lucifer didn't tear you apart like he thought he was going to! Mwah mwah, no hard feelings ❤️

Seriously though, how the hell are you managing that?? You keep being tricked into eating things they're poisonous to humans, and the most that happens to you is bad indigestion. And that time Asmo forgot the hot springs were too hot for you? Yeah, somehow you didn't die that time, either.

What were you made out of??? Were you secretly magical like Solomon and didn't tell anyone?? Or maybe you were super lucky???

Does that mean you're especially sturdy? If so, then maybe he could introduce you to a few "activities" that are bound to keep you out of trouble~

Beel

What have you been eating that's making you so sturdy?? Actually, what HAVEN'T you eaten at this point..? The fact that you didn't die after eating Solomon's cooking is enough to tell Beel that you might not need his protection.

Though, that doesn't stop him from following you around. Even if you miraculously bounce back every time, he's getting kind of worried for like.. your overall health?

At this point he's tempted to just zip you up in his jacket to keep you safe. You're like a danger magnet and it's giving him anxiety.

He doesn't mind your adventurous side, but can't you slow down a little? At least make sure he's with you when you decide to do something risky.

If he feeds you enough, you'll get tired and just want to rest. That'll keep you out of trouble. So get ready, because Beel's bringing over a ton of desserts from Madame Scream's.

Belphie

Yeah uhhhhh he was fucking SHOOK when you came back from the dead after he clearly sent you to heaven with his bare hands??

So yeah. He's convinced you're unkillable for now. But as curious as he is to test those limits, he's realized that you're off limits as far as killing goes. And he might.. like you a little too much to try anything.

Just kidding. He makes it known that he likes you, and once you're comfortable with it, he'll make jokes about how you're immortal. Maybe you're a demon in disguise? Or an angel even?

Doesn't make it known, but he quietly watches over you to make sure you don't kill yourself through one of the millions of ways to die that the Devildom offers for free. Might not be the best bodyguard since he falls asleep all the time, but he's doing his best.

You know what would really keep you out of trouble? Napping with him. So every time you even think about something risky, he's dragging you off to the attic for some quality z's.

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

Alright, I read your recent post and need to know - what is your interpretation of Maglor’s relationship with the twins?

askjdhslkjag my biggest self-inflicted problem in this fandom is that my take on maglor, elrond, and elros' relationship is so intensely detailed and specific i am forever tormented by none of the fic i read ever quite getting it right (from my perspective; i’ve read plenty of fic that presents a good interpretation on their own terms, it’s just never mine.) it’s simultaneously way darker than the fluffy kidnap dads stuff and nowhere near as black-and-white awful as the anti-fëanorian crowd likes to paint it, it’s messy and complicated and surrounded by darkness, and yet there’s also a sincere connection within it which mostly serves to make all those complications worse. angry teenage elrond is angry for a great many reasons, and the circumstances around him being raised by kinslayers account for at least half of them. there’s lots of complexity here, and i don’t see it in fic nearly as often as i’d like

(warning: the post... feathers? i already have an internet friend called faeiri this could be awkward - anyway, the post she’s talking about includes the line ‘everyone is wrong about kidnap dads except me.’ this post follows on from that in being as much a commentary about why various popular interpretations of both how the kidnapdoption went and the way people subsequently characterise the twins just don’t work for me as it is a setting out of my own ideas. i’m not really interested in getting into discourse here, i’m just trying to get my thoughts down. i’ve read fic with these interpretations before that i’ve liked, even, don’t take this as a Condemnation, aight? also this turned out long as hell, so i’m putting it under a cut)

i can never buy entirely fluffy depictions of kidnap dads

which isn’t to say i don’t read them! sometimes all i want is something sweet, for these kids to get to be happy for once. it’s not like i think their time with the fëanorians was completely devoid of laughter

it’s just. the pet names, the special days out, the home-cooked meals, it can get so treacly it stops feeling like the characters they are in the situation they’re in and turns into Generic Found Family #272

it soaks out all the complexity - which is the thing i am here for - and acts like oh, these kids were never in any danger, they were perfectly happy being abducted by the people who murdered everyone they knew, there’s nothing possibly questionable about this relationship at all

and... yeah. that’s not the characters i know. that’s not the context i know they belong to

i just can’t forget the circumstances that led them to meet

rivers of blood, the air filled with screams, a town ablaze, a woman choosing to die. every interaction the three of them have is going to proceed from that nightmare

(sidenote: i tend to hold it was maglor that raised the twins, with maedhros looming ominously in the background not really getting involved. it’s mostly personal preference, i’ve been in and out of the fandom since before this kidnap dads thing blew up and when i joined that was a perfectly standard reading)

(also the cave thing was a dumb idea, old man, if only because it implies beleriand had streams safe enough for children to play in at that point. the way it separates the twins from the third kinslaying is also something i don’t particularly vibe with)

probably my least favourite angle i’ve seen on the situation (edged out only by ‘maglor was actively abusive towards the twins’ which no no no no no no no no NO) is the idea that maglor (and/or maedhros, append as necessary) took the twins specifically to raise them

like, i get where it’s coming from, but it makes maglor come off as really creepy

(i have read fics where it is indeed played off as really creepy, but that’s not a maglor i have any interest in reading about)

(’mags 100% bad’ is just as facile a take to me as ‘mags 100% good’)

even if you’re saying maglor took them in because they had no one left to take care of them - i highly doubt they were the only children the fëanorians orphaned at sirion. idk, it always makes maglor seem much less sympathetic than i think it’s meant to

i prefer to think of it as more... organic? something that evolved, not something that was preordained. them growing closer gradually, the twins finding an adult who might maybe be on their side, maglor becoming invested in them almost by accident

and then the twins are so comfortable with the second scariest monster in amon ereb they frequently sass him off and maglor’s gotten so used to not hurting them he’s not even thinking about it any more. no one’s quite sure how it happened, but they’ve made a Connection

‘wait aren’t they a murderous warlord of questionable mental stability and a pair of terrified small children who’ve lost everyone they ever knew? isn’t that kinda fucked up?’ yup! that’s the point! complexity!

another idea i don’t like is the idea that maglor was an objectively better parent to the twins than eärendil or elwing

other people have talked about this already, i won’t rehash the whole thing. i will say that while i don’t think elwing was a perfect parent - someone so young, in such a horrible situation, i wouldn’t blame her for screwing up - i do think she (and eärendil) did the best by them they possibly could

this is one of the few things they have in common with maglor

something i come across now and again is the idea that sure, elwing and eärendil weren’t abusive or horrible or anything, but they were a couple of basically-teenagers with so many other responsibilities, there was only so much they could do. maglor, on the other hand, is an experienced adult who could take much better care of the twins

and...

first off, it’s not like mags doesn’t have a job. he’s a warlord, he has a fortress to help run, military shit to handle, lots of other stuff that needs to get done to stop everyone from starving or getting eaten by orcs. i feel like sirion had enough of a government there was plenty of opportunity for elwing to take days off and play with her kids, but in the fëanorian camp nobody really has the time to chase after a couple of toddlers, least of all one of the last points on the command network. they just don’t have the people any more

(seriously, the twins getting a formal education with tutors and classes and shit is a weirdly specific pet peeve of mine. this is a band of renegades, not a royal household; if there’s anyone left with those kinds of skills they almost certainly have more important things to do)

more than that, though - well, a quick glance through my late stage fëanorians tag should tell you a lot about what i think maglor’s mental state is like at this point. he is so accustomed to violence death means nothing to him, he’s lost most of his capacity for genuinely positive emotion to an endless century of defeat and despair, he hates everything in the universe, especially himself, he’s only able to keep functioning through a truly astounding amount of denial, and he covers it all up with a layer of snark and feigned apathy, which he defends aggressively because he’s subconsciously realised that if it breaks he’ll have absolutely nothing left

(maedhros, for the record, is... i’d say more stable, but at a lower point. maglor may interact with the world mostly through cold stares and mocking laughter, but at least his mind is firmly rooted in the present)

(on the other hand, at least maedhros lets himself be aware of what they are and where their road will lead)

which... this doesn’t mean maglor doesn’t try to be kind to the twins, or rein in his worst impulses around them

there’s just so little of him left but the weapon

he stalks through the halls like a portent of death and gets into hours-long screaming matches with maedhros and has definitely killed people in front of the twins

not even as, like, a deliberate attempt to scare them, but because when you solve most of your problems by stabbing them it’s pretty much a given that people who spend a lot of time around you are going to see you do it at least once

and sometimes, he curls up in an empty hallway, and weeps

... suffice it to say i don’t think elwing’s the more preoccupied, or the less mentally ill, parent here

just. in general, the fëanorians aren’t cackling boogeymen, but they’re not particularly nice either

no one has the energy left for that. not these isolated and weary soldiers at the end of a long losing war and the beginning of the end of the world. they don’t really bother to guard the kids against them escaping. where else are they going to go?

the sheer despair that must have been in the fëanorian camp after sirion, the knowledge that the cause cannot be fulfilled, that they are utterly forsaken, that they’re really just waiting to die -

it can’t have been a happy place to grow up in, under the shadow of loss and grief and deeds unrepentable, and the slow march of inevitable defeat

they would have had a better childhood if they stayed in sirion, raised by people who knew how to hope

but that isn’t the childhood they had. and despite everything i’ve said, i don’t think that childhood was an entirely awful one

yeah, see, this is where the other side of my self-inflicted fandom catch-22 comes in. just as much of the pro-kidnap dads stuff comes off as overly saccharine and simplified to me, i find much of the anti-kidnap dads stuff equally simplistic in the opposite direction

the idea that maglor and the fëanorians never meant anything to elros and elrond, that they had no effect on the people they became at all, that it was just a horrible thing that happened when they were children, easily thrown in the rear-view mirror...

that’s even more impossible to me than the idea that life with the fëanorians was 100% fluffy and nice

like, i’ve seen the take that elros and elrond hated the fëanorians from start to finish. they were perfect little sindarin princes, loyal to their people and the memory of doriath, spurning every scrap of kindness offered to them and knowing just what to say to twist the knife into the kinslayers’ wounds

... dude. they were six. hell, given their peredhelness, mentally they could easily have been younger

what six year old has a firm grasp of their ethnic identity? what six year old is fully aware of their place in history? what six year old would understand the politics that led to their situation?

don’t get me wrong, i can see hatred in there. but something else that doesn’t get acknowledged alongside it often enough is the fear

some of the stuff i’ve read feels like it gives the kids too much power in the situation. they’re perfectly happy to talk back to and belittle the people who burned down their hometown and killed everyone they ever knew, like miniature adults who don’t feel threatened at all

and, like, six. i can see them going for insults as a defensive measure, but it is defensive. it’s covering up fear, not coming from secure disdain

(and a lot of those insults sound, again, like things an adult who’s already familiar with the fëanorians would say, not a scared child who’s lost almost everything. why would a six year old raised by sindar and gondolindrim know what the noldolantë is, let alone what it means to maglor?)

(... i’m just ranting about this one fic that’s been ruffling my feathers for five years straight now, aren’t i)

i mean, i write elrond as the world’s angriest teenager, who snipes at maglor pretty much constantly, but the thing about angry teenage elrond is that he’s angry teenage elrond

he’s spent long enough with the fëanorians he has a pretty secure position within the camp, and he knows that maglor won’t hurt him from a decade and change of maglor not, in fact, hurting him

but as a small and terrified child abducted by the monsters his mother had nightmares about? he fluctuated wildly between ‘randomly guessing at things to say that wouldn’t get him killed’ ‘screaming at maglor to go away in words rarely more complicated than that’ 'desperately trying not to do or say anything in the hopes of not being noticed’ and ‘hiding’

(and i don’t think the twins were never in any danger from the fëanorians, either. quite besides the point that before they started orbiting maglor nobody was really sure what to do with them... well, they wouldn’t be the first children of thingol’s line the minions took revenge on)

(fortunately for them, maglor did, in fact, take them under his wing. by this point even their own followers are shit scared of the last two sons of fëanor, nobody’s going to mess with their stuff and risk getting mauled. tactically, it was a pretty good decision for a couple of toddlers)

more to the point, i feel like a child that young, in a situation that horrible, wouldn’t reject any kindness they were offered, any soothing touch in a universe of terror

in a world full of big scary monsters, the best way to survive is to get the biggest scariest monster possible to protect you. that’s how elros rationalises it when they’re, like, eight, mentally, but at the time they were just latching on to the only person around them who seemed to care about them

that’s how it started, on their end. two very young very scared children lost in a neverending nightmare clinging tightly to the lone outstretched pair of hands

as for maglor...

i’ve called mags evil before, but i see that as more of a... technical term? he is evil because he did the murder, he remains evil because he won’t stop doing the murder. hot take: murder bad

but that doesn’t make him, like, a moustache-twirling saturday morning cartoon villain. he is deeply unhappy with the position he’s in and the person he’s become, and he’s always trying not to take that final step over the edge

it’s not that i can’t see a maglor who is abusive or manipulative or who sees the twins more as objects than people. it’s just that that characterisation is one i am profoundly uninterested in. i do occasionally read fic with it, but it never enters my own headcanons

horrible people can do good things!! kinslayers can do good things!! the fallen are capable of humanity!! people can do both good and evil things at the same time, because people are complicated!! maglor is not psychologically incapable of actually taking pity on these kids!!!!

it’s... again, complexity. the fëanorians straddle the line between black and white, which is a lot less sharp in the legendarium than it’s sometimes characterised as. it’s what draws me to their characters so much, why i have so many stupid headcanons about them. pretending they fall firmly on either side of the line is my real fandom pet peeve

and, like, this moment? this sincere connection between a bloodstained warlord and two children who will grow up to be great and kind in equal measure? i may not entirely like the direction the fandom’s taken it recently, but that beat, that relationship, it still gets me

so no, i don’t think elrond and elros’ years with the fëanorians were an endless cavalcade of abuse and misery. i think there was love there, despite the darkness all around them

an old, tired monster, and the two tiny children it protects

maglor never hurts the twins, not ever, not once. his claws are sharp and his fangs are keen, if he so much as swatted them he’d rip them in half. instead he folds down the razor edges of his being, interacting with them ever so carefully. he has nightmares of suddenly tearing into their skin

seriously, the power differential between them is so great, maglor so much as raising his voice would break any trust they have in this horribly dangerous creature. fics where he does corporal punishment always get the side-eye from me

the mood of their relationship is... i find it hard to put into words. melancholy, maybe, like a sunny afternoon a few days before the end of the world. three people who’ve lost so much finding what respite they can in each other as the world slowly crumbles around them

there are times when it feels like the three of them exist in a world of their own, marked out by the edges of the firelight. maglor telling stories of the stars, elros giving relaxed irreverent commentary, elrond getting a few moments to just be, all their troubles kept at bay

they are the last two lights in a world sunk into darkness, the last two living beings he does not on some level hate. he will tear his own heart out before he sees them in pain

he teaches them to ride, he teaches them to read, he gives them everything he still has left. the twins should never have been in this situation, maglor probably isn’t entirely fit to take care of them, but it is what it is, and they take what love they can

(maglor depends on the twins emotionally a bit more than any adult should rely on any child. he’s still very much the caretaker in their relationship, but that relationship is the only one he has left that’s not stained by a century of rage and grief. he’s obsessed with them, maedhros tells him frequently. maglor’s standard response to this is to try to gouge maedhros’ eyes out)

(that particular darker side to their relationship, where maglor’s attachment to the twins turns into a desperate possessiveness - that’s not something i think i’ve ever seen in fic. which is a shame, it feels much closer to my own characterisation than the standard ways this relationship gets maleficised. darker, in a different way than usual. horribly compelling in its plausibility)

however you want to read it, i don’t think you can deny this is a relationship that defines elrond and elros’ childhood. they were raised in the woods by a pack of kinslayers, the text is quite clear on this

but i’ve seen a lot of talk about how elros and elrond are only sirion’s children. they are completely 100% sindarin, they love and forgive eärendil and elwing thoroughly and without question, they identify with doriath over - even gondolin, let alone tirion. the fëanorians - the people who raised them - had zero effect on the people they grew into and the selves they created

and that, more than anything else, i find utterly unbelievable

look, i get what this is a reaction to. a lot of the kidnap dads stuff paints the fëanorians as elrond and elros’ ‘real’ family, and i’ve already talked about what i think of the idea that maglor-and-possibly-also-maedhros were better parents than eärendil and elwing. i think it’s reductive and overly optimistic and just a little too neat

but to say instead that elrond and elros held no great love in their hearts for maglor, no lingering affinity with the fëanorians, no influence on their identity from the people they grew up around, none at all? that after it happened they just left it behind and resumed being the same people they were in sirion?

that strikes me as just as much an oversimplification. it sands down all the potential rough edges of their identity, all that inconvenient complexity that stops them from fitting into any well-defined box, and replaces it with a nice safe simple self-conception i find just as flat and boring as declaring them 100% fëanorian

we can quibble over who they call ‘father’ (i personally find that whole debate kinda petty) but denying that it was actually maglor who was the closest thing they knew to a parent for most of their childhoods, and that that would, in fact, affect the way they thought of themselves and their family, elides so many interesting possibilities out of existence

(i’m not even going to get into the most braindead take i have ever heard on the subject, namely that because their time with the fëanorians was such a small fraction of elrond’s total lifespan it was like being kidnapped for two weeks as a toddler and had no greater significance than that. do you not understand what childhood is????)

like, i tend to think of elrond as a child as being very loudly not-a-fëanorian. elros is more willing to go with the flow - hey, if the creepy kinslayer wants kids, elros is happy to play into that in order to not be murdered - but elrond is very firm that he’s not happy to be here and he doesn’t belong with them

(this is after they get over their initial terror, of course, when they’ve realised they won’t be fed to the orcs for the tiniest slight. even so, elrond only really gets shirty about it around people he’s comfortable with, whose reactions he can reasonably guess at. naturally, the first person he does it to is maglor)

elros calls maglor their father exactly once, when they’re... maybe early preteens? this is because elrond hears him do it and immediately loses his shit. they have a dad, elrond says, in tears, and a mum, and any day now their real parents are going to come to pick them up and take them home

... right?

it gets harder to believe as the years roll on, as their memories of sirion fade, as they find their own places within the host, as maglor watches over them as they grow. elrond still mentally sets himself apart from the fëanorians, but it’s more of an effort every year. life in the fëanorian camp is the only one he’s ever really known. he can barely remember his mother’s voice

then the war of wrath starts, and the fëanorian host drifts closer to the army of valinor, and the twins come into contact with non-fëanorians for the first time in forever, and it becomes clear just how obviously fëanorian elrond is. he always insisted he wasn’t like the kinslayers at all, but he dresses like them, talks like them, fights like them

the myth cycles the edain tell are almost completely unfamiliar to him, he barely remembers the shape of the songs of lost doriath. even these sarcastic commentary and subversive reinterpretations he made of maglor’s stories - those were still maglor’s stories! he’s been trying to guess at the person he was meant to be, but it’s growing nightmarishly blatant how little elrond ever knew about him

instead, the people he was born to are as alien to him as the orcs of morgoth. he is a fëanorian, through and through

... yeah, elrond (and/or elros) having an absolutely massive identity crisis upon being reintroduced to his quote-unquote ‘true kin’ is another angle i’d love to see in fic that i don’t think i’ve ever come across. all those potential grey areas around who they are and who they’re supposed to be sound utterly fascinating, and i think it’s the complexity i hate to see elided over the most

i really, really doubt they could effortlessly slot back into being eärendil and elwing’s children. not when they’ve been surrounded by, lived alongside, been raised by the people who were supposed to enemies for most of their lives

they just don’t fit into that box any more. they can’t

speaking of eärendil and elwing, while i do agree that they both (especially elwing) get a lot more flak than they deserve, i don’t agree that therefore elrond and elros were never the slightest bit mad at them and fully forgave them for everything with no reservations

because, well, they were left behind. elwing had no other choice, but they were still left behind; it led to the world being saved, but they were still left behind. all the best intentions in the universe don’t erase the weeks and months and years of waiting, of a hope that grew thinner and frailer until it finally quietly broke

that’s a real hurt, and a real grievance. even if the twins rationally understand that their parents were making the best out of their terrible situation, you can’t logic away emotions like that. it’s perfectly possible for them to know they have no reason to resent eärendil or elwing, and yet still harbour that bitterness and pain

(i did write a thing once where elrond loudly rejects eärendil as his father in favour of maglor, but something i didn’t add in that i probably should have is that elrond later regretted doing that)

(not like, several centuries later, when he’d grown old and wise. two hours later, when he’d calmed down. but he was still legitimately angry at eärendil, because the one thing angry teenage elrond was not lacking in was reasons to be mad at the adults around him, and before he could figure out if he had anything less furious to say the hosts of the valar left middle-earth behind)

(it’s another element to the tragedy of the whole thing. in that particular story, which is mostly aiming for maximum pain, the only thing elrond’s birth parents know about their son for thousands of years is that he hates them)

(and he doesn’t, not really. you can’t hate someone you’ve never known)

not that i think they couldn’t ever make up with their parents! fics where elrond and his birth parents work past all the things that lie between them and form a functional familial bond despite it all give me life. i just don’t like the idea that there’s nothing difficult for them to work past

i don’t like the idea that elrond and elros would naturally, effortlessly identify with the mother they last saw when they were six and the people they only vaguely remember. i can see them doing it as a political move, i can see them going for it as a deliberate personal choice, but i can’t seeing it being immediate and automatic and easy

no matter how great a pair of heroes eärendil and elwing are, that doesn’t change the fact that to elrond and elros, they’re at most a few scattered memories and a collection of far-off stories. and so long as the twins stay in middle-earth, they’re never going to draw any closer

compared to the dynamic, multifaceted, personal, and deep bonds they have with the fëanorians - who, and i know i keep saying this but i think it gets tossed aside way more casually than it should, are the people who actually raised them, their birth parents must feel like a distant idea

and that’s why i can never buy interpretations of elrond as 100% sindarin, a pure son of doriath, with no messy grey areas or awkward jagged edges to his identity. given everything we know about his life, it seems almost cartoonishly simplistic

honestly it seems like a narrative a bunch of old doriathrin nobles trying to manouevre elrond into being high king of the sindar or something would propagate. it's neat and nice and tidy, something that’d be much more convenient for everyone if elrond did feel that way

but i just don’t see how he can. this narrative is easy and simple in a way real people never are, it ignores all the forces pulling him apart. elrond being uncomplicatedly sindarin with the life he lives and the people he's close to - that doesn’t make any sense to me

which isn’t to say i think he’s 100% noldorin, from either a gondolindrim or a fëanorian perspective. (i find it a little more believable, given, again, who he grew up around and who he hangs out with, but it’s still a bit too reductive for my tastes.) it’s also not to say i couldn’t believe an elrond who made an active choice to emphasise his sindarin heritage

it’s not how i think of him, but it works. i don’t have a problem with other people interpreting the complexities of the twins’ identities differently

i just have a problem with people acting like it doesn’t exist

in general i think there’s a lot untapped potential that gets left behind when you declare the twins, separately or together, as All One Thing

they’re descended from half the noble houses of beleriand, and they have deep personal ties to most of the rest. they belong to all of the free peoples even the dwarves, somehow, probably and i feel like that was kind of the old man’s point? so many peoples meet in them, to say they wholly belong to any one species is probably an oversimplification

they sit at a crossroads of potential identities, and rather than narrowing down their worldviews to one single path, they take the hard road and choose all of them. that’s what you need to do, if you want to change the world

and, to bring this back to my ostensible topic, in my estimation at least this mélange of possible selves does include them as fëanorians! it’s not overpowering, but it’s certainly there, and the adults they grow into long after they’ve left the host still bear influence from their childhood

nothing super obvious, nothing that wouldn’t stand out if you didn’t know what to look for, but there’s something almost incandescent in how fiercely elros reaches out for his dreams

there’s something almost defiant in elrond’s drive to be as kind as summer

as for who they publically claim as their family... honestly, it depends. while it’s usually more tactically prudent for elros to connect himself to his various human ancestors, on occasion he does find a use for his free in with the elf mafia, and elrond, code switcher par excellence, is famously the son of whoever is most politically convenient at the moment, which is rarely, but not never, maglor

(in the privacy of their own minds, well, eärendil and elwing may have been the parents elros was supposed to have, but maglor was the parent he actually had, and elros doesn’t particularly care to mope over what might have been. elrond, for his part, figures that after all the shit maglor has put him through, the least that bastard owes him is a father)

but honestly? i think before any of their mountain of identities, before thinking of themselves as sindarin or gondolindel or hadorian or haladin or fëanorian or anything, elrond and elros identify as themselves

they are peredhil, they are númenóreans, they are whoever they make themselves to be. that’s how elrond finally resolved his identity, figured out who he was and found something past the pain and the rage

he wasn’t doriathrin, or gondolindrin, or falathrin, or fëanorian, or whatever else. he was elrond, no more and no less

and that person, elrond, could be whatever he chose to be

... elros came to a similar conclusion, with much less sturm und drang that he’s willing to admit. being able to go ‘hey, i can’t possibly be biased towards any one of your cultures, because i’m descended from all of you and i was raised by murderelves’ makes it a lot easier to unite people around your personal banner, turns out

the stories other people tried to force on them shattered into pieces, and the peredhel twins were free to shape themselves into anything they could dream of

and as the new world struggles alive, these lost children of an Age of death begin to bloom into their full glorious selves -

i just. i love the poetry of that. despite every single shadow that hangs over their past, despite all the clashing notes pulling them apart, they harmonise it all into a greater, kinder theme, determined to make their world a better place in whatever way they can

they fail, of course, but so do all things. the inevitable march of entropy doesn’t diminish the long millennia they (and their descendants) held onto the light

and their growing up in the fëanorian host definitely had a huge effect on the noble lords they became. you can see it in elros’ loud ambition to create a land of happiness and hope, elrond’s quiet resolve to heal all the hurts inflicted by this marred reality

it wasn’t a perfect time by any means, but neither was it a nightmare. it was what it was, a desperate existence at the edge of a knife where, nevertheless, they were loved

even after years upon decades upon centuries have passed, it’s hard for the wise king and the honourable sage to separate out and identify all the conflicting emotions swirling around their childhood. they never knew eärendil or elwing, true, but they also never really knew maglor

not as equals, not as adults, not as people who could truly understand him. he disappeared into the fog of history, leaving only childhood memories of razor-sharp, gentle hands

it’s messy and it’s complicated and getting any real closure would be like shoving their way through a thornbush with bare hands even if elrond could find the shithead, and yet at the core of it all, there is light. not the brightest of lights, maybe, but an enduring one

that contrast, above all, that note of warmth amidst the shadows, is what fascinates me so much about their relationship. three screwed up people in a screwed up world, finding a little peace with each other

and the fact that somehow, it does have a good ending - the children grow up magnificent and compassionate and just, they become exemplars of all their peoples, lodestars of the new world born out of the ashes of the old - that makes it seem to me like this relationship must have contained some fragment of happiness

but, fuck, all the darkness that surrounds that love, all the tangled-up emotions its existence necessitates, all the prefabricated self-identities it can never slot into - nothing about it is simple, nothing about it is easy, and i find that utterly enthralling. especially how, despite everything, that flickering light never goes out

well, i don’t think it does, anyway. my take on this relationship is both complicated enough no one else ever quite gets it right and well-defined enough every single ‘error’ in other people’s interpretations sticks out like a kinslayer in rivendell

it is an entirely self-inflicted problem, i will admit. other people are allowed to interpret those complexities differently from me, and it’s entirely my own fault i lack the :waves hands around nebulously: to write my own hypothetical fic on the subject at a pace faster than glacial

still, though. i do wish there was more fic out there that engaged with these complexities. a lot of the common fandom interpretations of this relationship just sweep it all away

[tuiyla]

Ahh literally everything you're saying is just like parts of the bigger reason s3 sucks so bad. They start off the season with Will like "This year everyone's dreams will come true!" and then like Santana gets outed, Mercedes and Tina are constantly struggling to have their voices heard, Quinn is forced to confront her Beth trauma then gets in a car wreck, Kurt gets passed over for literally every big thing he wanted this season, also literally laughed out of an audition for being Too Gay, Blaine is butting heads with Sam and Finn cause they're both acting dumb lol, also Klaine relationship troubles. Swear to god I think Mike is the only one with a conflict that feels like it gets satisfyingly resolved this whole season rip

And then at the end of the season everyone is like "wow what a great year thank you mr schuester for doing everything for us <3" when he literally never cared about anyone but Finn aslfkjsklfsl and then the whole dick sucking ego stroking parade of everyone to Finn, and Kurt to all the guys and it's just like ??? hello? what? where? when? did i miss some episodes??? What is going on

I literally feel like Kathy Bates in Misery when I talk about season 3.

and all the kids cheered - but I didn't cheer, I stood right up and started shouting, "This isn't what happened last week - have you all got amnesia?! THEY JUST CHEATED US - THIS WASN'T FAIR!"

Omg you so hit the nail on the head with that quote, wow. I have to fess up and say that I liked season 3 when I first watched and looked back on the seasons because I trauma-blocked IKAG and many other awful parts and was blinded by the graduation glamour and the soundtrack. Upon rewatch, it's incredibly infuriating and embodies a lot of what was wrong with this show. And it's made worse by everyone always saying s3 was the good old days and then the show declined in quality, which is just not true.

All the things you listed, yes. And I'm gonna repeat some of them here but just cause it's worth stressing just how bad some of this is. Will, teacher of the year, didn't do shit for most students this year and actively made some of their lives worse. He yelled at Quinn and threw Santana to the wolves, scolded both Tina and Mercedes when they asked for an ounce of the respect they deserved. His treatment of Mercedes!! Oh. My god. He should go to jail for booty camp. All the while we had to endure the ups and downs of his sex life and while he, like the whole show, was so far up Finn's ass it was hard to see anything else. Quinn was put through a revolving trauma door and not one adult really cared. All three main women of colour were demonized for wanting a taste of the spotlight and the one canon lesbian given the most offensive "coming out" (i.e. outing) known to tv. Brittany was mute for most of the season and when they do give her something it's the fucking sex tape. Sam had such big flop moments and Blaine was only pulled out for songs and Klaine conflict. Kurt's dreams were shattered despite him doing his best and nailing the audition. Oh and yeah let's have him thank the boys for,,,, whatever reason? Insulting. No one cared about the newbies because the show didn't either. Yeah, Mike's storyline was more or less done well but it was so brief and the only standalone story arc he ever got. Finchel had to be prom king and queen for some godforsaken reason. I mean let's not get into how season 3 Finn is somehow even worse than he usually is because jfc it just never stops with him. I guess Puck's storyline was the most decent? But they also had him fuck the adoptive mother of his bio child also his teacher also his ex's mom so, like. Most of Rachel's stuff was also fine but the Finchel things were intolerable and elevating her by putting others down is not it.

And it's not just the shafted characters and bad storylines and the overall bad execution of even the ones that had potential. It's this tonal inconsistency, this insistence that the sun is shining out of Finn's ass, that Finchel are meant to be and are more important than anyone else on this show, the trainwreck of season 3A especially, the issue episodes. The fact that the show swears it cares about all these kids when it's so quick to discard them and do their stories a disservice. It's not a triumphant last lap of the OGs but a tragedy for most and a wank fest for a select few.

[ballorawan740]

SCP Scenarios: When their kids swear at them (REQUESTED)

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Requested by: @Astro_KeySimp

WARNING: Swearing (sorta)

Ok so I kinda made the reader into the child since don't remember if you wanted the reader to be a child or not, so if it wasn't to your liking, then I'm sorry, but I can make a separate version on where the reader isn't the child

It kinda became more of the SCPs and doctors being dads than their reaction to their kids swearing

SCP 073 (Cain)

Cain was walking around with you since you were bored and there wasn't anything to do

Being unaware of what some of the staff were saying, ye went over to grab you some food for later in case you got hungry

Once you both went back, he watched you play with some Legos and was talking as if it was your Lego friends talking to you

Cain looked away for just 10 seconds and heard you shout out "Wow! He said that her baby's such a bi-" which shocked him as he heard it

Cain looked around and made sure that nobody was around the room and was somewhat surprised that you was the one saying this

Being a good dad he is, Cain explained to you carefuly that you shouldn't say that word because it's bad

And being a sweet shy child, you obliged and stopped saying the word

Til this day, Cain had no idea about where and who you've heard the word from and is very much more self-aware

SCP 076-2 (Abel)

Abel is that type of dad who would teach you all the bad words and encourages you to say them

It's the researchers who had to teach you top not to say those words

One time, Dr Glass came in to examine you and had rewarded you as usual since you were so cooperative

You drew a picture of you and Abel talking in a garden with bright coloured flowers

Simon asked if he could see your drawing and saw that the conversation you and your dad had was those of swearing

This surprised Simon since you knew so many at such a young age but wasn't totally shocked since he knew that you were Abel's child

And knowing him, he wouldn't teach you to be nice, so Simon took the job as a mother hen and taught you to not use those words around people

SCP 999 (Tickle Monster)

Ok, so I'll keep this SCP short since I, again, don't know what I should write for this adorable, squicky, neon-orange, bubby blob

Another SCP who doesn't cuss

This adorable squishy boi here was about to have a heart attack when he heard you swear fir the first time

He had to ask you worryingly where you heard that phrase and you just said some guy wearing a white jacket

999 sighed knowing that you'll grow and couldn't do anything to stop it

He did, however, mention that you should try and avoid saying those things to anyone and that they'd most likely have a heart attack since you were his child and you won the genetic lottery for being the cutest and outgoing child in the world

The only other person who knew of this was Dr Glass (sucks to be him ngl, he do be a mother to everyone) and he had to help poor 999 with teaching you better words

SCP 682 (Hard to Destroy Reptile)

YAY! Another SCP who would teach their kid to swear

682 has such a dirty mouth like 076 and would 100% teach you all the words he knows

Similarly to what happened with Abel, you were taken for an interview with Dr Sophia Light since she was assigned to you

She's such a sweet and kind doctor to be around and would teach you anything and everything you would probably need to know all the while keeping an eye on you in case you become overly aggressive like 682

You were just eating some sweets Lights had given you for good behaviour and overheard some researchers swear

Remembering what your dad had taught you, you just repeated those curse words while clapping at your achievement

This had shocked Sophia and that researcher since you were known to be a moderately shy and quiet child who normally wouldn't say those things despite being 682's child

Sophia had to ask if you understood the meaning of those words and shook your head as an indicator for no

She had to carefully find her words and told you to never speak of those words again and took you back to 682's cell

You went and hugged your dad and told him that you learnt from the doctor that those curse words were bad and neither of you should say them

682 had a headache after that

SCP 049 (Plague Doctor)

I have a hard time thinking that 049 would teach his child to cuss and would avoid swearing in front of them at all cost

Like, he barely swears anyways but he wants to stay classy and sassy for his innocent child

Just like the other day, his kiddo, you, was curious about the whole surgery thingy he does on the dead bodies, so you asked him to teach you and so he did (like the good father we nevah had)

So you learnt some new, yet difficult, words (cuz we all have a nonexistent pea-sized brain) and somehow, you managed to fit in a curse word

This did surprise 049 as he had remembered that he didn't teach you those foul words

He had to give you a talk about using such words and you teared up since you thought that people used them to express their affection to others

Unsurprisingly, 049 took his sweet time looking for the guy who 'taught' you this and wanted to use him as a case study for your future lessons

SCP 035 (Possessive Mask)

Another parent with such an amazing influence on children

035 would teach and enable you to use swearing as a form of expression

So you were free to say whatever you want as long as they aren't directed to our mask here, especially if it's in a negative way

Otherwise, you'd be punished (No not like that! He'll just ground you from your favourite TV show/movie)

The researchers were surprised, not about you swearing, but how you use them through expression

Except for this poor guy who was new to the foundation and bumped into you by accident

This rookie found himself listening to you cursing like a sailor (maybe not that much but more or less on the same level as Samuel L Jackson)

Word got out and everybody laughed at the poor rookie and told him more about your background and how you love to swear (apparently swearing will prolong your life, so you'll basically be immortal here)

035 was impressed by the whole ordeal and rewarded you with more shows to watch whenever you're both free

SCP 105 (Iris)

Iris would accidentally swear in front of you and whenever she realises it, she would tell you to not swear at people since it wasn't very nice

So she would use words to replace the swearing like "oh fudging hell not now" and "no sugar honey ice tea"

The foundation felt that it was slightly unnecessary but went with it anyways

They'd even go as far as saying that it's ridiculous, but who are they to judge?

Iris was your mother and she's a single mum too, so she felt the need to be overly beating but would occasionally let you decide on your own since you were only 12

The foundation members did tell her that you will eventually grow and more of these words will be used but she just hesitates

As a teen, you did begin to use foul words more often and Iris would argue about how you're using them, especially towards her, your own mother

Needless to say, you both felt bad and made up

SCP 106 (Old Man)

Now this old man right here doesn't exactly speak, or at least very rarely

And if he does, he'll most likely be talking to you or the foundation staff if he needed some help finding you

He'll most likely be able to understand what the researchers are saying, even if they aren't speaking English

My own personal hc is that 106 understands English, German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic and Indonesian and probably many others

Every now and again, somebody would come in and teach you new words and give other lessons like maths and poetry (our favourite)

You came back home to tell him all the things you've learnt as he watched you in awe as he braided your hair

You've even used some new phrases, including swear words while talking and 106 was pretty impressed

I feel that he's quite neutral with swear words since words are words and are used as a form of verbal communication

So I don't think they'll be much change in his behaviour to whether you're swearing or not

SCP 096 (Shy Guy)

Now with 096, all he does is scream

So basically, somebody else would have to teach you some words

It's not to say that 096 is a dumb animalistic creature with no soul and just kills people who look at his face

He isn't stupid since he manages to find anyone who looked at his face from the other side of the globe

And he seems to understand what the researchers are saying, or at least on a more intermediate to moderate level

You'll learn about swear words from the other researchers, whether they'll be teaching it to you intentionally or you've overheard them

The foundation could really care less, but would at least prefer that you chill a bit if you got carried away

096 would act all cheery when you learn more new things as it's not like the foundation would let him out anyway, so he'll be living the outside world life from you (How relatable, but more with babysitting and dating, cuz I'm too pretty for anyone to date XD)

Like with 106, I don't think 096 would have any special reaction towards swearing, but would probably be screaming internally for a bit since he knows that it isn't a nice word

Dr Jack bright

This mf right here is one of those parents who would be kind but firm

Bright would most definitely give in to your curiosity and teach you whatever you want to learn but would warn you of the dangers

Depending on what it is, he would even go as far as giving you your own personal guard who would stay with you and train you

And unfortunately, this guard has such a foul mouth, so you're constantly exposed to such words

Luckily for the both of you, Jack Bright doesn't really care about swearing as long as you're not being extremely inappropriate if you were to work

He would even joke around with you sometimes and would even start the conversation with swearing

For instance, he'd just surprise you with a "Yeet his mf outta my sheithole"

And yes, you did laugh at his antics

Some would even say that you're an exact clone of him but more stable (for now)

Well, Bright is an amazing dad, but I'd say just below Dr Glass

Or maybe even on par with him

Like Bright is a goofy dad that has all the terrible dad jokes and Glass would be the type of dad to look out for his kid

Dr Simon Glass

Dr Glass would most definitely avoid using swear words, especially if you were under 15

Even if you were over 15, he'd still avoid swearing unless he wants to make a joke or 2

So most of the time, you'd learn all the swearing from other people and SCPs

Sometimes you would swear by accident and Glass would just look at you, slightly disappointed

I'd say he doesn't exactly care about you swearing per see, but would rather you avoid it

It's cuz Simon is the best dad a dad could ever dad and nobody could prove me wrong here

He's also one of the top best dads compared to the others on the list

He's basically your best friend so he'd let you vent and its the 1 time he'd let you swear to show your emotions

Simon would 100% know your thoughts and behaviour

He's just that good at reading people, especially you - almost to the point where people would say he's an SCP cuz I swear he's just empathic and telepathic

As mentioned before, Glass would be the type of dad to care for your mental health

It's not that the others don't, it's just that Glass is a top their God of Psychology and would come to you before you even know you have depression

He would even crack a joke sometimes

So every so often, he would shout out "LANGUAGE!!!" from across the room before you could even bat an eye and say anything

Dr Alto Clef

Another top tier dad, but swearing addition

Your godfather would literally be Jack Bright

Then it's Kondraki and Glass

He would let you swear on a daily basis and would join you

Sometimes you be looking at your Oppas/Noonas and be like: "Oh fxxk me!" and Clef, who's in the next room, be like: "Yeah, fxxk me too!" (Yes but no sis! No incest pls!)

Other times, you would be in the same room as Clef and Bright and you'd join them in being chaotic

And poor Kondraki  is just there at the back trying to do his work peacefully

One time, Kondraki had to grab a Simon Glass to help stop the chaotic trio

And OML did it end so well

You were easy to manage tbh, with the exception of you swearing

Clef and Bright would most definitely encourage you to swear more

Especially Clef since he does have a twisted sense of humour

Dr Benjamin Kondraki

Kondraki is totally the type of person who would tell their kid to mind their own language

But he secretly doesn't care and his child knows it

His style of parenting is similar to Simon's

And yes, Simon is your #1 godfather/uncle

You'd go to him for emotional support since Kondraki sucks at that

Sometimes you'd swear at him and he'd get mad though

So yeah, running to Glass is a wonderful idea

And we all know that Kondraki doesn't mean what he said

He's just extremely introverted, but he's rather sensible - Usually...

Anyways, he would ask Simon on tips and advice on how to get you to stop swearing so much and he just gave Benjamin a parenting book (Like fr guys, let Glass have some rest, he's tired of babysitting over 100 dozens of pets in the zoo and all the other babies who work in it)