#whom's diary scribbles

[taintedtowers]

the joke explainerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

[kashverse]

reading in the bathtub is an art. a refined, luxurious experience that not everyone can afford—because first, you need a bathtub. 

nanami knew this when he was investing in real estate. a house? non-negotiable. a bathtub? even more so. so, naturally, his bathroom is a haven. a scientifically optimized oasis. the water is at the perfect temperature, bubble bath carefully selected for its all-natural ingredients and sophisticated scent. a wooden tray stretches across the tub, holding a single lit candle (subtle, not overwhelming), a perfectly arranged plate of snacks, and a glass of wine—because real men drink wine. and while he lounges, perfectly balanced between relaxation and intellectual stimulation, he reads the american economic review or whatever riveting financial analysis he’s stumbled upon that day. nanami does not work overtime. because this is what he comes home to.

meanwhile, on the other side of the city, gojo is living the same dream. sort of. he saw a tiktok about this once. self-care. candles. a book. it all seemed very aesthetic. so, naturally, he has a copy of true literary genius—diary of a wimpy kid—in his hands. but gojo is not a silent reader. he is an orator, and the rubber ducks in front of him are his enraptured audience. his narration is passionate, animated, occasionally breaking off into dramatic reenactments. eventually, he gets bored of the actual text, so the book is unceremoniously shoved to the side, where half of it immediately gets submerged. whatever. duck storytime has begun. one of them is an undercover agent. another is hiding from their tragic past. the smallest duck, whom he has named "gregory," is framed for tax evasion. it is a gripping tale.

geto, on the other hand, approaches bath time with absolute precision. self-care isn’t just a routine. it’s a philosophy. he enters the bathroom with purpose, hair already secured in a perfectly executed, no-nonsense bun. his book of choice? the latest issue of vogue, which is not just being read—it is being annotated. entire pages are flagged with sticky notes, margins scribbled with commentary on new product lines, runway looks, places to visit, people to admire, things to buy. he is invested. if someone walked in, they might mistake this for serious academic research. in a way, it is.

meanwhile, toji does not have a bathtub. neither has he asked for one, nor have you asked for one, so he does not see the point. but this does not mean he is not a man of literature. he reads—specifically, your ninth-grade diary. in the shower. out loud. your innermost thoughts during your peak one direction era echo against the tiles as he smirks, flipping the pages with all the arrogance of someone who now holds ultimate leverage over you. he will never let you live this down.

choso, bless his heart, does not understand why people read in the bath, but he is fully committed to the concept. he brings a book in with full enthusiasm, and he will read it. even as his fingers wrinkle into pruned, soggy raisins. even when the pages begin to warp from the moisture. he is determined.

sukuna does not read. not because he can't—he just refuses. he will soak, though, reclining in the bath like some ancient king surveying his kingdom. you will read to him. because that is how it was done ‘in his time.’ and he sees no reason to change tradition. if you attempt to stop, he will nudge you with his foot until you resume. "keep going," he grumbles, eyes shut, thoroughly enjoying this outdated, borderline royal treatment. whatever. 

[https-bakugo]

Chapter 03.

♡ twenty three

♡ rivals to lovers / fake dating

♡ cw / tw : sort of angst at the end? moment of panic attack though it's minor

You pressed the doorbell and stepped back with a pleasant hum. “I don’t know why you bother ringing that shit. I always barge in whenever I have to fucking come here.” Bakugo grumbled as you both stood in front of the door to his mother’s studio. 

You looked back at him and scoffed. “That would be the nice thing to do Bakugo. You wouldn’t know.”

“Being nice is for pussies.”

“And here comes the attitude.” You mumbled under your breath.

Bakugo whipped his head around and glared at you, “Do you really wanna go? We can go right here right fucking now don’t test me-”

The front door swung open and a middle aged blond woman stepped out, offering you a soft smile, “Oh so you must be my son’s partner please please! Do come in! He never stops talking about you my dear- oh and shoes at the doorstep darling, are you hungry? Thirsty? Anything my son can get for you? Katsuki! Be a good boyfriend and help your partner out!” Mitsuki Bakugo shouted as she pushed the door open wider, ushering both of you inside her studio.

“God fucking damnit you hag! Shut the actual fuck up! You know we’re not actually dating! And they can handle themselves! I don’t gotta do shit for them!” Bakugo shouted at his mother as he tugged off his shoes.

“Bakugo!” You whipped your head around and glared at him, eyes narrowed into slits. “Watch your fucking language when you speak to your fucking mother goddamn it! I’m not risking losing an opportunity like this all because you couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut you dumb piece of shit!” You hissed back at him.

Bakugo stared at you.

Mitsuki smiled.

Bakugo grumbled as you stepped into the studio, the tips of his ears flushing a soft red as his mother nudged him and grinned. He rolled his eyes and followed behind you, crossing his arms across his chest and looking around.

The studio was unfortunately - or maybe it was fortunately - the same as he remembered it when he was younger; and throughout all the different parts of his life. 

His mother’s desk was placed in the same shitty corner, and those creepy looking mannequins were still standing in every corner that they could possibly be placed without being knocked over - each one was covered in some sort of fabric, some of the outfits were finished, some were still a mess of stitching and needle work. 

There were things on the floor, scraps of fabric and tape measures and the whole place smelted of baked goods, like the oven had just been turned off and if he squinted - he could see a small Katsuki and Izuku, reaching for the caramel and chocolate chip cookies behind Mitsuki’s back - before two simultaneous wails would break her out of her thought. She would have to end up putting her needle down and pulling her glasses off her face before tending to the two boys, one whom she scolded and the other whom she carefully doted over.

That particular memory brought a small smile to Bakugo’s face.

He looked around more before his eyes met a small area in the back of the studio which he had dubbed “The hero’s corner” as a child. 

When he was younger he would sit on the floor and play with his action figures. When he started school the toys were replaced with notebooks and pens. He remembered one instance, during first year of highschool, where he was perched in his chair, furiously scribbling in his journal, (He was much too prideful to call it a diary) about you. Pages upon pages wasted as he ranted about how much he hated you. 

The strangest part? 

He had a nagging feeling that he really didn’t hate you-

Nope. Not going down that train of thought today. Thanks a lot Eijirou for putting that idea in my head in the first place. I hope you’re hit by a fucking train shitty hair.

“Katsuki are you even listening!” Mitsuki shouted at Bakugo who snapped back to reality, whipping his head back around and glaring at his mother.

“Shut up you hag! I don’t even know why the fuck I’m here! You already have all of my fucking measurements from when I was fucking born why do I gotta be here for?” He snapped back, fists clenched. Every moment he spent with you in his general vicinity was fucking torture and he felt like he was drowning. The smell of your perfume or shampoo or whatever the fuck you were wearing that he was smelling was slowly killing him here. 

"Y'know what fuck it I'm stepping outside for some air. It smells like shit in here. Open a window or something." Bakugo sighed, shaking his head as he stepped outside, sitting on the stairs.

He ran a hand through his ashy blond hair.

“Fucking shit Shitty Hair.” He hissed under his breath.

-

"This is going to suck so much ass." You sighed.

"Yep."

"Why do I gotta do this shit with you?"

"I'd be damned if I knew." Bakugo mumbled.

Your outfit was stunning and damn, did you feel stunning. Mitsuki really outdid herself when it came to the outfit. It was such a shame that it had to be used on Bakugo of all people. You nervously wiped your hands down your outfit, you had been to a few of these gala’s in the past - hero work tended to come with a lot more rubbing shoulders then you had been led to expect. “How long do we have to be doing this?” You whispered, turning to meet Bakugo’s stern gaze as he stared straight ahead. He clenched his jaw and shrugged. 

“Until the press gets what they want I guess.” He mumbled. He didn’t know how long it would take for them to get here - or when they would leave. When they drain us of our blood. For fuck’s sake. I don’t want to be here. I’d rather be at home right now. Or at the gym. Or god knows where.

Bakugo clenched his jaw, his hands gripping the steering wheel as he forced himself to stare straight ahead. It was suffocating being in here. He thought the studio was bad? His sports car was a million times worse.

You were so fucking close. If he turned his head just a little bit to the side he would be able to point out and count each individual blemish on your face. 

The car reeked of whatever you were wearing. 

Again, not in a bad way. But shit - Bakugo was drowning.

Like he had been caught up in a rip and he was trying so fucking hard to swim to the sides - to safety but you were there and you were smiling at him, looking at him with those eyes and you grabbed him by the leg and forced his head under.

The worst part was that he knew it was going to get worse for him.

And it was all Kirishima’s fault. He was the one that planted this stupid idea in his head in the first place - if he had kept his big mouth shut Bakugo wouldn’t be here worrying about mending a broken relationship.

Shit.

You were going to be the death of him.

He sighed as the sleek sports car pulled up the venue. “Let me get the door for you.” Bakugo mumbled.

You rolled your eyes and scoffed. “What a gentleman.” You muttered under your breath as your ‘date’ stepped outside and pulled the door open for you. He reached for your hand but you slapped it away, throwing a glare at him.

“Don’t. I can handle myself.” You hissed under your breath.

Bakugo scoffed and pulled away, rolling his eyes as he leaned back in. “Did you forget? We gotta put on a show for these blood hungry demons society calls paparazzi. I don’t wanna be doing this shit either but it’s not like we have a fucking choice anyways. So pull that fucking stick out of your ass and take my fucking hand.”

You sighed defeatedly and debated your options, mulling a few thoughts in your head before you reached for Bakugo’s hand, holding your piercing glare as he intertwined his fingers with your own. He met your eyes and a silent understanding sparked between you both.

An hour. Tops. In and out. Give the press what they want so they can bump up our image. And then get the fuck out of there.

“Glad to see we agree on something…” Bakugo mumbled under his breath as he led you up the stairs, the flash of the cameras blinding him. A deep scowl etched into his face as he huffed.

You nudged him softly, meeting his gaze. “Smile.” You whispered as you both stepped up against the doors. “And stop stepping on my shoe.” You hissed. 

Bakugo rolled his eyes. 

You both smiled as the cameras flashed away, draining you of your essence. Of what made you both - fundamentally - you.

By the end of the night you would be a piece of gossip. An image on the newspapers. The name rolled off the tongue of a jealous fan. The name whispered in adoration of an obsessive stalker. A name.

A title.

Bakugo’s eyes flickered to your face for a moment before his arm snaked around your waist and gave you a soft squeeze. I’m here for you.

“Are you good?” Bakugo whispered as he led you inside. “You looked kinda out of it.” 

“I hate the paparazzi.” You mumbled as he led you up the stairs. 

“Yeah well. You don’t gotta worry about em too much in here.” He shrugged, letting his arm drop when the flashing lights were out of view. “Chill out with your friends, do whatever I dunno. I’ll text you at eleven to pick you up and go home. Alright?” Bakugo gave you a one over, eyes flickering from your face down to your body and then back up to your face.

The stare made you slightly self conscious. 

Don’t look at me like that. 

You huffed, raising your arms to your chest, nodding as you averted your gaze.

Bakugo stared at you, a small frown tugging at his lips. “Right uh.. Be safe I guess.” He mumbled.

You nodded. “Yea… uh you too?”

-

“You’re out here? Shouldn’t you be inside?” Bakugo’s voice came out as gruff as he stepped out onto the balcony. You didn’t bother turning around as he moved to stand beside you. You took in a deep inhale of the fresh night air.

It was biting against your arms.

“Yea… I got tired of being there. My social battery is a little low today so y'know? I just needed the space.” You mumbled, not bothered to explain your reasons for staying outside to the likes of Bakugo.

He merely nodded as he wordlessly stared up at the sky. “Can I ask you something?” 

“You already did.”

“Something else idiot.”

You snorted, covering it up with a cough. “Yea go ahead.” 

“You hate me.”

It wasn’t a question. It was an observation. 

You hated Bakugo. 

You hated his ego. 

You hated his pride. 

You hated the way he made you feel like a pebble in his path to success. 

You hated his anger. 

You hated the way he had changed. 

You hated how he tried to remedy things. 

You hated the way his eyes sparked. 

You hated the way he spoke to you - so soft and delicate, like a flower losing its petals.

You hated him.

A chill ran up your arms, and you rubbed them softly. Did I forget my coat in the car? I got so worked up over the whole gala I forgot my coat!

You were about to curse out loud at your stupidity - but before you were able to, you were enveloped by a soft caramel scent mixed with something spicy? Cinnamon?

“You’re shivering.” Bakugo pointed out. “You left your coat in the car.”

You huffed, pulling his suit jacket closer. “Thanks…” You mumbled looking up at the sky. “Do you… like the stars?” You looked over at Bakugo who was staring up at the inky void. The light pollution was annoying, you could barely see a thing, but the small little dots that you did see would lift your spirits anyways.

Even if most of them were dead.

“I do.” He nodded. “You didn’t answer my question.” He turned to you. “Do you hate me?”

You went silent for a moment, pulling the jacket closer and looking back up. “Yea.”

“Yea. I think… I hate you.”

-> Masterlist

taglist [OPEN] : @luvseraphh - @tlissablr - @havemyheartt - @smelliottle - @sakurayashiro - @peachesvault - @qyuin - @kaidostwin - @wonubby - @moochiwoochi - @coldnightshark - @kalulakunundrum - @sexylexy12 - @rednicotine - @samm1e13 - @kawoala

© HTTPS-BAKUGO. Do not steal, copy or use any of my work for AI. Legal action will take place if caught.

[petercapaldi-press]

ARTICLE/WRITING

My week: Peter Capaldi

Sun 31 Dec 2006 03.20 CET

Driven on by the spirit of Hemingway and van Gogh, the star of The Thick of It ponders his life and even tries some clothes shopping. Thwarted at every turn, he finally finds comfort in YouTube

Having been asked to do this My Week diary, I seek guidance and ask The Observer for an example - maybe last year's column for the same period, because the festive week is, after all, an odd one in which nothing much really happens work-wise. But how wrong I am. Stephen Daldry's dizzying account of last year has him jetsetting from opening to opening while trying to avoid the ever-growing pile of film scripts that threatens to entomb him.

Well, I could say that Christmas in LA was a bit lonely, so thank god for Helen Mirren's annual do, which, sadly, I left in disgrace after drinking too much and blocking her sink with chunky barf, but I'm afraid I can't because it's just not true. It was Christmas in north London, as usual, which I spent shuffling around supermarkets, fretting about my spectacular weight gain and drinking at every conceivable opportunity.

The family takes a festive trip to the theatre to see Stomp, a show we feel we've discovered, a mere 15 years after everyone else. It's a great show, with a lot going for it. Including no actors. Which is a relief, as, at this time of year, the theatres are full of the RSC's finest, insisting on letting us know that yes, although they are indeed, very, very serious actors, they are also very, very funny ones too. Instead, it's just a lot of Australian-looking people banging things off of each other and making as much noise as possible.

It does cross my mind that I've paid a small fortune for this racket when I could just have gone into any one of my local cafes and listened to all the toddlers banging their Cybermen's heads off the tables.

When I first came to London, I loved hanging around in cafes, smoking, scribbling, dreaming. It was life-affirming and fun. Like Stomp. But Big Cappuccino has turned the humble frothy coffee into something else.

Today, once I'd bought my medium-sized bowl of coffee and struggled to a seat through the gridlock of baby buggies the size of Humvees, something nasty happened. As I opened my moleskin notebook cum sketchpad ('as used by Ernest Hemingway and Vincent van Gogh' as the blurb tells me) to get down to some serious work on my latest film no one will make, I momentarily looked up to see, dotted between the strung-out mothers, a lot of other guys momentarily looking up from their moleskin notebooks cum sketchpads, all of whom look almost identical to me, down to the big, stupid Charles Saatchi-type glasses. I'm consumed by self-loathing.

I'm a big, well-read fan of van Gogh, but I've never come across any mention of the moleskin notebook cum sketchpad in any of his biogs. And given that he was so very poor and unsuccessful, how could he afford one? Perhaps it's in one of the more obscure letters to his brother Theo: 'Could you get me one of those moleskin notebooks cum sketchpads? Gauguin had one and it looked really cool; he said there's a shop down Montmartre where they do them a bit cheaper. Can you get me one with the storyboard frames in it because if things don't work out as an artist, I might go into commercials.' And since when did a notebook need a blurb?

I'm clothes shopping in Selfridges. On my own. (Something I do very rarely on account of being organised enough, some years ago, to marry a woman who does it all for me.) Which is dangerous, as I often make very big mistakes, thinking I can 'carry off' something when I can't. Like when I bought the Vivienne Westwood combo of sexy high-waisters and 70s style tank-top.

So I'm nervous. The shop assistants don't help as they are all doing some retro ironic John Inman thing or being Russell Brand. There is so much stuff here. Most of the world has nothing, so what's all this doing here? I'm getting sweaty and can feel the air heating up inside my trouser legs, so it's time to go.

Euston Station. Our nephew has been staying with us for a week, but now it's time for him to go back to Scotland. It's taken me years to realise that when I say 'back to Scotland', our English friends visualise us in a Hogwartsy Highland landscape, knocking about a vaguely industrialised version of Greyfriar's Bobby, exchanging knowing folksy banter with the Proclaimers.

I once worked with an actress who was both the star of an American soap opera and a member of a European royal family (work that one out) who, upon hearing I came from Scotland, asked me how many sheep I had. Our truth is more nicotine coloured, featuring high-rise blocks, decaying steel towns, alcohol and pasty-faced youths in thin sports gear.

Aeryn is 14 and comes from a 'village' near Glasgow. He's bright and clever and has done very well to survive the Joshes and Berties and Lilys he's been thrown in with recently, not least because of the great support of our daughter, Cissy. But now it's time for him to go.

This station, this journey, has been part of our life for years, especially my wife, Elaine, who has spent increasing time in these trains and stations delivering loving and dutiful care to her dad. Bill died seven weeks ago. My dad, Gerry, died just last year. We have family and friends up there who we will continue to see, but as the numbers diminish, so the balance of duty and connection tips away from the place. And you realise that there will come a time when there's very little to take you there any longer.

Christmas is delightful. Great gifts. I get copies of Ridley Scott storyboards from Blade Runner which make this old movie geek very happy, and The Mighty Boosh Live, as requested, from Cissy. See pals, eat and drink lots. I'm very content.

Then we move into the hinterlands that lead to New Year's Eve. We always make a big thing of celebrating New Year's Eve because of our deep Celtic tradition and love of alcohol.

But before then, a bit of a breather from the festivities and the chance to be passed from call centre to call centre trying to get my daughter's broken mobile fixed. I end up at Motorola with some Northern Irish guy who is really pissed off (surely that's my job?). It's all made worse by the fact that he's venting his spleen at me entirely tonally - politely phrased but full of contempt. Now that's cruel. Anyway, I keep my cool. But he gets the last word, tonally. However Motorola loses my business.

I've been working on an episode of Tales of the Unexpected for ITV and have not met one person who didn't think it was a great idea to bring the series back. But I delivered that a week ago and since then have done nothing but eat and drink. Repulsed by my idleness, I decide it's time for action and get down to some serious fretting about my acting career. I'm sure Michael Sheen must be spending his week working on an uncanny portrayal of Rod Hull and Emu or someone while I'm just sitting around growing breasticles.

I blame it on YouTube. It's too good. I love the one of that guy getting sucked into a jet engine plus anything to do with Christopher Walken. But today, I ended up spending two hours watching dozens of videos of guys playing along to the guitar solo from 'Stairway to Heaven' at various levels of competence. Best two hours I've spent in years.

And better than most I've spent in the theatre. I'm sure if Shakespeare were alive today, he'd be doing classic guitar solos on YouTube.

The Thick Of It Special, Tues, BBC 4, 10.30pm

The Life: Born in Glasgow 1958. Studied painting and illustration at the Glasgow School of Art . Married to Elaine; daughter Cissy.

The Work: As an actor, many film and TV appearances, including Local Hero, Dangerous Liaisons, Magicians on TV, Prime Suspect, Peep Show, The Crow Road, Aftersun, Pinochet's Progress, The Thick of It. Wrote and directed the feature film Strictly Sinatra and Oscar-and Bafta-winning short Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life

[darlingillustrations]

I'm Gay

When I was eight years old, I wrote my first poem. I remember the moment the words came to me. I was lying in bed at night, the lines rattling through my brain, startling sleep away. I turned on my pencil-shaped bedside lamp, grabbed my pink diary and huddled up underneath the little roses on my wallpaper to scribble the words down before they were lost to me forever. I re-read them over and over, letting them seep into my mind as I drifted off to sleep, so full of mystery and fascination at this new craft that had opened up to me.

The next day, I showed the poem to my mother. It was a love poem, and the only thing she said was, “Why is this written to a woman?”

I didn’t know.

In high school, I also didn’t know why I enjoyed turning around in psychology class to chat with the girl with the cool beaded purse who sat behind me. I didn’t get it why I was so tongue tied around the girl in college with the mousy brown hair and soft floral skirts. After graduation, I still didn’t understand why the scrawny girl with facial piercing who I worked with at the coffeeshop held such a deep place in my heart that I’d give anything to make her smile.

The day I nervously confessed to my parents that I no longer wanted to be in the Church of Christ, the religion they’d raised me in, and that I’d been going to an Episcopal church, they laughed in relief.

“We were worried you were going to tell us you were a lesbian,” they said, wiping tears of joy from their eyes.

It never occurred to me that I could be a lesbian because I was attracted to guys. I didn’t realize that bisexuality was a thing. It wasn’t until 2016 that I started to face the truth about myself. After the attack on the Pulse nightclub, I felt deeply and inexplicably unsafe, and after months of soul searching, I came to realize it was because the people who had been attacked, the LGBT men and women, I was part of their community. They were me. I was LGBT.

As part of my journey, I was asked to exhibit my art at the Pierce County AIDS Foundation. I wanted to share something that was representative of the LGBT community, and that’s how my Affectionate Animal series was born. I chose vintage photos as my source images because I loved the nostalgic feeling they evoked. I wanted to offer the feeling that being gay was a normal thing.

The funny thing is: when I painted these first nine couples, I didn’t yet realize my own truth.

Coming out to myself was about self acceptance. When I told Matt, he asked me what this meant for our marriage. I said it meant nothing: instead of choosing him over half the world population, it meant I chose him over all of the world population. But when Matt left me (for other reasons), some of my close friends whom I’d trusted with my secret blamed me for him leaving. “He’s been through a lot,” they said.

I was scared to tell anyone. For a long time I only told people who were gay, and I spent a lot of time online, on tumblr, living an invisible life, coming to terms with what my sexuality meant.

That’s where I met my first girlfriend. She flew cross country to visit me and I flew cross country to visit her. We fell in love with each other and each other’s kids, and I was going to fly out with the girls to spend Christmas with her, until she broke up with me suddenly and then blocked my phone number before ever explaining why everything was ending.

They say your first heartbreak after a divorce is the worst. When you get divorced, there’s too much other stuff in the way that inhibits the grieving process, so when your first heartbreak after divorce hits you, all that pent up grief rears its ugly head and devastates you. In short, that’s what happened to me. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat. I kept throwing up for weeks. I lashed out at people, then became disgusted with myself for acting like such a monster and fell into a pit of despair. My body felt like knives were stabbing me, raking my arms from the inside out. My chest felt cavernous. I felt beyond gutted. I felt like I was in tatters.

God bless my therapist, because she texted with me through the worst of it, assuring me that this is what grief felt like. I’d tell her I was scared of the depression. She said I was strong enough to weather a little depression. I took comfort in that. Deep down I knew she was right.

I started cleaning my house. It wasn’t much, but a little every day gave me a sense of normalcy. I signed up for the Motivated Moms checklist so that I wouldn’t have to think about what I was supposed to do. I could just do it.

On Friday, my checklist said to spend time on a craft or hobby. I spent more time scratching my head trying to figure out what I was interested in than I did playing my guitar once I finally remembered I liked to sing. On Sunday I was paralyzed by the suggestion to pamper myself. How does someone pamper themselves? I googled it and read dozens of suggestions before I felt inspired by the suggestion to give myself flowers.

I’d always thought that, when I was with my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day, we’d do some sappy romantic thing, and I’d post sappy pictures & let people draw whatever conclusions they wanted to about our relationship. Now that I’m single again, I guess I’m coming out of the closet anyways. I’m not doing it for another person. I’m doing it for myself. Because, at the end of the day, lovers come and go, but there is one person who will love me for my entire life, and that person is me. And it doesn’t take a parent or a husband or a girlfriend to validate my loveliness. I am loved. I am darling. And I am complete, just as I am.

I don’t know why God made me this way, but this is the way I am. I don’t fall in love with people because of what’s in their pants, but because of what’s in their heart. So, in closing, I’d like to share with you the poem I wrote when I was eight years old, long before I knew what the depths of my heartache might bring:

Beauty Your eyes sparkle in the moonlight, Your legs tremble fast, Your voice can sing the wonders, And your ears can hear me laugh, Your nose smells the flowers that I bring to you in prize, Your legs can run freely, And your hands can hold my thighs. But you’re the one in my mind, The wonders that I dream, For you are so beautiful, The wonders of my dreams.

I like to think that, maybe, the woman I’d written it for was, in fact, myself.

[ This essay first appeared on my blog on February 14, 2019, and it is how I came out publicly to my friends, family and the world. I want to repost it here to tumblr in the hopes that it might resonate with you. ]

[sanchoi21]

Inner Demons

Toji Fushiguro x reader

Warning: This work contains a lot of jealousy towards Toji's first wife and mentions of smut. So do not proceed if uncomfortable.

Being jealous was an under statement when you were here burning with jealousy when you saw the photo in which Toji was sweetly smiling at his wife on the day of his wedding. You were miserable as he never showed that smile of his towards you. Sometimes you just wanted to forget about everything, about him having a past without you or the very existence of the sign of their love, Megumi, whom you had come to love so much. You just wanted to be Toji's everything, his one and only, the one who's surname he might take, the one to make him smile, the one to make him cry and to take his virginity. You were truly shameless to have such thoughts, he might kill you once he gets to know that you still can't accept his past and despised his previous wife, wishing it was you he was married to. But unfortunately you were just a second, a replacement to his real soulmate, that's what you always felt after being in this marriage and the noisy neighbours never once allowed you to remove such thoughts out of your head. Your inner demons had consumed you whole.

So one day you decided to write this distorted thoughts of yours into a diary, instead of bottling them up in your mind. You kept the diary in a safety locker and locked it while the key would always be in your mobile cover. You made sure that none of Fushiguros saw it, or it's the end of everything. Since that day, you were atleast a bit more stable, being able to went your cruel thoughts into the diary.

These days you were quitter than usual, and Toji as well as Megumi noticed that. Both of them were a men of few words, and didn't know how to express their affection as they were always on the receiving end, but that didn't mean they didn't care. They cared alot about you and did small small things to make you happy, but your smile didn't reached your eyes these days. So today Toji decided to ask you what's the matter. When he gently opened your room's door, he saw you writing something in a diary, he got curious to what it could be, but as you noticed his presence you quickly shut the diary and shoved it inside the locker and turned to face him.

Toji: Y/n.. Sorry for disturbing you. But I just came to check on you. Are you fine?? And I am curious, what were you writing??

Y/n: I am fine, you don't need to worry or check on me and I was just making my to do list for tomorrow, that's all.

Toji: O-oh ok!! Rest well then.

He said and left the room closing the door behind him, you sighed heavily once he was gone, as you had somehow managed to answer without stammering. But little did you know that Toji heard your heavy sigh and saw you keeping the key into your mobile cover. Tonight when you will sleep, he was definitely going to find out what was in that diary and what made you act that way. He was pretty much sure that the reason behind your behavior these days was hidden in that diary.

As the night fell and you were fast asleep in your room, Toji silently entered your room. Being an assassin he was an expert in trespassing without anyone knowing. He took your mobile and removed the key and opened the drawer. He took your diary and slowly came back to his room to read it. Once he opened the first page he was shocked to see it was filled with scribbles and many words some of them included, "I hate myself for feeling such way but I can't help it." As he kept flipping the pages he became more and more shocked, as hot tears stinged his eyes threatening to flow down his cheeks. He had no clue you felt this way. He thought he gave you love and enough space so that you won't feel uncomfortable, but he didn't know that this space was what was misguiding you. He indeed loved his previous wife till the point where his entire world stopped when she died, but she is now just a pleasant memory for him, that's why sometimes he used to mention how you two are similar, never in a million years did he thought that you would think that he misses her and you are not enough. Instead of feeling anger for all the hatred you had sprouted in your diary, he was sad because he couldn't properly express his love towards you. He didn't know that you loved him to the point of wanting to change the past, just so you could be his everything and make him happy. It was a selfish wish of yours, but for Toji he saw it as a selfless desire for his love. His wife was precious to him, but that was in the past, you are in front of him now, making him smile everyday and he needed to show you how much he loves you, before it's too late.

That night Toji told Megumi to go to his friend's house as he had something important to discuss with you. You were still sleeping silently in your room, blissfully unaware of the fact that you had been discovered. As soon as Megumi left the house, Toji entered your room. He sat beside your sleeping figure and gently stroked your head, the slight movement made you open your eyes as you quickly sat up. Toji gently pulled you close so that you can lay your head in his chest, which you did. As he showed you your diary, all the blood in your face drained.

Toji: Don't worry, I am not mad. Rather I am sad, that you didn't consider me worthy enough to tell me what you were feeling all this time.

Y/n: T-Toji I-I c-can e-explain...

Toji: You don't need to, I read everything.

Y/n: T-Then are you g-gonna l-l-leave me???

Toji: Why in the world would I do that?? I must be stupid if I did that to someone who loves me so much that she wishes to change the past. You know what Y/n, Megumi's mom was indeed special to me, but that was in the past, she is just a memory now, Y/n. She ain't coming back from the grave to take me ya know.. Y/n I married you, because I fell in love with you, not because you are similar to her nor as a replacement. Infact you two are quite opposite, you are funny type while she was calm type. Megumi doesn't need a mom at this age as he is capable to take care of himself. I married you out of pure love Y/n.. I just want your love, I don't expect anything else from you. I love you as a person Y/n, not as a replacement, you never were a replacement.

You didn't know when tears had started flowing down your cheeks. You felt sad and guilty to blame everything on Megumi's deceased mother, she wasn't at fault, nor was Toji. You cried and cried in Toji's arms as he consoled you till you had calmed down to form some coherent words. You realized just how much Toji loved you, to the point of even ignoring all the rubbish you sprouted in your diary about his innocent wife. As guilt grew too much, you opened your mouth, chocking a sob.

Y/n: I-I am s-so sorry Toji, for d-doubting you and b-blaming your wife who w-wasn't even at f-fault. I am r-really s-sorry, will you p-please forgive me??

Toji: Yes I forgive you Y/n.. but now you are my wife so stop feeling guilty already. And about my virginity, let's say I am still a virgin and you can corrupt me the way you want.

Y/n: W-What you read t-that too??

Toji: Of course I did. Take a look at this.

Saying this, Toji slowly removed his robe, and your jaw dropped when you saw him wearing a pretty red harness on his naked body. You blushed at the captivating site in front of you.

Toji: What do you think, Y/n?? I never wore something like this for her, now I am wearing this especially for you. So say Y/n, won't you take my virginity now??

Y/n: T-Toji you really are something. And why thankyou, I am going to take that virginity of yours and completely devour you, claim you as mine alone, I have waited long enough.

Toji: Yes and so have I. Y/n you are my one and only and I want you to feel the same way so don't hesitate now.

Y/n: Thankyou so much Toji, for everything, I won't hesitate I promise. OH wait but what about Megumi, he might hear us.

Toji: Don't worry about that!! I already sent that brat away at his friends home, he won't return till evening or maybe till tomorrow morning, as he knows if he wants a sibling he has to be patient.

You blushed at the way Toji seductively said the last part, but you threw all your shame away and latched onto Toji, biting and nibbling his soft flesh, claiming him and marking him as yours. That day and eventually night, you both continued to fuck each other in every possible position and in every corner of house till no corners were left untouched. You fucked like newly weds, with Toji whimpering every now and then as your were being a little too rough with him. You rode him all night long while choking him from time to time, which earned breathy whimpers from him, as he continued to paint your insides white for nth time that night. After you both had finally finished and were tired as hell, but still decided to clean the house before, Megumi came the next morning, good thing he was smart enough to not come back at that night, or he might had seen you two fucking like animals in heat.

It was the best fuck of your life, and you knew you would always remember it. As after all you did take his virginity, it may not be physically but psychologically, then yes, you did and you were more than satisfied with it. Now that all your misunderstandings were cleared and all of your inner demons were baptised by Toji, you, Toji and Megumi grew more and more closer as each day passed by, also leading to Toji to change his surname from Fushiguro to your surname soon enough as Megumi proudfully did it too. And as the day ended you once again wrote in your diary, "Dear diary, today too, I spent a happy day with my family."

I don't know what I am doing. Though I have 2 incomplete drafts, one of Gojo and other of Ash Ketchum, still I don't know how I ended up posting Toji, even though he wasn't in any drafts.😐😑 Again obsessed over him. Next post might be Gojo, it's almost done.😊

[melestasflight]

For the holiday prompts, 4. filled with wonder and delight + Celebrían/Elrond? Thank you! — @emyn-arnens

Holiday Silm Prompt fill for @emyn-arnens. 1k words of our favorite comfort pairing.

Elrond and Celebrían in five poems and a little more.

filled with wonder and delight

on AO3

It had always been thus, that poetry was the language of their hearts. For verses could tell those things that could not be spoken.

Elrond’s heart composed rhymes of its own will as he watched Celebrían dance, the words matching themselves in harmony even as her own two feet followed one another, different but same.

Onomatopeias sprang at the tip of his tongue whenever Celebrían laughed. How she chirped as the robins in the forest when Elrond would bring himself to share a jest. How she howled in unguarded glee at Glorfindel’s stories and chortled smugly at Erestor’s incapacity to defeat her in any argument at all.

It was Celebrían who had started it all on her first summer in Imladris.

Oh to walk among your gardens fair, lord of waters, lord of things green, Oh to rid myself of all despair, lord of summer, kindness unseen.

A note left behind in her guest quarters, no more than a scribble on a piece of scrap paper, almost swept with the dry leaves of fall descending through the open windows.

But Elrond knew the meaning behind these simple words. Your valley is a home closer to my heart than any I have known, he could almost hear Celebrían’s words in his mind.

A damp and cold winter followed Celebrían’s first departure, and Elrond was sick with longing for her, reading and rereading that little note until the paper was worn and the ink almost illegible beneath his fingertips.

The warmth arrives with Celebrían’s return, for every season turned into Spring when she was around to fill the halls with her laughter, to let her song coax the valley to life. Then quietly, with no spoken agreement, they let themselves fall into the sweet habit of verse.

In the depths of the forest, Under the light of the moon, My heart rushes like water, Flowing clear and crisp and clean, Seeking the stars of your eyes.

Letters left for each other at the breakfast table, slipped underneath doors, folded between the pages of favorite books, tucked between gifts, never of farewell, but of endless beckoning — come back to me.

Even in Celebrían’s absence, Elrond sought after suitable words to match this meter or another, verses that stretched out leisurely or cut themselves short at just the right place to form stanzas worthy of the princess of Lothlórien.

Always his heart resorted to poetry because plain language was simply not good enough, not beautiful enough for this person whom he loved beyond what any word could describe.

Verses lingered even after their partings, as the scent of freshly baked bread remains long after the warm crust has been sliced and eaten to the last crumb.

An Elven-maid was here in my home of old,      A bright star in my day: She has gone back to her forest of trees gold,      Her dress of silver-grey.

With her I send the wood’s breeze,      To stir the tresses of her hair, In place of my love to ease,      Her journey to Lórien fair.

Until spring I shall await her return,      Of betrothal vows to say, May my heart in longing not fully burn,      Let her spirit to mine stray.

In time, the words folded themselves around their children also. There were songs written and drawn into Elrohir’s leather-bound diaries, verses embroidered along the sleeves of Arwen’s riding cloak, stanzas engraved along Elladan’s bow. Elrond loved them with each verse, the poetry filling his home almost too fair to be true.

Until the day Celebrían was gone, and when she returned she was silent and no words at all came from her lips or quill. No poem, no song of Elrond’s could alight the Spring in her heart.

He let her go and remained to live yet another winter, longer and bleaker than any.

The last winter did not seem as cold As this. Her hand was warm in mine, and she Made these icy halls a homely place to be. Where the cones of the spruce did once unfold Stories beneath their shadows were told. Now the ground is sodden wet, the apple tree Has shed its fruits. No green leaves to see Its crown is empty, so barren to see.

Spring shall surely come but not for me, Across the Sea I send a voiceless plea.

Elrond measured the passage of the centuries by the coming of each winter, that cyclical quieting of the land. And as the valley was emptied of birdsong so was his house emptied of poetry. For he wrote, endlessly, tirelessly. He wrote missives, and orders, and plans. Drew maps of battlefields and kingdoms. Sang his people to survival, to hope.

But verse he refused to write or read as long as he remained wed to Middle-earth.

Until now.

On this day, a day he had not dared dream in his long winter, Elrond finds himself in Celebrían’s home. She had not waited for him upon the docks of Tol Eressëa with Elwing, noe welcomed him with fresh bread and sweet water beside Idril.

He stands now in Celebrían’s small house, a green-roofed cabin between the trunks of ancient trees. All windows and doors are open wide as if inviting any beast of the wood to dwell as a guest here. There are few things but the house does not feel empty.

A neatly folded piece of paper sits on the small table in the only room. It is for him, Elrond knows.

Winters and summers Will come and go but      You will come to me.

The world shall change And the roads curve but      You will come to me.

None shall remember The people we were but      You will come to me.

Tho Tilion descends With Arien from the skies      You will come to me.

His hands shake by the time he reads the last verse. And when he looks up from the paper, she stands there watching him, renewed and more beautiful than in any of Elrond’s memories.

I have no poem for you, he wants to say but does not dare speak, afraid that he shall shatter this moment and never regain it again.

‘I knew you would come to me,’ his beloved says and opens her arms.

Elrond lets his heart open and be slowly filled with wonder and delight as he steps forward to fall into Celebrían’s embrace. They do not need words for this.

If you enjoyed this story, feel free to drop me a note/kudo on AO3. It makes my day!

[forest-of-stories]

Throwback Thursday, Fandom Edition: "You came here because you needed something, right?"

I watched the first four and a half seasons of The Vampire Diaries, and during those years, I wrote a considerable amount of fanfiction, some of which I posted on LiveJournal and/or AO3.  Starting around 2013, I also drafted several missing scenes and a couple of AU scenarios in an attempt to tease out the parts of Bonnie Bennett’s storyline that I liked, or - particularly in the fourth season - wanted very much to like. 

I am hardly the first person to point out that TVD frequently mistreated its characters of color, whether they stuck around for an episode or two before dying violently, or – like Bonnie – habitually provided magical solutions to the white characters’ problems.*  I also recognize that, as a white viewer, my critical perspective and authority are limited; I can only talk about what worked (and didn't work, and sort of almost worked) for me. But based upon the episodes that I've seen, and what I've learned from spoilers, Bonnie's Season 4 storyline was part of a larger pattern.

I still think that storyline had potential at first. Unable to access her powers, Bonnie sought help from her late grandmother’s old friend, who offered what he called “witch therapy” that would allow her to practice magic again.  I didn’t care about Atticus Shane’s motivations or his connection to The Lore, but I did care about the threat that he posed to Bonnie, whom he claimed to want to “help” but really wanted to control, whether through literal hypnosis or continued insistence that he was the only one who could keep her from becoming a danger to herself and others.  I’m pretty much always interested in stories like that, no matter the background of the characters involved. I won't pretend that I didn't enjoy watching the scenes that these two characters shared, but I would have liked them more, or be able to look back on my enjoyment of them less critically, if they'd played out in a different context or with a different resolution.

No matter how many of my favorite villainous tropes Professor Shane embodied, I believe that a story that positioned Bonnie as the pawn of a manipulative white man – and the supernatural forces that he served – deserved a payoff in which she reclaimed her agency and turned the tables on him.  If I recall correctly, a few scenes seemed to almost offer that resolution, but they were overshadowed by plot developments in which Bonnie lost her autonomy, her memories, and ultimately her life.  (She hung around in the next season as a ghost and eventually returned to the world of the living, but that wasn’t enough to sustain my interest in the show, even though her temporary death wasn't the only reason why I stopped watching, and I’ve heard that she had a lot more to do in later seasons.) 

I tried a few times to write fic that explored how Shane’s manipulation affected Bonnie emotionally, or followed an alternate timeline in which she figured out earlier that he was bad news.  I can’t say that all of my ideas were good, but I recognize that I never put in enough effort to turn any of them into a complete story, which was due to a failure of imagination or confidence on my part.  

Although I haven’t plugged into TVD fandom in years, and am not familiar with all of its ongoing trends, I recently looked on AO3 for stories in which Bonnie retaliated against Shane somehow, but I couldn't find much (when it crumbles, a fic from 2013, was one exception).   If any of the ideas that I scribbled in my notebook a decade ago appeal to readers of this post, I encourage you to run with them.  And if we** think that characters of color deserve more attention in fandom, we can try writing about them ourselves (look for a prompt list or fanwork exchange if you’re not sure where to start!), but we can also reblog fanart and rec lists here on Tumblr, and can recommend or – depending upon where you’re reading them – bookmark stories that we enjoy.

*Here is one of many, many blog posts (and academic articles, and video essays) that discusses race in TVD.

**I say "we" because I am just as capable of doing this as anybody else, and not always as attentive to opportunities as I could be.

[writerfarzanatutul]

Islamic Fiction -Part 1

Hamdan and Rasel had grown close over time. What had started as casual visits to retrieve a lost ball had turned into a daily routine. At first, Rasel came just to play, but soon, Hamdan began helping him with his studies—especially English and Math. Whenever Rasel struggled with a concept, he would bring his books to Hamdan, knowing he would patiently explain.

That evening was no different. Rasel sat cross-legged on the floor, his math book open in front of him, his small fingers tracing the problem he was working on. Hamdan, sitting nearby, scrolled through his phone absentmindedly, checking messages and forwarding a few. But soon, his attention drifted to the little diary Rasel had beside him. Its cover was worn, the pages slightly curled at the edges, filled with neat and carefully written words.

Curious, Hamdan leaned forward and picked it up, flipping through the pages. As his eyes scanned the delicate handwriting, he stilled.

When darkness prevails

And light is extinguished from everything,

Remember Allah.

For He is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

His guidance is the radiance that pierces through despair,

A beacon that never fades.

"Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth.

The example of His light is like a niche within which is a lamp,

the lamp enclosed in glass—

the glass as if it were a brilliant star,

lit from a blessed olive tree,

neither of the east nor of the west,

whose oil would almost glow even if untouched by fire.

Light upon light!

Allah guides to His light whom He wills,

and Allah presents examples for the people,

and Allah is Knowing of all things."

(Surah An-Nur, 24:35)

So when shadows surround you,

And hope seems distant,

Turn towards Him—

For He alone can illuminate the path ahead.

Hamdan had never been the type to read poetry. But this—this wasn't just poetry. It was devotion inked onto paper. It was the kind of love he had never seen before—not for a person, but for God. And for the first time in his life, he wondered what it would feel like to love Allah that way..

"Who wrote this?" Hamdan asked, his voice quieter than before.

Rasel glanced up briefly before returning to his math problem. "Sana Appi," he replied casually. "She writes a lot. Always scribbling something in her notebooks when she teaches me. She doesn't even realize how much she writes sometimes." He chuckled. "She also teaches me religion. So, while teaching me, she writes such stuff."

Hamdan traced the ink on the page, the beauty of the poetry drawing him in. Who was this girl?

"She writes really well," he murmured, almost to himself.

Rasel beamed. "Of course! Sana Appi is amazing! She teaches me literature, you know. She makes everything sound so interesting."

Hamdan nodded absentmindedly, flipping another page. Before returning the diary, he quickly took a photo of one of the poems. It wasn't something he usually did, but the words had struck him in a way he couldn't explain.

And so, an odd habit began.

Each time Rasel visited, Hamdan would wait for a glimpse of her writing. Whether it was the corner of a notebook, a stray page, or scribbled thoughts in the margins of study notes—he sought them out. He read them with a strange curiosity, an unspoken need to understand the mind behind those words. Her words would stir something inside him.

Her poetry, her words—they were not mere lines on a page. Showing him that good things still existed even when everything seemed dark. Her writing was honest and true like she was sharing her deepest feelings without holding back. He'd never read anything like it before. Her words didn't just tell a story. It made him question things he had never thought about before. Was faith really just about rituals? Was there something deeper to it? Could someone truly love Allah this much?

Then, one afternoon, as he was leaving the house, something caught his eye.

Near the entrance, an old scrap dealer was sorting through piles of discarded books. An older woman—one of the housemaids, perhaps—was handing him a stack of old papers, presumably to be sold off as waste.

Hamdan wasn't paying much attention until he noticed something peculiar. The old man flipped through one of the books absentmindedly, checking if the pages were blank or scribbled on.

And that's when Hamdan saw her handwriting.

His heart skipped a beat. He took a step closer, watching as the man carelessly flipped through the pages of a diary filled with poetry, thoughts, and emotions—all written in the same script he had come to recognize.

His breath caught in his throat.

"Excuse me, " Hamdan interrupted his voice sharper than he intended.

The scrap dealer looked up. "Yes?"

"Can I see that diary?" Hamdan pointed at it.

The man shrugged and handed it over. Hamdan flipped through the pages, recognizing poem after poem—her words.

His grip tightened on the book.

"This is being sold?" he asked, forcing his voice to remain neutral.

The scrap dealer nodded. "Yes, all these books and papers are being discarded. The madam of the house gave them away."

Hamdan felt an odd sense of protectiveness surge through him. How could she throw this away? Did she not care about her own words?

"How much do you want for it?" he asked, already reaching for his wallet.

The man gave him an odd look. "Young man, these are just old papers. You don't need to waste your money—"

"Just tell me how much. Wait..." He pulled out a crisp note of one thousand taka and handed it over. The man's eyes widened in shock—who in their right mind paid so much for an old, discarded diary? But he wasn't about to argue with his good fortune. With a shrug, he handed over the book, tucking the money into his pocket.

Hamdan walked away, gripping the diary as though it were something fragile, something precious.

"Why would she sell it away?" Hamdan muttered, shaking his head. A strange sense of happiness washed over him.

----

Clich here to read the entire story .

[taintedtowers]

fuckig dogy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[meanypunches]

I take a few notes on this in a notebook. It makes you think about so many historical records this guy had to sift through, blood-spattered archives, diaries, Stalin’s doodles alongside scribbled notes in blue pencil about gold production. (pp. 64-65) Perhaps you know how I think about gold aligns with the theory of Alan Dundes that in folklore ‘gold’ or ‘treasure’ is a stand-in for excrement. At the Bolshevik parties before the Terror, there is plenty of folklore to go around. They sing old folk songs, bawdy Russian rhymes, and dance all those traditional Russian folk dances. I admit my imagination is filled with cinematic frictions, like at the end of Patton when he meets the Russians and they dance for the illustrious American general. Needless to say I love this book about Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It is told like a horror novel with lots of foreshadowing of the Terror— “the Great Stalin . . . waiting for two hours . . . Nonetheless they would pay for their tardiness.” (p. 177) The Bolsheviks were a gang of bohemian murderers, like Charles Manson’s Family—see pp. 168-71, discussing the orgies and literary salons. The “bloody dwarf . . . Yezhov . . . cavorted in orgies with prostitutes, but was also an enthusiastic bisexual, having enjoyed avid encounters with his fellow tailoring apprentices, soldiers at the front and even high Bolsheviks like Filipp Goloshchekin, who had arranged the murder of the Romanovs.” (pp. 168-69) This also smacks of the Weather Underground and the other Western 1960s radicals like Baader-Meinhof who mixed radical sex with their radical politics. “Cutting roses, pursuing adulterous romances, singing and dancing the gopak, one gets an idea of the incestuous world of the Bolsheviks on holiday. But Yezhov’s new mistress was no Old Bolshevik but the Soviet version of a flapper . . . [an] avid literary groupie . . . as promiscuous as her new husband.“ (p. 170) In Berlin “she met her first literary star, Isaac Babel, whom she seduced with the line of so many flirtatious groupies meeting their heroes: ‘You don’t know me but I know you well.’ These words later assumed a dreadful significance.” (pp. 170-71) Not to spoil it but Babel later ends up shot in the head, his ashes tucked away in a common grave. (pp. 323-24) “Back in Moscow” this ‘literary groupie�� who would doom Babel “met ‘Kolya’ Yezhov. Yevgenia yearned to hold a literary salon: henceforth Babel and the jazz star Leonid Utsesov were often chez Yezhov.” (p. 171) Towering over this wild bohemian revelry was the strangely puritanical Stalin, who knew just how to handle a government run by such decadent nobility. “The people need a Tsar,” said Stalin. (p. 177) He identified himself to align with Ivan the Terrible against his boyars (the Russian nobility). This coincides also with “the old Russian tradition of apparent obedience while avoiding actual execution of orders.” (p. 179) Also worth mentioning in this context the old Russian folklore saying, “it’s the boyars, not the tsar.” Like the ‘kulaks’ and peasants before them, these ‘boyars’ would also eventually be crushed by the bureaucracy and bullets of their terroristic tsar. Stalin approached the first of the show trials with “his hyperbolic talent as a hack playwright.” (p. 188) Like all the Bolsheviks, Stalin was something of a studious intellectual, an ‘autodidact’. This surprised me. I always thought of him as mostly a thug but apparently he would hang out with and even act as editor for famous Soviet writers. This goes along with the Bolshevik ‘bohemian’ vibe I’ve mentioned though Stalin himself, aside from his drunkenness, was always at least superficially puritanical in his attitudes. Apparently Stalin was also a fan of the cinema, particularly western cowboy movies! Again, this surprised me. I never thought about Stalin in context of the arts but in the context of creating the ‘new man’ of Communism and the associated artistic movements and propaganda, I suppose this makes sense. Stalin had to have his bloody fingers in every social subsystem.

Stalin’s sadism is also on full display. He laughs at his henchman’s blasphemous re-enactments of the prayers of the condemned. His lackey Beria poisons his rivals. More laughter and jokes embroider the ‘witch hunt”. (p. 215) “Tukhachevsky’s confession, which survives in the archives, is dappled with a brown spray that was found to be blood spattered by a body in motion.” (p. 223) “They did not even specify names but simply assigned quotas of deaths by the thousands . . . to be sentenced by troikas, three-man tribunals . . . .” (p. 228) “This ‘social system based on bloodletting’ justified murder now with prospect of happiness later.” (p. 230) “Stalin himself specialized in reassuring his victims and then arresting them.” (p. 234) Yet the festivities continued. “For the children of the leaders who were not arrested, there had never been a time of greater joy and energy. The jazz craze was still sweeping the country . . . the killers danced to the new sounds . . .” (p. 256)

Bolshevism, like all forms of totalitarianism, impacted across all subsystems of society it seems, a collapse of differentiation, as totalitarianism, a religious movement even, which dovetails nicely with Stalin’s puritanical outlook. “The Bolsheviks lived in a world of sin and repentance.” (p. 340) Apparently too the ‘Molotov cocktail’ was named after the Russian leader but due to a tactic first employed by the Finns against the Russians which worked well enough but still the Finns had to sue for peace. (p. 328, 332) The Poles fared worse perhaps. Stalin’s executioner Blokhin single-handedly shot 7,000 of the imprisoned Polish officers in only 28 days (250 a night), using a “German Walther pistol to prevent future exposure.” (p. 334) Perhaps though as God works in mysterious ways, Stalin was cast perfectly as Hitler’s nemesis. Yes, he was a butcher, but reading of his defense of Moscow in 1941, he appears the man for the job. When a commissar called about retreating, “. . . do your comrades have spades?” asked Stalin . . . then tell them to “dig their own graves. We won’t leave Moscow.” (p. 402) Perhaps like General Patton ironically enough, the ‘Red Tsar’ was built only for warfare. “The hopes and freedoms of the war made no difference to [Stalin’s] belief that the problems of the USSR were best solved by the elimination of individuals.” (p. 514) Intriguing to me the way this novel also spans the historical time period of the 20th century critical to the creation of the State of Israel. Stalin’s regime was one of the first to recognize the new state, but he also embraced anti-Semitism as a means of holding power. “Stalin’s anti-Semitism remained a mixture of old-fashioned prejudice, suspicion of a people without a land, and distrust, since his enemies were often Jewish. . . . The supremacy of America with its powerful Jewish community made his own Jews, with their U.S. connections restored during the war, appear a disloyal Fifth Column.” (p. 547) How ironic in America Jews were often left-wing and some Communist Party members such as the Rosenbergs went on to infamy as Soviet agents, but this is not a topic of this book. Nonetheless worth citing in this context that “Stalin . . . was always suspicious because the Jews lacked a homeland which made them ‘mystical, intangible, otherworldly.’” (p. 304) So much of society it seems is grounded in geography. I must look up “Emelian Pugachev . . . the Cossack pretender claiming to be the dead Emperor Peter III who led a massive peasant rebellion against Catherine the Great in 1773-74.” (p. 604) The “Stalin gift pack” for his birthday celebrations was a nice touch. (p. 605) Later, during ‘the doctor’s plot’ Stalin’s torturers cleverly “designed a special torture chamber . . . furnished like a dissection room and operating theatre . . . . Long before Laurence Olivier played the Nazi dentist in Marathon Man, Stalin was torturing his own doctors in a ghastly surgical parody.” (p. 622) Ironically when Stalin had his near fatal stroke, his bodyguards and ‘magnates’ were too afraid to summon any doctors until hours later. They were afraid to touch the incapacitated dictator. Their hands trembled. “Perhaps 20 million had been killed; 28 million deported, of whom 18 million had slaved in the Gulags. Yet, after so much slaughter, they were still believers.” (p. 643)

After Stalin’s death, Beria was arrested and shot “directly” in the forehead while hanging from a hook with a “towel stuffed in his mouth” to silence his cries for mercy. (p. 652) Other secret policemen also were executed. “Many of Stalin’s crimes were blamed on them.” One released prisoner even exclaimed “So Stalin’s finally saved us after all!”, only to be admonished “you fool, Stalin’s dead!” Some lost their minds in the camps “and never recovered.” (p. 652) Stalin’s body was eventually “buried in the Kremlin wall.” (Id.) The postscript is quite good, as it seems the politics of this murderous tyrant continue to haunt our world. One wonders if something in the Russian soul prevents a liberal democratic form of government from ever taking root, or if the treacherous geography of the former Soviet empire demands a tsar of one form or another.

[yourghastlycloseness]

i’ve just skimmed—not read—esther yi’s y/n

i was rly into kpop at one point and was writing all these unhinged fanfics abt kpop idols and confessional borderline psychotic unsent letters to idols lmao so the premise of this book intrigued the fuck out of me

i can’t say i love y/n. at times, sometimes, the writing feels like an artistic choice; at other times, it feels like the work of someone who swallowed “the big book of big words” overnight and just spent a week hanging out with cloistered academics and grad students. yi’s writing reminds me of this girl’s blog i used to read: she was pretty, a soci major who was always blogging abt getting good grades at school in stilted language in her posts ie. kind of like this “…everyday capitulations that chipped away at a monument of seriousness that was a soul…” (from y/n)

i respect the ambition yi had for this novel. there are descriptions of love that i’ve probably scribbled somewhere in my most private diary entries. the all-consuming, down on your knees nature of it, directed not even at a person, but the force of their being—a concept of them

i’ve felt that sort of love for idols and artists i respect and real people in my life whom i never get to know. it’s devotional. inquiring but not demanding

i’ll take my time with this book if i can. i need a restart with it. i picked it up thinking it was either a YA novel or chick lit, then wanted to put it down bcos i cldnt stand the writing—wrote it off as pretentious, but it was weird enough that i couldn’t look away, and i just had to see where it was going. turns out it’s actually everything i love and care about: surrealism, philosophical provocations about idol-fan relationships and comparisons of that to religion

the way the narrator loves moon is the way one loves god

^ from an interview with yi

i love that. the idea of writing being almost like the only way of interacting with the objects of her desire

writing is definitely part wish fulfilment. it’s smth i’ve noticed with my classmates and is a trap i’m very careful not to walk into

[guide-to-acnh]

If finding a lost item on your island

These are the phrases to look for when narrowing down whom each lost item belongs to.

Cranky

* Book: There are lots of pictures of potted trees inside. It looks like an introductory guide to bonsai trees.

* Notebook: An old planner that’s seen plenty of wear and tear. The last page has tally marks… They are up to 12 now.

* Bag 1: A sturdy, old-fashioned sort of bag. It gets full points for utility and zero points for style.

* Bag 2: This classic pouch was built with functionality in mind, nothing more. It’s the work of a craftsman. Maybe.

Jock

* Book: This book is hard to read. The pages are warped, like they’ve gotten wet before. I think it’s an exercise book.

* Notebook: Somebody scribbled something on the cover in pencil. Looks like it reads, “xtreme xercises”?

* Bag 1: A very simple bag … that’s a tad open. I spot some gym clothes, I think.

* Bag 2: A dusty, well-used bag. It vaguely smells like minty sports creams that athletes use.

Lazy

* Book: A well-used, well-loved picture book. There are little broken bits of candy between the pages…

* Notebook: This looks like someone’s diary. Is this a stain from drool? Maybe they fell asleep on it while writing.

* Bag 1: This pouch is stuffed with something that smells delicious and is probably full of sugar.

* Bag 2: This pouch looks like it’s starting to tear in places. It’s a little sticky too. Did someone spill juice on it?

Smug

* Book: It’s a novel. The author was obviously trying to be fancy by using lots of foreign words. I don’t get it.

* Notebook: The cover of the book says “Mi diario secreto.” I get the feeling I shouldn’t look inside.

* Bag 1: It’s a stylish bag. The complex design says more about style than it does about function.

* Bag 2: A stylish bag that looks like it could be popular. Whether it actually is popular might depend on the owner…

Normal

* Book: This novel looks really difficult. It’s the kind of book only a voracious reader would think to pick up.

* Notebook: It reads “My Journal” in tiny letters on the cover. It’s hard not to, but I probably shouldn’t peek inside.

* Bag 1: An adorable handcrafted bag with something hard and rectangular inside. Maybe it’s a book?

* Bag 2: A bag with a simple design. I can tell it was painstakingly made by hand.

Peppy

* Book: It’s a comic. There’s a girl with big, sparkling eyes on the cover. She’s probably the hero.

* Notebook: It’s an autograph book, but it’s covered with all kinds of sparkly stickers. It’s making my eyes hurt.

* Bag 1: A bag made from a soft printed fabric featuring cartoon characters. It’s all lumpy from being packed too full.

* Bag 2: A snappy bag covered with buttons and pins of different pop stars.

Sisterly

* Book: A book with pressed flowers inside. Oh! It still has the price sticker on it!

* Notebook: This looks like somebody’s notebook. The handwriting is mostly illegible, but I can make out the word “Band.”

* Bag 1: A stylish bag adorned with gold metal spikes. It’s got attitude!

* Bag 2: The front of the bag has embroidered lettering in gold thread. The words are … “Bikers Are More Fun.”

Snooty

* Book: It’s one of those love stories that are so popular nowadays. It has a subtle aroma too. Or is that my imagination?

* Notebook: I think it’s a personal planner. Every line is filled in with precise, perfect handwriting. Err … I should close this.

* Bag 1: Maybe this is somebody’s makeup bag? It smells like lovely perfume.

* Bag 2: A pretty bag that’s been well-loved. It looks like it’s been customized a number of times.

(For the most part, you can figure out who each lost item belongs to simply by investigating. However, there are one or two phrases that are absolutely unhelpful. The main phrase that can really grind your gears is “This is a lost item.” It doesn’t help at all, and you’ll have to know your villagers well in order to figure out who it belongs to.)

(Returning a lost item to the correct owner without showing it to another villager will get you a better overall reward. However, returning the item without the villager asking you to will give you additional friendship points)

[taintedtowers]

a tournament that has ManlyBadassHero as a contestant had a tie? That's completely unheard of. anyways heres ManlyBadassCrow and DAMN!!!!tdm

Match 7 Round 1!

DAMN!!!!!!! Crow vs DanTDM & ManlyBadassHero

[mae-gi-writes]

Once Again (PT.I) | Iwaizumi Hajime (Haikyu!)

ONCE AGAIN : PART ONE 

Summary:  Iwaizumi’s broken marriage results in his five-year-old son trying to match him up with his primary school teacher, whom he thinks will make a wonderful replacement for a mother. 

Genre: fluff, slight angst, f!reader x dad! Iwaizumi 

A/N: There will be 2 or 3 parts of this oneshot! Depending on how long I feel like writing. Thanks for checking it out and stopping by! Let’s dive into some Iwa moments :,)

NEXT PART --> 

---

“What’s your return policy on rings?” 

The saleswoman smiles sympathetically behind the counter. That stupid sympathetic smile he’s been getting for weeks on end now. And it never stops; with his co-workers, with his family, his friends...

Iwaizumi’s sick of it. He’s sick of having to prove that he’s doing just fine, thank you very much. When in truth, his heart is constantly being torn apart and stomped upon as is people have nothing better to do than torture him in their free time. 

“I’m sorry, but these rings have been brought more than three years ago, and our warrant only lasts for three years,” the saleswoman keeps on talking but it doesn’t matter, for Iwaizumi can already feel the anger slowly creep up through the back of his neck, can already feel the vibrating emotions clogging up his sense of judgement. 

His fists clench at his sides upon impulse, the physical pain of his nails driving into his palms enough to remind him to stay cordial. It’s not the woman’s fault, the better part of him chants, it’s not her fault at all. 

“Fine,” he manages to grovel out, barely, “thanks anyway.” 

He all but storms out of the shop while shoving the rectangular box back in his pant pocket, and though it’s been more than four months since his ugly divorce with the woman he’d hoped to share the rest of his life with, the weight of their promise hangs heavy and hot upon his thigh. 

The thing is, Iwaizumi is mad. He is seething. If one were to give him a bat, he’d probably destroy the entire town by himself. Not because she was the one that cheated, not because she was the one going behind his back numerous times a week to seek out her lover when he’d been basically driven mad between Hoisuke’s cries and the stress of call meetings scheduled back to back. 

No, he’s angry. Because how the fuck could she do this to Hoisuke? How can she break the child’s heart like that, so ruthlessly, without even thinking twice about the consequences? 

Because if there is a victim in all this, then it’s definitely Hoisuke. And not only that, Hoisuke understands that his mother has been acting strange, that she doesn’t return at regular times and that her hugs now smell of cigarette smoke with a bittertaste of alcohol. 

Iwaizumi is so caught up in anger that he almost blunders past his battered Hyundai, red and chipping away at the corners. Still, this car holds so many memories, the good and the bad ones. 

“Can’t you get a newer car? I thought your company could sponsor you,” the ghost of his wife’s voice echoes through his head, a blatant reminder of all the things she’d found wrong in his life.

“Why?” he’d tilted his head around to fix his gaze on her figure bending over the sink. The TV was playing in the background and he thanked the gods that the morning comics were taking up Hoisuke’s attention, enough to distract him from his parents’ quibbles. 

“It’s just--so old and tacky.” 

“It still works well, doesn’t it? Why change it now?” 

She’d paused, hesitated slightly before blundering on, “It’s embarrassing. My colleagues keep asking if we're poor or something."

"Who cares what your colleagues think?"

Fuck her, Iwaizumi mentally swears as he turns on the ignition. Fuck her and all her needs for a better life. As if the life they had wasn't more than enough. Pulling out into the street to join the incoming traffic, he blinks away the sudden tears accumulating at the corner of his eyes and swears once more, this time aloud, glad that Hoisuke isn't in his presence when he gets in such a foul mood.

Iwaixumi may be angry. He may be filled with pent-up rage from the memory still attached to the day he'd discovered a used condom in their bathroom trash. But that doesn't mean it hurts any less.

That doesn't mean he does not still cry into his pillow over it every night.

----

"Please don't forget to do your homework for tomorrow! We'll correct them before moving on to the next chapter," you call out to your students as excited chatter fills the air. Students rise from their seats, some calling you bye and waving as they all file out of the classroom and you can't help the small smile lingering over your lips even though your feet are killing you.

Outside, parents have already lined up to collect their kids, the chatter and bustle of people ebbing away down the corridor as you let out a soft sigh.

"Miss?"

You jolt, not realizing that one of your students stands by the table wringing his hands, "what's wrong Hoisuke? Dad's not here yet?"

He shakes his head, watery eyes blinking up at you as he raises his thumb to his lips. You stand quickly and motion him to come close until he's within reach before your hand smoothes over the back of his head, "it's okay. He's probably stuck in traffic. I'll wait with you."

It's not surprising that parents get tardy once in a while and you're all too accustomed to those slight change in plans. Thankfully, you manage to distract the young boy with some coloured crayons and a piece of paper while you dial for his father's number.

It keeps ringing. No one picks up.

You try once more, one more time after that. But still, nothing. It shifts to voicemail. You decide it's better than nothing, "hi Iwaizumi-san. This is Y/N, Hoisuke's teacher. I was just wondering what time you would be picking up Hoisuke? Please call me as soon as possible. Thank you."

You end the call only to spot Hoisuke's eyes on you, intent and impatient for you to explain, "it's okay," you tell him with a smile, "he'll be here soon. Don't worry. Do you want to keep colouring some more?"

Hoisuke nods, to which your smile widens. It's those special moments, where your shyest students express themselves, that your chest warms with sympathy and affection. You've been there, you know how it feels like not to be heard, and you appreciate every interaction they offer you.

Being a primary school teacher is tough, especially since it wasn't in your original plans. But the satisfaction of bringing up some of the world's future leaders cancelled out all the late nights correcting tests and scrambled weekends trying to finish off as many worksheets as you possibly could for the coming week. You can’t complain, not when you have a decent salary that keeps bread on the table and a roof over your head.

A tug on your sleeve brings you back to Hoisuke looking up at you, a scribbled drawing of what seems to be of him and his dad. You feel yourself chuckling at how he's drawn both their hair in brown spikes, erratically extravagant and yet so close to reality.

"That's really good, Hoisuke!" You beam down at him, "what do you and your dad do on weekends?"

He shrugs shyly, head averted to the side so that there's no need for eye contact. And in the shyest voice he can muster up, he says:

"Daddy brings me...to see Mama," Hoisuke's words are barely above a mumble, "they live in different houses. They can't live together anymore."

Uneasiness squeeses in your stomach, followed by sympathy for this soft-hearted boy. You had overheard some of your colleagues giggling about Hoisuke's dad being attractive and single -- a combo that teachers adore -- but that doesn't mean that the weight of his words don't lay heavy on your own conscience.

"Do you miss your Mama a lot?" You ask him softly. Unconsciously, your hand finds a way to smooth over his head.

The boy doesn't pull away. Instead, he nods, "sometimes. But it is better this way. Daddy smiles more now. And there's no one to shout and make noise."

"Are you happy, Hoisuke? With your dad?"

He nods and to your amazement grins, "daddy is funny. He tells me not to swear but when he burns the food he always swears. And then he says to shush and tells me to close my ears. He also makes me pancakes every Saturday morning before I go see Mama."

Right on cue, a figure bursts through the open classroom door and both your heads snap to see a drenched, older version of Hoisuke who looks like he just finished running a marathon.

"I'm--" he wheezes, causing you to stand in alarm and concern, "I'm sorry I'm--so late--"

"Daddy, you forgot me again!" Comes Hoisuke's statement as you ask Iwaizumi if he's okay. He shakes off your worry with a flick of his hand and a shake of his head, "I'm fine. Sorry-- there's a nasty rain outside--"

"It's okay," you reassure him as Hoisuke practically barrels into his father and almosy knocks him off his feet.

"Sorry Hoisuke," you watch Iwaizumi's hardened features soften ever so slightly as he ruffles his son's hair. Then, looking back up at you as you bring over Hoisuke's backpack, he says, "thank you. For looking after him."

"It's no problem, honestly. We had fun didn't we?" You grin down at your student and are delighted to find Hoisuke grinning back up at you, albeit shyly, "I put his homework in his diary. He'll need to complete it for tomorrow so that he doesn't fall behind in class."

His father nods, "alright. Thanks."

"Daddy, your hair looks atrocious," Hoisuke says, tugging onto his shirt.

"Atrocious huh?" Iwazumi's eyebrow rise, "someone was listening in their English class today."

"Atrocious means that it looks bad. Daddy, your hair looks bad."

"Thanks buddy, I knew that. Now say bye to Miss Y/N."

"Bye bye, miss Y/N," Hoisuke says, wriggling his short arm through the air as you wave back with a giggle. His father nods at you in silent thanks, makes a move to walk out of the class, only to swivel back to you just as you're collecting your bag.

"Uhm," he clears his throat, causing you to jump slightly, "yes?" You blink back at him and try hard not to stare at the way his white shirt clings to his toned chest, translucent from the rain.

"Do you need a ride?"

-----

You've known Iwaizumi since high school. Having graduated just two years later than he did, his reputation had preceded him throughout the school halls even though you'd never actually had any face to face interaction with the said man. Iwaizumi doesn't know this of course and you are adamant about keeping it a secret. But that plan seems to be unraveling before your very eyes the moment your small talk turns towards your academic history.

"You're from Aoba Johsai?" His surprised glance doesn't escape your notice, especially since that's the most reaction you've gotten out of him.

"Yeah," your eyes stay glued to the row of cars crawling through the motorway, "I remember you went there too, right?"

"How'd you know?"

"You were Aoba's ace volleyball player. Everyone knew who you were."

His silence answers you and for a moment, you fear that you might have offended him. Not that it's something to be offended about.

Before you try to scratch your brain for some kind of response -- any response -- Hoisuke pipes up from the back seat, "Daddy was famous back when he was in high school. He hit the ball like kapow! And jumped so high he can touch the sky."

"Oh? Have you seen him on camera?" You turn slightly, a small smile dangling off your lips at how adorably amazed and excited Hoisuke seems to be.

"Yeah! His spikes are so awesome! It goes pow! And it zooms! Like a cannon ball!"

You burst out laughing, "yes, your father was amazing whenever he was on the court. Every girl in our class had a crush on him."

"What's a crush?"

"Hmm, you know when you really like someone. You like like them, you want to be together with them. Like, girlfriend and boyfriend."

"Oh," Hoisuke draws out, "did you really like daddy too?"

"Yeah I did."

"What?" Iwaizumi almost chokes on his own spit at the same time traffic eases and you're glad for the distraction, for you're certain there's a scattering of colour upon your cheeks.

"Do you really like him now?" Hoisuke persists, undoubtly untouched by the embarrassment taking over his father's features and you swear that more than ever, you want to laugh at how flustered Iwaizumi looks.

You decide to play nice though and instead turn to wink at your student, "that's a secret for me to keep."

You don't have to look twice to know that the man beside you is bursting into hot flames.

-----

"Did you really like Mama before you started living separately?"

Iwaizumi swears that he's never felt so uncomfortable in his life. Not when he's had to state that he was divorced, not when he had to sign divorce papers half drunk off his ass. Not even when he'd raged after his said ex-wife after finding a tie that wasn't his own in his laundry pile.

Now is probably a good definition of what uncomfortable means.

"You're not gonna let me off the hook are you?" He steals a glance at Hoisuke from over his shoulder while stirring the vegetable curry, "yes, I really liked your mother."

"Did she?"

The word 'yes' almost slips past his mouth. Except, he isn't sure whether that's the truth and decides to shoot back with, "have you finished your homework, Hoisuke? You know it's due tomorrow. Miss Y/N said so."

"Do you really like miss Y/N?"

"What?" Iwaizumi frowns, "well--no. Not like that."

"Why?" His son whines, "I really really like Miss Y/N. She's nice to me and she never shouts. And she bakes good cookies!"

"How'd you know that?" Iwaizumi leans over to taste a bit of the sauce. Not bad, he thinks and mentally pats himself on the back. A few weeks ago, he would've probably burnt the entire house down.

"Because she bakes them every month. Every time we finish a test."

"That's nice of her."

"Yes," there's a pause as the man fishes out a bowl in which to serve the curry, "daddy, what do you do when you really like someone? Do you marry them like you and Mama did?"

"Uh--yeah. Sure."

"Then does that mean I need to marry Miss Y/N if I really like her?"

"Yup."

"Daddy!"

Iwaizumi bursts out laughing. Turning off the stovetop and bringing the bowl over to the dining table, he reaches out to ruffle his son's hair with a grin, "you're the one who has a crush on miss Y/N."

"She's too old for me Daddy," grumbles Hoisuke while scooping out two rice bowls as the pair sit down for dinner, "but she'll be good for you."

"Not that simple, buddy," Iwaizumi says as he dumps two spoonfuls of curry into his son's bowl, before doing the same with his own, "there's a difference between like and love."

A frown falls over his son's face, so like his own that Iwaizumi can't help but chuckle, "what is the difference?"

"Well, when you really like someone, you might want to get to know them better. Or play with them andd shit--stuff like that. When you love someone, it's..." he hesitates, "it's different."

"Why?"

There goes that innocent question that punctures his chesy a little too deeply. The brown-haired man steadies his gaze upon the calendar fixed on the wall opposite him as he answers with:

"When you love someone, you want to live with them. You want to start a family with them. Their happiness," his brown orbs switch back to his son's focused attention, "their happiness is all that matters."

Maybe it's the fact that he's not used to speaking so truthfully about such things. Maybe it's just Hoisuke who suddenly realizes the layers hidden beneath his father's poker-faced exterior. But for a moment, neither of them speak, as if bewitched by a silencing spell if broken by the scraping of cutlery against porcelain.

"Did you love mama?"

Hoisuke's voice is small, fragile. So fragile that Iwaizumi pauses just as his spoon reaches his mouth, glancing over at his boy. His beautiful boy.

"Yeah."

Another short pause. "Did she love me?"

"Of course she did," Iwaizumi's face softens. To be honest, Hoisuke hadn't showed any kind of restraint during the entire divorce procedure, had merely accepted things as they had unfolded before his very eyes. But sometimes, Iwaizumi fears his son might be keeping more from him than he lets on.

He ressembles his mother a lot in that sense.

"Then," wet coffee-coloured eyes blink up at him, lips trembling with a hoarse whisper, "why'd she leave?"

Before his father can say anything, the young boy bursts into tears.

Iwaizumi rushes over, clasping Hoisuke in his embrace as the child buries his face into his neck and cries and cries and cries. His little heart beats like wild horses and with every sob echoing through hid body, Iwaizumi feels his own heart break over and over again. One of his hands rub comforting circles of Hoisuke's back, while the other smoothes over the back of his head as he murmurs soft nothings in hopes that it will calm down the young child.

"I want--" Hoisuke's voice is thick with tears, "I want Mama--"

"Shh, hey it's okay," Iwaizumi murmurs out, "s'alright kiddo. I got you."

Hoisuke falls asleep eventually, the soft sniffles dying out into even breaths as he slumps against his father’s shoulder, probably tired out from his earlier emotions. Iwaizumi takes this as his chance to tuck the boy into bed, glad that he’d listened to the small subconscious in his head telling him that Hoisuke would be falling asleep sooner rather than latter. 

As he smoothes over his son’s hair, a part of him wonders how much Hoisuke is still silently hurting from his mother’s departure. He can’t imagine it; suddenly changing lives like you’ve merely changed your bed sheets and Iwaizumi had been so caught up in his own heartbreak, in his own bout of silent rage, that he’d forgotten that along the way, Hoisuke was also a victim to their endless fighting, the cold war that had broken his family apart. 

He wishes he can take the pain away, ease it somehow. But it’s not that simple. The truth is, no one can actually predict how a heart gets broken, nor when it does. The only evidence are the repurcussions. And it’s only now that Iwaizumi gets to see it truly take its form. 

Leaning over to press a soft kiss to Hoisuke’s forehead, Iwaizumi murmurs his silent goodnight before walking out and gently closing the bedroom door behind him. 

He leans onto the hard wooden surface and rubs his eyes. It is only upon pulling them away that he takes notice of the family photograph hanging on the opposite wall, frozen smiles wrapped up in lies.

He really needs to take that down.

-----

[katyspersonal]

Hey, it’s nice to see you around again! I saw you say you are reading a fan fic soon? That’s cool that you are getting back into it. Do you have any recommendations? :0

Heeeeeey! ❤️ Here, I finally consider myself having read 'enough' Bloodborne fanfics, sooooo let me just share a few! Though I will be sincere; my selection of characters and themes to read is a bit narrow (for now), I do not read anything in the row x) Let's see!

This is a short and finished fanfic that explains the mechanics of Micolash's mirrors teleportation from alchemical and occult standpoint, as well as HOW and WHY he is 'the Host of the Nightmare' and... without any exagerration or flattery?

This is basically all I've ever wanted from fanfiction about Micolash. I was honestly impressed by alchemical and historical knowledge elaborated and how precisely it is explained how things WORK. Fictional universe giving very exact formulas, mechanics and rules of worldbuilding always felt like absolutely next-level thing for me, and something I think Bloodborne fandom REALLY needs. ESPECIALLY regarding the dark academia horror related characters like Micolash. Writing level is also very good.

ALSO, this particular fanfic made me realise something about School of Mensis that BLEW my mind, so I will bring up a bit from it in another post, stay tuned in

(Not to mention that I am absolutely in love with this portrayal of 'early' Micolash, only just having set a foot on his path to insanity, being very stubborn and determined yet clearly having no realistic esteem of how HARD this way will be. Almost childish naivety of a boy that fell in love with inhuman knowledge...)

Now finished works end. x) This fanfic I actually got recommended several times as one of like, two people that love Edgar. I am already enjoying it VERY much, it was definitely worth the hype from my friends I'll say.

It is written in the style of letters and diary notes mostly by Edgar, though sometimes scribbles of other characters are found and... Well, in this case, I did not KNOW I needed this. I absolutely love reasonable and analytical approach of Edgar and how well old English is imitated. (I personally also find this fanfic very handy as a reference to how people in Bloodborne setting would talk, since I just can't imitate this style as someone for whom English is not even the first language... Thank you for teaching me 5000 old-fashioned synonyms. )

Honestly, I think this is the best format for describing Edgar's slow descent into insanity possible; we can see how he loses his objective and falls in love with Micolash through his eyes, it illustrates the progression much more effectively than third face writing would in my opinion. I would not even call it a ship fanfic not yet at least?, he falls in love not with a man but with a cult leader but that is... even better? I don't want to spoil at what point the fanfic is right now as I write this post, but it was SO awesome that I've been thinking about it all day. Without irony, I want Whatever This Is even more than normal "ship" now o_o'

This is also a work in progress, an ambitious project to tell the full story of discovery of the Old Blood and Pthumerian secrets, getting help of Cainhurst in investigations, all the researches, forming of the Healing Church and so on so on...

I am really impressed that Fantomette, as someone without prior experience with writing (and not speaking English as native language, like me) jumped to something so big. But honestly? I've had a lot of fun reading this story. It is just... so many characters, so many themes, and chapters are written absolutely correctly in how they lead events from point A to point B and how the mood changes. There is never too much emotion+information, and never not enough. I don't know how to explain it well as I am still a visual artist, not a writer, but it legit feels like watching a fun TV show! You get invested.

I will be blunt; skill, artistry, grammar (especially in foreign language), sometimes even consistency... they all are important but there is always time to develop them. The most, and most, and MOST important thing for the writing, without which NO skill matters is to be entertaining and engaging. And this fanfic did entertain me and did make me care about what was going on, so of course I can recommend it with clear conscience.

(Also, side note, I gave her many advices on how to improve this or that sentence and pointed out some wrongly used synonyms or typos... I was worried that I'd accidentally destroy her self-esteem, but she has been receiving constructive criticism very well and is willing to improve. Like.. I can just say this person has talent and will go very far.)

So yeah! Waiting for the latter two to get more chapters and be finished.. and also hoping for more stuff like the first one please!

I'd say I am very particular on the 'gives my blorbo a justice' fanfics, and those that either do not focus on a ship or make it weeeeeeeird. Each of the listed fanfics are an example of what I am after; exploration and exact explanation of the science and magic, study of a character and their progress as a person, and detalization of 50000 events and characters that formed Yharnam's story! If you got some more, let me know too!