#which is the only thing on earth that makes me actually scream in anger at people

[celepeace]

I don't feel genuinely violent very often but the sound of landscaping tools in the morning activates something in me like a sleeper agent

[fayerien]

What if He's Written Mine on My Upper Thigh

Only in My Mind? — Xavier

xavier x mc, sfw, slight angst (maybe lol), queen mc pov, messy writings and grammar T_T, not proofread!, inspired by Guilty as Sin? from Taylor Swift

*featuring xavier, omw to make a series with other LI too!

Everything he did was lie. You felt drained listening to all his empty promises, yet here you are, hurting alone. You waited for him, hoping him would return into your arms. But he didn't. You were staring at your unmoving, soulless body in despair? or was it regret?

'Am I really dead?' The question pondered in your mind as you felt totally hopeless and unable to do anything.

Is this a punishment for you? You thought that you were being too greedy, hoping that he'll be yours. Is this how you're going to atone your sins?

You stared at your own dead body and started to overthink. 'Maybe if I don't have this sickness, he'll stay with me forever. Is that too much to ask for?'

You left Uluru, your little planet as a wondered soul. You found this surprisingly lively and colourful planet called Earth. It's a different side of coin from Uluru which is very calm and quite. But you felt like your soul belongs here. You couldn't quite sure why but you have some sort of connection here.

Time passes quickly as you arrived here, the sun was starting to set at the horizon. It was absolutely a breathtaking view. As night took over the sky you stumbled upon something so familiar. Forget-me-not. You thought this kind of flower only exist in your little planet. Why is it here? No. That is a field of forget-me-nots— and they're blooming. Was it already spring on Earth?

You walked through the massive field, as the flowers gently caressing, tickling your skin— it was rather calming. You stopped on your track as you noticed that you weren't physically alone there. You spotted a guy, his back was facing you— no, he wasn't just a guy. That's him. Xavier. You felt your stomach clenching at the sight of him, anger and sadness flashed over your face.

Like a moth to a flame, you slowly approached him, though he couldn't even see you in this state. You stood in front of him, trying to read his expression but he showed something you can't quite comprehend. He looked... devastated? Pained? But it was clearly a heart wrenching sight to see.

You couldn't stand seeing him like this, your hands itching to hold his. Slowly, you brushed your hands against his, it felt like you're home again. The thing is he can't see—

"My queen..?" His voice rang in your head and it made you froze. Were you being delusional or did he really said that?

He smiled, you didn't actually know what he was looking, maybe those flowers? But it was impossible for him to see you as a ghost now right..?

"Are you here, my queen? I feel like you're so close to me." He asked again and that confirmed that he knew you were there.

Your touches on his skin was like gentle wind passing through the lonely night. That alone was enough to let him know you were there. He smiled again, it was really genuine but his eyes couldn't hide the sadness behind them. And that was really breaking you.

"I'm really sorry for making you wait, my queen. I failed you. I traveled through spaces— hoping I can find the aether protocore for you. But my efforts died in vain. I'm so sorry." Those words were like a dagger piercing your heart. You wanted to scream, telling him that he shouldn't apologize, it was you who doubted him for leaving you for no reasons. It was you who should apologize, but you doubted that he'll hear you.

He smiled again and said, "I grow these flowers alone because they remind me of you." You felt your throat dried hearing his words. He grew them..all alone?

"I wished I could show them to you, my queen. This is the least I could do to show how much I longed for you, craved for you." He stopped talking, looking at the stars like he was searching for answer. "If you're here, my queen, I hope you can forgive me." Xavier stop. Your heart shattered even more.

"I won't stop loving you my queen, even if you hated me in this life. Come back to me please, my queen. I'll be waiting for you. I won't fail you again this time, even if my time is short." You stared blankly at him, what did he mean by that ?

You woke up and realized that you've been falling asleep in the class. Your head hurt after having an odd dream, but it felt too real. You glanced at your side, seeing your tablemate staring outside the window, admiring the nature maybe?

He noticed that you were looking at him and a smile formed on his face. Somehow he looks very oddly familiar, the smile, the face and the expressions. And you wondered why.

ᯓ★masterlist

tags: @astrallkiss

[swmmi-kti]

The blind and the mute

DNI/BYF

Part: Two

Pairing: Gyomei x Kakushi fem Reader

Warnings: Death (look a kid dies).

You were not born mute. You weren’t you wish to speak at most moments. However You seemed to have lost the ability to freely talk when your family had been attacked by demons. 

You had Tried your hand at wielding a sword, But that was not your place. It was not what you were build for. For no amount of anger, sadness and resentment you held in your heart. You could never bring yourself to slay such pitiful beings. 

So you were a Kakushi. It was a rewarding job that you loved dearly. Helping wounded slayers and sometimes on the rare occasions if the circumstances were right, you saved a life. 

Truthfully that was all your skill could manage. You did survive final selection, you did slay demons. But you healed much better than you slayed. 

Your medical knowledge that your mother had passed down on you was a great thing to have. Especially when it came to the raw power of wild herbs. It helped make people’s pain and potential death be that much more avoidable. 

Maybe that’s why you got to be around Hashira so much more than normal. Sure its nothing to brag about. But you managed to catch the eye of the insect pillar. And on times where you could in fact spend time training under her. You did. 

She understood that you didn’t talk. She had seen that side before on her youngest adopted sister. She never asked what happened why you were here and not living a normal life. 

And even if she asked you could never recall exactly what happened. All you remember was screaming so loudly, that the moment you had awoken alive your throat hurt. 

Really there was no explaining. Unfortunately this happens a lot too. 

Nevertheless today was one of those days where you had learned a lot for today and Shinobu was letting you go. Deciding to take the usual route back you didn't expect to run into anyone. But that isnt how it works. 

You bumped into the stone hashira. Truly you didn't know how in god's green earth you managed to bump into such a unit of a man but well. Here you were. 

“Pardon me” he spoke waiting a bit for your response. 

You knew he was blind. Which now laid a bigger question. HOW in the world were you going to apologize to him? But without so much thought and maybe out of pure reaction you tried to speak. 

All that came out was a pathetic squeak. 

One that startled Gyomei!. 

“Oh! Are you running a cold? Perhaps you could go and see shinobu for that, It doesn’t sound good” 

You huffed in annoyance. You wished you had someone here to explain why you didn't respond. Or why you couldn’t. 

Really the only ones that knew of your condition was shinobu and Giyuu. Solely cause well he spend time around the insect pillar. You let out a frustrated huff of course coming out horse and unnatural. 

“Come lets get you there” 

Which you didn't know how to respond given the fact that well, he was guiding you back to where you just came from. You kept tapping his hand making the faintests of yelps but that didn’t stop him. If anything it seemed he kept pushing you. 

“Kocho. Sorry to bother you so much but it seems one of our Kakushi is sick” 

“Oh here let me- Oh! Y/n?” 

You looked at her. You smiled nervously as you shrugged at her. Signing to her that you tried to explain. But well how can you communicate when one you can't speak, and two he can't see what your saying. 

“Ah i see. Himejima it's alright. This is actually Y/n! You’ve never met but she actually can not communicate like us.” She looked at you asking you if it was okay before continuing.  “A demon ruptured her throat. We aren't completely sure if Y/n can talk yet or at all. But that rasp you hear is just gasps. Nothing a little medicine won't heal” 

Gyomei stood there. Perhaps a little dumbfounded? Yes he knew there are people that don't speak but he never thought about having to communicate with them. Not that it didn't cross his mind at all but he was also a man of few words. 

“Oh, Deepest apologies” he spoke, bringing his hands together clutching the beads he always had. 

“Y/n understands” 

You let out a huffed hmm nodding your head even though you knew he couldn’t see that. Signaling to Shinobu to apologize for the inconvenience that you may have caused. 

“Oh nonsense Y/n-san. Now remember to take your medicine companied by tea before you sleep” Shinobu spoke, patting your shoulders before you got the message. 

‘I’ll be going then. See you sometime next week And thank you for today's lesson’ you signed as you stepped around the Stone hashira and walked out for the second time that day. 

-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-

That's how it was for so long. Making the smallest of sounds whenever you did get to see Himejima. And he greets you as well. You were content with this, However you got closer after one mission he had gone on. You were one of the few Kakushi to help the injured. 

You had managed to help the wounded and that's when you noticed Himejima lowered on a very very young body. Without thinking, without even telling your friend you booked it to him. 

There on the floor was a young boy. No older than your youngest late brother. 

“I’m afraid his wounds are too great for us to do anything” 

You saw this scene before when your youngest brother died at the hands of demons and to hell you weren’t gonna let them have this one too. You didn’t care. Yes, the wounds are great. His leg is sliced open and his gut is bleeding out. 

He already looks like he’s dying but you were going to try. Give every single lesson Shinobu gave you and put it to the test. This poor boy is already heaving close to death and you knew it. But you would be damned if you didn’t at least try. 

You pushed the stone pillar out the way which wow okay rude but also wow what the hell how are you so strong. 

These thoughts ran through his mind but in the moment of silence as he felt you and felt what you were doing he couldn’t help but admire your dedication. 

But one can only do so much. So as you hastily stitched the wound down and stopped the bleeding you watched as he stopped breathing. 

You couldn’t believe it, You didn’t want to believe it. It was like losing your family all over again. You couldn’t help how you cradled the poor boy. How his little head rested on your chest as you tried so hard to feel a heartbeat. 

But there was nothing to do. So you wept. There was no sound to your sobs, there was only the breaking sound of you trying to form words that possibly could never come. 

You didn’t even feel Himejima bring you to him. Didn’t feel how he held you as you cried. You couldn’t believe it. 

After that you never really left the butterfly mansion unless it was to help the wounded. But you often found yourself beating yourself up over what happened. However with this new life you found that Himejima stayed with you. Talked with you and tried to make you feel better. 

All you could feel was rage. Hatred. You felt all the things you never thought you could feel. How dare Muzan Kibutzuji take any more lives. Lives of innocent children and how dare you be so weak. 

To anyone else it seemed there was a new flame to the passion of learning the medical field. To Gyomei it seemed all that uncontrollable rage could finally be put at ease. 

Yes it didn’t exactly suit you. Your aura before was too calm too mellowed out by the years of sorrows and now all that followed was your rage. 

So he made it a point to always (whenever time served) to speak with you. To teach you how to let go of that rage in a healthy manner. You knew and he knew as well that no matter how much hatred lay in your heart for demons you couldn’t slay them. 

Today you decided to join himejima. He had invited you to eat with him today and Genya. And while you knew he meant well in easing your mind it kind of irked you a little. 

You were fine before. You would be fine this time too. But you figured it would be nice to just have dinner this time. Other times it would be techniques or what not. 

Stepping into his estate wasn’t uncommon but it wasn’t all too terribly common. However the smell of food welcomed your hungry form. 

It wasn’t long before you joined the two. Safe for Gyomei to assume that you enjoyed Genya’s company. 

Genya was a charm and while at first he was avoidant and even so after an hour he kinda barely spoke to you. You couldn’t help it, couldn’t help how your hand rested atop his head like how you would pat your younger sister. 

It was nice to be around someone that reminded you of home. 

Gyomei may not be able to see how anyone else does. But he can see it, sense how you two seemed to get along so well. Two souls that lost something. Two souls that found peace together. 

To be honest you wanted to thank Himejima, really. But how could you. Your medicine had managed to heal you but somehow it seemed almost impossible to talk. 

Everytime you tried solely to say your own name out of muscle memory you couldn’t it felt like it burned you. 

You hoped that perhaps if your medicine kept working than maybe just maybe you could show your gratitude to Gyomei one day.

[frodo-with-glasses]

Dreams in the House of Tom Bombadil (and the Four Elements of Trauma)

Now that we've gotten to the point where the hobbits spend the night in Tom Bombadil's house, I'd like to expand on this bullet point from my chapter review:

Much apologies to my girlies on the server who headcanon the hobbits with phobias corresponding to the four elements; sadly, Tolkien is not on the same page as us this time.

For context, I present to you these screenshots of messages sent on the Fig Tree Discord Server back in January:

This started as a half-joke, but it's since evolved into something of a shared headcanon for some of us. Pippin has a Thing about fire, because of the Pyre of Denethor. Frodo has a Thing about water, because his parents drowned. Bri has since told me that she headcanons Merry has a Thing about air, specifically cold air, after his encounters with the Black Breath. And that leaves Earth to Sam.

The good news is that this is a really fun headcanon; and when you look at LotR through this lens, it's actually kind of staggering how well it fits with the events of the book.

The bad news is that Tolkien did not write LotR with this idea in mind; and the whole thing with Old Man Willow, and the subsequent nightmares that the hobbits have in Tom Bombadil's house, make that abundantly clear.

After all, what does Old Man Willow do to Frodo? Lulls him to sleep and then tips him face-first into the water. He almost drowns. He almost drowns. Sam finds him face-down in the water, unconscious, held down by a root and not struggling; there's water in his nose and his mouth and his eyes and ears and he can't breathe, he can't breathe, he nearly goes out the same way his parents did, in a river that connects to the one where they died. If Tolkien was writing Frodo with hydrophobia, this probably would've gotten a bit more attention than it did. But no; in Tom's house, Frodo dreams of Gandalf and Black Riders, because he's the protagonist and Tolkien needed an efficient way to foreshadow things a bit.

What does Old Man Willow do to Merry? Closes its roots over him, so that only his legs are sticking out; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the tree, Merry screams, and begs them to put it out. "He'll squeeze me in two, if you don't. He says so!" He could feel the roots of the tree clamping like a vice under his ribs, squeezing, crushing, bruising; he could hear the voice of the tree in his head, demanding he communicate the ransom message. And as our beloved former anon, Meg, pointed out: Could he breathe in there? Was it dry and stuffy and stifling inside the tree? How much air could he even draw in, when his lungs were being crushed and had no space to expand? He screams with what little breath he has left, but can they hear him? He's going to die. He can't breathe. He's going to die.

But, ironically, he's the one who dreams about nearly drowning, and his dream-brain convinces him he's lying in a "soft slimy bog" before he wakes up and finds himself in Tom's house again. He's not the one who got tipped into the water, but go off Tolkien I guess.

What does Old Man Willow do to Pippin? Closes its roots over him completely, with a click like a lock snapping into place; and when Frodo and Sam set fire to the bark, and Old Man Willow gets angry, they can hear Pippin's "muffled yell" from deep inside the tree. Fire. Smoke and ash and anger. Could Pippin smell the burning wood around him? Could he feel any heat or sting? Did he hear Old Man Willow's voice, the same way Merry did, cursing the flames and threatening to smother him if it wasn't put out?

His nightmare, out of the three of them, is the only one that makes sense to me; he dreams that he is again inside the willow, hearing the wood creak as it sways in the breeze over him, and hearing the voice of the tree laughing at him again. But, sadly, no mention of fire.

All of that to say, if I wrote Lord of the Rings—which I realize is a terribly presumptuous thing to say given that I am, unlike Tolkien, Not A Genius, but hear me out—I definitely would have Frodo's nightmare be about drowning, Merry's be about suffocation, and Pippin's be about burning alive. This would then be foreshadowing for the later horrific stuff they're going to encounter concerning water, air, and fire respectively.

I dunno. It just seems like a missed opportunity is all. Which is probably why, despite how much I adore the “nightmares revealing inner turmoil and then characters waking up in safety and comfort” trope, I never really liked this sequence in the book all that much.

Sam, meanwhile, is welcome to continue sleeping “in deep content, if logs are contented". Good for him. 10/10, no notes.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Wen Chao kills Wei Wuxian at the Wen Indoctrination camp to intimidate the heirs of the clans.

💢

ao3

Untamed

1

“You know they all think you’re dead,” Meng Yao said. He’d come to check on the status of the latest nightmare torture machine that Wen Ruohan had ordered to be made.

“I know,” Wei Wuxian said, his lips pressed tightly together. He was fiddling with the machine, which really only needed a few minor adjustments to do what Wen Ruohan wanted it to, adjustments that he’d managed to drag on for nearly a month and a half without making, and both he and Meng Yao knew it, and knew that the other one knew that they knew. The fact that Meng Yao hadn’t told anyone was the only reason Wei Wuxian was bothering to have this conversation with him now. “That was made painfully clear early on, thanks.”

Normally his viciously bitter tone was enough to convince people to stop asking.

Meng Yao wasn’t exactly what one would call normal, though.

“How’d he manage it?” Meng Yao asked, and Wei Wuxian looked up at him with a glare. “Wen Chao. He’s too stupid to actually manage to fake someone’s death properly – he’s the sort of person who’d mess up breathing if it didn’t happen naturally. How’d he manage to do it with you without actually killing you in the process?”

Wei Wuxian’s smile was ghastly.

“Stupid question,” he said. “You should know better than to make such a mistake.”

“Mistake? What mistake?”

“The mistake you made,” Wei Wuxian said gently, “was assuming he didn’t kill me.”

2

“I saw Wei Ying.”

If it had been anyone else, Jiang Cheng would have screamed at them. He would have pulled his sword and tried to stab them, and, lacking that, he would have gone at them with his bare hands, to try to punch them or strangle them until they stopped, one way or another.

But this wasn't anybody, it was Lan Wangji.

Other people had commented, usually sourly, that Jiang Cheng had grown closer to Lan Wangji during the war. They were usually trying to imply that he'd sought to replace one shixiong with another, and from another sect to boot, more than likely trying to capitalize on Jiang Fengmian’s sorrow and anger upon hearing Jiang Cheng's dull report of Wei Wuxian’s death at the hands of Wen Chao, perhaps the only thing that could have moved that otherwise peaceable and easy-going man to militancy. The implication was as wrong as it was filthy, of course - no one could replace Wei Wuxian, not in a million years - but there was some truth to the fact that Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji were better friends now than they had ever been before.

In fact, Jiang Cheng would go so far as to say that there was no one on earth who knew Lan Wangji better than him, possibly even above his own brother and uncle. After all, they had not been the ones that had been there when Lan Wangji had seen – when he had witnessed – when they had both witnessed…

Jiang Cheng thought sometimes that it had been the depth of Lan Wangji’s wild and terrible grief that had allowed him to survive Wei Wuxian’s death. That Jiang Cheng would have let it break him, shatter his mind along with his heart, only that Lan Wangji was a little quicker than he down that path, and Jiang Cheng was a man born overly responsible; he couldn't shatter as long as there was someone who needed him to stay strong. And Lan Wangji, who had already seen his home burn, his brother vanished, his father killed, his uncle tortured, and now his secret beloved murdered right before his eyes...he'd needed Jiang Cheng. He'd needed the only other person, excepting only Jiang Yanli, that felt the same thing he felt, the only other one who truly and unreservedly loved Wei Wuxian.

Even though Lan Wangji had never confessed his feelings, never said anything until the moment he'd unburdened his heart too late, Jiang Cheng the only one listening or able to listen, he had still suffered, and in so suffering, he gave Jiang Cheng the same feeling back - the knowledge that there was someone else out there that understood the enormity of what they'd lost in a way that no one, excepting again only the distant Jiang Yanli, would or could.

Because it was Lan Wangji, Jiang Cheng didn't attack.

Physically, anyway.

"Have you started having delusions?" he demanded irritably. "If so, stop it: we have a war to fight, so there's no time. You want to lose your mind, do it after we're done."

"I saw him," Lan Wangji insisted.

"You saw him die, too," Jiang Cheng snapped, voice tight. "Remember that? You and me, we were both there. We saw what Wen Chao did to him. We saw what he did with the corpse, after. There's no way he's still alive."

"I know."

"Good, I'm glad that you know! Then what's this nonsense about?"

"I saw Wei Ying," Lan Wangji said. "I saw him alive and whole, though not the same as he once was. I cannot explain it, but I would not have mistaken him."

That was true. Anyone else, maybe. But not Lan Wangji, who had loved him.

"How can it be?"

Silence.

Jiang Cheng pursed his lips. It was probably just a delusion, or maybe some sort of newfangled trap that personalized itself to each person. Something like Wen Chao’s stupid owl with its confusing fog, only more pointed. Of course, if it was that, then it was a threat that needed to be stopped, needed to be hunted down and eliminated by the two best hunters the Sunshot Campaign had…

That was the only reason he was thinking of agreeing. The only reason.

It definitely wasn't because his heart had seized up, filled with impossible hope.

Attempt the impossible.

"I'll get permission for us to track the rumor down," Jiang Cheng said gruffly, and Lan Wangji nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little in silent gratitude. "We leave tomorrow."

3

“No, Meng Yao’s right. I’m pretty sure that rock is the only thing keeping me here,” Wei Wuxian said. “Destroy it.”

Nie Mingjue glanced back and forth from his traitorous former deputy to the man whose supposed death (real death, he supposed) had been the initiating factor to kick off the Sunshot Campaign in a way even the burning of the Cloud Recesses hadn’t been. Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji had recently grown obsessed with Wei Wuxian, meaning more than the usual amount – they swore up and down that they’d seen him, or possibly his ghost, or something like that – and while he hadn’t exactly disbelieved them, since who even knew these days, he hadn’t actually expected to meet the man in the living flesh.

Possibly non-living flesh.

Yin Metal possessed flesh?

“You can’t destroy it,” Meng Yao argued, and even though he was speaking to Nie Mingjue he was glaring indignantly at Wei Wuxian. He looked actually passionate, for once, and not in the way he had before, when Nie Mingjue had thought he was passionate about things like saving lives and the welfare of the common people; this was less beautiful, but more real. He was grimacing, his face twisted and ugly in a way he’d never before permitted it to be. “If you do, he will die, and die permanently!”

“That’s what people generally do, I think you’ll find,” Wei Wuxian said with a laugh that was mostly fake. “Meng Yao, I don’t know how many times I need to remind you: I’m already dead. That Wen Ruohan resurrected me through some sort of bizarre sorcery based on some stupid rock he found, probably out of morbid curiosity as to what he could do with it, doesn’t mean that I’m meant to be here.”

“But –”

“Meng Yao, you know better than most how awful he is, how terrible it would be if someone as insane as that actually achieved all that he wished to achieve! Wen Ruohan can’t be allowed to succeed in any of his aims. We have to destroy the Yin Metal. That I die is of no matter –”

“Wen Ruohan is a master of arrays,” Nie Mingjue interrupted, and they both looked at him. “His power is not based on a rock, no matter how unorthodox or interesting. Defeating him and destroying the rock – er, the Yin Metal – are unrelated, and the latter is certainly not a prerequisite to the former.”

Wei Wuxian looked taken aback. “What?”

“You’re confusing correlation with causation,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged. “That he started playing around with this…rock, this Yin Metal, whatever it is, doesn’t mean that it’s responsible for why he is the way he is, or even why he’s as powerful as he is. He would come to the Unclean Realm quite often when I was a child, and he was pretty different back then…anyway, my point is, can we stop talking about the rock and focus on killing him instead?”

“Looks like your horrible self-sacrifice is just going to have to wait,” Meng Yao told Wei Wuxian, looking especially smug in the face of Wei Wuxian’s gaping disbelief. “Too bad.”

Nie Mingjue hated that he liked Meng Yao better this way.

“Killing now, debate later,” he said, deciding to think about that at another time. “Understood?”

Not that they would have time to debate later, if he played his cards right. As soon as they found out about it, Jiang Cheng and Lan Wangji were going to make absolutely sure that whatever the rock was that was keeping Wei Wuxian alive – and despite what he said, Nie Mingjue thought he was in fact still alive, if only by the barest thread – was explored in full, no matter what.

None of them were going to let him go that easily.

[whispering-about-the-tmnt]

I know Leo is your favorite. I am curious what’s your opinion on Raph?

I love him! I actually love all the guys pretty much equally, it's just that I love Leo a tiny bit more.

The thing about Raph, though, is in some of the iterations he is reduced down to a base "angry guy" personality; and I prefer it when the writers tell us why he is angry, and show more aspects of who he is.

For example, the "why" being, as Splinter put it in my story "Something Wicked", when Raph got angry and punches things after... well, that's a spoiler:

"I am sorry if someone has hurt you in their anger," he said, placing his touch on the teen's arm. "But I swear to you that Raphael would never do so. He is first and foremost a protector, and he believes at this moment that he has failed in that charge. Would you feel any different, if one person you loved was missing, and two others unwell?"

He wants to protect people; that is his primary personality trait, not "angry guy". That is doubtless why he became Nightwatcher in the 2007 movie. It wasn't because he wanted to go out there bashing heads in (that was just a bonus), it was because he wanted to protect people, and when Leo left they stopped doing that. Interestingly, the things that Leo found distasteful about the Nightwatcher were very much the same things that Leo himself was doing in the jungle in South America, but it seems that Raph was actually more conscious of not killing anyone in the process (you can't tell me that Leo let that guy in the Jeep actually live... not with that blood-curdling scream).

But, yeah, Raph and Leo are actually very much alike in that they are protectors of others, except that Leo goes about it very differently. The jungle example notwithstanding, in most versions Leo is the big brother that goes to his younger sibling's bullies and gives them a calm warning; Raph is the big brother that goes to his younger sibling's bullies and pushes them against the wall and tells them to back the hell off or deal with him... then he goes home and smacks the younger sibling across the head.

He can be very soft when he wants to be, though, so those soft moments have much more of an impact. Like in Tales Of Leo in 2k3, when he was the only one to cry when he told his story; or in both Bayverse and MM when he confessed his love for his brothers when he thought they were all going to die; or how well he got along with little Yoshi in TMNT 3; or when, in the 2007 movie, he told Splinter about Leo getting taken; or in Batman Vs. TMNT when he lectured Batman about the importance of family. But one of the most heart-wrenching moments had to be in Same As It Never Was when he was dying and used his last ounces of strength to crawl to Leo's side.

And as I said, I love it when his other interests are put on display. Like when he is shown knitting and carving in Bayverse, or working on his bike in 2k3, or playing video games with the guys in whatever iteration. In the future world of the TMNT Archie run, he is shown to be married and runs a restaurant where he is the chef. And though it is not an interest, knowing that he is afraid of insects makes him seem more down-to-earth and less of just the tough turtle.

Some of his "traits", I must admit, are simply headcanons to me. Because of his protective nature, I like to think of him as a gifted medic (albeit one whose bedside manner could use some working on), whose medical knowledge is second only to Don's. Also, I picture him being able to speak Spanish, which he learned by hanging out with people in the Bronx (also where he picked up his distinct-in-the-family accent). Both of those things, again, I wrote into "Something Wicked", which even has a whole chapter about Raph called "The Protector".

So, yeah, I think Raph is awesome! I just wish we could see more of it onscreen, you know? I am really looking forward to how Tales Of The TMNT utilizes him!

Anyways, thank you for the ask! Sorry the answer was so long!

[purplesoulcollection]

Unnatural Love

Part 5 Synopsis : Name has being transmigrated into the world of I'm Not That Kind Of Talent without ever reading the novel. She's not being reincarnated as a human but as a devil as well. Hi There! I want to let you know that this fanfiction story isn't solely my creation. I borrowed the concept from @quqiwo2. I haven't actually read the novel either, just some spoiler to the end.

I hope you'll excuse my spelling and grammar mistake, because English not my first language.

Duaks!!!

The sound of punches and kicks echoed in the hall of the demon castle.

In a hidden dark alley. There are several people surrounding an object.

The object turned out to be not an item but a demon.

The devil who is our main character, Adele.

"Damn you, you are just using the reputation of the demon lord to protect your low caste."

"Yes, now you have become very pretentious since you became Mr. Demon's servant."

"Mr. Demon is more honorable than you, know yourself."

"You are a low caste, unable to use magic, dreaming of continuing to be a servant of the demon lord."

Meanwhile, Adele, who was being hit, closed her eyes and curled her body. He bit his lip with his teeth, trying to turn his screams into pain

Pained...

My whole body hurts so much...

They're babbling nonsense even though I don't care about my demon caste. I not even devil.

I don't really want to live like this either.

I want to go home, to earth.

I also want to be alive, not as a demon but as a human.

But fate made me like this.

What... I just give up?

It's easier to give up than to keep facing the same thing.

zrash

Suddenly there was a sound that came suddenly.

Then the sound of a sword cutting through a body was heard. Screams were also heard

At that moment I could smell a fishy smell that shouldn't be there...

Fishy? And screams? Am I next... 

Am I going to die next....

"Adele!!!"

I heavily opened my eyes. I squinted my eyes several times before I finally saw Mr. Demon's figure. He looks so panicked.

He lifted my body, Mr. Demon's face also got closer to me to see my condition.

Then his facial expression, which was initially worried, turned into anger. His eyes suddenly turned fiercer. And his facial expression also became fiercer.

"Sir demon, why are you here?" I asked haltingly

“I was looking for you, you were nowhere. Why did you let yourself get hit again?”

"I didn't just let myself get hit. I tried to fight as best as I could. But they were stronger than me."

I swallowed roughly. Trying not to show my sadness about this incident.

"Sorry for causing trouble to the Mr Demon."

Mr. Demon just kept quiet and carried me princess style before finally treating me himself in his room. I didn't utter a single words to him.

"Adele" He calls me, and it makes me look at him.

"Don't worry, I will protect you from now on."

'Why?'

"Huh, you must be joking, right? I'm just a lowly servant. Later Mr Demon will be considered a freak who protects a servant."

"No one will think I'm strange if I try to protect the people I love."

Adele could only stare while opening her mouth wide. His hands were also shaking involuntarily.

In her mind, Adele was already turning upside down in panic and didn't know what to say.

Her mind went blank for a moment, due to excessive shock.

This is the first time anyone has confessed their love to Adele.

Adele has been single all her life. Even though she used to be quite beautiful, no one ever said they liked her.

So denial is something Adele can do.

"You... Are you kidding me?"

"I've been battered like this?"

"Is this your way of distracting me?"

"If that's your method, sir, it really worked, you know? I'm fine!"

"Adele..."

Mr. Deon's gaze was unwavering. He did not respond to Adele's denial.

"I'm serious."

Mr. Demon's serious statement made Adele feel uncomfortable being looked at seriously.

Then finally the name answered while looking away

"If you're serious, why me? I'm not a human like Mr. Demon. Mr. Demon should also choose humans as partners. I'm just a demon who doesn't have magic. Of course I won't be compatible with Mr. Demon."

Mr. Demon just stared at the name for a moment before finally closing his eyes and starting to tell the story.

"Adele, you are a devil. I admit it." He started to hold Adele's hand. Squeeze it with slow but warm strength.

Makes my heart warm too.

"But in my eyes, you are more than just a lowly devil."

Mr demon opened his eyes.

"Even though you are impolite and always dodge problems."

"You have a kind heart, surpassing the devil and also surpassing the kindness of humans in this world."

"The proof is that you worry and care for me better than other humans and demons in this world."

"Even more than my family which made me have to fight in the war."

"But instead you are oppressed in a world that is not suitable for you right now."

"I've also given permission on my behalf if anyone dares with you but still misses out."

"I'm afraid that sooner or later you will do something undesirable"

"Mr. Demon..." I almost couldn't hold back my tears.

“You are really great. You know me better than I thought or is it because of your own experience?”

"Am I right?"

"... Yes. I did want to give up..."

"I just want to die. If only I could work here in peace, it would be nice. But continuing to be here is tiring inside. The bullying here almost makes me sick of everything."

"I didn't even want to come here. Even though I just wanted to survive..."

And finally Adele cried. Sobbing uncontrollably. There was no intention whatsoever to wipe away the tears and snot that were spilling everywhere.

In the end, the one who wiped Adele's tears was not Adele herself but the Mr Demon.

Although he was initially hesitant to do so. But he wiped away the tears that were welling up in Adele's eyes and wiped his snot with a tissue.

"No need for you to wipe, sir. I can do it myself."

"It's okay. This is the first time I'm entertaining people. Usually I'm the one being entertained."

"Did you forget your declaration of love?"

“Of course not. Do you want to?”

"Sir, did you know that I could have used the Mr Demon's declaration of love as a cover to hurt you?"

"People who want to hurt will never say it directly."

True, they like to stabbed from the back than to tell us.

"If I say I like you, sir, is that okay? Because we are two different creatures, humans and demons... We are never allowed to be together."

"I have great luck. There will definitely be a way."

"If we were together, would the Demon King just keep quiet?"

"Isn't it possible if our relationship is kept a secret?" Deon asked me.

If I remember the character of the demon king, no hope rising.

"I'm afraid that this method won't last too long."

**

“Finally the demon confessed his love to the that servant.“

“Demon Arut's weakness has been confirmed. Is the next plan feasible, Demon King? “

“Do it!”

To Be Continued

[luminouslywriting]

Chapter 25 (Mastermind)—MOTA Fic

A/N: ^^Gif is not mine^^ And....I'm sincerely sorry about this chapter?? Kinda?? Anywho, I expect your declarations of war soon, and if they don't come in the next few days, I'll just wait a few more till another certain chapter. As always, let me know what you think!

October 14th 1944 

The day that everything changed started out as a normal day.  It was normal, despite the war and despite the constant tragedy that seemed to envelop everyone who had been touched by the war.  And given the fact that no person had ever gone untouched by this war, then that ensured everyone was bonded by tragedy. 

Tragedy seeped into bones and knotted itself together.  It weaved together constellations and gave people empathy and righteous anger that only others with the same grief could begin to understand.  

At the moment though, grief was far from Ruth Sharpe’s mind.  At the moment, she was in the kitchens of Thorpe Abbotts and giggling to herself with Helen, Tatty, and Liesel about the cookies that they finally had scrounged enough supplies together for.  Cookies were a rare thing in this war, after all.  And given the fact that they all had a penchant for sweets, it just seemed a natural thing to do. 

If Ruth had been at home, she imagined she’d be helping Mary with making such treats.  And then, inevitably, Abe would sneak into the kitchen and attempt to paw at some of the cookie dough.  There would be some laughs and some quick words between the trio, but the mood would be light and their mother would chide them for eating too many of the cookies. 

This was a close second to the entire situation.  And given how excited Liesel was to actually put chocolate into cookies, it was the right decision for the day.  Liesel absolutely loved spending time with Helen and Tatty—and they adored her right back.  Very rarely were things as lighthearted as they were right now. 

So Ruth should have known. 

Should have known that luck was not in her favor.  Should have known that sooner or later, the tide would go back the other way and the pendulum would swing back into the trajectory of tragedy.  

But she didn’t. 

So when Jack Kidd poked his head into the kitchen, she thought nothing of it.  “Ruth?” 

“Yes?” 

“I’ve got a message here for you.” 

“Coming,” Ruth set the bowl on the counter, flashing a smile at the women in the kitchen. “I’ll be back in just a moment.” With that, she ducked out of the kitchen and followed him outside.  

She should’ve been clued in by his tone of voice, by the somber way in which he carried himself, by the telegram in his hand, and by the way that he just looked at her like he was pitying her. 

“What is it?” Ruth questioned. She tried to pretend that nothing was wrong, that clearly this wasn’t a situation that wouldn’t break her heart.  But she knew that it would. Still, she did her best to keep her voice level, to keep the panic at bay within her chest.  “What is it, Jack?” She questioned, voice just barely flickering like a candle. 

He just held up the crumpled telegram in his hands.  “I—” His voice cracked.  “I think you should read this yourself.” 

Ruth didn’t hear anything after that.  She snatched the letter from his hand, eyes rapidly pouring over the telegram.  And as she read, a deep sickness rose up in her throat.  She wanted to scream and cry and crash down to the earth in a plane herself—she wanted to let the bile that was rising in her throat escape and let the sick take over her entire body. 

But Ruth Sharpe did not do that. 

She stood there, unable to move, unable to form the words to even so much as whisper out anything.  And when Jack Kidd made his exit after giving her shoulder a squeeze and telling her that he was sorry, she did not hear him. 

Ruth, John KIA off coast of Italy.  Sarah passed yesterday from cholera. 

-Father 

Ruth’s feet were entirely frozen to the ground and she felt as though ice itself were seeping into her bones.  Her lungs felt unable to inflate or take in air.  Her fingers trembled until the telegram was crumpled up in her hands and her lip was threatening to betray her and let every inhuman sound spill from her throat. 

And then she turned and walked back inside. 

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

On the surface, everyone processes grief differently.  Some people tend to break down and are unable to function or keep going.  Some people channel that grief into productivity and try to avoid it.  Others still drown themselves in distractions.  For Ruth Sharpe, she was someone who tended to hide grief in the recesses of productivity. 

When Robby had first broken her heart and ruined her first crush by breaking her project, she had simply endeavored to do better and to be better.  And that’s exactly what she had done.  When Timothy turned out to be someone she resented and hated rather than the man she had agreed to marry, Ruth simply worked harder to be the best of the class and didn’t let anything slow her down. 

And when the war had broken out, Ruth had been busy.  She had stayed busy when she had broken up with Dick Winters and she had stayed busy this entire time in an effort to avoid having to face the reality that was grief. 

That’s exactly what she was doing now. She returned to the kitchen and she spent the entire afternoon with a smile plastered on her face and baking with Liesel, Helen, and Tatty.  She spent time doing a surprise inspection on some of the newer guys—even gave out three citations for some less-than acceptable behavior. 

She got all of her paperwork done and she continued on.  Because what was she supposed to do?  She had too many people counting on her, standing on her shoulders, depending on her to be able to function—if she broke down now, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to stop the grief from consuming her. 

And when meal-time came and passed and Ruth did not leave her office, no one seemed to blink at that.  The JAG-Corp lawyer was well-known to skip certain meals or work through them if it meant being more productive.  What no one was really aware of was the fact that Ruth was sitting in her office, a bottle of Lew Nixon’s Vat-69 in hand, and completely trying to drown out the fact that her grief was threatening to eat her alive.  

It felt like a treacherous thing, waves tugging her under the current and keeping her there.  They refused to let her up for air, refused to let go of her heart or her lungs or her hands.  She had gone through a whole box of cigarettes this afternoon and the empty pit in her stomach was bubbling into something akin to queasiness.  

Ruth could only lean forward in her chair and wish that the earth would just swallow her up.  Her head rang dully and the smoke that wafted through the room was thick—her door had been shut for quite some time and she had asked to not be disturbed while she worked on paperwork.  No one quite needed to know what she got up to while she was by herself and trying to process the fact that John and Sarah were both just gone. 

The candle that she was burning in her office flickered and Ruth felt tears well up in her eyes.  She willed them not to spill, not to break her heart.  She raised the bottle to her lips, letting a little slosh outwards.  It stained against her white blouse and frankly, she didn’t have the heart to care. 

“Oh John….Sarah….” Ruth’s voice mumbled out the names and she suppressed a hiccup.  It felt unbearably hot in the room—only thus evidenced by her curly hair, usually so pristinely done, turning frizzy and loose.  

How did you go from having siblings one day to not having them the next? Seven was the number of completion—it represented wholeness.  And now that both Sarah and John were gone, Ruth knew that there was nothing she could do to repair the hole that she was feeling in her chest—gaping and gnawing at her very soul.  What do you call a sister when she no longer has some siblings but still has others?  What do you call the level of grief that she was experiencing over the children she had helped to raise?

Ruth made a weak attempt to rise from her chair, only for her feet to give way underneath her.  She was sorry to say that the next few moments were not her proudest.  But she slammed into the ground harshly, the bottle of Vat-69 shattering upon impact.  A thread of fire ran up her arm and wrist and for a moment, Ruth could only take the sting of her back hitting the ground—

And that alone, with her spinal injuries from Timothy, was enough to make her weep and just lay very very still.  It felt as though she was being smashed through a wall and her back angrily throbbed.  Her face was wet with tears and as she turned, she knew that she had massively messed everything up. 

Her wrist was a mangled sight of broken glass, the stench of alcohol, shredded skin, and dark crimson spilled down onto her hands.  Ruth let out a strangled sound of pain, a guttural moan that mixed with her tears and cracked against her voice.  

Make it stop, make it stop, make it stop—

And then in the midst of this entire mess, a single knock on the door made Ruth want to just wither up and die.  “Ruth—Ruth, I brought you some coffee—” 

Robby’s voice made her spine crawl and more panic began to knot in her stomach.  She had to sit up, had to get him out of here, couldn’t let him see her like this, couldn’t let any of this be on his radar.  “Uh—no thank you!” Her strangled tone did little to suggest that he leave her there. 

So she really wasn’t all that surprised when Robby opened the door and his jaw nearly fell at the sight of her trying to pull herself up and covered in blood.  “Holy shit—” He moved faster than she would’ve ever given him credit for, dropping the coffee as he reached her.  Ruth nearly flinched at the contact as he helped her to her feet, hand immediately closing over the gash in her arm. 

“You don’t need to—” 

“What the hell Ruth—” Robby glanced at the ground, at the alcohol bottle—the smoke in the room and Ruth’s breath did not go unnoticed.  “Ruth—what’s goin’ on with you?” He asked in a firm tone.  “We gotta get you to the hospital wing, I think this’ll need stitches—” 

Ruth twisted from his grip, shaking her head.  “I don’t wanna.” 

“Ruth—” 

“No, I’m not—I’m not going anywhere,” Ruth hissed out.  

His gaze fell on the telegram on the table—the only thing on it besides candles and cigarettes.  And all at once, he knew.  Knew that only something heartbreaking and shattering could have done something like this to the indomitable Ruth Sharpe.  And then swift as a summer wind, he changed his tune and softened immediately. 

“Hey, hey,” he murmured, a hand straying to her face.  His calloused fingers brushed against the skin and though it was a grounding force, Ruth did not know what to do. “Just talk to me.  What happened?” 

Barely able to stand from the pain shooting up her spine, incoherently thinking about her family, and utterly wasted out of her mind, Ruth knew exactly what came over her at the sight of his eyes softening.  At the way that he looked at her as though she was something precious to him. 

“Johnny and Sarah are dead,” Ruth choked the words out, full sob spilling from her lips.  She buried her head in his chest, clinging to him the way that someone at sea would cling to a life-vest.  

And Robby, to his credit, did not flinch away from the vulnerability or heartbreak.  He held her tenderly and stroked her hair as she sobbed.  There was no making this okay, there was no fixing this situation, there was just them and what Ruth was feeling at the moment.  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured quietly. 

Strangely enough, Ruth, in all of her incoherence, caught onto one particular thing in his comfort.  Unlike every other damn time he had called her sweetheart, usually with an air of sarcasm and annoyance, this time was laced with nothing but pure and simple care and truth.  It stung all the worse—she felt weak, she felt like she needed someone to come and fix things for her—and there was no relief to be found here. 

“I—I can’t—” Ruth let out a strangled sound of pain, sinking against him.  Robby just lowered the two of them to the ground in the office.  He didn’t mind the smoke or the blood or the whiskey that permeated the entire office.  “It hurts so bad,” Ruth choked the words out like they were a poison.  And maybe to her, the cold bitch of Thorpe Abbotts, they were. 

“Honey, I know that you are hurting like hell right now—but John’s not hurting right now.  He—” 

“He won’t get tortured.  I know,” Ruth had buried her head in his arm, feeling more and more lightheaded.  “But he—he can’t just be gone.  And Sarah—cholera?  I mean—that—that’s not fair.  This isn’t fair.” 

She felt as though a petulant child but Robby didn’t mind.  He was silent for another minute before getting up and moving over to her desk—he knew that she kept a small first-aid kit within her desk for occasions such as this.  Ruth was just as prepared as the Boy Scouts, after all. 

He just silently wrapped up her arm the best that he could—he frowned at the hiss that she made and then he just held her on the ground of her office.  “Fair has never been our people’s way,” Robby said quietly.  “Doesn’t make it any easier.” 

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Ruth felt his hand run through her hair, untangling the knots and gently unraveling each point of tension that made her head ring.  “Hey Robby?” 

“Yeah?” 

“Promise you won’t ever leave me?” 

“Ruth—” 

But Ruth, in all of her incoherence, just gently grabbed him by the face and looked him in the eyes.  “I think you’re the only person I have on my side.  I can’t do this without you…or I don’t want to do it at all.” 

And right then and there, Robby Rosenthal thought that he saw the truth that existed beyond Ruth’s stony exterior.  She just wanted people to stay in her life.  She wanted to protect them.  And she loved fiercer than anyone he had ever known in his life.  

“I’ll try my best, sweetheart.” 

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

Ruth’s steps felt heavy and slow as she made her way down the corridor and towards the mess hall where Abe would surely be eating.  She had absolutely insisted on doing this herself—she didn’t need Rosie helping her down the hallway and cluing people onto the fact that she was dealing with an injury. 

She found him sitting there at one of the tables.  And Abe—her sweet and precious Abe—he knew that the minute that he saw the expression on her face that something was drastically wrong.  He rose from his seat as quickly as lightning in a summer storm, crossing over to his indomitable older sister.  He followed her out of the room and into the hallway—and it was in that damned hallway that everything went to hell. 

“Sarah and John are dead.” 

And right then and there, Abe’s world came crashing down on him. 

[shitpostingkats]

Hi yes I need you to know that your analysis on Jaden and Yusei (June 16, 2022, idk if you’ve done multiple on them but that’s the one I’m talking about) is the realest thing I have EVER read and you’re so right and you should say it MUCH louder that is the greatest take op it’s amazing and I’m screaming /pos

Jaden is my favorite character like,,,, ever, and you have nailed him I’m going bonkers

Another thing, I love your Groupchat AU but you have made me become aware that there is???? Another???? YGO show????? I was like who on God’s Green Earth is Yudias and then Google attacked me with information. I still remember. When Vrains was new. To me Vrains is still new. It came out 6 years ago. I feel old. I am not okay. I have yet to acknowledge the existence of Sevens and will continue to do so with Go Rush. Oh I got off-topic, whoops-

Anyways, love your Groupchat AU but I saw the one part with the Eldritch language that Jaden and Yuya are both fluent in and I humbly request more of their dynamic???

I had an epiphany last night, they’re so similar I’m actually losing my mind. All I can think about is that one audio of Batman and that girl on the swings and it’s like “They got their weapon, I got cheated out of my childhood” “I know what that’s like.” “You do don’t you?” Tell me that’s not them I am dying /pos

Much love <3

Oh my gosh, thank you! <3

Jaden and Yusei, my beloved blorbit. The painfully monstrous and the painfully human. The narrative foils of all time. Jaden Yuki, the creatchur autism boi of all time. <3 I need to write about them more.

I know what you mean about the new shows. I'm still a ways off from watching them, but I still want to remember they exist but keep forgetting. What do you means vrains is six years old??? (<- was not even a yugioh fan when vrains was airing) You're telling me there's probably going to be new one after that??? That the days start coming and they don't stop coming?????

Shoutouts to the sevens and go rush fans. They are the mightiest of soldiers. I know nothing about their shows but I'm hesitantly penciling them into the groupchat au anyways because I have seen maybe three clips but I know this funny little alien guy is near and dear to my heart.

Obviously there's a bit of a shift between Vrains and the Sevens era, being made for new audiences, a little tone shifting (which we LOVE, because any franchise that stays the same forever is no bueno.) and that makes it easy to group the first six shows into one group. But I also think there's a fascinating dialogue between shows 1-3 and shows 4-6. I didn't realize it until I was a good way into Arc-V, but each of the second trilogy protagonists sorta reflects the first three.

With Yuma and Yugi, it's very purposeful, a stated "return to form" with the chipper kid and his ghost companion who lives in his special necklace. And when I was gushing over Yusei in 5Ds, I got a lot of people saying "Man, you're going to love Yusaku." They're both the rbf hacker protags who fight the government. Lots to love.

But Jaden and Yuya????? Did not imagine I would come out of Arc-V going "omg they're foils. They're the same story through a different lens. They need to TALK to eachother and bond over their shared experiences."

Even leaving out my pet theory of "Zarc Was An Incarnation Of Jaden In The Original Timeline", they're just so. *clenches fist* The childhood trauma of being a weird kids and masking with an overly bubbly personality only to learn the great anger they've been trying to hide is powerful enough to rip apart reality and they're secretly harbingers of destruction.

By the end of GX, I think Jaden has wonderfully come to term with that. By the end of Arc-V, I think Yuya hasn't.

Their dynamic in the gc AU is very much to me Yuya is still struggling with Z-arc stuff, but not saying anything about it because that'd be weird, so he just kinda frets about it until he hits a breaking point and Jaden gets to offer his advice on dealing with all this.

I am so interested in exploring this that it actually got me started writing fic again,,, which I haven't done in like a year, so wish me luck. I'll keep y'all updated :)

Angst aside, they're also just. One braincell between them. Theatre kid and guy who has never once acted natural in his entire life. Kid making a scene at a Waffle House while his friend slowly eats the entire menu and offers suggestions. Jaden is a pokemon fan and Yuya is a kingdom hearts girlie, I've decided this, and they takes turns infodumping to each other. Jaden summons duel spirits so Yuya can ride around on Hiphippo even when he's not dueling. They trade funny things they've heard their dragons say. They're eldritch and inhuman and best friends, your honor.

[radical-revolution]

THE GREAT SPIRITUAL BYPASS

The Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist John Welwood coined the wonderful phrase “spiritual bypassing”, which means, in his own words, “trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it.”

I so agree with John Welwood. I think one of the biggest shadow sides of spirituality in general is that it can make us lose touch with our humanity. We dream of the heavens and forget the earth. Which is ironic, since our deep humanity IS the source of our most profound spirituality, so we’re kind of shooting ourselves in the foot there.

In the name of peace, we go to war with ourselves. In the name of being non-violent, or at least seeing ourselves as non-violent, we repress, suppress, deny and hide aspects of ourselves that don’t conform to that ideal, that image. We bury our anger, our grief, our fear. We swallow words we need to speak, say yes when we mean no, avoid setting boundaries in order to be “compassionate” and “kind” and “unconditionally loving”, and not hurt others’ feelings. We stifle our passions, our creativity, our sensuality, our deep, raw, intense, messy humanity, in order to appear to be “still” and “silent” and “calm” and “non-reactive”. We smile when really we’re breaking apart inside, stay quiet and still when we feel like screaming. In other words, we ignore our buried trauma. We push away those painful, inconvenient, shameful and embarrassing parts of ourselves. We avoid the darkness and try to reach the light, and then call ourselves… “spiritual”!

But whatever we suppress and repress in ourselves doesn’t go away. However enlightened or peaceful or “deeply rooted in Pure Awareness” we pretend to be, those un-met, unprocessed, unseen and unenlightened energies stay rooted in our bodies, in our nervous systems, in our muscles, manifesting in our dreams and nightmares. The monster inside us doesn’t go away by singing mantras, contorting ourselves into yoga postures, praying to the guru or visiting ashrams. The monster only goes away once it’s met in a really embodied way. And to meet it we’re going to have to be brave and stop pretending. We’re going to have to stop being perfect and spiritual and unconditionally loving and wise and good and calm and neutral, and tell the truth of our actual human experience. We’re going to have to really meet our inner child. Feel the grief, the anger, the terror that’s lurking inside. Feel it and process it and validate it and give it expression in a healthy way. And then, and only then, the darkness inside us may turn out to be our greatest light-source. Our wounds may give us an insane amount of wisdom and courage. Our pains may help us find our passions. But we can’t skip over the trauma. We can’t skip to en-lightenment without en-lightening ALL our parts. Without making room for the sorrow, the joy, the tears and the laughter, the anger and the awe.

I have learnt this the hard way. I used to run from feelings. I used to be scared of them, judge others for having them. Now, feelings are my dearest friends and companions, and sources of joy and creativity. I used to believe enlightenment was a transcendent state, free from sadness, free from anger, free from doubt. But that was my mind telling me that. That was my spiritual ego, the part of me that wanted to be special, that wanted to escape, that wanted to be superior and safe. I came to realise that enlightenment, if there is any such thing, is a deeply vibrantly alive ocean, filled with beautiful waves of anger and sorrow and fear and doubt and joy and bliss, filled with all of humanity, filled with deep feeling, and no feeling is pushed away, and all feelings can be felt and can move through and can be expressed in a truthful and authentic way. I don’t need to pretend to be free, or pretend to be peaceful, or pretend to be wise, or pretend to be neutral, or pretend to be more evolved than anyone else, or pretend to be anything at all. Just being alive is enough – alive, and open, and curious, and playful, and deeply human, and committed to this path of ever-deepening adventure in the Unknown.

We cannot bypass our trauma because then we are bypassing life itself, and life won’t let us bypass it anyway. Our trauma, when faced, will heal us, break us open to more life, make us more compassionate, more authentic. When not faced, it will drain us, make us act out unconsciously, it will hurt us and the ones we love, it will make us addicted, it will make us sick, it will destroy relationships and make us false beings. So we can’t bypass our hurt and angry places in the name of spirituality, because we want to be true, real, authentic. We want to heal, and be Whole. True spirituality calls us to face everything. Everything inside of us that needs to be faced. It calls us to face our hot, sticky, dark, embarrassing, angry, scared, shaky and sexy and fiery places. It calls us to speak up, even if we are terrified and feel like we want to vomit. It calls us to finally express what’s inside us, even if we lose all our friends. It calls us to be deeply human as much as we are Pure Awareness, deeply humble as much as we are divine, earthy and messy and imperfect as much as we are absolute and transcendent.

We don’t get to be perfect, but we get to be real… and that is the greatest prize of all.

- Jeff Foster

[lena-in-a-red-dress]

I loved your Morgana in National City headcannons from forever ago...but could you do Lena in Camelot for the prompt thing? More specifically, Lena doing her darndest to build the crudest of computers so she can at least try to get home on her own terms instead of waiting around for a wormhole to open up or whatever & building water pumps, inventing electricity, etc. in her spare time to help the people--and finding a friend in Gwen. Maybe they bond enough that when she can go home, she doesn't.

When Lena wakes up after the explosion in her lab, she quickly falls into survival mode. Water, shelter, food. In that order. Being dumped in a forest seemingly in the middle of nowhere actually helps in this sense. She finds water in a nearby stream, and it’s a simple thing to erect a small lean to out of various pine boughs that cover the forest floor. 

Food is a little more difficult. 

She finds a few plants she recognizes as edible, but that only means something if she’s on earth, and something tells her something is off. Whether it’s a matter of planet, reality, or time, she doesn’t feel like she’s home. In the end, she decides to trust her knowledge and hope that the recognizable plants are similar enough to what she knows that they won’t kill her. And if they do make her sick, better to know now while her system is strong and healthy.

Lena sticks close to her makeshift camp– she hypothesizes that any hope of rescue will come through the same portal she did, which she anticipates is keyed to this exit point. Her reasoning is sound, but later that night, after the sun goes down and a heavy downpour decides to dump on her lean to, she can’t help but wonder if she made the right decision to not seek out a nearby settlement. 

If there even is one. 

As she sits there, huddled and miserable with her breath puffing visibly from her lips, she tries to get her numb fingers to cooperate long enough to light her meager fire. Attempt after attempt ends in failure, until her skin is rubbed raw and bloody.

“Mother fucker!” 

Lena throws her sticks aside with a shout of anger. The curse doesn’t cut the chill or dull her misery, but it doesn’t hurt, either.

????

An inquisitive chirp pierces the carpet of rainfall around her, sending Lena scrambling for the makeshift spear she’d fashioned out of a longer branch. But when she squints into the darkness, it’s not a person that’s joined her, but a creature. Lena looks down and sees a large… lizard? Lizard. She sees a large lizard step tentatively under her lean to, dripping rainwater from its scales. 

“Oh.” She regards it for a long moment, but when it doesn’t do anything more than sit on her bed of dry pine needles, she relaxes. “Okay then.”

Lena settles back in, but keeps her spear close. She wipes the rain from her face, and wrings out her hair as she gazes at her houseguest. “So. Who are you, huh?”

The lizard blinks at her. It chirps.

Aithusa.

She feels the answer more than she hears it. In fact, the lizard doesn’t so much as twitch as the name seems to flood Lena’s mind. Panic immediately fills Lena, gripping her stomach tight and twisting.

“Can… can you understand me?”

A wash of reassurance steals over Lena, easing her panic. It doesn’t feel natural, doesn’t feel like an emotion of her own, but something else’s. Aithusa’s, she imagines. She also feels a sense of affirmation, an answer to her question.

Taking a shaking breath, Lena fights the urge to scream and bolt. “Okay. That’s okay. Totally, totally okaaaaaa— woah!”

She snaps her mouth shut when the lizard– Aithusa– crawls closer, then slithers into her lap. There it settles in, curling up into a loose ball in the nest of Lena’s crossed legs. Before she has a chance to fully freak out, Lena feels the heat emanating from the creature, vibrating like croon of a purr. 

“Ohhhhhh,” Lena sighs, immediately relaxing into the warmth. “Okay. Yeah, I can be okay with this.”

Tentatively, she places her hand on the creature’s dorsal ridge, and lets her thumb brush lightly against its scales. In response, the creature nuzzles a little deeper. “Hey there.”

Aithusa huffs, releasing a small puff of smoke.

Welcome.

//prompts are closed

[pissfaggot-transsexual]

what r ur favorite bands? punk and otherwise

im glad i put that tidbit in my bio recently lmao, talking about music is why i was put on this earth

incredibly loose ordering of some bands :3

lovejoy

crucify me but i was big on mcyt back when these guys formed, and seeing em go from funny british youtube man to decently bigass band (and the only ive seen live (<- will soon be fixed)) gives em a special place among my fav artists :3

dog park dissidents

i fucking love how fun these are to listen to. like they get me in the mood to toss bricks, but in a fun faggy way that pisses people off even more than tossing bricks normally.

rage against the machine

ok so take the agression of hard rock, mix it with the flow and rhythm of hip hop, add a lil funk in there, bam: perfect band. seriously im so fucking upset these guys disbanded before i was born AND THEN came back on reunion a few months before i found them. like what the fuck. the gods are out to get me i swear

rare americans

they make fun music, on the pop-ier side of indie rock and that makes em a really easy and fun listen :3 a nice palate cleasner from all the punk and shit i listen to lmao

the oozes

OKOKOKOK they are so fucking good. like they strike the lazy, grungy side of punk and the pissed-off, violent side so well and sometimes in the same damn song. like. go listen to DBSAC rn. i beg thee

dream nails

a nice punk band for when i want peppier, more fun beats or lyrics. theyre angry dont get it twisted, but their lyrics are always really satirical or plain juxtaposed with the delivery and the content itself. good shit

anti-flag

good for hating the US. I do a lot of that. also, im a sucker for a non-lyrical recorded voice clip/sample, and they got that all fucking over, from emigre, to depleted uranium, its so good. and they bounce between that same satire anger and actual pissed-off songs, so theyre fun to go through albums of

underscores

similar to my other indie favs, but theyre hyperpop, so they can be more energetic than some indie rock, and also electronic noises tickle the fuck out of my brain.

stray from the path

screaming about how bad everything sucks really helps with how bad everything sucks. another rec from this list, but go listen to the entirety of euthanasia rn. the capstone of that album is fucking uoAIuHGHHHH

weathers

they help me feel sad about things that arent overarching societal issues, which is nice sometimes. theyve helped with stuff, especially the shittiness of moving recently. they occupy a similar space in my head to bears in trees (who i havent listened to enough to make a fully-formed opinion on, sorry moss) and that type of music is important methinks

[mizumiii]

VI - An old tale

Previous part - Table of contents - Next part

Fem!Reader x Kenpachi Zaraki

Like that, days led to weeks, weeks to months; and mid-way you were even officially made a Shinigami. Since you had arrived quite unusually, they even let you choose which division you wanted to join. And without a surprise, you chose to join…

“Do you hate me?” Koyo asked dejectedly seeing you pop up at her division with a letter of admission. 

“Maybe a bit”, you teased her. 

“Are you never gonna leave me be in peace?” She sighed.

“Absolutely no!” You happily answered. “Be nice to me senpai!”

Thus you were now allowed to do missions for the Seireitei. You avoided going back to earth, not feeling right at the idea to walk amongst the living. However, killing hollows, and bringing justice between the dead, you more than enjoyed it! You even earned quite a reputation with your violent ways. But since you only used it against the Gotei 13’s enemies or Kenpachi, you were left unbothered. About that man, nothing much changed. Every time you came back for a mission, you rushed to the spot you had been given for your battles. It was an old division’s grounds, and even if it was not in good shape, it had all you could ask for. 

So for now you were able to handle your burning hatred and anger against the eleventh captain by fighting him as often as you could. And since you were only growing stronger, every confrontation was new and exciting for both of you. You did not give much more thoughts about the whole thing,  about your mother’s story and the fact that an actual fox was living in your mind. 

Until you had no other choice but to face reality. 

It happened very randomly. You had a simple mission, to deal with some thugs in a very poor area of the Rukongai. You had insisted on going alone, confident in your skills and strength. However, they had expected a shinigami’s mingling, and you were met with overwhelming resistance. You struggled all you could, refusing to admit defeat. The fear of losing made you stand up every time you fell. The situation was too much like your previous death, giving you such terrible grief that it was easier to keep getting stabbed than deal with it. 

A nasty haze had risen, making you soaked with rain, sweat, dirt and blood. You were unable to see clearly in front of you but you were certain that the number of opponents around you was slowly decreasing, however, your body was getting weaker with each passing second, and coldness was capturing your members. You suddenly spit out some blood with a smirk.

“As if… Come and get me, you cowards!” You shouted after cleaning your face with your Shihakushō’s sleeves. “I won’t go down that easily!”

A whisper shook your adversaries, but they still rushed at you, screaming and attacking from every direction. 

— Chi ni ueta, slaughter, you called out releasing your Shikai. 

That new form made you realise the fox, merging even more with it, to the extent you no longer knew if it was it or you controlling your body. It was now obvious you would not survive that last fight but at least you wanted to take them all with you, to the graves. For good this time.

In the middle of an incredible explosion of bloodthirst and joy for the slaughter, strange feelings and memories started to merge. You saw yourself fighting between stupid young school kids, you saw a lonely fox being alive only through the death it was bringing; you felt the frustration of losing your purpose, your only family; you were submerged by the excruciating pain of looking at the back of the loved one. 

Your arms slowly fell, you could no longer raise them, but you were at peace. Around you only corpses a deadly silence. Your knees gave up too, and your legs hurt the ground. 

“Did I do well this time?”

Next part

[forabetterlifethanthis]

Stuck on the Floor

Stuck on the Floor

The mind.  The soul.  The spirit.  Consciousness.  Being.  The head, the heart, the brain.  Different words to describe two diametric parts of our existence.  The first is the one we all know; that little light behind our eyes.  The second one is the deeper, more opaque one.  The thing that makes us who and what we truly are.  That which there is no evidence of.  So it probably doesn’t even exist.   Do I believe in a soul? No.  So why begin with a monologue of existence?  Not quire sure, seemed to be a grabby overture at the time.  But if life and existence is meaningless, then discussion of life and existence is meaningless.  Should I go into meaningfulness?  No, because that would be meaningless.  I’ve really gone down a rabbit hole here.  My point was going to be that there is no point, but I have bedazzled myself with my own confuddling words.  My mind is a maelstrom of madness, and occasionally some unedifying wisdom is thrown out, but today doesn’t seem to be one of those days. 

The last few days haven’t been those kind of days.  There I am constantly telling myself that things can and will get better.  And surprise of surprises, they don’t.  I think I’m on the floor, and I am very much on the floor.  But the floor keeps getting lower and lower.  And I am stuck to it.  I talk of the triumvirate forces that dictate my future being my vision, my pain and the world in general.   But I think there is a more sinister power, with hegemony over the three.  My mood.  It is my mood that actually affects my quality of life.  If I could be blind and in pain but not be chronically depressed about it, then it wouldn’t even be an issue.  It’s the pain in the mind that it causes that makes me long for an absence of existence.  If only there were a way to pick my mind off the floor and start enjoying life again. 

This is what brought me to writing these posts.  Because I have tried everything.  From all types of medication to all forms of meditation, from exercising to extra-sizing.  Freezing cold showers and boiling hot baths.  Talking to family but never about ends, screaming at my pillows and at all of my friends.  Positive thinking, gratitude, and acceptance.  Releasing tension, anger and frustration.  From walking my dog, to writing this blog.  Finding purpose, meaning and more.  To avoid being forever stuck to the floor. 

I have become so used to feeling hopeless and lost that when I do manage to get a sweaty hold on happiness, my thoughts inevitably turn to how it will not last and my heart rate rises, anticipating the depressional reset.  I speak of a floor.  The lowest the mind can go.  Where gravity crushes all hope and the nothingness beneath swallows it up.  But there is also a ceiling.  Where you feel great.  And great about yourself.  You congratulate yourself on your charmed existence and feel you have really aced that thing called life.  But in Newton’s glorious Earth, what goes up must come down.  And this is particularly true of the mood.  And the higher you soar, the harder the thud when you hit that floor. 

But for me, for the last few weeks, the floor has very much been a place of permanent residence.  I have been in more pain in the last week than ever before in my life.  Even writing this brings so much pain, sometimes I question whether the cathartic relief is even worth it.  I spent the weekend crushing it with drugs, but that very much is short-term gain for longer-term pain.  And today I tried.  I really did try.  I did all the things I could to take my mind off the pain.   I exercised and played my guitar, both bringing pain.  I walked Branston (my guide/therapy dog) and wrote this.  I used to find I could distract myself enough through work and the prospect of getting drunk, but now my time is only free time and I am stuck with my pain and with my thoughts.  There’s nothing anatomically that has shifted within me that has made the pain worse, so it must be all psychological.  I had the same body now as I did six months ago, but that body could run ten miles and go to the gym at 6am.  Now I can barely sit upright for more than a minute. 

It staggers me how much I have fallen.  How hard I have hit the floor.  And I feel so bruised and battered that I’ll never be able to get back up.  If you could see my face, the physical trauma that I have had is obvious.  But I feel like my mind has been more brutally excoriated and bludgeoned.  Not only have I lost the physical strength to do things, I have lost the mental strength as well.  I cannot find enjoyment in anything, or from anyone.  Even the doleful eyes of Branston fails to penetrate the love within me.  All I feel is loss and pain.  I know that it almost definitely would get better if I gave it enough time.  But I don’t know how much more time I can give.  It is really hard, and I know I am not alone and there are those of you out there who understand just how hard it is.  And I send all my best to you.  I really want to try to get off the floor.  Right now, however, I am very much face-down stuck to it, and I feel like I will need something special to lift me up.            

[reflection-s-of-stars]

hello i have come to talk about my spanish teacher having the worst takes on earth!!! so like the thing about my spanish teacher is that he is very pretentious about basically everything and not in the good way but in the way that he seems to assume that he has the only right interpretation of every text he makes us read?? most of the bad and confusing takes he has are on latin american classic lit so it won't make much sense to ppl with no knowledge of it BUT sometimes we did english literature so for the final grade of the year we had to do a presentation analyzing hamlet, and when it was my turn, he kept interrupting me every 5 minutes to tell me i misinterpreted something in the text in ways that didn't even make sense??? it was seriously hard to stop myself from screaming. anyways the ones remember the most are: saying hamlet was not about grief or revenge or, yknow, any theme that actually makes sense, but about narcissism (ummm??????????), saying hamlet's actions weren't brought on by the ghost's appearance but by laertes leaving (what is going on in this man's head) and the one which angered me the most, saying ophelia was a disposable character and didn't add anything to the story (UNTRUE. incredibly untrue and also the way he said it sounded very misogynistic). he also had a pretty bad also somehow misogynistic interpretation of the portrait of dorian gray but tbh i thought his hamlet takes were the worst. he said next year we're doing frankenstein and i'm seriously afraid of the bullshit this man is inevitably going to come up with

Oh my god I would explode

[marvelmymarvel]

I Just Like You

Ging Freecss x Reader

Synopsis: You would follow him to the ends of the earth, which is something he both hated and loved.

Song: Yandere (Slowed) by Jazmine Bean (Link: https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui71Pg69kyc&feature=share)

Pariston was starting to annoy him, but it seemed that he was annoying you even more. Ging chanced a glance down at you, eyes narrowing at how you curled up against his arm. A pout evident on your lips as you fought the urge to mock the blonde on the stage.

Ging didn't understand you... He hasn't done anything that screamed "Yes. I like you. Please follow me to the ends of the earth".... Yet here you are, clinging onto him like he was some sort of lifeline. It didn't annoy him anymore, he'd even begrudgingly admit that he found some comfort in your presence, something he'd never voice even if he was tortured.

But you never cared, the only thing you seemed to care about was being next to him. He tried to think back to when you met... Was it before or after he had Gon? You knew about the child, but you had never seen him... or did you?

Ging couldn't remember, that time in his life was a blur.

You snuggling your head deeper into his bicep snapped him out of his thoughts as he flicked his eyes back to Pariston. "I hate him so much" you grumbled out as the blonde pointed your way and exclaimed that you were the "only person who would willingly be close to Ging". It was an insult and it made your blood boil, something Ging was hyper aware of.

"Y/n" Ging muttered, it was your first warning and usually that was all you needed, but-

"Actually, I'm starting to think Ging paid her to stay around" Paristons words made Ging roll his eyes, he knew what he was trying to do. Everyone knew that you were protective of Ging, even though you didn't have to be. And based on Paristons face and your anger rising faster and faster, Ging realized that Paristons plan was working.

But he was incredibly stupid for going through with it.

"I mean come on. Who would actually find him attractive? I guess it makes sense, considering she's an odd duck just like him-"

You bolted up from your seat, but a hand grasped your wrist before you could get too far. The crowd erupted into laughter but you couldn't hear anything as the blood rushed through your ears. Tears blurred your vision from Paristons words about Ging and now about yourself. "Awww is the little baby upset?" Pariston cooed at the way your bottom lip trembled, and while Ging looked calm and collected, he too was growing quite angry over this. He didn't care what the blonde said about him, but he was stupid for bringing you into it.

"S-shut up!!" You screamed out as Ging pulled you back, forcing you to sit back down beside him. Pariston laughed, which caused all the others to laugh as well, thinking you two were playing around. The laughing had you shrinking into the seat, embarrassment flooding your veins as the tears fell freely. Ging side eyed you, the sight of your sadness angering him more.

But he stayed calm, knowing that his outburst would just cause more problems, however.... His hand landed on your knee, squeezing the area in the hopes that you'd calm down. You didn't though, if anything it made things worse. Ripping your knee from him, you turned your whole body to face the stage. Ging never told you that he wanted you around, but his silence right now was telling you that he didn't care. You didn't know why, but that stung more.

Ging sighed, he was perfectly content with not expressing his feelings about you to you but it would seem that, thanks to Pariston, he's going to have to. "Y/n" Gings whisper hit your ears and while you were still upset, you couldn't help but melt at the way he said your name. "Y/n..." he whispered again, firmer this time in the hopes that you'd snap out of it. His hand landed on your thigh, thumb caressing the skin softly, comfortingly.

"Y/n... You know I love you"

Your shoulders went rigid, breath catching in your throat as his words played through your mind over and over like a broken record. Ging was trying to read your body language as he couldn't see your face, but by the way your shoulders relaxed, he knew that he said the right thing.

Or so he thought.

Your head slowly turned to face him, a scowl on your lips as you put your anger on him. "If you loved me, you would have stood up for me like I did for you" they felt like daggers in his chest, but he couldn't deny the truth behind them... Except for the fact that he did in fact love you, he just didn't want to face it. Your persistence was admirable and your kindness contrasted with his bluntness. He didn't know he wanted you... Didn't know he needed you. And now that you were looking at him like he was the worst person on this planet made him want to shrivel up and die.

But he knew you, knew what you needed.

Pulling his hand away, he nodded at you in silent understanding. Putting you back together wasn't going to be easy. But with the way you made him feel, he had to try.

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

The break was much needed, you thought as you made your way into the lobby. Getting away from Ging and Pariston... Really everyone was needed. Your sniffles caught some passerbys attention, and they sent a empathetic look your way. It would have made you feel better, but you instead wondered if they laughed with Pariston and didn't take in the fact that he was making fun of a real person... You. A sweet person who didn't ask for the hatred sent her way.

You reached the bathroom and went to open the door but a hand stopped it from opening. You turned to glare at the person and came face to face with Pariston. His smirk was wide and mischievous, as if he was planning something you couldn't predict. "Move" you stated, hand tugging on the door once more in the hopes that he'd move with it, but he only slammed it shut again, his smile never faltering. Your nose scrunched up in confusion and disgust, was he really trying to make you hate everything about him in one go??

"I just wanted to say that everything I said out there was true, all of it except for what I said about you... That was just to make you see that the asshole next to you doesn't care about you-"

"I swear to God I will throat punch you if you don't shut the fuck-"

"Your threats are empty. So I would suggest you shut your mouth and listen." Your mouth slammed shut as he snapped back. Your eyes wandered to the area behind him. The bathrooms were far enough away from the lobby that no one could see you and because the chatter was so loud, no one would be able to hear you either. Fingers gripped your chin, ripping you to a position where your eyes were locked with his. "Eyes up here" he cooed as his fingers dug deeper into your jaw.

Your breathing was shallow, mind racing as you tried to think of a way out of this. "I want him to drop out of this race" Pariston stated firmly, and your eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Ging had no desire with being in this race, everyone knew that...

"You do know that Ging doesn't want to be the next leader right?" You muttered out hoping that maybe this information would loosen the grip he had on you, but it only got tighter. Ripping you up towards him, his lips ghosted over yours "I don't care what he feels, I want him gone". You automatically recoiled in disgust, the feeling of his lips brushing against yours causing nausea to erupt in your stomach. Even though you were mad at him, no one other than Ging, was allowed to put their lips on yours. "Can you let me go..." you whimpered out, your fingers digging into the wrist of the hand that was still angrily gripping you.

"I don't want to... I kind of like how powerful you make me feel"

Your blood ran cold at his statement, not liking the fact that your forced submission was giving him pleasure. "You're sick" you spat out. You tried to sound menacing, but based on his dark grin, you knew it was anything but that. His mouth opened again but he slammed it shut. If you weren't so scared, you would have felt the bloodlust that Pariston was feeling. "Pariston... I think you have something of mine...."

His voice floated through your hazy mind, but the words weren't registering like they should have. Pariston only rolled his eyes before letting you go. Not realizing that he was holding you up, you stumbled back, slamming into the wall beside the door. Your eyes locked with Gings and noticed that he was talking, you didn't know who he was talking to or what he was talking about. The only thing on your mind was just how scared you were.

Pariston was mean sure, but he had never done anything like this. This felt evil. "She's very submissive when you got a firm grip on her huh?" Paristons words snapped you out of your daze and you finally felt Gings bloodlust in full. It was angry, angrier than you've ever felt come from him before. It was as if Pariston had found the magic words to anger Ging, and by the looks of it, they worked.

"Touch her again and I will kill you"

Pariston laughed loudly, he himself didn't know if he was laughing at the fact that Ging himself was in love yet didn't know it, or if he was laughing at the pathetic threat itself. "Fine. Fine. I'll leave her alone... Was just having fun" lies. They were all lies, and Ging knew it. Pariston was one of the reasons why Ging kept you away as much as possible. The man was always drawn to you for some reason and Ging didn't like that.

Pariston turned to face you, hand going to your chin to cup it again in his fingers. He ignored the way you flinched away and instead gripped onto you to keep you still. "It was a pleasure playing with you" he purred before placing his lips softly on yours. You froze, hands shaking as you tried to fight off the panic. It ended as fast as it came, but it still left you breathless and not in the good way. Pariston let you go and walked back towards the lobby, slamming his shoulder into Gings on the way out. Ging didn't even flinch, his eyes only glued to you as he took in your fear.

He'd kill that guy one day, he'd do it in your name. But for now - "Y/n" Ging called out as he moved his way towards your shaking body. "I'm sorry. I. I couldn't fight him off I just froze, but I... I didn't want that!!! I promise you I didn't-"

Ging yanked you into his embrace, silencing you as he shoved your face into his neck. The tears you were fighting off bursted from you the second he wrapped his arm around your waist, grounding you to him. The hand on your hair massaged your scalp as he cooed reassuring words into your ear. The fear oozing from you made him panic. It was then that he realized just how frightened he was of losing you. He didn't think Pariston would have killed you... No... Death wouldn't scare him this much. He was instead worried that Pariston would scare you away.

The mere thought of you being alive and not by his side was what scared him.

"Please stay with me" Ging whispered, hands clutching onto you as if you were going to float away from him and never come back. "I'll keep you safe, just please stay" the words made him sound vulnerable and even made him feel icky. The way you made him feel was foreign, which somehow overshadowed his pride. He decided then, as you curled into him that this is what you needed. You needed affirmation, promises, and love. Things he never thought he'd give anyone.

But you were different. Always have been, always will be.

"Do you actually love me?" Your whisper was airy, and if Ging wasn't so heavily focused on you he would have missed it but it hit him full force. Did he love you? Was this love? He pondered on it... Watching Pariston berate you and physically assault you caused Gings stomach to churn and he couldn't control his anger. He's never felt that way about anyone, not even himself. But then he realized something.

When someone berates him or tries to hurt him, you get angry. So angry in fact that you would do anything to make them stop. When he asked you why you did that, you always told him that you loved him. Loved him of all people.

He let out a sigh, preparing himself for what he was about to say, knowing that once it was muttered there was no more hiding it. There was no more cat and mouse, no more tears, no more secrets, nothing. But the thought of that didn't scare him as much as the thought of losing you. So.

"Yes... It would seem that I do indeed love you..."

A smile graced your lips as you cuddled in closer to his neck. You could feel the skin grow warm and knew instantly that he was blushing. "Knew it" your teasing tone caused him to jolt back in embarrassment, but you held onto him tightly cooing up at him that you were never going to let him go now that he's admitted it. And while at one time that would have annoyed him, he couldn't help but notice the way his heart raced at your promise of never leaving.

Maybe love wasn't a bad thing.