#however alcohol use is! bad for me!!! especially as a coping mechanism!

[homeruined]

I want. to be so fucking drunk rn ngl

#weed is not quite scratching the itch rn. which is unfortunate. #however alcohol use is! bad for me!!! especially as a coping mechanism! #it would I suppose constitute a relapse. socially drinking once or twice a year doesn't count but #getting blackout drunk because I can't handle how awful I'm feeling is for sure a Problem as someone who is #and I hate hate hate admitting it. a recovering alcoholic. #this was going to go on jack's blog until I realized it's just me puppeting him

[samuelroukin]

might be a bit too personal of a question so feel free to ignore/delete but have you struggled w/ alcoholism? i think i remember you saying that you dont drink much anymore so i just wanted to ask for idk some kind of advice cuz i just cant manage to drop that shit. thanks in advance man

hi don't worry i don't mind talking about it, but i'll put it behind a cut for others bc this got kinda long and i don't want to trigger anyone

first off i wouldn't say i am or ever have been an alcoholic especially comparing myself to other people in my life but i've had periods where i was struggling with it, getting drunk most nights and even sometimes having a drink (or two) during the day if i had to do something i felt anxious about, it was def a crutch and i occasionally fall back into it but only for short times luckily. so have that in mind, my advice might not be that useful for you

so for me it was really mostly about realizing ok this is A Thing and i don't want to let it get too far, i was pairing it with some other really unhealthy habits and started noticing some side effects (other than money lmao)

so i kinda figured ok. you don't need to do this. every time you decide to buy a bottle of whatever that's the alcohol kinda whispering in ur ear like ohhh im so fun but in the long term it's only gonna make me feel like shit, both physically and mentally. so not having it in the house made it so i could go a couple days without it, and then cave again, feel like shit, repeat.

but by stretching that time before caving i could sit with it for better or worse like now what do i do? i feel bad but drinking is gonna make me feel a different kind of bad so that's not an option (today at least! there's always tomorrow for making worse choices, idk but having that in mind helped) and then i'd find ways to distract myself, something to do with your hands can be helpful but it depends on how much brain space you have. but it gets easier and easier, slowly but surely. it's cliche but at first it really is about having that bit of control to go even a day without. that shows you that you can do it, however short at first

and then in time i won't lie you'll have moments of missing it but it's like. i know the trade off and i know it's not worth it slipping into that again because in the end it doesn't help. it's a coping mechanism and you have to either replace it with something healthier or whatever, or deal with what's making you use it. for me personally it was (and is) depression and anxiety and just shit life syndrome which aren't easy to just fix but i know drinking is gonna make all of that worse and i know better ways to deal with my feelings (could be anything for you, some people like journaling or therapy and neither of those did shit for me so. but you gotta find something)

sorry this got kinda long and rambling, and i don't know how much help it really is. i never felt like i needed outside help so i don't have any clue how that works but i've heard from others that groups like aa (maybe not aa specifically cause i've heard some weird stuff about them) can be really good for more insight and accountability but idk on a personal level

#anon #asks

[ssahotstuff]

Home//Aaron Hotchner x Fem!Reader

Summary: Emily Prentiss convinces Aaron Hotchner to get a nanny, and she knows the perfect girl for the job. You.

word count: 5.5k

Warnings: SMUTTTT of all the types, minors DNI!! any minors that interact with my work with be blocked! my blog is 18+, violence, depictions of ab*se, terror, cursing, drug/alcohol content, death, crime

Let me start by saying I've debated for a week now on whether to share this with anyone. There are intimate details in this story that I put into my writing to use as a coping mechanism, so I ask that you be gentle with me. I have always been interested in writing, but this is the first thing I've shared with the world that I have taken seriously, so please be nice lmao

This story takes place in the Criminal Minds universe, but not to an exact. There are original characters along the way, and some tweaking to the storyline so I can share as few case details as possible. I don't want to ruin anything from the show, so I keep the cases really vague. I will also say it switches from the reader's POV to Aaron's occasionally, but I make sure you know before I switch! Anyway, here's part 1 <3

You were terrified.

And for good reason.

Aaron Hotchner was not the easiest person to win over, especially when it came to something as serious as keeping his son safe. After Jack's mother had been tragically murdered, his full intention was to keep Jack as safe as possible, and that meant finding someone to be with him full time. Jack had stayed with his Aunt Jessica for the first couple of months after he lost his mom, but Hotch was wanting to give Jack stability, and that meant sleeping in the same bed every night, routines, and someone that would always be around, even when Hotch was away with the BAU.

When Emily approached you about the job, you were hesitant, but not about being able to care for Jack. Children were a no-brainer for you. Sure, you didn't have any of your own, but that didn't replace the fact that you had spent the vast majority of your childhood caring for your mother's children in her absence. You knew if you were good at anything, it was taking care of people.

Aaron Hotchner made you... Nervous. While most of it was his demeanor, the majority of it was the undeniable instant attraction you had towards him. He was the definition of dark and mysterious, brooding and handsome. But you couldn't take back the excited "YES!" that escaped your lips a little too quickly about Aaron's interest in meeting with you, or the giddy smile that crept onto your face as you drove towards a most generic coffee shop near the BAU headquarters to meet with Hotch, this being the first time you'd ever been completely alone with him. You'd met him a handful of times at parties Emily hosted or invited you to tag along to, but never sat down and spoke with him face to face.

You weren't surprised to find him with his back to the wall, facing the entrance, a cup of coffee placed strategically on your side of the small table, while he quietly sipped his own. He hadn't spotted you yet, but you arrived a few minutes early, which gave you a spare second to admire the way he looked. He had one hand on his mug, and one stretched out on the table in front of him, statue still. His eyes were trained on his watch hand, no doubt to make sure you weren't going to make a bad first impression and be late.

"Right on time," he observed, watching you slide into your chair opposite of him, his eyes meeting yours as soon as you sat. His lips were pulled in a tight line across his face, making him nearly impossible to decipher. Emily had warned you of that, and you had silently been bracing for it ever since. You were a very emotional person; not in the sense that you cried constantly or anything like that. But you felt deeply, and that wasn't something you had ever been able to hide easily. Sure, you could keep your private life private, and you had plenty of secrets. However, when it came to your emotions, you held those on your sleeve, and you weren't afraid to share how you felt, or how someone else made you feel if the time was right.

"I wasn't sure you'd be here already, I actually got here ten minutes ago," you admit. It was true, but your paranoia about being late anywhere you went caused you to be embarrassingly early everywhere. You were working on it, but it allowed for plenty of time to get from point A to point B, and that's all that mattered to you. Hotch gave a small nod, motioning to the cup of coffee in front of you.

"I wasn't sure what you liked," he began, positioning himself to sit a little straighter as he spoke to you, "it's got cream and sugar."

"That's perfect, thank you," you replied, increasingly aware of Hotchner's eyes on you as you made sure the coffee was to your liking. You gave him a small thumbs-up, which earned an almost smirk out of him.

"Emily speaks very fondly of you. You two must be close," he observes, and while that's partly true, you refrain from telling him the reason why, for now anyway.

You nod your head, clutching your coffee to anchor you. Aaron's voice is deep, so deep that every time he speaks to you, you have to scold yourself, afraid you may say what's on your mind, and that would be messy.

"Yes, we are. I've known her for a long time. Since I was a young girl."

"You can't be older than what, 20? 21?"

You stared at him for a moment before you responded, confused by his general lack of knowledge about you.

"Wait, you didn't run a background check on me?"

He seemed taken aback, studying your eyes, perhaps for any sort of sign that you were joking.

"I didn't."

"That surprises me."

He laced his fingers together, leaning forward to place his elbows on the table. You start to worry he may be angry until he speaks again.

"Do you want me to be completely honest, Y/N?"

"Always. I prefer it, actually."

"I didn't think it was necessary to run a background check on you. Emily, along with most of my team, gave you a glowing recommendation. Granted, they've spent much more time with you than I have, but that's all about to change very quickly."

You try to focus on anything but that last sentence, but for obvious reasons, that's the one your brain grasps and holds tight to. You stay silent, knowing that anything that came out of your mouth in the next couple of minutes would be a mess of syllables.

"Jack is 5 now. He's at school until 2 pm, which you'd be responsible for getting him back and forth. Do you have any previous traffic violations?"

"Not even a speeding ticket."

"Good. I know you have a car, but I'd prefer you to drive one of mine. It's safe and reliable. Not that yours isn't, but I'd feel more comfortable if you transported him in one of my vehicles. As far as living arrangements go, Jessica made up the spare room for you before she left. I have no clue from one day to the next where I'm going to be, especially if I'm working a case, and it would be much simpler if you're already around when I need you. This is something that will require your undivided attention. Are you sure you can do it?"

"I am more than capable of doing it. I don't know if Emily mentioned it, but I'm writing a book. It's still in the works-"

"I'll have a desk in your room by the time you're ready to move in."

You blinked at him, unsure of what to say next. Usually, when you told someone you were writing a book, they scoffed at you, called you pretentious, asked what your 'real' job was.

You had a full-time job working at home with a call center, but when you mentioned being burnt out, that's when Emily had suggested being Jack's nanny. It seemed like the perfect opportunity. A lot of responsibility, but you were more than excited to spend time with the Hotchner men.

"Wait- no. No. I couldn't let you do that, I appreciate the offer, but it's okay."

"Do you already have a desk?"

"Well, no."

"Then, I insist. You can't write a book from bed. Emily said your roommate is taking over your lease next week?"

Nodding, you swallow the rest of your coffee, jittery from the caffeine. You don't even realize you're tapping your fingers to the table until a much larger palm flattens over yours, halting your movements. His hand lingers atop yours for a moment before he withdraws it, clearing his throat and reaching into the pocket of his suit jacket. He hands you a brand new keyring, with three keys on it already.

"One for home, one for the car, and, God forbid, one for my office, if something ever were to happen that compromises the safety of Jack or you. The office key is for absolute dire emergencies. Is that clear?"

"Yes sir. Emergencies only. When can I meet him?"

The nearly invisible smile that graced his face was gone as quickly as it came when he looked at the time. You'd only been with him a few minutes, but he didn't strike you as the kind of man who had a lot of time for chatting.

"Busy today?" He raised his eyebrows, standing up from the table and towering over you, waiting for your response.

"No, sir, I don't have any plans."

"Let's go then," he was already stalking towards the entrance, urging your much smaller legs to hurry in order to keep up.

You sat in the passenger's seat of Hotch's SUV, arm placed on no more than half of the armrest, trying very subtly to watch him from the corner of your eye without directly staring. He was distracting, and part of you was thankful that he was a workaholic. The more time you spent with him, the more it would complicate things. You were aware of that. But, that didn't stop the little voice in your head from fantasizing about Hotch, and as long as the thoughts stayed in your head, you didn't see a problem with it.

"You never told me how old you are," he said finally, eyes never leaving the road.

"26."

"College?"

"I have a degree, yes."

"Seeing anyone?"

This one piqued your interest in a number of ways. You knew he was asking because you'd be caring for his son. But his tone, which sounded much more curious than when he asked his previous questions, had changed slightly. You also noticed the tick of his jaw at the realization he'd been a little too interested to hear your answer.

"No, and I haven't ever really dated, so no exes either."

"Tell me why."

It wasn't a question, you realized. As he pulled into the school pick-up line, you noted the time, and how he was also ten minutes early. There were easily twenty cars in line ahead of you, which made him shut off the engine, crack his window, and direct his attention towards you.

"I know what I want, and I haven't found it yet."

"Fair enough."

"I don't see the point in wasting my time with a relationship if it isn't going to be with someone I can see myself with in the future. I'm not saying I've never been on a date, I have. I just haven't ever settled down with anyone. I was focused on school, and now my book, and believe it or not, the only man who hasn't had anything negative to say about my novel is, well... you. And Mr. Rossi, of course."

His expression remained set the entire time you spoke, eyes boring a hole into your side profile as you stared ahead at the line of cars. You took his silence as a reason to continue and hoped you didn't regret it.

"I didn't have a very good example for a stable relationship growing up, and I'm sure there will be a time we have a conversation about that, however, the biggest reason is I'm afraid I'll ruin the life of whoever I decide to be with, and I'll wind up alone anyway. So, if not dating saves me or someone else from my jaded concept of love, then I suppose that's all I can hope for."

It was clear by his face he didn't know how to respond, and thankfully he didn't have to, because the line of cars was moving quickly, and within seconds, we were pulling up to the curb and Jack was jumping in, excited to tell his dad about his day at school.

Aaron's entire mood changed when Jack joined the two of you, quickly introducing you as his new Nanny, and explaining to him that we'd spend most of our time together.

"So, Y/N is going to live in the extra room?" Jack asked excitedly from the backseat, causing a flutter of emotions to stir in your stomach.

"Yes, and she will always be around, even when I'm not. That way you don't have to go stay with Aunt Jess every time I leave town. You'll get to spend every night in your bed, and when I'm finished working, you'll already be here waiting on me." Aaron explained, his voice much softer now, and it was heavenly to hear.

"Can we go do fun stuff?" Jack questioned, and you turned your head to look at him.

"What are your favorite fun things? Top three?" You asked, and he pondered for a moment before answering.

"Definitely eating, that's one of my favorites!" He spouted, earning a chuckle from both you and Aaron.

"Perfect, that's one of my favorites too. What's your favorite food?"

"Pizza. Dad's is chicken. Can you make those?"

You nodded, eyeing Hotch curiously as you did so. He had barely said a word to you since you'd told him about your dating history, but you didn't blame him. The more you replayed the words in your head, the more you felt like a walking red flag.

"I love to cook. Maybe if it's okay with your dad, we can cook together sometimes."

Jack directed his attention to Aaron's rearview mirror, watching his Dad's face intently. He had similar features to Aaron, but you'd seen photos of Haley, and Jack definitely looked like her.

"I wouldn't mind, as long as you're careful to keep an eye on him."

"Of course, always." You assured him, and you shot Jack a thumbs-up before adjusting your body to be fully facing forward again, unsure of your destination, but grateful to be along for the ride.

✨✨✨

"I figured you could join us for dinner," Hotch announced as you pulled into the lot of an Italian restaurant, the smell making you realize you'd skipped breakfast and replaced lunch with a coffee, so you were starving.

"I've never been here," you observe quietly, following Aaron's lead, noticing the small shadow next to you that belonged to Jack.

"Good breadsticks, no chicken nuggets," Jack whispered to you matter-of-factly, and his face was so serious you couldn't help but cackle into your sleeve. In return, his eyes twinkled and his face scrunched into a mischievous smile. You were already excited to find out all about Jack's personality, and how it differed from his Father's. You could already see the similarities in them, but despite being father and son, the two were drastically different in all the best ways.

Before you realized it wasn't a dinner for 3, Emily had you in a tight hug, pulling you towards a table where you spotted 2 more familiar faces.

"Dave, JJ, you've met Y/N." Aaron said flatly as he sat in the far corner nearest to the wall, next to David Rossi.

"Ah, yes. We've met, and spoke on the phone probably more than you've ever spoken to her in your life," Dave joked, and it was true. When you began writing your novel, David was more than helpful. You didn't know how many scotch-fueled nights you'd spent with him on speaker, throwing out ideas and hearing what he had to say. He was incredibly intelligent, and when it came to writing or giving advice on writing, he was the best you knew.

"And we've met plenty of times," JJ added, Emily in her usual spot next to JJ. The two chairs left on the opposite side of the table you pulled out for you and Jack, handing him the kids menu placed on top of your regular one, and reaching into your bag for the multicolored pen you kept stashed away. You'd had it for a while and only kept it in your bag because it was comedically big and impossible to steal if you loaned it to someone. You could click the middle button to retract the color you had chosen, and then just pick a new one. You always loved them as a kid, and any time you found one, you'd buy it just because.

"Check this out," you held it up to him and he took it with wide eyes.

"It has all the colors," he observed, and after a quick demonstration on how to change out the colors, he was occupied with the mazes and puzzles on his coloring sheet. You were so occupied watching him, content and concentrated, tongue between his teeth in focus, that Emily kicking your leg beneath the table almost went unnoticed.

You met her eyes and she mouthed the words, "check your phone" as quickly as possible before directing her attention back to the conversation Hotch and Dave were having, completely oblivious to anyone else.

You grabbed your phone from your bag and sure enough, 3 messages, all from Emily.

Em: this is weird Em: don't think I don't see it Em: because I do

What?

Em: oh god you really don't see it

By now your mind was reeling with possibilities of what she meant, but before you could type out a response, Hotch was ordering food for Jack and telling you to order whatever you liked. You opted for a salad, blindly ordering the first thing you'd seen on the menu earlier without another thought. As everyone ordered their drinks, Dave poured a glass of wine for everyone except Hotch, who went out of his way to hand yours to you.

"I'll drive you home, it's fine," he assured you when you accepted it, noticing the simplicity of the bottle and just knowing that it was expensive.

"Thank you," you whisper, the quiet chatter of conversation around you making you feel less comfortable than you should, despite knowing everyone. So, you opted for tic tac toe with Jack, who beat you 5 times before breadsticks arrived.

"Try one, and you'll see what I mean," Jack said softly, handing you a breadstick. You were starving, so you made no attempt to hide the delight you found in that delicious breadstick, causing Jack to clap with glee.

"See, Y/N, isn't it good? Can we learn to make these?" Jack asked suddenly, causing Hotch to glance in your direction. You tried to read his mind, or his face, as he looked between you and Jack, waiting on you to answer his son.

"Sure, and it'll be a learning experience because I've never baked bread before," you admit with a laugh.

"When is Lea gonna be back from Ohio?" Emily asked her wine over half gone already. Lea was your roommate, and honestly, a pain in your ass. She was your old college roommate that stuck to you like glue all 4 years and beyond. She was reliable as far as paying bills went, but she was nosy and rude. You hadn't even noticed she was rude until she met Emily, and you saw her true colors. She was insanely jealous of your other friends, and things had gone slightly downhill since the exchange between the two. That was another reason you were ready to move.

"Tomorrow. And I plan to be long gone before then. Most of my stuff is in storage already."

"Yeah, she's something, that's for sure. No wonder you couldn't get any writing done," Em commented, and you nodded in agreement. Lea was the reason for a lot of things, your lack of a love life being one of them.

"Couldn't sleep, couldn't write, and heaven forbid anyone of the opposite sex look my way. Lea has bloodhound senses when it comes to things that'll make me happy, and she's been more than helpful at deterring any sort of contact with anyone," you said softly, a bit bitter than your entire college experience was weighed down by your soon to be former roommate and her clinging ways.

"Sounds like a real charmer," Hotch said flatly, causing the entire table to erupt in laughter. No one was used to Hotch making jokes, but it was always a pleasant surprise when he did.

You were saved from the awful turn in conversation by dinner arriving, and silence followed. Everyone was famished, and as the sun sank in the distance, the restaurant cleared, and soon enough everyone was saying their goodbyes, Emily promising to call you in the morning to talk.

You'd tried to get Hotch to let you pay for your own food, but he insisted since it was his idea to bring you in the first place. He settled Jack in the back, buckling him in and handing him the suit jacket he'd removed to use as a blanket. When he joined you in the front seat, he checked the rearview first to make sure Jack was dozing off before pulling out of the lot, the radio playing softly in the background to blanket the comfortable silence.

After what seemed like forever, Hotch spoke, turning the dial down on the radio.

"Nightcap? Or I can drop you at home if you prefer. It seemed like you were really dreading your roommate coming home, and I don't mind the company. It'll be happening next week regardless, but the invitation is open for tonight" he added, rather quickly.

"Sure, I didn't bring clothes with me, though, and my car is still at the coffee shop," once you'd said it, you wondered how you forgot about your car, but remembered you'd been with Aaron the majority of the day, and that was an unexpected but pleasant surprise.

"If you'll give me directions, I'll stop there first. Jack's asleep, so no rush."

✨✨✨

You packed as quickly as you could for the night, remembering to grab a change of clothes for the morning and a toothbrush, silently cursing the shared space you'd come to hate so much. You were brimming with excitement about living under the same roof as Aaron, even if you knew it would take him a while to warm up to the idea of having someone entirely new living with him. You couldn't hide your giddiness as you hopped back into the SUV, and Hotch certainly noticed.

"Happy to be leaving?"

You nodded, heaving a sigh of relief at the thought of being away from Lea for good.

"I hate to leave her alone, but honestly, she's driving me a little insane."

"Was that who was texting you during dinner?"

Wait, what?

You weren't sure what to say, but you didn't want to want to lie, so you bent the truth a tiny bit.

"No, that was Emily. She'd texted me before I met with you and twice after, and I got so caught up in meeting Jack and talking to you that I hadn't responded. I'm normally very good at responding," you add, so he doesn't worry about being able to get ahold of you, "I just felt rude considering you were taking the time out of your day to meet with me and let me ride along with you. I was going to call her later," you explained, hoping he understands, and he does.

"I understand. I don't have any sort of worries about your capabilities to care for my child, just in case you were wondering." For the first time the entire ride, you're stopped by a traffic light and he catches your gaze. It's brief but meant to be endearing, and you're sure of that.

"That makes me feel a lot better, thank you for saying that."

"You weren't honestly worried about that, right? Emily hasn't given me a lot of details, but she did explain you were the sole provider for your siblings, even until recently. That's a lot of dedication and commitment for children that you didn't give birth to."

What came out of your mouth next was going to open a door you couldn't close, but for some reason, you said it anyway.

"It's completely different when you're choosing to do it rather than it being thrown at you. If I could do it over, I would have called child protective services and saved the three of us a lot of misery."

Stone silence.

"I...I need you to elaborate on that. But," he gestured towards the house in the driveway, the headlights giving you a small peek of the door and garage before the SUV was in park.

"This is me. Well, us, now." He cleared his throat, opening the door. You grabbed your bag and took the liberty of unlocking the door with your new key, Hotch standing behind you, grateful. He had a sleeping Jack splayed out in his arms, so you stepped out of the way, letting him carry Jack to the end of the hall.

"Be right back," you heard him call, so you locked the door behind you, taking small, uncertain steps towards any source of light you could find, locating the living room quicker than anticipated. It was tidy, neat, and 100% Hotch. Sure, the walls were covered in photos of him and Jack, and even a few of him and the team. But otherwise, the color scheme, a mix of earth tones and warm dark wooden furniture, is how you imagined Hotch at his most comfortable. Warm. Stable. Manly and rugged.

You need to stop, Y/N.

But you didn't have time to think further, because Hotch was joining you in the doorway, asking "Wine or whiskey?"

"Whiskey."

"Good choice."

He disappeared again, so you settled on the nearest end of the sofa, admiring the etchings and carvings on the wooden posts of the sofa. It had to be handmade, at least the frame of it was for certain. There were smooth, obviously man-made swirls on the wooden rail of the arms and legs, which made you curious. You knew it was expensive, as was every other piece of furniture in the house. He seemed the type to have the best things and to take excellent care of them.

"You like it?" He returned with two glasses of whiskey on ice, nodding towards the sofa as he sat to your left, legs turned towards you ever so slightly. If you weren't so keenly aware of his presence, you may haven't even noticed.

"It's all very you," you stated, fingers trailing once more over the details as you clutched your glass, sipping it a little too eagerly, but you were nervous. The close proximity to him mixed with the tension from the unfinished conversation left you an anxious mess. You were trying hard not to let it show.

"Well, we can work on that. I want you to be comfortable."

"Oh, I am, that's not what I meant," you backtrack, but he's speaking again before you can finish.

"What I mean is, I've never lived with another woman besides Haley, and she did all the decorating. I want this to be home to you, so do what you like. Within reason," he added, the smirk clear in his voice even if you were too stunned to meet his eyes.

"Okay."

Your glass was empty, and as if he read your mind, he reached for your glass, his fingers brushing the tips of yours in an almost ghost-like manner, and instead of staying seated, you followed him to the kitchen.

Even trailing behind him you couldn't help but notice the muscles of his back and shoulders that filled out his pale blue dress shirt in a way that made your throat tighten. You wondered if he had this sort of mesmerizing effect on everyone. You were unsure of how you were ever going to get anything done if every spare moment of your day was spent looking at Aaron Hotchner.

"Both my room and your room are on this side of the house," he announced, leading you to the spacious kitchen, motioning with the hand that held your glass to the hallway opposite from where you'd just come from. "Your room has a master bath, but there's another at the end of the hall. It's the last door on the right if you want to get comfortable," he offered, back turned to you as he set to work on pouring you both another drink.

"Thank you, be right back," you called, recovering your overnight bag and setting off for your new space in the Hotchner household. The first thing you noticed was that the room had definitely belonged to Hotch before it was yours. You could smell his cologne, or maybe his aftershave. You weren't sure. But it smelled divine, and you couldn't wait to fall under the brand new sheet and comforter set that was waiting on you. You were going to fall asleep blanketed by the smell of Aaron's phantom presence, and there was nothing at that moment that could have excited you more.

As you dressed, you pondered the day to follow. You'd get to see how Aaron and Jack spent their Saturday mornings, realizing it was Friday night already, and unless he got a case, you'd be spending time with them tomorrow also. You hadn't really known what to grab to sleep in when you left, opting for a pair of black sweatpants and a plain grey t-shirt. You padded down the hall, careful not to slip on the shiny wood floors that weren't exactly cooperating with your socks. By the time you'd rejoined Hotch, he'd shed his dress shirt, leaving him in a white tee that was still neatly tucked into his slacks. You joined him on the couch, grabbing the whiskey from its coaster, eyes trained on your glass.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

You glanced up at him, his hands clasped together, his body turned towards you completely now, and you let out a shaky breath.

"What I said earlier, about my brothers. I didn't mean that. I love them, very much. I just don't want you thinking I'm a bad person. My mom was a violent, evil person that never should've had children. Someone else could have given them a better life than I did."

"I don't think that makes you a bad person at all. You were young when this all happened?"

"I was 6."

Then came the uncomfortable silence that you'd been expecting. His next move is what took you by surprise. He made the same gesture as earlier, placing his giant hand over yours. You had told Emily all of this over a bottle of tequila one night, but other than you, your mother, and God, Hotch was the only living person to know about this. It was sensitive information, and you hadn't had the time or a reason to tell anyone else until now.

"Where are they now?"

You raised your eyebrows, Hotch's hand still firmly planted on yours.

"My brothers? Gone. I haven't heard from them in 4 months. They went to stay with my grandparents when I moved here, and as far as I know, they didn't even last a week. They always go back, no matter how bad it is. She's got her claws in them," you explained, sighing heavily at the relief you felt from sharing this information with Hotch. Not even Emily knew about your brothers taking off, partly because you didn't want her to worry, and partly because you felt guilty that you weren't out making sure they were acting like adults.

"I'm not sure what to say, Y/N."

"It's fine, Hotch. It's a lot to take in. Feels good to say it out loud. Reminds me that I'm not insane."

"You aren't in therapy?"

You shook your head and he sighed, draining his glass. He'd brought the bottle with him this time, so on your third glass, you were finally starting to get comfortable. It seemed Hotch was too by the way he'd lazily tossed his arm across the back of the sofa and leaned back to relax into the cushions.

"I was. I'm okay. And if I wasn't, I'd say something."

"I'm going to hold you to that."

"I'm sorry, I feel like I gave you an absurd amount of really intimate information all at once. Your job is heavy enough and I don't want you to feel like you have to worry-"

"Never, ever apologize for being completely transparent with me. I admire honesty more than any other quality. I suppose I could worry, but I'm not. Emily and I had several conversations leading up to this, and even though it's a bit unconventional, I'm confident it's going to go well. Jack warmed up to you quickly. I like that. I'd be more concerned if you weren't friends with my entire team." He admitted, and you nodded, the dim light coming from the lamp behind the two of you allowing you to see the pink tint to his cheeks, either from alcohol or you, and you were choosing to believe the latter.

"It's late," you said softly, your whiskey long gone, and if you drank anymore, you'd be drunk. You were already pretty buzzed, but it was nice, relaxing even. Hotch's face gave no indication that he was even slightly intoxicated, but his actions did because they were less reserved. He was still Hotch in the sense that his words were straight to the point and solid, but he was making sure that you knew he was there to comfort you in the only way he knew how, and you really appreciated that about him.

"Go get some rest, I'm going to get some work done. I want to be able to give you and Jack my undivided attention tomorrow, so I need to get started."

"I like the sound of that. Goodnight, Hotch."

"Goodnight, Y/N. I hope you'll be comfortable here."

As you were sliding under the covers that night, getting drunk off his promise of the following day spent together and the lingering scent of him all around, you felt more at home than you ever knew you could.

like I said this is my first fic so please be gentle but feedback is very much appreciated <3 i'll start using photos and stuff once I'm a little better with my formatting <3

#criminal minds #ssa hotchner #aaron hotchner #aaron hotchner smut #spencer reid #emily prentiss #derek morgan #hotch #hotchner #criminal minds fanfiction #criminal minds fandom #jj jareau #dave rossi #penelope garcia #jennifer jareau

[giaourtopita]

Hello! I’m a sucker for that sweet angst and I’m sorry in advance!😭So can I request the brothers with an Mc who has a few months to live because of an illness they were born with? How do they send their time with Mc? How do they react when Mc dies?

mc dies due to a congenital disease

first of all, thank you for requesting!! i didn't really expect a request tbh. and i really hope i did this justice, i even started listening to a sad playlist to get even more in the mood to write this!! i hope you'll like it <333

warnings; gn mc, angst, death, unhealthy habits, sad just so sad, slight medical talk, alcohol used as a coping mechanism but not to an unhealthy amount, lesson 35-36 spoilers in asmo's and beel's part, lesson 16 spoilers in belphie's part.

(first of all i would like to say that none of them would react well but all of them would try to spend as much time as possible with mc)

lucifer

- would not believe them at first, he would think this is just belphie and satan playing a sick joke on him.

- believes it only after seeing the mc talking to doctors and trying to find a course of treatment.

- throws himself into work, trying to convince himself the situation will resolve itself.

- once he comes to term with it, he would try to spend as much time as possible with them

- he would take them to as many new places he can, and try to give them many new experiences before it happens.

- would even ask barbatos if he can go back in time to find them a cure.

- when the inevitable happens he thinks his father is the one to blame, it's his fault for everything. them falling, lilith dying and now this. "why can't he just leave us alone?".

- throws himself into work again but only this time he's working so hard his brothers and friends had to talk some sense to him.

- diavolo gives him some time to pull himself together, and because he has so much time on his hands, he locks himself in the comfort of his room and drinks to feel just so he can stop feeling for a little while.

- only gets better when he sees mammon trying to take care of him and be responsible with money and around the house.

mammon

- "mc you're joking right? you're my human, you can't die! ya hear me?"

- he would be attached at the mc's hips. even starts staying in their room to watch them.

- acts like he's fine when they're around but when he's alone he gets overwhelmed, he can't imagine how his life will be after mc is gone.

- also gets mad at his father "why do you hate us so much?" *he yells at the sky while sobbing*

-he's so frustrated with this situation because who will be nice to him when mc is gone?

- will try to get the witches to help him but it's a lost cause, there's no cure magical or not.

- when it happens, he blames himself. he blames himself because he failed to help them, even tho they always helped him.

- his scheming will get insufferable, he will try to get as much grimm as he can so he can buy things that remind him of the mc.

- he hoards all those things he buys all around the house actually. and if anyone anyone tries to throw those things away he gets agitated and turns into his demon form to fight them.

- will get better once he sees levi trying to pick all the things mammon left in his room.

leviathan

- "what? why? no, you can't die! stupid normie, you can't just leave me all alone like that" ... "we need more time!"

- he feels useless because there's nothing he can do, "the lord of shadows would have find a way to help his henry".

- hates it when his brothers take away the mc from him and starts throwing tantrums when they're not around, the rest of the brothers can't imagine how it will be in the future.

- tries to go outside more with them so he has memories with them that don't include sitting in his room and watching anime, those times he went outside he actually appreciated being there.

- also makes them stay in his room, they sleep in his arms and he starts sleeping in his demon form, wrapping his tail around the mc so they can't go anywhere, he knows this is pointless.

- still tries to watch as much anime as possible but when a character he likes dies, he finds himself sobbing like a baby not because he's sad for the character but because he knows this will happen to his henry.

- when they pass away he feels numb, he did all the crying when they were still there with him, he becomes an even bigger shut-in doesn't want to meet any new people especially not humans, not because he hates them but because they remind him of the mc.

- the only reason he leaves his room is to go swimming, he does that even more than he used to. his younger brothers were worried but lucifer thinks this is a healthier alternative to anything else he could do.

- is so angry at his father that he threatens war to the celestial realm using the devildom's navy.

- only got better when lucifer tried to reason him, he knows the mc wouldn't want him to do that but he doesn't know what else to do or how to mourn the human.

satan

- does not believe them, they look healthy to him so what are they talking about?? only believes them when they start talking about symptoms or he sees the symptoms himself.

- starts looking for a magical remedy to make them feel better, or even a cure. but it's no use, he can't find anything helpful other than pain relief magic. he even asks solomon but he wasn't able to give him something useful to work with.

- reads to them books about characters who feel how he feels because he can't bring himself to actually tell them how awful he is feeling.

- tries to spend as much time as possible with them even if it's for the silliest, most insignificant things there are.

- is barely able to keep himself together, he gets agitated by the smallest things you can imagine.

- after their death he feels as if a big part of his identity vanished, he feels how he used to feel about himself before he made up with lucifer and he hates that.

- going to a cat cafe or a library don't cheer him up as much as they used to, he just wishes to be with them and nothing else.

- is angry at himself and at god. he's angry at himself because even tho he knows so many things he wasn't able to save them and he's angry at god because everything is his fault.

- asmo suggests he writes a book about them and their shared memories, since he loved them and he loves books satan finds this idea excellent, however it doesn't help much because whenever he starts writing he gets so into it that he neglects himself.

- is able to kinda pull himself together when he sees lucifer bringing him a cat for emotional support, they both know this is not a permanent solution but it will help him cope for now.

asmodeus

minor lesson 35 spoiler!!

- "what?? no no no!! this isn't happening mc!! we will find a solution i promise!"

- asks solomon and his fans to help but there's nothing they can do to help.

- buys them as many pretty outfits he can and takes photos of them to remember.

- is actually the first one to accept what is going to happen, after all he's used to losing the people that he loves, some leave due to jealousy and others die.

- does even more sleepovers in his room with the mc so they can have lots of fun together, even if this situation is very sad he tries to be positive and make the best memories he can with them

- though he still looks cheerful, he's so sad internally he doesn't know what to do after his mc is gone. he feels as if he won't be the same without them because he's one of the very few people who didn't care about his looks and loved him for him, he will miss this feeling so much that he's trying cling onto it as much as time allows him to.

- after it happens, he is also numb. not because he grieved before they died but because he tries to shut down his feelings by indulging in his sin, going clubbing and spoiling himself even more than before.

- though none if the above are as fun now that he can't do them with them, he gets to the point where he stops listening to lucifer and starts talking to everyone in a sarcastic tone.

- clings to solomon because even though he knows that solomon can't die, he can't help but feel like he needs to. solomon was able to talk some sense to him after lucifer told him about his behaviour. gets better when his brothers start aggressively pointing out his awful behaviour and how much they care about him and his well-being.

beelzebub

lesson 36 spoiler!!

- "NO! this can't be happening again! you stole lilith from us and now you're doing it again with mc!" *is sobbing while yelling*

- will also camp in their room to watch them and spend time with them.

- will take them to every single one of his games, and will try to take as many pictures as possible.

- takes them to every restaurant he knows of and makes them do taste testing, he notes everything they like in a cookbook, filled with every food the mc likes, and makes it for them when they're hungry.

- sad that there's nothing he can do to help and even sadder that mc was always able to help him when he needed to.

- feels guilty about this situation because mc had to use their life essence, their already limited amount of time, to save his life.

- he cuddles them to sleep, but most of the time it's not because they need it. he actually does it because he needs it and mc knows this.

- when mc passes away he goes out of control, always going on a rampage when someone from his team mentions how he's a free demon without a pact now, he misses mc so much.

- he is constantly in a bad mood and sometimes he's so sad that he forgets to eat even if he's starving.

- only starts to pull himself together when belphie tries to take care of him by cooking and forcing him to eat when he doesn't at least try to eat the most important meals of the day.

belphegor

lesson 16 spoiler!!

- "did lucifer made you say this? i know our last prank was a bit over the top but this is inappropriate" mc explains to him while showing him their test results.

- drags them to attic and cuddles them while yelling and sobbing, not wanting to believe it.

- he would stay awake more than his normal self so they can spend more time together, even if it's just cuddling or talking.

- he tries to find a spell to at least make them live a little longer, but it's hopeless there's nothing he can do.

- also feels guilty, not only does mc get to experience their death for the second time but so do his brothers.

- clings onto them as much as he can.

- when they die it's like he falls into a coma, when people try to wake him up he doesn't even flinch it's like he wants to be in a coma.

- has made it so that he gets such vivid dreams that he can visit mc in them and that's the reason he won't wake up.

- wakes up when he hears beel cry about him, mc and lilith. tries to get over it for beel.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me asmo #obey me beel #obey me belphie #obey me leviathan #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me satan #obey me x mc #obey me x reader #obey me headcanons #obey me angst #i broke my heart so many times trying to write this

[hopeless-ro-simptic]

Familiar Cerulean Eyes Pt 10

Sorry for the wait everyone! this last week has been crazy! I am working on the next part and hope to have it up in the next day or so and be back on track. 

For more parts click here! Part 11

Warnings: Talk about harming others, blood. That’s about it. This chapter is more just trying to get Y/N acquainted with the league. 

Word Count: 2.4 k

TAGLIST: @skzero-99 @superblyspeedydragon @jparra4587 @flyingowls @emrysaaryn @imuziawi @sheedaabee @peculiarinsomniac @littlelovebug98 @plutoneu @giftofwonder @kitty-kat-ash @fukyouthink @anarchys-bnha-mess @threbony @orenjineki @toobsessedsstuff @bamf-barnes @x-a-delama-x @inanabsentia @reallyshey @godsblesstheboi​ @operatorsdime @drownedbytears�� @emilymikado​ @fluidfandoms​ @gotagan @mikasackrmann​ @flowersgirl02 @bohica160​ @andrastesbeard​ @riapxq @percabethismyotp14​ @celestiallustre​ @moon-spirit-yue​ @hecatve​ @bakugoshirp @vanillanjinn @toshiuwuu​ @rxinbowrena @therealwalmartjesus​ @callmepopcorn​ @xxdumb-bitchxx​

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Villains are the most compassionate people in the world apparently. Well not all of them were, but this lot was.

No one had said anything when you puked all over the floor. Not one snide comment when you curled up onto the ground dry heaving. Toga had stepped forward almost immediately, quicker than even Dabi, pulling your hair back from your face, taking a hair tie front her wrist and tying it up. Dabi hadn’t even growled at her, instead dropping to your other side rubbing your back cooing softly in your ear that it was okay. That it was over. Twice stayed quiet for once so not to say something wrong, instead taking off to go find cleaning supplies to pick up the mess. Spinner just stood there awkwardly.

Even Shigaraki stayed quiet, choosing to take off down the hallway leaving you with everyone else, Kurogiri following after.

“Come on, let’s go get you something to drink.” Dabi and Toga helped you up to your feet, guiding you down the hallway and through a door to the main bar area, sitting you down on a couch against the wall. You were shaking at this point, your ears ringing.

Toga curled up on the couch with you, petting your hair, while Spinner took a seat on the floor a couple feet away from you. You could vaguely hear Dabi tell her to watch out for staples, and a quick retort from her saying there was none but you didn’t care.  How could you? Someone was dead, and their last moments were in agonizing pain because of you. Because you got upset... because they tried to hurt your alpha. 

Dabi came around the bar kneeling in front of you with two drinks in his hand, water and some kind of alcohol, it smelled like whiskey.

“You’re going to want it. Trust me.”

You nodded taking the whiskey from him shooting it to the best of your ability, trading the glass for the water. Dabi got up briefly coming back again this time with multiple drinks in hand, one for each of you before he settled onto the floor in front of you, rubbing your legs soothingly like he could massage away the last however many minutes from your mind, watching you with guilt in his eyes.

You couldn’t look at him.

Twice came in and joined you, hesitating before taking a seat next to Toga who was currently picking apart your hair strands that had blood in them still, you briefly thought that you really needed to shower again.

“That was badass. You’re such a “ You could see Twice covering his mouth with his hand, struggling to keep whatever he was about to say inside. He looked absolutely tortured with himself, trying to keep things in check. Toga immediately switched from picking at your hair to pulling his head against her shoulder, petting him softly.

“He’s right… Y/N. That was pretty cool of you.” You felt sick to your stomach again and shifted away from the duo further on the couch. Why were they even here right now? To make you feel worse? In your mind you knew you would have to get over this at some point. If you wanted Dabi this would be your new normal, you would have to… hurt people. It didn’t make it any easier.

And he just sat silent, rubbing your legs like that would help. Dabi knew you were in an internal war. He knew what you were feeling right now. He wouldn’t blame you if you decided this was too much for you. That he wasn’t worth it. That you rather be free, or even go back to that fucking house. Dabi downed his drink, refusing to think about that. Knowing that deep down inside he wouldn’t let you go back to that house even if that was what you wanted with everything in your soul. He was selfish. Letting you go was one thing, letting his father have you back was another.

You sat frozen on the couch, nursing your second drink already feeling the effects of the first one. It wasn’t numbing like you had hoped. It just made you want to cry more but you refused. You needed to prove to these villains that you were fine. That you could handle this. That they didn’t have to get rid of you just because you were a cry baby. You knew just because Dabi was your alpha, that didn’t mean they would let you stick around. They had to make sure they could trust you.

“You’re allowed to be upset Y/N…” Twice was looking at you seriously now, curled up in Toga’s grasp. There was no second voice to follow. No snarky remark.

“I’m fine.”

“God, I hope not. We don’t need another crazy person.” Toga lightly smacked his head at his words, a smile pulling at her lips.

“What? I’m serious! The last thing we need right now is another psycho like Overhaul. Remember how well that went?” You looked over at the duo with confusion as Twice defended his words, Toga telling him to hush up but he just looked back to you and continued.

“If you’re fine right now, then you are in shock, and if your fine and not in shock you really should be concerned. I don’t know anyone that didn’t freak out the first time... other than Toga maybe, but she’s special. She’s crazy!” Toga rolled her eyes, covering Twice’s mouth with her hand.

“I’ve been dealing with blood since I was born.” She explained, a ghost of a blush crossing her cheeks like she was embarrassed. “You can’t really freak out about hurting people when you have a quirk like mine. The first time I really hurt someone though, like really hurt them, it was an accident. I ran away so fast no one even knew what to do. The look on everyone else’s faces, especially my friends... They started screaming at me saying I was a vampire. They weren’t very cute anymore.”

“Try killing yourself, that’s really awful.” Twice mumbled against Toga’s hand and visibly shuddered like he was remembering something, Toga immediately going back to stroking his head gently like she could sooth the thoughts. Somehow the little blonde had a calming affect on the other beta, you wondered what their relationship was.

“I don’t understand.”

“We all remember our first time, princess. We all hated it. We all probably threw up just like you did, or drank ourselves stupid, or whatever other coping mechanism we came up with. None of us wanted to do this. It just sorta happened.” Dabi finally spoke, his eyes latched onto his empty glass, like he was remembering something he didn’t want to either.

“We aren’t changing the world so we can hurt people. We are hurting people to change the world.” Spinner was speaking now. His voice surprised you, having not heard it before. You knew that he was a Stain fanatic but you didn’t know much else about him.

Kurogiri had snuck into the room. He was standing behind Dabi just a few feet away, looking almost shameful and you jumped when you noticed him, once again surprised by his sudden appearance. You wondered if mist could blush. You wondered a lot about the Beta in front of you.

“I would like to apologize and offer my condolences, Ms. Y/N. It is my fault that Compress went into that room and any of this happened to begin with. I am gravely sorry that you had to get involved like that.” He bowed low, his hands clasped in front of him.

“It’s okay...” You didn’t really know what to say, especially to that. Everyone was being so kind to you, for once you could actually see them as people, people with more than just pure hatred and murder in their hearts, people that were more than the blood they spilled.

It was a couple minutes of silently drinking before anyone said anything again. 

“You know… maybe I shouldn’t say this cause of the tender moment… but Y/N, you really stink.” Twice leaned away from you like you were going to hit him, or maybe like he was trying not to breathe in your stench, pinching his nose.

“Oh thank god, someone other than me said it.” Toga immediately jumped up from the couch putting distance between the two of you while trying to hide a smile on her face of amusement as she covered her mouth and nose with her palm.

Your eyes shifted over to Dabi’s who looked like he was trying to also hide a laugh, his hands had left your legs as he leaned back using his arms to prop him up and you immediately found yourself missing the warmth and comfort of his touch.

“You do kind of reek…”

You scoffed in mock annoyance. Your own lips twitching up in weak smile. They were trying. These crazy people that barely knew you, were trying their best to make you feel better, and it was almost working.

“I guess I’ll go shower then... I need clothes though. Preferably something that fits.” You looked down at the baggy sweats that were barely hanging onto your hips and the hoodie that looked gross as all hell with everything on it, before looking back up at Dabi pointedly.

“But you look so good in mine.” You could hear the way his voice dropped into a low growl that went straight to your lower stomach. You could feel your cheeks heating up. How was he able to flip that switch in you so easily? He was just telling you that you smelled bad!

“Ew gross. If you guys fuck can I watch?” Twice was back to his antics again, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Please don’t. I sit on that couch. I have some clothes that might fit you Y/N!” Toga ran off out of the room and you weren’t sure if she just wanted to get away from the two of you or if she was actually going to look for clothes.

You stood up, looking down at Dabi, mumbling softly asking where to shower to which he responded by grabbing your hands, hoisting himself off the floor almost pulling you down in the process before dragging you out of the room behind him with barely a goodbye to the others.

“So is that a no?”

You followed Dabi back to his room, noticing the conjoined bathroom once you were inside. The whole building seemed to be set up like an old hotel, the bar being the main room, but it seemed like there was a couple other communal rooms as well. Maybe he would let you explore a little when you were done. Get to know the place that was going to be possibly your new home. It was weird to think about it like that. Would the two of you stay here or go back to his old apartment?

“I’m gonna go find Shigaraki and update him on the Shoto situation while you’re cleaning up. We need to get a plan in place before he shows up and tries to kill us all.” Dabi paused when there was a knock on the door, opening it to let Toga bounce into the room with a stack of clothes. Dabi wrinkled his nose at the scent of them, his lips almost settling into a pout when he realized you would smell like her. “I’ll be back. Please don’t go running around until I get back. We might have to work quickly to get everything set up…” He paused again looking at the clothes his alpha focusing on them. “We can go shopping later too… for your own clothes.”  

You nodded, taking the clothes from the petite blonde, smiling gratefully at her before she turned and flitted out of the room, smirking at Dabi as she passed. He slammed the door behind her much to her annoyance. Stinky little brat. Dabi loved her like a little sister but man was she annoying sometimes, her scent especially.

“Okay.” You shifted from foot to foot watching Dabi as he shifted his intense hooded gaze back to yours. You could feel the energy in the room change, your omega perking back up from her sleep now that the two of you were alone, attention piqued. You thought back to the way his lips had felt against yours no too long ago. He was thinking about it too.

“We might have to lay low for a while, find a different place to hide out just the two of us until things calm down.” Just the two of you? By yourselves? Hiding away? You could smell the excitement coming off of you at just the thoughts in your head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” His voice was low, gravelly, a warning as he held the doorknob loosely to keep himself grounded. To remind himself now was not the time.

“Like what?” Did you not realize what you were doing to him when you looked at him like that? Like you were an innocent little thing waiting to be corrupted. Surely you did. He could smell you from here, across the room. It was like a little slice of heaven. He wanted to make it his.

“Like you want to be fucked.” Dabi was delighted in the way that your cheeks turned red, your lips parting to suck in a breath of air in surprise at his words, at how you didn’t even protest. He wanted to bend you over his bed right now and… no… he wanted to take his time with his little mouse. He wanted to worship you, to show you just exactly how he felt with no distractions from the world outside. Just the two of you.

In order to do that he had to take care of some things first.

“Go shower.” He growled out before retreating from the room, shutting the door with a thud, leaning against it staring up at the florescent lights on the ceiling. He could still smell you out here, though it was very faint, the scent blockers throughout the building doing their jobs.

His alpha was screaming to go back in there and have his way with you, fuck the rest of the world, but his logical side reminded him that you guys didn’t have much time left before a horde of heros showed up to come rescue their damsel in distress. There was no way Endevor was going to let his little show dog’s omega get stolen.

Dabi took one deep inhale of your scent, adjusting himself in his pants before pushing off the door and forcing himself to go find Shigaraki. They needed a plan or else this was going to be a bloodbath.

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#bnha omegaverse #bnha #alpha dabi #omega reader #mha #mha omegaverse #dabi is a todoroki #dabi is an ass #dabi is touya #dabi #dabi x y/n #dabi x female reader #dabi x you #dabi x reader #crispy

[animepopheart]

Wonder Egg Priority, Episode 7: The Scars to Prove It (or, Love for the Moms, the Cutters, and the Drunks)

Wonder Egg Priority (WEP) has felt like the successor to Puella Magi Madoka Magica in many ways throughout its run, but in episode seven, it almost went full Madomagi by driving the stakes to their utmost height—to the death of one of the main characters. But as has been consistent with WEP, what it did instead, after some moments of true worry, is to instead deliver hope in the face of pain, resolve against overwhelming circumstances, and strength in weakness.

The series returns to Rika Kawai’s story in this episode, which starts with her turning 14. And on her 14th birthday, after leaving her hungover mother halfway asleep at the bar she works at and which they call home, Rika opens up to the rest of the girls, explaining that she doesn’t know her father (it could be any of five possibilities, or even more) and her mom won’t reveal any further information about him. As she trashes her mom, Neiru and Momoe are incredulous, which only drives Rika away from them. And though Ai goes to comfort her, Rika is in a terrible state of mind as she enters her next fight.

This was a difficult episode to watch. They’ve all been somewhat hard since the series never shies away from brutal and violent situations impacting young people, but I found myself squirming especially here as Rika’s cutting takes center stage. At one point, she decides to cut herself and it seems certain she will, before her turtle-like partner, Mannen, prevents it from happening.

Challenging, also, is how strained Rika’s relationship is with her mother, who’s life revolves around drink—alcohol both pays the bills and helps her forget how miserable her existence is. And in the midst of all the bad behavior in this episode—the usual Rika talk, her mom’s alcoholism and neglect, and the selfishness all around, one begins to feel deeply sorrowful for the Kawai women. Yes, Rika is often obnoxious, but her family life is in shambles, and she still exhibits goodness, including a curiously gentle relationship with Mannen. And Rika’s mother is a tragic figure, used by men and quite on the road to an early death, it would seem, unable to lift herself out of the gutter as she tries, in her own sloppy way, to protect and reach out to her daughter.

It’s in this hopelessness that Rika turns again to cutting, and then finds herself tempted by something even more dangerous. Her foe this time is a religious leader who led the egg, a follower who continues to believe in him, to commit suicide as a way of “connecting” with the universe (Heaven’s Gate, anyone?). Rika decries the ghoul as a charlatan, but is confronted with her own weakness when the egg shows her own scarred arm to Rika, revealing that she can tell that the latter cuts just like she did. And then she explains that Rika can be released from this pain.

The scars, evidence of what Rika does to cope with her pain, now become the weakness that they truly are, revealing how hopeless she feels, and how powerless she is against the mechanizations of her family life. And defeated, she’s about to allow herself to be killed when a surprising savior comes along—a turtle. Mannen attacks the spiritual leader, to Rika’s surprise as well, until she remembers that he has imprinted on her. Rika is Mannen’s mom, and as he did when he prevented her from cutting, Mannen is again protecting his mother.

The conclusion that Rika reaches is unusual but inspiring. She understands, in this moment, the need to protect one’s mom, finally admitting to herself in a de facto way that maybe her mother is in need of love, too. It’s funny to consider the need that mothers have for love since culturally and socially, they’re always seen as the providers of it. But of course, they need it in return, especially when they falter. My own mother is sick right now, and I think of the support I need to give her and the lack of that I’ve provided through the years.

Warning: Screenshot involving cutting after the jump.

My mother was a good one, however. Rika’s, on the other hand, has struggled with the charge, which reminds me of a story from one of my favorite books, The Ragamuffin Gospel, about another bad parent—a far worse one, in fact, and a real one. I’ll quote part of the passage from chapter seven:

“‘Our daughter Debbie wanted a pair of earth shoes for her Christmas present. On the afternoon of December 24, my husband drove her downtown, gave her sixty dollars, and told her to buy the best pair of shoes in the store. That is exactly what she did. When she climbed back into the pickup truck her father was driving, she kissed him on the cheek and told him he was the best daddy in the whole world. Max was preening himself like a peacock and decided to celebrate on the way home. He stopped at the Cork ‘n’ Bottle–that’s a tavern a few miles from our house and told Debbie he would be right out. It was a clear and extremely cold day, about twelve degrees above zero, so Max left the motor running and locked both doors from the outside so no one could get in. It was a little after three in the afternoon and…’

Silence.

‘Yes?’

The sound of heavy breathing crossed the recreation room. Her voice grew faint. She was crying. ‘My husband met some old Army buddies in the tavern. Swept up in euphoria over the reunion, he lost track of time, purpose, and everything else. He came out of the Cork ‘n’ Bottle at midnight . He was drunk. The motor had stopped running and the car windows were frozen shut. Debbie was badly frostbitten on both ears and on her fingers. When we got her to the hospital, the doctors had to operate. They amputated the thumb and forefinger on her right hand. She will be deaf for the rest of her life.'”

Max—a real person, mind you—was a successful, well-liked man, but his drinking problem led to an unconscionable decision and profound failure as a parent. And yet, this book is about grace, an idea which to humans feels unjust, but  which has the power to change hearts and tear down walls, sometimes literally.

Could Max be given grace? Could Rika’s mother? If not directly, she’s done her own physical damage to her daughter in the form of those cutting scars (difficult and perhaps triggering images below). As mentioned earlier, the egg that she’s helping knows her pain and insists that letting go of everything, including life itself, is the way to peace. After all, to a young, suffering girl, what else could these scars mean?

But in the midst of giving up, in the moment that she actually capitulates (and this episode takes you 99% to the edge, both in the cutting scene and in the apparent death scene), Rika experiences something powerful. She experiences grace.

Have you ever been challenged to forgive someone when you don’t want to, when you feel completely in the right? Maybe it’s easy for you, but perhaps it isn’t. The girls surrounding Rika experience differing degrees of this with her sometimes maniacal and often hurtful behavior. Ai forgives easily. Momoe gets fired up and then equally seeks to make peace. And Neiru…well, Neiru holds onto “justice” more than love (setting up what I imagine will be the most powerful transformation in the series of all, in true Homura fashion). But in the moment that Rika is about to give her life, the girls yell out their love for her, even Neiru, and then more profoundly, without any hesitation, Mannen puts his own life on the line to stop the death from occurring. Rika has already given up, but this turtle hasn’t���not for his mother, whom he loves very much.

And experiencing that love from a different angle, Rika is changed just a bit. She begins to see her weakness as a “mother,” failing her turtle-child, and thinks of her own mom who is overwhelmed by hurt and a failure as well. And if just a little—for as the final scenes indicate, it is just a little—the path toward forgiveness begins.

But a little bit of grace is like a little bit of a flood—its power overwhelms, and it defeats the enemy, whether that means bitterness, a physical person (or manifestation of one), or the devil himself.

When Rika returns from the event, having killed the cult leader monster, it’s interesting to note that she isn’t a wholly different person. She’s changing little by little. And her scars remain. In fact, as she admits, she probably will cut herself again. But strangely enough, those scars now represent something different. They show someone trying—failing, yes, sometimes considerably and maybe very often—but trying, and only able to try because love was shown her, and through that, she is now able to show love as well.

You may have such scars in your life, physical or emotional, battered by the world and by people. I hope that you can develop relationships that help you heal as well, and that you’ll also remember that there are other scars which are meaningful to you, but which you cannot see on your person, scars that were borne out of a desire to heal you. Christ took the piercings, on his head, hands, feet, and side, so that while your heart and flesh may be cut, your soul need not be. And through his wounds, you may be healed.

The grace offered through Christ is one that, as he explains about everlasting water at the well to the Samaritan, for now and through eternity. The egg seeks peace forever by dying, but Jesus, unlike the cult leader, died for us so that we may not have to. He took the nails, the cross, and the spear so that we don’t have to inflict pain on ourselves and receive the punishment of our actions against him and others. He is our scar.

That’s grace. That’s the power that it has. And it can reach anyone—even a terrible dad, an alcoholic mom, a tempestuous child, and, and most significantly and personally—you.

If you’re suffering and in pain, maybe self-inflicted, we encourage you to explain such to a parent or trusted adult and ask for help. It’s a difficult first step, but one that will help you begin recovering. And we also advise that you turn to Christ for help—in prayer, community, and scripture. He provides people to us that will aid us in our times of need, as well as himself and the Holy Spirit if we are believers.

Additionally, there’s a scene in this episode where triumphant, Rika concludes that cutting is okay. That’s said in the context of her moving forward bit by bit and forgiving herself for her failures, even the upcoming ones. That’s an important lesson, though we must certainly be careful not to let it be a license to continue cutting with impunity.

Wonder Egg Priority can be streamed through Funimation. Read more of our articles by signing up for our weekly newsletter.

#wonder egg priority #rika kawai #wep #pmmm #Christianity #tw cutting #blog

[sineala]

A Few Thoughts About Hurt/Comfort

I have been asked this month to make a post about hurt/comfort in Avengers comics. And I love h/c -- I actually have a massive number of WIPs right now that are h/c -- so I am very happy to talk about it! Anyway, this is not really all that planned out and this mostly turned into an excursus on Tony Stark's pain. I'm sure you're all surprised.

Like pretty much everyone else, I'm sure, I have found that everything lately has been... pretty tough. And the coping mechanism that really got me through last year and this year was reading and writing a lot of h/c, on the theory that, however lousy a day I'm having, I can absolutely make sure that Tony Stark has a worse one. And then I can make sure he gets hugs. Wish fulfillment? Why, yes. (Once at Hallmark I was trying to find a "get well soon" card, forgot what it was called, and described it to my wife as "a hurt/comfort card.") I think Marvel Comics -- the Avengers side, in particular -- is an interesting canon for h/c for a lot of reasons. Though, honestly, if you asked me to recommend you, a hurt/comfort fan, a new fandom, I would probably just hand you some Starsky & Hutch DVDs. Go watch "The Fix" and get back to me later. If you like that, there's way more where that came from. But there's still lots to love in Marvel! Superhero comics are really a goldmine as far as the hurt side of h/c. Because superheroes, and you probably have noticed this, get hurt a lot. They get hurt repeatedly, in fantastical ways that are probably impossible in real life both physically and emotionally (at least, I don't think anyone's invented mind control yet), and even the heroes without superhuman healing powers tend to get physically hurt a whole lot worse than actual people can take. Currently in Iron Man comics, Tony has a broken back and is dealing with this by locking himself into the armor as a backboard and injecting himself with massive doses of painkillers. He's busy! He's got stuff to do! He doesn't have time to lie around and heal! So, basically, if you name a kind of pain that you would like to see happen to a character, it's probably happened to superheroes. Multiple times. The downside, though, is that comics do not really deliver that well when it comes to the comfort part of h/c. They could. It's not inherent to the medium that they don't. But because of the serial nature of comics and also the fact the primary audience is dudes who want to read about people in spandex punching each other, a lot of the time they don't really feel the need to provide closure and write about people dealing with any of the hurt. (Raise your hand if you're still annoyed with the end of Hickman's Avengers run.) But at the same time, I think that's a quality that makes Avengers ripe for h/c fanfic. Because, generally speaking, fandom likes to provide the things that canon doesn't, and fandom is more than happy to provide the comfort. If you enjoy canonical h/c in comics, I think you really can't go wrong with Iron Man. One of the big innovations of modern Marvel Comics was the concept that heroes would also suffer from relatable human problems, and in practice what this means is that a lot of heroes start with a fully-loaded angst-ridden backstory and origin story, ripe for h/c. So Tony starts out by incurring a heart injury that he fully expects is going to kill him, which he responds to by vowing he won't get close to anyone so they won't be sad when he dies, and throughout the early Silver Age is constantly on the brink of death as his heart nearly gives out on him practically every issue. And then even after his heart gets (mostly) better, there are various plots involving his armor being detrimental to his health and him choosing to fight on anyway. It's hard for me to think of another superhero hitting that particular variety of h/c in exactly the same way. Sure, superheroes risk their lives constantly, because this is how superhero comics work, but Tony is the only one I can think of who is this constantly this badly off, physically. Like, think of all the other heroes who have had a continual solo presence as fan favorites across Marvel history -- Captain America, Thor, Spider-Man, Wolverine, maybe even Deadpool. You know what those guys all have? Healing factors! For the most part, they are not running around continually on the verge of death, and while there are certainly memorable arcs involving several of them being severely injured and/or dead, you really have to work at it. It's not their constant state of affairs, whereas Tony is the kind of superhero who shows up to a fight already bleeding out under his armor. Yeah, I know Extremis gave him a healing factor. But he didn't have it very long, and also he did some extremely dangerous things while he did have it; I'm pretty sure I've never seen Wolverine saying that he'll just solve a problem by cutting off his own foot. So, anyway, yeah, there are a bunch of good arcs involving h/c for Tony. If you're looking for physical injury, he has a whole bunch of heart problems over the years, gets several new hearts, then ruins his brain, et cetera. That level of hurt is basically the background pain of Tony's life; every so often, his heart will get damaged or he'll have to live in the armor or the armor will be killing him, et cetera. If you're looking for more unusual trauma, I am, as always, going to rec Manhunt, a relatively obscure arc in late v3 (IM v3 #65-69) in which Tony has an extremely bad week. His tech is stolen and used to bomb a building. Then he gets shot in the chest. Then while he's at the hospital a nurse tries and fails to poison him, and she then tries to beat him to death. Then he checks himself out of the hospital and a helicopter shoots missiles at him. Then he becomes a fugitive from justice. And then, oh, yeah, he has to fight the Mandarin. It is... a lot. (Volume 3 of Iron Man is pretty good as far as h/c possibilities. You've got a lot of physical pain, Carol's drinking arc, the Sentient Armor, both DreamVision arcs, and Manhunt. Manhunt is finally supposed to be out in trade this month, by the way.) There are of course the drinking arcs, which probably count as their own type of hurt. But if you haven't read the second drinking arc (IM #160-200), please do. Marvel likes to up the stakes on events (Fear Itself, Secret Empire) by making Tony drink, and it does work, I think. I feel like I've spoken at length about Tony's drinking elsewhere so I don't really want to rehash it all here. And then there's the emotional pain. Angst and drama is something that happens to a whole bunch of characters, yes, especially in comics, but somehow Tony seems to end up with possibly more than his fair share of it. Fandom likes to make a lot of Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, so much so that you might think, if you didn't know canon, that this was just fandom running with a throwaway mention of Tony's terrible childhood and making it worse. But, no, canon really does go there with a reasonable amount of frequency. Howard's actual first appearance is in a flashback where he's ordering teenage Tony to break up with his girlfriend because she's the daughter of one of Howard's business rivals. And then we get into the verbal abuse, and the physical abuse, and the time Howard made Tony take his first drink, and the part where Howard was a demon in hell who Tony fought while he insulted him. And more! Currently, in canon, Howard is alive again and is in league with Mephisto for the express purpose of ruining Tony's life. Also when Tony was a baby, Howard tried to trade him to Dracula. I think you can make an argument that fandom is actually showing restraint when compared to canon. Tony also has a whole lot of Terrible Exes whose presence and/or former presence in Tony's life can be used for a lot of hurt. If you've read any amount of fanfic, you probably know that the exes who get the most play in fandom are Sunset Bain and Tiberius Stone -- not that Tony and Ty were ever canonically a couple, of course, but fandom is definitely enamored of this idea. Ty and Sunset both have relatively similar interactions with Tony in canon, in that they are both liars and emotional abusers, heavy on the gaslighting, with the purpose of becoming more successful than Tony. They both also attempt to murder Tony, although this is after he figures out they're evil, at least. (Yes, I know, this is not how either of them usually appear in AUs.) Tony also has a bunch of exes who also have just straight-up tried to murder or otherwise hurt him, sometimes while they are dating, and sometimes before Tony dates them: Whitney Frost, Indries Moomji, Kathy Dare, and Maya Hansen come to mind. There are probably more I'm not thinking of! But, yes, if you want to write about a guy in a series of terrible relationships, please consider Iron Man comics. If mind control is one of your favorite flavors of hurt, Tony's pretty good for that too. We all know about The Crossing. I suppose when I say "mind control" I mostly mean "armor control" because there are an awful lot of plots where someone else makes Tony's armor do whatever they want it to do and Tony is along for the ride -- Demon in a Bottle, Sentient Armor, and Execute Program are the first things that come to mind. There is also a fairly obscure What If that is What If Iron Man Lost The Armor Wars in which Justin Hammer apparently really wants Tony in a mind control collar to take off all his clothes and lounge around in his underwear. No, really. I think a lot of pain for Tony often revolves around his issues with control, generally -- his alcoholism comes into play here again. The entire aftermath of Civil War is also notable for its propensity to hurt Tony over and over and over. Is he stoically soldiering on through his grief after Steve dies? Hell, no! He cries, like, six separate times. He 100% blames himself for Steve's death. It's great. Everybody loves The Confession and the funeral in Fallen Son, but one of my personal favorites is Avengers/Invaders, in which Tony is confronted with a time-traveling Steve from WWII and in order not to screw up the timeline, he can't tell Steve he knows him. He is clearly not coping well. He shuts himself in a room with a giant wall of pictures of Steve! Also there's a part where he has to try to convince Steve he can trust him and he ends up having to tie Steve to a chair to talk to him, and Steve looks at him and asks, "Who did you kill to get where you are?" and I feel like that is probably one of the worst moments in Tony's life. No wonder he gave himself amnesia. So now we might want to ask, okay, but why is hurting Tony in fanfiction so much fun? I mean, I can tell you why I think it's fun. I can't speak for anyone else. One reason is that he is very emotional and very affected by everything he does. Sometimes you will see people complaining that the heroes of m/m fanfic cry too much and this is not realistic. This is not a problem if you're writing Tony! He can cry as much as you want and it's perfectly in character. I don't think it would be as fun to hurt him if he didn't express so much of his pain. But he does. He also feels guilty, and for me that's a very satisfying character element. If he were well-adjusted and didn't blame himself for so many things, it wouldn't be nearly as fun as watching him blame himself for everyone whose death he thinks he is responsible for, whether or not he is. And then he just keeps going, and it's, y'know, nice to watch him be resilient, too. So, I guess, I think hurting him is interesting because it's easy to hurt him, his weak points are pretty obvious, and he reacts a lot. Steve doesn't hurt quite as much as Tony does, in canon. It's certainly possible to hurt him -- I mean, they did actually kill him after Civil War, after all -- but I don't think the canonical patterns of hurting him are as numerous. Obviously deseruming Steve is a fairly popular go-to in terms of physical hurt; he's been deserumed at least three times that I know of. I think's easy to see the appeal there of taking a character who is fairly physically resilient and making him... much less so. Certainly Marvel seems to see the appeal. But other than that I don't think he has any other really common way to get physically injured. Unlike Tony, whose origin story is basically "oh no, I've acquired a disability," Steve's origin story is "I drank a serum that cured all my disabilities." Which, I mean, great wish fulfillment but there's not really as much there to poke at. Pretty much all of Steve's pain is emotional, but, unlike Tony, his pain isn't often specifically in response to someone directly, purposefully hurting him. Hickman's Avengers run is a big exception, yes. His pain seems to come up most often as a kind of situational angst. He feels like a man out of time. He feels out of touch with the modern era, with people his own age. He feels guilt because he feels responsible for Bucky's death. He feels like he can't trust the government and therefore he can't be Captain America. He worries that he doesn't know how to have a normal life. And, yes, these are deep and important worries but it's different than, like, Indries Moomji dumping Tony with the intent to make him sad enough to start drinking. Very few of Steve's villains want to personally ruin Steve's entire life the way Tony's villains do; mostly they just want to do things like bring back the Nazis. In terms of Steve's potential for h/c, I think Steve is harder to hurt than Tony is. Physically, he is definitely harder to hurt. You can deserum him, sure, but unless you want everything you write to be a deseruming fic you're probably not going to want to do that more than a couple of times. And if you want to hurt him physically while he has the serum, you have to hurt him hard. Usually past the point where a regular human would ever survive it. He's also harder to break, emotionally, than Tony is -- which means it's very satisfying when you can get him to break, but this is a guy who's only cried twice (that I remember) in canon. So if you want to get him to cry, you really, really have to wreck him, and he doesn't have as many obvious weak spots. He also doesn't generally sit around blaming himself for things that aren't his fault, and the whole "stewing in guilt" genre of plots for him basically came down to "he was sad that he thought Bucky's death was his fault," and that's really the biggest regret he seems to have, and also Bucky's not dead anymore. The Steve/Tony relationship itself, I would think, is also appealing to h/c fans because canon provides a lot of ways for them to hurt each other. Some people only ship pairings who would never, y'know, take turns beating each other half to death in major event comics. (And for a lot of Marvel Comics history, that was also Steve & Tony, so if you want them to be BFFs who have never fought, you can just set your fic earlier.) They have definitely hurt each other both physically and emotionally, so if you're looking for something easy and satisfying as a h/c fan, you can just read or write something where they... make up. What about Marvel characters other than Steve and Tony? Surely some of them are angsty, yes? Well, yes, but also it depends on the particular flavor of angst that you like. If you like the way Tony hurts, you may very well enjoy Doctor Strange comics, because they have a very similar attitude towards life -- they are both former alcoholics whose origin stories involve physical disabilities, who routinely make tactical decisions that negatively affect their continued existence and/or happiness a whole lot. It's very much an "I must suffer alone in the dark and no one will ever know what I am doing to save the world but it's the right thing to do" sort of vibe. Like, you can read comics where Strange is lying in hell with two broken legs, hallucinating that Clea has finally come to save him. Strange's biggest fear, akin to Tony's control issues, is basically that one day he's going to be an asshole again, so he's out there trying as hard as he can to do good. Also, if you like tentacles, he has all of them. I mean that. Carol also occasionally hits similar angst spots, and her drinking arc is great. A lot of people like Natasha, too; I have read zero Black Widow comics but I get the impression many people enjoy her brand of angst. The mutant metaphor is a little different in terms of overall vibe, but some people really like it as a source of angst -- the whole "protecting a world who hates and fears them" thing. It may not work for you, but if you like your hurt to include things like systemic oppression, go pick up some X-Men comics. Start with something like God Loves Man Kills. I feel like I liked this sort of thing a lot more as a teenager but that I kind of aged out of liking the mutants quite so much. It's also worth mentioning that not everything that hits the spot in one universe will be the same in the others, and I'm mentioning this because I feel like I have to say something about MCU Bucky. MCU fandom seems to get a lot of mileage out of Bucky's guilt about being the Winter Soldier, everything he was forced to do, et cetera. I have definitely read my share of those fics, and FATWS sure went right for that angst too. But as far as I can tell, he doesn't hit the same way at all in 616. And I like him a lot in 616; I'm always pleased when he shows up on a team. (He was so good in Strikeforce. Everyone was so good in Strikeforce.) But the thing is, 616 Bucky is, basically, phenomenally well-adjusted, given everything he's gone through, and I'm including the time he wrestled a bear in a gulag. He gets over having been the Winter Soldier, and now he's just, y'know, a guy with a cool arm who likes to bring guns to every fight to horrify his teammates, and he snarks at Clint. If you're looking for that angst, that is really not him these days. He's all better. So pretty much all that is canon. So what do we do in fandom for h/c? Well, as far as I can tell, a decent amount of it is canon-based or very canon-close -- there are a whole lot of stories exploring the angst of Civil War or Hickman's Avengers run. Tony's drinking comes up a fair amount, and if one of Tony's Evil Exes comes back to haunt him, it's pretty much only Tiberius Stone. I don't think I've read a lot of fic with Steve getting deserumed; it doesn't seem as popular in fandom as in canon. When Steve gets hurt, he tends to just get physically whumped pretty hard, and there's a fair amount of that for Tony too, but of course Steve can take more. There's also a thriving, uh, subgenre of pain involving Hydra Steve doing terrible things to Tony, presumably the terrible things he would have wanted to do to Tony in canon if Tony had had a flesh body. There's the usual kinds of h/c setups that appear in basically every fandom as well -- sickfic, whump, dub-con/non-con. You get the idea. But since fandom in general likes to take specific inspiration from canon, there's a lot of fic where the hurt tends to resemble things that happen more in canon. Like, I feel like comics fic probably has more tentacle fic and more mind control than canons that don't come pre-stocked with those. Probably everybody has a whole lot of "tied up by bad guys," though. And then, of course, fandom brings the comfort that canon does not. This is true in pretty much every fandom -- I mean, you aren't going to find a lot of actual canons where Character A saves Character B from mortal peril and then there's gay sex -- but, like I was saying, comics don't provide a lot of closure before it's onto the next thing. Usually with a different creative team, who has no interest in wrapping up anything from the last team. Steve and Tony talked about the incursions exactly once after Secret Wars and nobody mentioned the part where Steve spent several months trying to hunt Tony down and kill him. Tony is never going to remember the events of Civil War. Hydra Steve died ignominiously in a fire and no one has ever talked about him again. Honestly, if you're looking for a way to get some comfort in your fanfic, picking an event, any event, and just having the characters talk about it will be way more than any of them get in canon. I feel like honestly that can often be a pretty satisfying to read. And even though comics canon physically hurts characters pretty often and pretty badly, they also often skip right past the recovery. Maybe you'll get one page of a character in a hospital bed at the end of the story arc. Maybe you won't. Demon in a Bottle has one splash page of Tony going through alcohol withdrawal and then he's all better. I think Manhunt skips to Tony getting out of the hospital at the end. That's just not a story that they want to tell very often. The second drinking arc is notable in that it devotes almost as many issues to Tony's recovery as it does to getting him to rock-bottom. Similarly, Steve is done with his Nomad angst way way faster than you probably think he is (though The Captain does go in for a fair number of issues). So one of the things we often want to do in fandom is focus on all the bits that canon skips over, both in the "why did no one ever mention this story arc ever again" way and the "wow, so how long are they in the hospital after that" way. That's really all I can think of about h/c! I'm off to write some more of it!

#posts i actually wrote

[caustic-light]

Random anon here

“The was most other social media is set up ties all interaction you get to whenever you post something new and very quickly buries said post which translates into giving you sudden spikes of dopamine that crash very quickly which is a lot more similar to taking stimulant drugs than to other activities that might be highly rewarding but in a way our brains are better equipped to deal with.”

I wanted to say that the idea that dopamine spikes are similar to taking stimulant drugs is frequently used to control people - like banning all sugar consumption because it’s perceived as inherently addictive for an example. I feel like it’s important to acknowledge how this sort of ‘behavioural addiction’ is frequently used to just outright deny coping mechanisms to people (meaning if social media is a much easier way to communicate, it can be interpreted as ‘they’re addicted to social media,’ and banned). I can’t in good conscience say that these sorts of behavioural addictions exist when I’ve only seen them be used to punish people. But I also know that not everyone has that perspective.

Sugar is a stimulant drug. That doesn’t make sugar bad. It does however make it so when soda contains ungodly amounts of sugar, way past what you could actually justify for a sweetening purpose, it does make it more addictive to a point where when you have a habit with soda and you stop you are pretty likely to experience some crashes and those can be really fucking heavy, especially when you combine the sugar with caffeine. My own experience is skewed obviously bc I have adhd, but sugar plus caffeine is a withdrawl that for me personally feels a lot heavier than actual amphetamine taken for a month every day. (Meds are kinda wild btw.)

Sugar is also an essential nutrient and knowing that it can fuck with you is not a reason to try to scrub it from your diet. It does however help you understand why you might feel like shit after going from a week where you drank a bottle of coke every day to just water if you know what it can do to you.

Likewise dopamine spikes are not bad by default. They’re actually pretty essential to our internal reward mechanisms. But the way our brain is used to handling dopamine is in a more or less steady supply with some peaks here and there that gradually smooth out back into the normal level. When you take stimulant drugs (for the purpose of this conversation I’ll act like dopamine is the only reward chemical in your brain and stimulants don’t affect other neurotransmitters) to the point of a high, you have suddenly a lot more dopamine than your brain knows what to do with, so it get this intense euphoria (usually). Following that, you crash though, because your brain is overwhelmed and going past what it expects to have to deal with disrupts your normal balance. It takes a bit for your brain to recover. And if you keep doing it, you are more and more likely for that recovery to be longer and longer.

None of that means you shouldn’t do drugs, though. You might feel that the benefits outweigh the risks. You might have experimented and figured out that some things work better for you than others and you don’t really feel the downsides.

Risk awareness is important. It makes the difference between you jumping into cold water you have no idea of what lies below the surface and you being able to make an informed decision on what risks you are willing to take.

Idk if you’ve ever seen people who have a lot of experience with what we consider heavy drugs talk about addictive things, but a fuck ton of things we consider benign are up there with the worst of them. You have plenty of people who know what heroin, or meth addiction is like for example also consider alcohol one of the hardest things they ever touched. And social media is also up there for a lot of people. That is something that to develop a healthy relationship with social media we have to understand. And it’s something that we arguably have a moral obligation to acknowledge, because the way social media operates is specifically hurting us for their profit. That includes children and teenagers.

That does not mean that children and teenagers should be barred from social media. Social media can be valuable and important. It can be good. But it means that we have to educate and normalise risk awareness. And we have to do it without fear mongering. We can not hope for coming generations to use social media in ways that don’t hurt them when we demonise social media. But we can’t ignore it’s dangers and methods either. These are serious issues we are dealing with and we can not afford to disregard them out of fear of bad faith readers using the information to try to preserve their own power over children. They will do that anyway. They do not need to know about dopamine to do it. Parents will always find ways to fuck up and isolate their children. You can not prevent that by fear mongering in return against education and knowledge. But you can help the coming generations by showing them both the good and the bad of the spaces they inhabit and by showing them who is responsible for making them hostile against them and why they’re doing so.

The same way you can not fear monger against drugs and expect that to protect children from their risks, but you can’t just ignore their risks either. The more education is available and the easier it is available, the more likely the people who need it will be able to find it.

[woeismyhoe]

Rachel Amber, The Broken Angel Who Demonized Herself

Fair warning, please bear with this probably incredibly **longass** (I’m not kidding it’s rlly long) analysis of one of the fandom’s most controversial disliked characters, Rachel Amber. This is just my attempt to analyze her character based on observation from BtS to LiS so by no means do you have to accept them. Productive discussions are obviously very welcomed :D

In LiS, when we asked about Rachel around campus, most of them had nothing but compliments and praises for the missing girl. She was essentially an honorary Vortex Club member who socialised with the snobs, yet she also hung out with the skater stoners and was friendly with those at the bottom of the social hierarchy. Then we see those graffiti around where it hints at Rachel’s promiscuity, debts and conflicts with other people. That’s the first sign we see that Rachel Amber isn’t as perfect as everyone was making her out to be. Afterwards we discover that Rachel was a stoner herself and into whatever drugs there were, partied harder than anyone else, promiscuous, entered a relationship with local drug dealer Frank Bowers while having a secret relationship with Psycho teacher Mark Jefferson— all while maintaining a 4.0 GPA in her studies and being considered perfect and adored by practically everyone in her school. The girl’s incredible, obviously, or maybe scary for someone to be so spread out in everything.

Rachel was a straight A student with a 4.0 GPA, an administrative assistant to the Principal, beloved by students and faculty alike, literal goddess beauty, had ambitions to be a model and study international law, daughter of the DA and was the closest to perfection anyone would ever be— so what went wrong? What made her romanticise the idea of running away from a town where everyone loves and adores her?

Because of the above.

Yes, it may sound whiny and dramatic to feel tired of being loved and being the center of attention all the time, but there’s no point to it if it’s not you who they adore, but the person you’re pretending to be— (“I was feeling angsty and reckless. Tired of living up to the perfect image everybody expects out of me.”) —especially when you have to do so much just to maintain the lie.

Throughout LiS and BtS, Rachel’s ability to get along with everyone was always mentioned. At face value she was akin to a social butterfly. She hung out with stoners regardless of their social status (skaters or the vortex club), was friendly with anyone regardless of their place in the social hierarchy (eg; Daniel/Evan/Steph/Drew/Nathan) or even to strangers others usually ignored (Samuel/Homeless lady). Like Evan said, Her friends were her friends. She wasn’t one to let peer pressure affect her relationships so she wasn’t afraid to make all those acquaintances.

However, for those who knew her closely (Chloe and Jefferson), she was referred to as a chameleon, someone who blended in with everyone and everywhere seamlessly. This was an important detail regarding who Rachel was and her intimacy with others. To be able to make that comparison, they would’ve needed to know who the person Rachel actually was underneath the masks she’d created over the years. Chloe was the first to truly see and accept her for who she was. Jefferson was the one who exploited her for it.

For most, being a social chameleon would count as a beneficial social skill if they’re subtle. So long as the person doesn’t lose themselves in the process and is able to separate their personas from their true self, it remains a skill and will be used as such.

The problem with Rachel was that it transcended beyond a skill. A social chameleon was *what* she became, and that led to losing her own sense of identity, to becoming a stranger in her own body.

We see her confiding to Chloe about this feeling in Brave New World: (“Do you think there’s a point when you’ve been acting so much that you don’t even have your own personality anymore? You’re just whatever you think other people want you to be?”) —to which Chloe tells her she does have a personality because she assumed Rachel was talking about herself. But Rachel apparently wasn’t and clarifies she was talking about her father. She then elaborates on how her father doesn’t really exist, that how he was in the principal’s office was a mere performance and then the actual truth— that she’s afraid she’ll end up like him.

No matter how you interpret that scene, the conclusion is that one of Rachel’s fears was becoming like James— someone who’s been so wrapped up in all the lies and manipulation that he no longer seemed recognisable to even his own daughter.

At that point her defence mechanism of deflection and avoidance came into play after Chloe got a little too close to home. We first see this on the train scene when they play Two Truths and a Lie. Rachel gave factual statements as opposed to Chloe who gave facts that elaborated into her personal life. At one point Chloe can ask how Rachel knew about having a distal radius fracture and It’s a very minor detail, but when she explains that it’s because she broke her wrist when she was 10, she says it extremely fast. When Chloe is about to press for more info about something personal no matter what option you choose, Rachel dismissively turns around the conversation from herself back to Chloe again.

The next time we see her deflecting is right after witnessing her father cheating. When Chloe asks about her, Rachel deflects and guilt trips her into somehow thinking she’s at fault for failing to get them wasted and then proceeds to drown her sorrows into alcohol instead of opening up. Afterwards when they find the junkyard, Rachel chooses to isolate herself from Chloe and withdraws to the corner, getting irritated if Chloe chooses to invade her space. When Chloe confronts her about her sudden moodiness, Rachel yet again deflects and shifts the attention to Chloe by essentially telling her she’s self-centred. This scene was classic Deflection 101 brought by Rachel’s defence mechanism to cope with her father’s betrayal.

Rachel uses deflection and avoidance as a defence mechanism, a habit which stems from the dynamics of the Amber family. When you have a Politician as a father whose life work is to manipulate and lie, and a Stepford Wife as a mother who wilfully acts like a servant to her husband out of sacrifice and duty— an environment of deceit and suppression of one’s feelings will be fostered. This is what shapes Rachel to be distrusting and unhealthily altruistic as we see in BtS.

And so Rachel’s deflection is driven by 2 things: mistrust (James) and her unhealthy altruism (Rose).

As a district attorney, James unfortunately carried his work persona into his personal life and can be presumed to lie to even his own family on a daily basis to the point that Rachel can tell when he’s lying: (“When your Dad is the District Attorney, I guess lying is...something you're used to.”) (Why can't you just tell me the fucking truth?! Stop lying! Stop being a politician for one fucking minute! Can’t you just be my Dad?”) What that tells us is that Rachel’s actually used to being lied at and treated with cynicism, so naturally that would make her guarded around others. Not to mention since James often exercised his professional prerogative (just recall how he spoke to Chloe and her comment about his micro-aggressions towards his own family), it’s most likely that he was also cynical towards people in general and carried that mindset forward at Rachel as well.

As for Rose, you have to really observe how she carried herself and her choice of words. A lot of people pointed out how robotic she sounded and blamed it on bad voice acting, but I think that was actually intentional. She was too mannered, too submissive and too robotic as a person. It’s not exactly a bad thing, but a lot of her personality seemed to be too... *political* for the sake of her husband’s political career. It was altruistic in the way that she sacrificed her own needs for her husband’s and was unfailingly supportive (eg; preparing dinner all by herself, *respectfully* asking James for his drink, even going so far as to excuse James for kissing Sera like wtf). Point is, Rose was the stereotypical political wife whose job was to shut up, look good and smile for her husband while he does the talking. At one point in the dinner scene when they start fighting, James even dared to say ‘Rose, let me handle this’ as if Rose’s voice was irrelevant and unimportant to the table (when he literally just got exposed for cheating lmao).

So what happens when your family environment consists of a father who actively lies and uses manipulation to twist facts, expects you to be compliant in exchange for rewards (birthday money), has the ability to read people, and a mother who does too much for someone who does the barest minimum for the family and represses herself for the sake of others? An environment of deceit and suppression will be fostered, and you develop all of their qualities, for better or worse. That’s difficult to change when your own family dynamics molded you to be that way and then reward you for it. If you recall, Rachel’s mannerisms changed completely when in front of her family and if Chloe complained about having to play the goody two shoes formal well-behaved humorless girl, Rachel would say: ‘try doing it your whole life’. So not only was she playing different roles in school but evidently at home as well.

But It’s not as if the Amber family was aware of the toxic environment they’d created. That’s just what their normal was: to be well-mannered, formal, professional, mature and well-articulated.

This is where Rachel’s social chameleon tendencies develops. Social chameleons usually have reasons for blending in when it comes to personal relationships:

1. Being liked is important for them (they value what people think of them).

2. They want to blend in so as to not stand out (they don’t like attention).

3. They’re doing it to make the other person comfortable (the needs of others come first before theirs).

Considering how Rachel was extremely popular, active in all sorts of school activities and enjoyed the attention of being the star, no. 2 is out. She confessed to wanting to stop being a social chameleon and didn’t seem to care much about Victoria’s dislike of her + she also did it to her family so no. 1 is out as well, which leaves us to no. 3— doing it for the comfort of others. In other words, because she *gave too much shit about other people all the time*.

What further supports the point of Rachel’s unhealthy altruism is what she says to Chloe at the junkyard— (“Maybe you should try giving a shit about other people for once.”) —which essentially tells us that she’s been doing exactly that to be able to lecture Chloe into following her own perspective. Another example would be what she tells Chloe during their therapy session: “—Because she was tired of having to give so many fucks all the time.”

One thing however that all *extreme* social chameleons share is the fact that they **loathe** themselves, or at the very least— dislike who they are. Why else would they go all the trouble of creating different personas for everyone to the point of forgetting their own, if they actually liked themselves?

One of the many things that Chloe and Rachel shared in common was their self-awareness in how undeniably shitty they can be, and that they hated who they were. Whereas Chloe embraced that whole part of her down her self destructive road, Rachel tried to cover hers up by playing other roles for people. Both girls played their sides to the ends of the spectrum; Chloe being selfish (causing problems for everyone in general unnecessarily) and Rachel being selfless (posing no problem for anyone in general even if there was a problem). They had no healthy balance and their unhealthy mindset ultimately drove them down a self destructive path.

Rachel knew she was selfish by nature, and that she’d take it out on Chloe in Ep 1. That’s why instead of talking about what was wrong, she chose to drown herself to alcohol and distance herself from Chloe. When Chloe confronts her about it, she either tells her that not everything revolves around her or that she should try giving a shit about people for once. In other words, ‘Other people have bigger problems than you so shut up and don’t make it worse for them.’ That was Rachel’s mentality and in that moment of poor lapse in judgment, she applied that logic to Chloe expecting her to think the way she does— to put others before yourself.

With Rachel, she always had her walls up and couldn’t help it even if she wanted to because it's practically second nature to have her guard up (“I never said how dearly I hold thee; my habit's been to keep my soul well-draped.“). It’s only in her lowest vulnerable moments is when she finally let her walls down because that’s when she’s too tired to keep them up.

Luckily (or unluckily) for Rachel, she recognized her problem. The only thing is that she didn’t know how to solve them. She confided to Chloe about feeling like she doesn’t exist, but then backtracked and clarified she was talking about her dad instead when Chloe got too close to home. Even IF she was genuinely talking about her father, it doesn’t erase the fact that she believed there was a possibility she was going to become like him— because she already saw the signs and made the comparison between them.

Remember her infamous outbursts in Awake? Unlike Chloe, she’s the type who keeps everything bottled in until it’s too much. Seeing her father kissing another woman was the breaking point and that’s why she reacted badly. And then when she kicked that bin, that was equivalent to Chloe smashing up the junkyard. And then that scream. That scream was the result of years bottling her pent up frustration, stress, anger at everyone including herself. Because she did everything to make her family proud, to please everyone to the point that she felt so empty and hollow, only to realize that it was all for nothing because her father was destroying her family. It wasn’t just a betrayal from her father but a betrayal to herself.

And then there’s Chloe Price. The girl who is the total opposite of her, yet who she can somehow still connect with at the same time. While she cared too much about what others thought, Chloe gave absolutely no fucks. That was her most attractive and admirable quality for Rachel. So what does she do? She latches onto Chloe to do exactly what she knows best. Become the ideal version of whoever wants her to be. In other words, the Rachel Amber who would finally give no fucks.

Rachel was the closest to her truest self when she was around Chloe. Just as she brought life and hope back into the girl’s life, so did Chloe for her. Chloe broke the walls she put up, and she’d seen her vulnerable enough times to let her mask slip. Chloe saw her at her lowest, ugliest self even when she wasn’t doing her usual thing of keeping everyone around her happy, yet she didn’t mock or leave her for it. For the first time, she was selfish, and *still* Chloe came back. That was a BIG reason to trust each other for the both of them. And that’s ultimately what bonded them for so long— the fact that they could be the shittiest people on earth, yet still see the best in each other even if they only see the worst in themselves.

Chloe was the first one to see through her social chameleon act because she slipped, and she continued to let her unmask who she was because that night Rachel just didn’t care enough to hold up the act any longer. This detail of Rachel’s chameleon act slipping *only* when something was wrong is a vital part in understanding the context around her. The first time was when she witnessed her whole world crash, the second was when she realized she was becoming like James, and the third was when she discovered what a monster James was. The fourth— when she asked that trucker for a drive out and didn’t bother to be her usual social chameleon self. We may never know what happened, but something wrong was going on in Rachel’s life that she didn’t want Chloe to be a part of— because why would she put the girl who stuck by her during her darkest hours through her bullshit again?

But at the end of the day, that wasn’t enough. Chloe wasn’t enough. And that’s understandable because a teenager truly can’t and shouldn’t have to be responsible for someone else’s happiness. No matter what choice Chloe makes at the end of BtS, the truth inevitably gets out and leads to Rachel having a fall out with her parents. When that happened, she lost a big pillar of her support system which only leaves her with Chloe who’s another emotionally damaged teen that’s on the road to self-destruction. Chloe can’t help others without helping herself first. But still, who else is there to make them feel a little less shitty except each other?

After her fall out with her parents and her father in particular, she seemed to have developed a taste for men twice her age: Frank Bowers (32) and Mark Jefferson (38). Whatever the reason her relationship with Frank was, she still wrote him those letters and seemed to have cared for him to some extent. Not only was he the source for drugs for her very much needed escape, but he was also the man who helped save her life in one of her most vulnerable moments, and a possible lead to find Sera. It’s not that surprising she’d seek comfort and safety in his arms when he already proved himself once. But clearly it wasn’t serious because she was fooling around with Jefferson at the same time (and Frank knew they wouldn’t have lasted anyway).

Now, Jefferson. The devs confirmed that Rachel was in love with Jefferson and honestly, that’s the least surprising thing ever considering how he basically had the female population of Blackwell head over heels for him. Even Rachel wasn’t immune to that psychopath’s charm. He was a well reputable photographer, had the connections to propel her modeling career, was attractive and mysterious and apparently a damaged soul. He was the perfect one way ticket out of Arcadia Bay. He was her photographer and she was his muse. He was basically the perfect solution to her problems.

The girl clearly had deep rooted daddy issues and was ashamed of it herself since she couldn’t even share her secret relationship to the one person she trusted the most despite sharing her other relationships with her (except Frank).

This is where the drugs and partying come in. They’re a way for her to escape the bullshit in her life for a few hours. Chloe was what made her feel real, but the drugs and partying was what made her forget— forget that her biological mother chose drugs and money over her (twice), forget that her own father was so despicable that he was planning to overdose Sera (this is what Chloe said in the silent dialogue), forget that her biological mother may just be dead somewhere because of James, forget that her own family was a lie, forget all the expectations placed upon her, forget that she herself was a lie, forget that she was so insecure that she had to seek warmth and safety in the arms of men twice her age, forget the guilt of knowing the girl who would die for her was still not enough, forget that at the end of the day all her problems is caused by her own mind and that her own fears had come to reality. And she hated herself for that.

But still, Rachel wasn’t a total junkie or outwardly self destructive to the point that she abandoned her studies like Chloe did. She didn’t let the drugs and partying dictate her life, hence the 4.0 GPA. After all, she still had a reputation to maintain. She was still the DA’s daughter, and getting into college was still a way to get out of Arcadia Bay.

BUT SEE, that was exactly Rachel’s problem. She could never choose which to be; The Problematic Junkie of a Disappointment (Sera), or the Golden Child (James & Rose) everyone expected her to be. She wanted to be as free as Chloe, but she also didn’t want to be a disappointment. She was tired of everything but couldn’t allow herself to fall because it was her nature to demand the best of herself for others as long as she could do it. But what happens when it’s your very own nature you’re going against? It gets really complicated. So instead of choosing, she doesn’t and becomes both. That was ultimately the worst decision she ever made.

Make no mistake, Rachel was an absolute idiot for being so indecisive. She could have easily solved her problems if she just finally gave no shit and did whatever she wanted to. But that’s the problem with people who’re labeled as perfect growing up. They eventually believe it and demand perfection of themselves. They care too much about everything because if they have the ability to be perfect, then why would you choose not to be? When someone is seen to be perfect, disappointment is 10x worse. Even Chloe was guilty of idealizing Rachel to be this perfect girl and was disappointed when she realized Rachel was just like everyone else who puts in hard work—(“Rachel's always made being an A student seem so easy. Almost sad to see all this... effort."), but it’s Chloe accepting Rachel for who she was despite no longer being the perfect girl she believed her to be that mattered.

With being seen as perfect usually comes with the assumption that your whole life is. Just as everyone invalidated her problems because she’s Little Miss Perfect with the perfect grades and the seemingly perfect family, so did she.

‘Cause hey, what does she have to be mad about when she’s a rich white girl who’s been given everything she’s ever wanted, right? (James basically said that). At that point the only problem Rachel had was that she was acting as the perfect daughter and perfect friend and perfect student at the expense of her own happiness, and then throw in the sudden slap in the face that it was all for nothing because her father was destroying the family she’d tried so hard to do proud.

But then again even if that wasn’t enough reason to spiral, it really would mess you up if your own father told you that your biological mother chose money and drugs over you, that everything you’ve done so far was all for a lie and worst of all, that your own father was going to kill your biological mother and there’s nothing you can do to change that. I mean really, I’m not a therapist or anything but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rachel’s mental health was suffering by that point.

I mean get this: she abused drugs and partied harder than anyone else and got wasted even though she knew they were wrong (Sera would’ve been a painful reminder), slept around with older men who undoubtedly took advantage and controlled her, continued to act like the perfect student and pretended to be someone she’s not just to keep everyone happy even though it was causing her to question her own existence— it’s almost as if she was punishing herself for continuing down that path.

Ultimately what Rachel was running away from was who she had become in Arcadia Bay. Once she’d be out, she wouldn’t be Little Miss Perfect anymore. She wouldn’t be the DA’s daughter. She wouldn’t have to keep lying. She would be able to start over. She would just be Rachel Amber, the nobody.

She cared too much in contrast to Chloe’s ‘I don’t give a shit’ attitude, and that’s why she still managed to maintain her perfect image even when she was already so broken. Whereas Chloe’s first instinct was to blame others, Rachel’s was to blame herself. Both never had a healthy balance when it came to accepting responsibility and that’s what connected them so well together.

Call it selflessness or selfishness or stupidity or melodrama, but at the end of the day Rachel tried to keep everyone around her happy, just like Max tried to do with her powers except Rachel used lies to do it. She was greedy and selfish, no disagreement to that, but she also tried to be selfless for most of her life. She was her own enemy and she demonized herself for it. And that got her murdered, thrown and buried away like the used rag doll she treated herself to be.

She was Chloe’s angel and Chloe was hers, but she was also her own demon. And there’s only so much two broken angels can do against a demon.

**TL;DR:** Idealizing her to be the Perfect Girl was what made her want to run away. Her family was what broke her. Desperation for escape was what killed her. Her family just *really* suck.

Now, I’m not trying to justify Rachel’s actions but merely rationalizing her character. I acknowledge that she was capable of being a shitty person at times, but just as Chloe had her issues, so did she, and so I choose to see them both for what they tried to be. Good hearted people just trying to make their shitty life a little easier. At the end of the day, Rachel Amber was a deeply flawed, insecure and emotionally damaged girl that pretended like nothing was wrong to forget about her troubles for a little, and was just dealt a bad hand in life. Literally.

After writing all of this, I realize that holy shit this girl was fucking complicated and a single post doesn’t do her justice nor explains her character properly enough. I thought it’d be simple enough to word it out, but then again, someone who was basically a junkie yet still managed to maintain her perfect reputation amongst her peers and the faculty is bound to be this complexed. Also as you can see I got very lazy at the middle of the elaborations and repetition has probably made this unnecessarily long but thank you for reading and finishing this overall confusing and messy essay.

#life is strange #amberprice #chloeprice #rachelamber #analysis #meta #I posted this on Reddit n it got a nice reception #so here it is on tumblr #yk just to stay true to what this blog was supposed to b lmao

[skyblue-ringpops]

A Deep Dive Into Blaine Anderson

I wrote a six page essay analyzing Blaine Anderson.

Click to read it, I would really appreciate if you did. Keep in mind - it’s long. 

I hope you enjoy, and feel free to share your thoughts!

Warning: There will be discussion of neglect, abuse, homophobia, suicide, self harm, eating disorders, and sexual assault.

When we were first introduced to Blaine Anderson, he was made out to seem like Kurt’s mentor, very confident and open to being himself. It wasn’t long before he changed, and many would say that change was for the worse. As many people say, he became whiny, clingy, and, according to many of his critics, annoying. However, it isn’t hard to see that Blaine was struggling mentally, and these issues were never explored further. This essay will not only determine what he was going through, but explain possible causes and effects. 

We first meet Blaine at Dalton Academy, confident, accepting of himself, someone for Kurt to look up to and be guided by. But why does he suddenly change after season two? He isn’t being himself at Dalton, he’s being the way he’s expected to be. The Warblers all seem to have a similar presence that captures the spirit of the academy - formal, wise, confident. That fits the personality of season two Blaine. Why is he acting this way, though? There’s a few possibilities. One, he’s trying to fit in. Everyone else in the academy acts that way, and Blaine doesn’t want to stand out, he wants to fit in, something he wasn’t able to do at his old school. Two, he could have a mentor at the academy that he’s trying to act more like. Blaine is the head Warbler, but he isn’t the authority in the group. That role would likely belong to Wes or David, one of the members of the council. It’s possible that Blaine admired them or was inspired in some way, and tried replicating their behavior. Three, he could have been ashamed of his actual personality or feared nobody would like his true self, and tried hiding it either to fit in, as I said before, or to make Kurt like him. I personally don’t think this is the case since he took off his mask once arriving at McKinley. I think he was likely trying to fit the image of the academy, hoping it would prevent the bullying he faced at his old school. Although Dalton had a zero tolerance policy, he likely faced some trauma, and a simple policy wouldn’t be enough for him.

So, what happened at his old school? Blaine said that he and his openly gay friend were jumped at a Sadie Hawkins dance at their school, leading Blaine to transfer to Dalton. This affected him quite a bit, and it was shown multiple times. While at the prom with Kurt, Blaine seems protective of him at times and isn’t too sure they’ll be safe. The chance of this being his first dance since the Sadie Hawkins is very high, it’s no surprise that he’d be afraid, especially knowing that Kurt had been bullied in the past. After Tina very awkwardly asks Blaine to the Sadie Hawkins dance and gets rejected, she apologizes, thinking he said no because of his past experience. We know he said no because of his crush on Sam, however, I don’t believe that’s the only reason. He knew Sam wouldn’t feel the same way, and he knew Tina would have been willing to go as friends. Even if it wasn’t the main reason for him rejecting her, his trauma likely played a role in it. 

alton Academy was a place of refuge for Blaine. He went there after the bullying, he made friends, he met Kurt, the Warblers were probably the closest thing he had to a family, he almost went back after his very hard breakup in season four. It wouldn’t be hard to believe that Dalton saved his life, which I’ll get more into later. When the academy burns down in season six, it’s clear that he was very affected by it. He’s brought into the auditorium clearly upset, crying, quiet. When explaining what happened, he seems distant, sort of zoned out. Chances are, he watched the academy burn - many agree it is a boarding school so even if it wasn’t during the school day, it’s very likely he was there. But the fire probably happened during the day, it makes sense since there would be something that could have caused it. Even if he didn’t witness the academy burn, he would have seen the results of the fire, even if it was just in pictures. The academy was clearly important to every student, they did what they could to respect it. Blaine has an extra reason to hold it so close, That would almost definitely add to his trauma, especially since it was a place that meant so much to him.

The Warblers were the closest thing Blaine had to a family. What about his parents, what about Cooper? We met Cooper and Pam, and his father was mentioned. However, in a deleted scene, it is confirmed that Blaine’s parents weren’t present in his life, they were too busy with work. Cooper and Blaine didn’t have much of a relationship, due to their age difference. Blaine’s father and Cooper aren’t even at the wedding, although it wasn’t originally his. There was a deleted explanation for Cooper’s absence, he had a callback for an audition. The only explanation for his father’s absence was also deleted - an implication that his parents got a divorce. It’s hard to say the effect this would have on Blaine, it was deleted so we never saw his reaction, and we don’t know if it even affected him much due to their absence. Also, it’s more than likely that Blaine raises himself. In flashbacks, it’s shown that he didn’t have the best childhood. We see Cooper teasing him and not letting him play, and we see him play Operation by himself. Chances are, he raised himself. He probably had nobody to raise him, no role models. We know Blaine didn’t have the best relationship with Cooper, we saw in the episode Big Brother that, although they seemed to make up at the end, Cooper never really supported Blaine and constantly criticized him, and Blaine seemed jealous of the attention Cooper received. These problems have probably always existed, and could even be traced back to their parents, if Cooper got more attention or praise. Their parents were absent for most of Blaine’s childhood, but due to the age difference, we can’t definitively say the same for Cooper. As for their father, he isn’t talked about much, but Blaine does tell Burt that his father used to fix cars with him in an effort to turn him straight. Now, this is only based on what Blaine says, it’s possible that he just assumed this and his father’s intention was simply spending time with his son. However, even if that is the case, there has to be some reason for Blaine to assume this. Whether his father made homophobic comments in the past, reacted badly to Blaine coming out, or explicitly said he had an issue with Blaine’s sexuality and/or wanted to “fix him”, or if his father never actually did anything, and he assumed the worst because of something done by someone else, there has to be some reason for him to think this. His mother does seem to be the better parent, at least she shows up once and he doesn’t have anything bad to say about her. But that doesn’t mean she was all good, and just observing her behaviors at the wedding shows this. First of all, she’s shown dancing with Puck, which must be weird for Blaine. Imagine seeing your recently divorced (although I’m not sure if we can consider the divorce canon since it was deleted, making this situation even worse) dancing with one of your classmates, who’s only a year older than you. This next point isn’t canon, it’s more of a possible scenario. His mother seems to be acting drunk at the wedding, and is one of the only ones to appear that way. Again, not confirmed. But if that is the case, imagine this scenario - Blaine’s mother hardly being present, and drinking when she is. First of all, this would make it much harder for the two to bond, since she probably wouldn’t be focused as much on him. Second, there isn’t much she would be able to do for him, so he wouldn’t have a responsible adult around if he needed one. And third - again, this is entirely speculation - it could potentially have a negative influence on him. While it definitely doesn’t seem Blaine has a dependence on alcohol (it actually seems to be more of the opposite, since he’s apparently drunk after one beer in The First Time), it could have a negative influence on his coping mechanisms, shown when he and Dave Karofsky are explaining their relationship to Kurt, saying they met at Scandals. This may not seem like an issue, but remember, during season six, Blaine was too depressed to do much of anything, to the point of getting kicked out of NYADA, but still chose to hang out in a bar.

Speaking of his relationship with Karofsky, almost everyone agrees that he shouldn’t have dated his ex’s former tormentor, and many criticize him for that. But what was his reason for choosing to date him? There are a few possibilities. First, he could have actually had feelings for him, which I doubt. It isn’t impossible, but he clearly wasn’t over Kurt, and he knew how Karofsky used to treat him, although he changed. It is possible that Blaine was just taking whatever he could get, like after the season four breakup when he was finally able to move on due to a crush on Sam, likely developed out of loneliness. Also, his feelings for Dave quickly disappear when he realizes he has a chance to get Kurt back. Another possibility is that he chose to date Dave to upset Kurt, out of spite possibly, but Blaine doesn’t seem like the type to intentionally hurt someone he loves. He usually tries to take on the role of a protector, so why would he try to hurt Kurt, even if he was upset with him, especially knowing what Dave did in the past? The third reason, which seems the most probable to me, is that Blaine dated Dave because he was seeking pain or abuse. There’s a few reasons why he could have done this. One, it isn’t uncommon for survivors of abuse, which with his father, Blaine might be, to seek out more pain after their abuser has stopped. It’s possible that, if his father was abusive, he did stop sometime around season 6, since Blaine likely doesn’t live at home anymore and if his parents did divorce around this time, he may not see his father anymore. Two, it could have been a form of punishment. If he blamed himself for the breakup, he may think he deserves pain for hurting Kurt. He also could have been seeking pain in order to feel something. He was extremely depressed after the breakup and likely felt numb, and in his mind, pain would be better than that. Finally, he could have been with Dave thinking he couldn’t do any better or didn’t deserve any better. This could be a result of the breakup or his previous insecurities shown in season 5.

Now, let’s take a closer look at his insecurities. Insecurity is something that has been covered quite a bit on the show, but is typically done poorly. In Blaine’s case, his insecurity makes him jealous and many criticize him for that. When Kurt begins a more healthy lifestyle and gets in better shape, rather than being happy for him, Blaine becomes jealous, tries to reverse his progress, and turns to the internet because he doesn’t feel comfortable around Kurt. There are some suggestions that Blaine may be going through something many characters in the show face - the eating disorder that only lasts one episode. There are many implications that he may be binge eating at the beginning of the episode, and even after deciding he wants to get into shape, continues consuming a large amount of calories, seemingly using it as a coping mechanism. However, this issue was completely overlooked, just like many others throughout the show. He also says to Kurt, “One day, you’re gonna wake up and realize that ‘I don’t love him anymore.’” He has the belief throughout the episode that Kurt is better than him, and could do better. However, this isn’t the first time he has a mindset like this. When Kurt texts Chandler, Blaine accuses him of cheating despite doing something similar with Sebastian and seeing no issue with it. When Kurt graduates, Blaine worries that the long-distance relationship won’t work for them, he worries that Kurt will leave him. When Blaine meets Elliot, he confronts him for trying to steal Kurt from him, despite both of them assuring him they are just friends. Kurt hasn’t done anything to make Blaine believe he isn’t loyal or wants to leave him. It seems that Blaine has abandonment issues, which could be traced back to his parents’ absence. This would also explain his clinginess and dependence on Kurt. Even when Kurt isn’t around, he always seems to have one person he latches onto. For example, in seasons four and five, he’s hardly seen without Sam, and even in season six, when he seems to go everywhere with Dave and moves in with him very quickly, and the only times he is without them are usually when he is with Kurt.

Blaine’s anxiety is shown in more ways than just his abandonment issues and clinginess. For example, when Blaine is reconsidering his choice to audition for NYADA and instead claims he wants to be a doctor despite having no prior interest, he is avoiding a cause of worry, a common symptom of anxiety. He also shows signs of an anxiety attack during the shooting. He’s shown sitting quietly, crying, and hugging his knees. He’s okay at first, but later panics after being shushed. He most likely thinks everyone is mad at him for making noise, and fears that if anything happens to them, he will be blamed. When Ryder calls “Katie” and the phone rings, everyone tells him to turn it off except for Blaine, who can be seen mouthing “Turn it off please” but doesn’t make a sound, likely because he’s too scared to speak. He doesn’t move and is the only one to not touch anyone during the lockdown. Even when Sam is trying to leave, Blaine doesn’t help, just covers his ears and tries to block it out. This could be signs of PTSD. Throughout the experience, he seems almost childlike, for example, curling up, audibly sobbing, clinging to Sam, and being the only person to call his parents and greeting his mother with “hey mommy”.

Along with his anxiety, Blaine is shown to have severe depression, which is especially notable during seasons four and six, but likely existed even before his transfer to Dalton. He talks about being unable to sleep and eat after he and Kurt broke up in season six, and was even kicked out of NYADA due to his lack of motivation. He nearly transfers back to Dalton after the season four breakup, a place of refuge for him, because everything at McKinley reminds him of Kurt and he can’t handle it. He even shows signs of being suicidal in seasons three and four. Season four has less to discuss, he says a few things that suggest he either is or is becoming suicidal, showing signs of severe depression and acting as if he has nothing left. In season three, though, there is more to look into, and if you aren’t paying close attention, it’s easy to miss. Both examples are from the episode On My Way. The theme for regionals is inspirational, and Blaine chooses to sing the song Cough Syrup. The song is viewed as a cry for help from the band when they were first starting out and unsure what to do. However, the song is not about suicide. It’s about the difficult decision to stray from the norm and do your own thing, or do what is expected of you. In fact, upon viewing the episode, the band said they never thought of the song in that way. However, many listeners do think of the song as being about suicide, and we don’t know what Blaine’s interpretation was. Later in the episode, the club discusses suicide. Everyone makes eye contact, and when they say what they are looking forward to, everyone laughs and smiles. However, Blaine doesn’t. Rather than looking at everyone else, he looks down, rubbing his wrists, suggesting possible self harm or suicidal ideation. He looks sad throughout the discussion, and his only smile, towards the end of the discussion, looks very forced and his eyes still look sad. Due to his past, it wouldn’t be hard to believe he had thoughts of suicide at some point, whether before Dalton, or during seasons three, four, and/or six.

My final point will be discussing this article. The article points out some inconsistencies about Blaine and sex, from his open discussion with Burt, casually bringing up masturbation, his sometimes sexual song choices, the car scene after he and Kurt go to Scandals, and his talk about sexy faces, to his argument with Sam when he says he’s “not for sale”. He shows no discomfort most of the time, until one suggestion makes him become angry and defensive. His character did go through quite a bit of changes, which could be an explanation for his inconsistencies, mixed with Glee’s notoriously bad writing, but there is another way to look at it: some kind of sexual trauma during his childhood. The ability to have a mature discussion about it can be explained by his exposure to it at a young age if this is the case, since, depending on his age, he would probably need an explanation and a discussion with adults, possibly strangers, if he came forward about his experience. He could, depending on the trauma, view sex as a way to gain approval. And if his dad actually is homophobic, this could be directly linked with Blaine’s experience, with his father possibly believing his sexuality is a result of the trauma. The presentation of his trauma could differentiate every day, being perfectly fine with talking about it one day and not wanting to the next. This could also provide a bit more of an explanation for the car scene during The First Time, if Blaine’s experience happened at a young age and that was his first exposure to and therefore the foundation of his understanding of sex, Blaine may not realize when he goes too far. We know that, whether this theory is true or not, Blaine experienced sexual assault when Tina “vaporaped” him. He doesn’t seem too bothered by her, and she even becomes one of his best friends after it happened. However, the response to trauma I discussed earlier seems to be present. Sam brings up the event later on, meaning he knows about it, and since the chances of Tina or Kurt (the only other ones who know) telling him aren’t high (Tina because she wouldn’t want to admit to it, unless she slipped up like she did with Kurt, and Kurt because he wouldn’t want to reveal Blaine’s trauma), and the fact that Sam brought it up in front of Blaine, shows that he was likely okay with talking about it. He wouldn’t tell Sam if he wasn’t okay discussing it, and if they never talked about it, Sam probably wouldn’t casually joke about it in front of him. If Sam thought the comment he made was okay, he probably didn’t think it affected Blaine too much. However, when Sam brings it up, Blaine clearly looks upset. It did have a negative effect on him, and it was more than likely traumatic. And there’s a possibility that it may not have been his first experience with sexual trauma.

There is no question that Blaine had a rough past, and many of those struggles continue to affect him. However, the show, for the most part, ignores them. I hope that through this essay, you were able to learn a bit more about Blaine, understand his inconsistencies and behaviors that seem out of character, to look past the surface level. Blaine is one of the strongest characters, but his issues are hardly ever brought to light. Keep in mind, a lot of this is speculation, headcanons, or analysis of background information that may not have been scripted. Respectful discussion is encouraged, and feel free to share any additional observations, theories, or headcanons, or suggest another character for me to look into.

#glee #blaine anderson #deep dive #blaine anderson headcanon #blaine anderson hc #blaine anderson angst #character analysis #glee blaine #klaine #blam

[fmdtaeyong]

three six wanted plots!

like this or message me if you think one could work for your muse!

EDIT: i added two more at the end!

friendship (or antagonistic?)

one. ash and this muse go way back. they debuted around the same time and met during crossing schedules. ash wasn’t one to make friends easily at the time, especially because he was younger than most others promoting, but somehow these two exchanged contact information and bonded. they’ve had some distant patches over the years, at least some in part because ash has grown increasingly flaky and hard to get a hold of over the years, but their friendship held on. ash always made sure to at least send them congratulations for new projects and comebacks, but lately he’s been missing even those. this muse has either had enough of his flakiness and obviously purposeful distancing or they’re worried, and they confront him.

requirements: debuted in the older generation of groups (lily, calypso, polaris, selene, or platinum)

friendship or intimate

two. ash and this muse have engaged in their more hedonistic vices together, perhaps partying/clubbing, alcohol/drugs, but they’ve never crossed any physical lines beyond friendship. one night, they come back to one of their houses inebriated after spending their night into the early mornings out partying and they share a heated kiss. they don’t go any further than that and simply end up falling asleep, but they’re left to wonder if it’s just another vice they’re both using each other for.

it could kinda go anywhere, though i currently envision it as something that’s part attraction, part unhealthy coping mechanism that gets a little fwb-y and they don’t angst over for too long, but they ultimately remain just friends, but we can work with wherever the platonic or romantic chemistry takes it.

requirements: born in 1999 or older, but the younger part of this age range would be dependent on how well the muse could click with ash / how much they have in common

intimate (or antagonistic?)

three. ash and this muse dated probably around 2018 during a period of time in which his on-off relationship with his ex was off. it seemed like it’d be a good relationship at first, but ash quickly made it difficult because he wouldn’t let them get too close emotionally, or his trust issues showed, or he was just hard to ever see because he insisted he was busy. the muse might have caught on that he seemed hung up on an ex. it eventually ended after a few months because of him and he got back with that pesky ex he was hung up on, but he really did like this person and feels bad about how it went to this day. he almost wants to ask for a second chance, but isn’t sure he’d be any better of a boyfriend today than he was then.

requirements: born in 1997 or older

antagonistic

four. this muse has had more than one encounter with ash where he’s come off as cold and distant at best and outright rude at worst. in truth, they’ve gotten unlucky enough to catch him on bad days (which, admittedly, he has a lot of sometimes). suffice to say, they don’t have the best impression of him and, to make matters worse, he doesn’t realize this. when they’re put in a situation where ash needs their help or they’re forced to cooperate (can be plotted depending on the muse), it makes the situation less than ideal and ash then gets a bad impression of them in return. in the end, they’re left both disliking each other without the full picture of why.

requirements: any, other than titan members

friendship

five. this muse has one of ash’s favorite voices, and they just so happen to be good friends that click musically as well. she’s become a frequent collaborator as a demo singer for many of his tracks that he can’t sing the demo of himself. they spend a lot of time in his studio where he’s most himself, and they’ve become closer through that. she’s one of the people that knows ash the best because of all of the time they’ve spent together since he became a serious producer. he pays her back in food, money, gifts, or however he can and has promised to make a song (or more) for her one day if she wants it.

requirements: a female vocal

friendship

six. ash hasn’t danced beyond what he’s required to in a few years. even before his injury, he had simply chosen to dedicate his time to other things. while on hiatus, he winds up at a dance studio one night for old time’s sake and runs into this muse. they wind up talking and even dance a little together. it’s the first time ash has really been able to enjoy dancing in years, and he has this muse to thank for it. ash returns a few times and ends up running into the same muse until it becomes a pattern and a blossoming friendship.

requirements: a dancer

#famedrstask3 #+5 ecp #// his intro is a work in progress

[laceymorganwrites]

Brokenhearts Club: Stone Cold

Word count: 1,626

Pairing: none, Saeko x her husband

Warnings: angst, swearing, heartbreak, unrequited love

Song: Stone Cold - Demi Lovato

Taglist: @vicassa @ashhhh26 @luckypartyranchmug @chaelysian @2o-done @hoho-cham @thatnikkixx @solarskiesdream @mattsuns-prettybaby @moonlightaangel @madusas-girlfriend @d-angerboys @lulu-102 @anejuuuuoy @killmeplz-uwu @serihandfn @atsumubabe​ @chibioomi​ @onlyshinji​

Female reader

Stone cold, stone cold

You have known Saeko all your life. Starting from kindergarten, going to middle school and then to high school together. You were inseparable, far more than just best friends. You two spent so much time at the other´s house that your families already merged together. It was nice, or it would´ve been.

Such strong bonds, such a pure and wonderful friendship, you did everything together, shared everything. Well, almost everything.

But it was normal to keep secrets, wasn´t it? Especially when those secrets could destroy everything you have built over the years.

Well, it was your own fault. You shouldn´t fall for your best friend, that was common knowledge.

You see me standing but I´m dying on the floor

But you just couldn´t stop yourself, Saeko made it too easy.

She was too charming for her own good, too beautiful, too funny, too caring…

If only she liked women.

But then again, even if she did, you´d never be more than just friends.

It was a harsh truth that you realized over the years and the more time passed, the more it manifested.

The best choice would´ve been to break off contact with her to get over her, but how could you?

You´d rather live with your heartbreak than to ever live a life without Saeko in it.

Besides… you´d get used to the dull ache eventually.

That was what you had hoped all these years, an almost extinguished hope you just couldn´t let go no matter how much it hurt.

Maybe all of this made you a masochist.

But you didn´t care.

How could you care when you could see Saeko be happy and smile, fall in love? Even if it was not with you.

Even if it could never be with you. 

Maybe if I don´t cry I won´t feel anymore

You should distance yourself from her, you shouldn´t clutch onto her like she was the only thing keeping you alive. 

But you were too far gone at this point, too much in love, too dependent on her.

If you were to leave, you´d miss her touch and presence more than anything else

You´d always fall back into her arms whenever she hugged you out of joy, despite your heart hurting oh so much, you´d always let her compliment you when shopping together, living in your fantasy world where all of this meant something.

The worst thing was when she got a boyfriend and of course told you everything about it and him in great detail.

He was a great guy, really, you wished them the best, you knew that he could give Saeko everything she deserved and more, everything she ever wanted.

And still.

It wasn´t you.

The thought alone hurt so much it was almost unbearable, it was fucked up. You knew that Saeko was bound to fall in love with a man, you shouldn´t have held onto this false hope, she would never love you the way you loved her.

But you couldn´t control your emotions.

Especially not when she told you that they got engaged, asking you to be her bridesmaid and help her with the preparations.

This was it. The last piece of your heart shattering. 

You´re dancing with her while I´m staring at my phone

However the whole process, watching her be so happy with someone else, it brought you pain you didn´t even know you could feel.

You were with her when she got her dress, the decorations and the cake.

You were with her at every phone call, every important date and you hated it.

But most of all you hated yourself for desperately hanging on.

It was like you were dependent on her.

She was a virus in your life, eating away at all your hope and your fragile heart and you let her because it was so addicting, so ecstatic, so immaculate.

Yes, maybe you became more than a tad bit masochistic because of her.

And so what?

That was your way to cope…

Well, to run away from facing the truth, you desperately tried to hold up the facade of being just friends.

I was your amber, but now she´s your shade of gold

Everything came crashing down on you at Saeko´s bachelorette party.

It was bad enough to plan it, to watch her try on all those outfits that shouldn´t fit so perfectly.

But then again, everything looked so good on her, you realized early on that Saeko simply couldn´t look bad, not even mediocre.

She was always the prettiest in the room.

Everyone´s eyes were on her but there was only one person she returned the favor to.

And it most definitely wasn´t you.

And it never would be.

This fact would always be repeated inside your head and yet it just wouldn´t stick.

It didn´t hurt to dream, right?

Though dreaming didn´t get you anywhere, not that you actually wanted to pursue her.

No.

You´d never do that, her happiness was far more important than your own.

Dreaming about being with her the way you always wanted only hurt you more.

When you arrived at her doorstep after the party was over to say goodbye, every single one of your emotions seemed to overflow.

It was all too much.

Too much pent up frustration and your broken heart screamed bloody murder.

Your head was spinning from the alcohol and you started feeling sick, you were still supporting Saeko who drank way more than you and could barely walk in a straight line.

“I´m getting married tomorrow!” she slurred, laughing loudly and turned around to you with those big bright eyes and you wanted nothing more than to kiss her.

Saeko slipped a bit and fell against you, but you managed to catch her so that you two hugged now.

Your heart started beating faster and you knew you were about to do something stupid, but you couldn´t stop yourself.

“I love you…” you whispered, sounding almost hysterical, your voice strained with the pain of your feelings but Saeko was too drunk to recognize that.

“Aww, I love ya too! You´re my best friend” she hugged you even tighter and it felt like a thousand knives digging into your skin.

You wanted to scream.

God knows I tried to feel happy for you

“I fucking know...you´ll never see me as anything more than a friend and that´s okay, I can´t control who you love, but goddamn, it hurts….I want you to be happy but it hurts to goddamn much…” you thought, unable to stop the tears that were streaming down your face.

Saeko drunkenly smiled at you one last time before shutting the door and falling asleep next to the man who´d be her husband tomorrow.

You were alone in your bed, as always, and unable to sleep.

Nothing new.

The next morning you got up only reluctantly, not wanting this day to happen at all and wanting to get it over with as soon as possible at the same time.

After you were done getting ready and drove to Saeko´s place to help her get ready, you stood in front of her door for a bit before actually entering.

The events of last nights went through your head the whole night and still you were embarrassed even though Saeko didn´t remember any of it.

Instead of looking at you disgusted, she greeted you like usual, hugging you tight and rambling on about how excited she was to finally get married.

You helped prepare everything else that needed to be done and then tried to calm Saeko down as best as you could before sitting down on your designated seat.

Caught in your head you imagined what it would be like to be the one waiting for Saeko instead of her fiance. If only she´d smile at you that way, if only you could embrace her like that, if only the love in her eyes was dedicated to you.

It hurt seeing all of that belong to the luckiest man on the planet who now looked at the beautiful bride walking down the aisle with bright and loving eyes.

The ceremony passed like white noise for you, maybe it was a defense mechanism from your body that prevented your heart from being completely obliterated.

Biting your lip until it was bloody, you tried your hardest to look somewhat happy.

Needless to say, you failed.

You wanted to escape to the restroom and cry your eyes out, but you were frozen in place, stuck, you just couldn´t move.

Maybe you were more of a masochist than you realized.

Everything around you was happening in a fast forward motion and in slow motion at the same time, making you dizzy.

You knew that people were approaching you, talking to you, saying how happy they were for Saeko, but you didn´t respond.

You couldn´t.

It was like you were having the most fucked up and pathetic out of body experience of all.

Your eyes caught Saeko laughing with her husband as they had their first dance.

She looked so beautiful, so happy.

Everything was perfect.

For her.

You gulped, balling your fists and digging your nails into your flesh to stop your tears from falling.

To no avail.

You could feel your eyes burning and ignored everyone who asked if you were okay.

Okay.

When have you ever been okay? You wasted your whole life pining after someone who´d never love you. And that realization hurt. It hurt that you knew all along, but the dire consequences and meaning seemed to be only sinking in just now.

Maybe you wanted to be happy too.

Even if it could never be with her.

If happy is her, I´m happy for you

#haikyuu #haikyuu imagine #haikyuu oneshot #haikyuu scenario #haikyuu songfic #haikyuu saeko #saeko tanaka #saeko x reader #saeko imagine #saeko scenario #saeko oneshot #saeko songfic #hq #hq imagine #hq scenario #hq songfic #hq oneshot #hq saeko

[astudyinfreewill]

“look what you made me do” 2/? | masterpost

aka: me making taylor swift songs about dean winchester and/or deancas bc it’s what dean himself would want

second song on deck, as promised; this one actually has quite a few cas beats in it, especially at the start, despite it having a dean vibe overall, so it should be interesting. again, bonus fanvid link at the end <3

this is me trying

i've been having a hard time adjusting i had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting

ok, we start off strong with a couplet that could suit either dean or cas. “the shiniest wheels” is actually a perfectly fitting metaphor for a show that treats cars like emotional avatars of the people who drive them (i could so easily go into a digression about how the same thing happens in trc but this is the wrong post for that... how do i keep finding myself emotionally invested in car-fetishizing media while barely being a can-drive gay myself). ANYWAY, the first thing that comes to mind is the impala and how it’s pretty much synonymous with dean’s sense of self, how it gets wrecked and rebuilt over the course of the show, often tied in to his emotional state. and dean, well. he’s built up a lot of trauma over the years, but he’s also just getting older, as humans do.

on the other hand, we could also see it as a cas line - he’s not as much of a carfucker car aficionado as dean but he’s an adoptive winchester so hey, it still kinda works (rip to the pimpmobile, gone but not forgotten). what i MEAN is -- cas has been slowly falling from grace ever since season 4. he was becoming more human in season 5 already, with a grim prediction of his human future in 5x04; then lived as human for a while in season 7; then became completely human in season 9 before regaining his grace. but in season 15, again, his grace was apparently failing (boy it would be SUCH a shame if that plot point just, like... got dropped... 😐). substitute “wings” for “wheels” and you get a picture of someone who used to be this unstoppable, super-powered angel soldier that demons cowered in fear of, but has slowly become more human over time. as for “a hard time adjusting”... well, cas’ journey towards humanity has not been the easiest transition: it’s come with self-doubt, mental and physical pain, and of course, as he learned about love: heartbreak.

TL;DR: LIFE COMES AT YOU FAST AND THESE GUYS ARE TIRED.

i didn't know if you'd care if i came back; i have a lot of regrets about that

‘kay, this next part is definitely cas. cas who, as i mentioned in the previous post, just keeps leaving, whether that’s because he’s sacrificing himself or taking off on his own. and because that typically goes over like a lead balloon with dean, either because it leaves him grieving and traumatised or it plays right into his abandonment issues (or both - hello purgatory arc!), cas would be tentative about coming back. it’s also very apparent that castiel feels like the winchesters only value him for his abilities and powers (and after all, he’s been created to be a soldier), so if he feels like he’s not being helpful enough, he also tends not to feel wanted (again: dean wants him to stay, but cas wants to be asked to stay). plus, we know every time they’ve had a falling out it takes dean a bit to get over his anger (“dean, i thought i was doing the right thing”; “yeah, you always do”) so i don’t think cas takes his forgiveness for granted, especially if he has lied to him in the process (yes i’m thinking about the mixtape episode). “a lot of regrets”, indeed.

pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could've followed my fears all the way down; and maybe i don't quite know what to say, but i'm here in your doorway.

here, again, the car can easily work as a metaphor for someone’s emotional state. pulling over to take a breather, to try to assess things from a distance; and with lookout points so often being perched on steep hills, it’s easy to imagine the sense of vertigo, your own fear and self-doubt almost pushing you towards dangerous, self-destructive ideas. and we know cas doesn’t do things by halves - when he’s committed to something he believes is right, he goes all out. and yes, that has led to more than one falling out. 

but despite that - despite his worst fears telling him he should not come back to dean unless he’s “coming back with a win”, or able to protect him from harm (yes i’m thinking about the mixtape episode AGAIN), he does always come back to him. it’s the one thing that dean can always depend on, castiel finding his way back to him like dean is his true north. i’m here in your doorway; the please take me back once more is implied.

i just wanted you to know that this is me trying i just wanted you to know that this is me trying

(and dean does take him back, because however many times castiel feels that he has failed in his mission, he always comes back and tries again, tries harder, tries to make it right or do it better. and that’s something dean relates to - fucking up in the worst ways and getting beaten down but always getting back up, always starting over, always trying again. in fact, he’s kind of the one who taught cas that. and with that-- we move over to the dean portion of this.)

they told me all of my cages were mental so I got wasted like all my potential

ah, it wouldn’t be a dean pov without some good old fashioned self deprecation. “all of my cages were mental” isn’t 100% accurate in dean’s case because he has been dealt a pretty shit hand by life, but he also excels at self-sabotage. “I got wasted” is of course an allusion to his alcoholism, but then we have the clever play on words with “wasted potential”, which... hits close to home. all dean’s ever done is tried to live up to what he thought he should be, always feeling like he was falling short. never quite the favourite son, never the man his father thought he should be, not strong enough to resist hell, not the righteous sword of michael the angels expected, not good enough for the people he loves not to leave him, just not enough.

and my words shoot to kill when I'm mad i have a lot of regrets about that

...as i said above: though dean does always forgive the people he loves, it still takes him quite a bit to get over his anger at them. and when he’s angry, he lashes out, often saying things that come off cruel, things he absolutely does not mean. and this part reminds me, yet again, of dean’s painful confession in 15x09, about how he gets so angry and doesn’t know why (of course, the answer is trauma and childhood abuse; but he has no way to process that); and he tries to stop it but he can’t, and he always, always regrets it in the end.

i was so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere fell behind all my classmates and i ended up here

oh, dean. dean winchester with his ged and his give ‘em hell attitude. he breaks my heart. i touched on this in my previous post, but there’s something to be said for the fact that dean had to grow up so fast, he really didn’t grow at all in some ways ( “so ahead of the curve, the curve became a sphere”). from a young age he was shoved in a parental role, having to be both a father and mother to sam, which meant never getting to exist just for himself. which of course, in turn, means he never got to develop a healthy degree of emotional maturity. in “bad boys”, we find out that the only time dean even got close to being a normal teenager, receiving positive reinforcement by sonny and bonding with his peers, john ripped him right out of that safe haven; and by the time “after school special” is set in, he’s given up on ever getting a shot at a healthy environment, using denial as a coping mechanism by trying to pass off his and sam’s shitty, depressing lives as super edgy and cool.

pourin' out my heart to a stranger but i didn't pour the whiskey i just wanted you to know that this is me trying i just wanted you to know that this is me trying at least i'm trying

i don’t really need to explain this bit i guess, but it’s about the implications of how it can somehow be easier to open up to a complete stranger rather than someone you care about; and how for dean, who is used to frequenting seedy bars and dives, one-night stands are as much about comfort than they are about pleasure. that’s the only way he knows how to let himself be touched, seen, held -- because of course, “no chick flick moments”, and besides, we know that when he falls in love he falls hard, so it’s safer to just roll in and out of town. 

the interesting part in this context though, is that “but i didn’t pour the whiskey”, especially since we know dean, like every other winchester, tends to drown out his problems with alcohol; so him choosing to not do that, and instead just look for comfort from a stranger (whether it’s through sex or just chatting away at a bar) is, in itself, a sign of trying to do better. because if there’s one thing dean knows how to do, is trying, and trying, and trying again. in fact, as i mentioned above, it’s kinda where cas learned it too. and we know dean is a stand-in for human nature, so of course, this is also a larger discourse of how humans are flawed and imperfect but can always improve, always do better, always try harder or be more. and maybe that’s what makes a righteous man, really.

and it's hard to be at a party when i feel like an open wound it's hard to be anywhere these days when all i want is you you're a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town

this next part... listen. i don’t know how it fits into the narrative of trying, but what i do know is i can’t stop thinking about grieving dean. about how every time he loses cas, a little piece of him dies too, but it’s a piece that gets bigger and bigger every time, carving a hollow inside him. it’s unsightly, it’s unforgiving, it’s raw - it’s like an open wound. and as much as dean has always taken on the role of the person who puts on a brave face, makes a joke, and pushes all his feelings down, well -- it’s hard to that; it’s hard to focus on anything else when he’s missing cas like a phantom limb. “all i want is you” which is to say i’d rather have you, cursed or not; which is to say, i need you. need you badly enough to see your face everywhere after escaping purgatory, just like “a flashback in a film reel”. 

and i just wanted you to know that this is me trying  (maybe i don't quite know what to say) i just wanted you to know that this is me trying; at least i'm trying.

so, yes. dean is trying. he’s always trying, even though healing and progress are not linear or easy. and he knows he’s got anger issues, he knows he’s bad with his words, but damn it, he always shows up for the people he loves, and he tries to do better, every. damn. time. partly because he’s us, he’s all of us, he’s human perfectibility incarnate; and partly because he loves cas so damn much and maybe if he gets it right this time he’ll get to keep him -- and i don’t know which of the two options makes my heart hurt the most.

---

fanvid rec link here! it’s only for the second half of the song, so the more dean-centric one :)

#spn #dean winchester #castiel #destiel #spn meta #deancas #taylor swift #lyrics #taylor swift x destiel #lwymmd #mp #this is me trying #long post

[the-updog-academy]

The Siblings as the 7 Sins and Virtues

I actually have no idea if the reblog for the ask was showing up in the notes or not, so I decided to just do a separate post with these again. It was acting weird so I had to reformat to be more legible and a few slight edits from the original post. Apologies for the clutter! Anyways here we go.

First of all, I don’t think they actually go into the sins completely, but more so reference a bit of them. So all traits and symptoms may not be present. With that said, here are my reasoning on these alignments. Sin first and Virtue second.

INCOMING LONG POST!

Luther

Gluttony - He eats when he’s anxious, which we see at least twice throughout season 1 with the space food. Once after he talks to Allison and once right before he and Allison dance. He was also lacking in food on the moon which could also further symbolize this. When he has his first breakdown, he decides to overindulge in alcohol first and then drugs at the rave. The second time, he goes to the bar to get drunk after he finds out about Reginald’s big secret from Pogo. (A note that he shows this sin even more in the comics, together with Sloth.)

Temperance - He seems to show more self control until later, so I think he actually took an opposite turn here and gradually fell into the gluttonous phase and only got worse, before he got better again.

Diego

Wrath - Pretty self explanatory here, this boy has a lot of anger and bitterness towards his siblings as well as his father (bar Klaus and probably Ben). He’s prone to holding grudges. He’s seen taking his anger out on Vanya’s in his room at the gym. He takes his anger out on criminals when he goes out doing his vigilante runs. He’s just always angry and he has one hell of a temper. I wonder if the raw eggs fuel his anger?

Forgiveness - This one is also pretty straight forward. He actually accepts that Luther had been right about staying together, starts defending Vanya, therefore forgiving her for the book, AND he spares Cha-Cha at the theatre. A pretty big step for someone who’s always angry and bitter.

Allison

Greed - She used her powers to get whatever she wanted, when she wanted and made the perfect life for herself, until it wasn’t. She took too much and it ended up coming back to bite her in the ass later. The life she built up, she ended up losing through divorce and losing custody of her daughter Claire.

Charity - Later, Allison starts giving rather than taking. After all that’s said and done, she goes out of her way to lend a helping hand to Vanya as much as she can, especially with Leonard. She goes as far as lying to an officer despite the possible risks and consequences just to find her sister. She knows from experience how bad things can get if one is not careful and doesn’t want her sister to make the same mistakes, especially with Leonard.

Klaus

Lust - This one also probably speaks for itself, but Klaus has a sexual nature, mainly implied by things he’s said aloud to others. And his drug addiction should be enough implication as to what he may have to go through to get said drugs, or even just to distract himself. Sex, drugs, and alcohol tend to go hand in hand. I can understand the drug use falling under Gluttony here, but it’s not really out of self indulgence that he has the addiction. It’s more out of desperation of drowning out the ghosts and dampening his power. However, he does crave love and affection, which may cause him to become lustful, the drugs becoming an excuse to get said love and affection…even if it’s the wrong kind.

Chastity - He stopped his junkie life style and quit cold turkey. Although the moment he went sober may indicate this, I think the real transition happened when he threw the pill on impulse at the rave and couldn’t even understand himself as to why he did in the first place. He cast aside the vices he used to have and it was all to stop his brother from making the same mistakes he himself made.

Five

Pride - Although he didn’t enjoy killing people as an assassin/hitman, he even stated himself that he took pride in it. He’s narcissistic and always looks down on others, especially his siblings. He claims that he’s better and far more skilled at pretty much everything, going as far as to running off and doing things on his own rather than asking for help because “You’re all useless!”

Humility - To me, his “So what if Dad messed us up. We gonna let that define us?” monologue really reflects humility. He acknowledges he can’t stop the apocalypse alone and also tries to raise his siblings up rather than putting them down. There have been a few times where he actually put trust into his other siblings and let them come along to help. Five also turned his pride into humility when he told Luther not to waste his life. By using his own experiences, he gives Luther some positive advice compared to before when he was putting him down.

Ben

Sloth - This one actually may go into a bit of depth here. So we don’t know a lot about Ben but from what little we have seen so far, it is clear he wasn’t really enthusiastic about missions and possibly training when he was a kid. He did what he was supposed to, but he showed he wasn’t thrilled about it at all, like his other siblings so casually seemed to. “I didn’t sign up for this” shows that he’d rather just not do anything and sit idly. But at the same time he makes no effort to change or protest, instead he goes with the flow since that’s the easiest thing to do. He doesn’t take control of the situation when he could attempt to. Sloths tends to be associated with suicide and one of the many headcanons revolving around Ben’s death is just that: suicide. He seems depressed and not really all that happy. Having no wounds as a ghost could also indicate that it was internal, so perhaps an overdose?

Diligence - After death, he starts trying to take control of the situation by helping Klaus to the best of his ability since he can no longer take control of his own life…he’s dead. As a ghost he’s more enthusiastic, and takes more action even if he can’t actually can’t change anything physically. But that doesn’t stop him from trying anyway. It is a complete contrast to how he was in life.

Vanya

Envy - Vanya had been jealous of her siblings for most of her life and was led to believe that she was ordinary and unlike them. As a possible coping mechanism, she wrote a book about their lives and publicly revealed some not-so-good things about herself and her siblings, despite them never giving her permission to share that information in the first place. And she goes into adulthood still unable to really make a name for herself. She’s never invited to any of the family meetings, she’s always left out of everything. Despite Allison’s helping hand, she pushed her away. Eventually she lashed out, hurt her own sister when she learns she’s beyond ordinary, and even causes the world’s destruction. The jealously blinded her and she took it out on not only her siblings, but the world as a whole. The irony is, she lived the most normal life out of all of them.

Kindness - When not having violent mood swings, she’s one of the most understanding and sympathetic people, Klaus probably only second to her. She listened to Five , about the apocalypse when he came to her and showed sympathy when she learned what happened to him and even offered him a place to sleep after serving him coffee. Vanya even let him have alcohol without question, despite him appearing 13 years old. She went as far as trying to understand the situation rather than judge him. Five coming to her in the first place implies that he trusts her the most out of their siblings. Vanya even went out of her way to talk to and compliment Helen Cho, who put her down in the end. But even then, she still tries to make friends and she is very compassionate when it comes to other people’s mental well being as well, as implied when she suggested a therapist to Five.

#The Umbrella Academy #TUA #Luther Hargreeves #Diego Hargreeves #Allison Hargreeves #Klaus Hargreeves #Five Hargreeves #Number Five #Ben Hargreeves #Vanya Hargreeves #tw alcohol #alcohol tw #tw alcoholism #alcoholism tw #tw drugs #drugs tw #tw suicide #suicide tw #sins and virtues #headcanons #long post #my hcs #my posts

[buckysrighthanddoll]

Gluttony

Pairing: Peter Parker x Reader (college AU)

Warnings: drinking, fluff, a teensy bit of angst (y’all know it’s me lol), swearing

A.N.: This is part two of my Seven Deadly Sins series!!! Read part one here called “Envy” with Bucky Barnes :)

You were never the drinking type. Throughout high school, you maybe had three drinks. It wasn’t that you were consumed with your bookwork or couldn’t sneak out to parties. You had plenty of opportunities.

It was now the third year of college. You were well on your way to your degree, you had an established friend group, and you had a decent enough social life. But when MJ invited you to a party this Friday, you found yourself feeling nervous.

There were a few parties in college that you attended. Every time you got uncomfortable and left early. Every time you stood in the corner with one or two of your friends from class. Every time you were home by midnight.

This time was different.

“MJ, you know--”

“That you’re a lame-ass who won’t hang out with some friends?” MJ interjected. “Come on, (Y/N), it’s just us. Even Ned is gonna be there.” Before you could even respond, she spoke again. “Peter said he’d be there.”

That caught your attention. You contemplated the decision in your head--the party was this Friday, which gave you today to prepare; however, you had a test at 10:00 am on Saturday.

“Fine. You said it was at your apartment, right?”

“Yes. Be there at 10 to help me set up,” MJ smiled, pivoting on her feet and heading to her next class. You sighed and gave a half-smile at her.

MJ knew damn well that you had a thing for Peter. And, beyond that, she insisted that he liked you, too. It was a load of bullshit, but she wouldn’t change her mind.

Finishing your classes for the day was easy. Today was Thursday, which meant you had Art appreciation, Spanish 312, and organic chemistry. That night, you set up your studying supplies and got to work.

Within an hour, you lost focus. You kept worrying about that damn party, but you logically knew that you didn’t need to. It was a few friends. Peter, Ned, MJ, and her boyfriend Mark were the only people that were supposed to be there. They were all people that you knew and trusted. As long as you didn’t drink, you’d be fine.

“Hey (Y/N/N),” Peter said, making you jump. He laughs, which immediately eases your anxieties. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I left my door unlocked again, didn’t I?” You asked, standing from your desk. He nods his head and sits on the chair by the kitchen counter. “You want something to drink?”

“Water, please,” He responds. He was always so polite, even though you’d known him since sophomore year of high school. The two of you knew everything about each other. He knew about your past traumas and experiences; you knew that he was Spider-Man.

Ya know, the usual.

You got the glass of water and threw a couple of personal pan pizzas in the oven. “I thought you were gonna study for the test on Saturday.”

“I got bored,” Peter shrugs. You sit next to him and rest your arm on the counter. “Figured I’d come to see my favorite girl,” He smiles. He gives one of those small smirks that he (recently) found to drive girls mad, but you simply raise your eyebrow.

“She’s probably in my room.”

At the perfect moment, a fuzzy black cat prances into the kitchen. Her name was Razzle, Razz for short, and she was the cutest damn cat to grace your existence. Peter adored her. There were times when you’d come home from class and see him playing with her on the floor. There were times when Peter would stay the night, and you’d wake up to see a fuzzy black ball on his chest. The scene was so cute that you took a picture (which may or may not be your lock screen, shh).

Razz jumps into Peter’s lap and immediately starts purring. His smile gets even bigger, and he scratches under the cat’s chin (the sight alone makes your heart soar).

“You wanna watch a movie?” Peter asks.

The oven dings, making you stand up to get the pizza. “As long as we can go over the vocab for the test afterward.” Peter groans, but you know that it’s sarcastic. “Deal.”

Peter goes to the living room area and turns on a random movie. You place the pizzas on paper plates and carry them out to where he’s sitting on the couch, his feet propped up onto the table. At least he had his socks on.

Thirty minutes into the movie, you weren’t paying attention anymore. All you could focus on was the way the screen lit Peter’s face; the way his eyes followed every action; the way his body jerked during a fight scene; the way his lips looked so soft and kissable and--

“Is there something on my face?” Peter asked. You snapped your gaze to the empty plate ahead of you. That’s one thing that you loved about Peter--besides his improved spidey-senses, he (sort of) grew out of his awkwardness.

“No, uh, I got lost in thought,” You lied. You grabbed his empty plate and took it to the kitchen to throw in the garbage. Taking a second to collect yourself, you went back to the couch. You scoffed at Peter, who was under a blanket and taking all three spots. “You’re such a dipshit.”

“But I’m your dipshit,” Peter retorted. You rolled your eyes as he sat up, allowing you to sit where his head just was. You plopped yourself down, and Peter rested his head on your lap, lying on his side to still face the TV.

Peter fell asleep twenty minutes later. Your hand was in his hair, softly playing with his curls, and soon enough, the soft snores ensued.

You stayed there for several moments after the movie ended. It was easy to bypass the credits rolling on the screen, especially when Peter was right there. Head in your lap. An arm draped across your thighs. You could see yourself doing this every weekend with him--waking him up, getting to the bedroom, holding each other until the early morning.

It was stupid how much you loved him. He was your best friend throughout high school and college. He was with you through every smile and tear. It was just impossible for you not to harbor anything more than a friendship.

Once the title screen popped back on, you shook Peter awake. He hums groggily and opens his eyes. As he realizes that he fell asleep on your lap, he goes red in the face and sits up.

“I didn’t realize I was even tired,” He says, letting out a breathy laugh. “I’m sorry. I, uh, I gotta get home, though. We have an 8 am tomorrow.” Peter gets up from the couch and makes his way toward the door.

“Yeah, yeah,” You said, standing up and following him. “Goodnight. Be safe, love you,” You added, hugging him.

“‘Night (Y/N/N), love you, too,” Peter responded. He left, and you took that as your cue to get to sleep.

Your classes breezed by the next day. You and Peter’s 8 am class was spent reviewing material for tomorrow’s test, and your ten am consisted of you being a TA for your Spanish professor. She just had you look through papers while she taught about the subjunctive tense.

At your apartment, you texted MJ to ask what you should wear. She arrived twenty minutes later and immediately began searching through your closet. She explained that it was still casual since it was just a few friends, but your usual plain t-shirts and jeans weren’t going to cut it.

MJ picked a tight-fitting shirt with a v-neck. She said that it made you look insanely attractive, especially when paired with the (extremely short) denim shorts that you hardly ever wore.

You decided just to straighten your hair and do basic makeup. It consisted of only eyebrows, eyeliner, and mascara; it was a bit more than your daily makeup, but if you were going to a party, you didn’t want to mess it up.

After getting dinner, you and MJ went to her apartment and began setting up. There was a beer pong table, food set out on another table, and all of the alcohol she could afford on a third table. You put a playlist on her TV screen and then put the remote behind it. It was all said and done within an hour.

You turned on the strip lights right as Mark got there. He greeted his girlfriend with a short kiss, and then he came and hugged you. Mark was a sweet guy; he treated MJ right, and he was great at communication, plus he made an effort to be friends with her friends.

Ned showed up half an hour later, and Peter was right behind him. You already had three shots, but they hadn’t kicked in yet; it was probably for the best because all you could think when you saw him was damn.

He wore a dark grey v-neck shirt and dark denim jeans. He looked like he had just gotten out of the shower shortly before leaving, as his hair was still slightly damp. MJ had to hip check you to pull your attention back to the conversation.

“You need to tell him eventually,” She starts. “I mean, he totally has it bad for you, too.”

“Bullshit,” You sang. “He’s my best friend, besides you. That’s it.” You looked at the table and picked up the peppermint schnapps. “Another shot?”

“Using liquor as a negative coping mechanism. Same,” MJ nodded, smiling as she grabbed the shot glasses. “Competitive?”

“Bet,” You answered, pulling out a five from your pocket. She threw down an additional five and called Mark over to call it so that it wasn’t biased.

You both set the shot glasses on the counter and got ready. Mark slapped the table, and you and MJ threw the glasses back and slammed them back down. You won by a fraction of a second, making you throw your arms up.

“Didn’t think you were a drinker, (Y/L/N),” MJ laughed.

“I’m not,” You smirked. You grabbed the money and put it in your pocket, lining up another shot and downing that one too. “But distractions are distractions.”

“You really need a therapist,” Ned laughed.

Within an hour, you were blasted. Although you’d been slightly tipsy before, you’d never been full-on drunk before. MJ was right there with you, Mark was somewhat behind, and Ned was tipsy. Peter, who had slowly been sipping on his drink, was hardly beyond sober.

The five of you were playing Cards Against Humanity in the living room. MJ had the lead, but that didn’t shock anybody; she was declared the friend group’s funniest. You were near behind, though, which was shocking only because you’d thought Ned should be in your position.

It wasn’t like it mattered to you. All that mattered was that you and Peter sat next to each other, thighs pressed to one another, and his arm was resting on the couch cushions behind your head. If you thought that dealing with your emotions was hard when you were sober, then you were in a world of trouble when it came to you being drunk (and him being this close).

Gluttony was not your usual sin. Indulging in vices like drinking wasn’t typical of you. On any other day, you’d throw yourself into your studies, or maybe you’d be planning your study abroad that was coming up. But drinking? That was out of the ordinary.

Tonight was different. You wanted to let loose--to forget about your emotions. But that wasn’t happening, now was it?

After your game was up, you partied some more. You expected to forget about your emotions; instead, you found yourself forgetting how to care about preserving them. A few shots here, some dancing there, and you were more carefree than you had been in years.

Around three in the morning, you were tired. More than that, you had to be up at eight to get ready for your test at ten. You found yourself stumbling to get your things together so you could walk home, but Mark was trying to stop you.

“(Y/N), it’s past midnight in a college city, and you’re as drunk as a skunk. Just stay here,” Mark tried. MJ was right behind him and insisting that you at least call a taxi or an Uber.

“I’ll be fine,” You assured, nearly falling over as you slipped your shoes on. Peter, thankfully, catches and steadies you. He keeps an arm around your waist, which makes your already reddened face burn even hotter.

“I’ll take her home. I’m sober,” Peter says, looking at MJ. “Besides, we both have a test in seven hours--I need the sleep.”

“Drive safe, man,” Mark says, pulling Peter in for a hug. Peter gives MJ and Ned a hug, and then he’s by your side, leading you to his car.

It was a short and silent drive. Thank gods. You weren’t in any state to be talking to someone who you’ve harbored romantic feelings for.

Peter took you inside your apartment. The moment the door shut behind him, he locked it and got to your bedroom. He picked out some sleep shorts and an old shirt for you to sleep in, and he left you to change while he grabbed some water for you.

You sat in bed as he walked back into the room, setting the glass on your nightstand.

“You’re too nice,” You whined. “Aren’t guys supposed to be assholes or something?”

“I’m the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man--I’m not quite like most guys.” Peter smiles and lifts the covers, letting you get under them. Once you’re laid back, you take a sip of your water, and he closes the windows and curtains. He comes back to pull the blankets over your chest. Then, he starts to leave.

“Peter, can you stay the night here?” You asked. He turns to you and gives one of the softest smiles you’d ever seen (maybe it was just the rose-tinted glasses, or perhaps it was the staggering amount of alcohol in your blood). Nodding his head, he gets in on the other side of the bed.

Peter had stayed the night here plenty of times, but he always slept on the pull-out couch in the living room. He never once stayed in your bed with you also in it. You figured it was either out of concern for boundaries or respect.

The truth was, Peter was also head-over-heels for you. He’d told MJ, not that he needed to--MJ was good at reading people, and he certainly wasn’t subtle about his attraction for you.

You were the first person he came to when he became Spider-Man. You were his reason to fight after he got dusted (along with you). You were his favorite person to see after a mission--you’d been at the tower anytime Tony Stark told you that Peter was coming home. You were always there for him. You were it. You were the one that Peter wanted to be with, even if it didn’t work out in the long run.

Once Peter settled into the sheets, you rolled over and cuddled into him. Your head rested on his chest, an arm around his torso, and a leg tangled with his own. Both of you heaved a sigh of relief; this felt good. This felt right.

“Peter?” You asked.

“Yeah?” He responded.

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“No, like, I love you,” You confessed, looking up at him through heavy eyelids. “Like, I wanna kiss you and cuddle you like this and hold your hand. I wanna tell people that I’m your girlfriend, and you’re my boyfriend.”

“Baby, you’re drunk.”

“I’ve been hiding this for years, Peter,” You insisted. “It isn’t because I’m drunk. The only thing this liquor is doing is helping me say what I want to say without worrying.”

“If I’m honest, (Y/N), I love you, too. In that same way. But you’re not even going to remember this in the morning.”

“Will you remind me?”

“Yes.”

“Can I kiss you?”

“Not when you’re drunk.”

“Damn,” You sighed. “Did you set an alarm for the morning?”

“I already have one set,” Peter assured you. “Let’s get to sleep.”

“And Peter?” You called. “Thank you for taking care of me.” He hummed in response.

The next morning, you were shocked that you only had a small headache. You were even more surprised that you woke up next to Peter.

Last night was fuzzy for you. Bits and pieces were clear as day, like winning thirty bucks from MJ. But what happened? Was Peter as drunk as you were? Did you say something stupid? Why was he in your bed right now?

No matter the reason, you found yourself not wanting to leave this spot. You were the closest you’d been to Peter.

The alarm on Peter’s phone rang, making you jump. Then, you grabbed your aching head. Peter awoke with a start before looking down at you. He shut the ringtone off, and then he wrapped his arms tighter around you. His hand ran up and down your arm, which made you feel happy and warm, but why the hell was he holding you like this?

“Good morning,” Peter said groggily. His morning voice was hands-down, the most beautiful thing ever.

“‘Morning,” You responded.

“Want me to put some coffee on for that hangover?” He asked.

“I’m not that hungover, actually,” You answered. “I can go make some.”

Peter nodded his head, so you got up. Three scoops into the filter, some hot water, and a few minutes later, you both had cups of bitter coffee to wake you up. You both started to get ready for the day by brushing your teeth and putting on some new clothes (Peter had to find some clothes that he’d left here last month).

It was going to be a casual and laid-back day; that much was certain. Your body was aching, and your head only started to worsen even after taking some ibuprofen. There were still thirty minutes before you needed to leave for the campus, so you and Peter sat on the couch.

“Did I say anything stupid last night?” You asked, holding onto your mug.

“Only that you loved me and wanted to kiss me,” He smirked.

You groaned and threw your head back. “I’m sorry,” You started, looking him in the eye. “I shouldn’t have said that while I was drunk.”

“Did you not mean it?”

“Of course I meant it,” You said, laughing drily. “Peter, in the seven years we’ve known each other, I’ve felt like this for six of them. I just shouldn’t have told you while I was drunk.”

“Last night, I said that I loved you, too,” Peter said. “And then you asked if you could kiss me, but I wasn’t going to let you do anything in that state.”

“Oh,” You muttered, looking down in embarrassment and setting down your coffee. Peter’s lifted your chin and then cupped your face before leaning in and kissing you. The initial shock wore off quickly, and then you were kissing him back. It was soft and sweet--precisely what you’d have expected your first kiss with him to be like.

When Peter pulled away, he rested his forehead against yours. “You wanted me to remind you when you were sober. Was that okay?”

“More than,” You smiled. You closed the distance again, tangling your hands in his hair. Peter smiles against you.

After the test, Peter took you on your first official date as a couple. He held your hand and bought you a coffee, and you carried a conversation like everything was natural. Like everything was right.

(And, for the record, you passed that exam despite the light hangover).

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[crackcrocs]

DEATH WILL ONLY BE THE BEGINNING #1

1. The backbone to my emotions

As someone who  cannot conceptualise  time in any way whatsoever, I want to say sorry to my loved ones. I'm aware I still need to send my friends messages every once in a while and remind them I still want to be their friends and I need to actively work on this. I need to overcome this fear stopping me from being present and accepting peoples love and support. I want to break free from me and I want to feel content being on this earth, I want nothing more than to enjoy experiences with my loved ones. I love you I love you.

I am a young charismatic, creative individual learning to do things differently so I don't always have the same outcomes. I suffer from a Cluster B Personality Disorder; under the same umbrella of mental health I also experience extremely intrusive thoughts on a daily basis, that can become obsessive and compulsively hyper fixated thoughts in an instant. I have anxiety, depression and a lot of the time I’m deeply dissociated to a point where I struggle to believe I’m even real, even when I do know I am real- I have no attachment to my limbs or body as a whole and only feel alive in a spiritual sense or when I self harm. I don't want to get too into my illnesses; as I’m not someone who really likes labels, just know that everyday is a battle and each personality that exists within me is different. I wouldn't say drastically, however its evident for me and living with so many different masks can be intense. Especially when you've tried to convince people that you're just one solid mould in the hopes they don't perceive you as an intense person. I am going to try to take you through a few of my altars and moods starting with the emptiest subconscious alters that I call the backbones of my emotions to the more powerful  energetic ones that haven't managed to yet consume me over the years. I hope this can give people an insight.

Overall I present a pretty confident front, I like to appear like I’ve got my life together even though I’m so far from it, sometimes I’m not sure ill even find the strength to go on long enough in attempt to get my life together, which is a real problem but it's the sad truth. Don't waste time reading this if you're easily triggered as this piece of writing will consist of real and genuine feelings. I’m in no attempt trying to create content for people who enjoy turning blind eyes and wishing they didn’t see this so I’ll give you a fair warning. I'm not responsible for your triggers, whereas I’m responsible for the things I’ve done. I might have cared too much at one point, but I will not hold myself captive to those situations nor will I regret them. I want the lies, deceit and hurt that I’ve committed against loved ones to end, my secrecy has done enough damage and its exhausting pushing people away even though that’s not usually the intent, truth is I am so embarrassed of myself. I'm private, secretive and mysterious but I’ll also talk about my childhood trauma after like 5 minutes. I guess this says I’m happy to talk about my trauma because it's what I know and am comfortable with, I just struggle to tell anyone the real suicidal me behind my problems. I hate that I’m so young and feel like a dead person already.

I tend to act out or distance myself due to fear which isn’t clear at first if you know me, but does become obvious. I might appear as someone with no care in the world, like I’m unbothered, but I assure you that's the African pride combined with the Leo pride. I also don't want people to treat me like a footstool, which has happened when I’ve come off ass too passive. I care so much and over think absolutely everything, it's literally my only way of thinking. I have little to no self esteem and I have no clue who confidence is unless under the influence of something, be it weed, alcohol or psychedelics (which I don't take much of because I enjoy them and don't want to abuse them) I mean I can function sober, I don't even like to be out of control high or drunk, but as Chief Keef once said, I hate being sober. #i'mTrash4thereference. Although I’m not fully healed and functioning yet, I’m a developed character with both positive and negative traits. At the moment I’m going back and fourth between 'just stop trying' and 'you cant give up'. Sometimes depression is kind of like looking at yourself through a window, there’s this part of your brain that understands it'll pass, but you’re so far into despair that its impossible to see the way out, its a lot like being trapped. I am having a bad patch right now, the difference between this one and the last one is I’m more self aware with less of a desire to go on. At least I’m no longer suffering from paranoia and thinking everyone's out to get me all the time or that I’ll get trafficked walking home from somewhere, but depression and mania are so bloody invasive and there’s always that little voice in my head telling me ill never be good enough. Executive dysfunction kills my motivation because I have so many things to do and I cant pick anything to start first, it gets worse when my depression gets worse too. I'm not lonely though; I have a few people who care for me- and while I'm trying to not involve them in the metal episode, they are around to talk to and that means so much. My friends are super encouraging even though I've only briefly mentioned that I'm having a sad time right now, and that's awesome.

I hate that no matter how much better I get there's still this deep desire to get worse. I don't feel like a real person. I just feel like a collection of what people want me to be and various mental disorders. It would be so cool if I could admit to the world I have a personality disorder without feeling disgusting and without fear.

I've had plenty time to reflect upon every bit of thought that created the barbed wire surrounding my logical brain, I want to feel okay to be alive, but I so strongly just want to die. I am tired of fluctuating from feeling extremely vigorously suicidal to passively suicidal; where I just don't have the energy to carry it out myself. It's gotten way past the point that it doesn't matter what kind of day I have, I think about killing myself all day. Sleep is an escape from life and I'm always tired and wanting to 'sleep'. Deep down I feel like I’m waiting for the right time to end my life and it's not the right time yet because I still have a footprint to leave behind, I still have journal pages I want to burn. I cant just jump off the highest accessible building or mall car park I could find just yet- I don’t just want to ruin others by hurting them with my death. It's sad to think I grew into this mindset, waking up wishing I was dead.

Being abandoned by many people in the past made me doubt people and think everyone was out to get me or wanted something from me, it made me feel hurt and lone. So I felt it would be better to let people down before they could hurt me so I wouldn't repeat the same cycle when forming new connections. It wasn't intentional but I could just silence myself due to fear.

I just found myself feeling immensely hopeless, like I was too internally enraged at the external world to be able to trust anything of it. I definitely do want to get better because I’m tired of feeling this way, it's so exhausting and I hate pushing people away from me like I’m poison. I need to allow people to accept all of me.

Before picking up these coping mechanisms when I was younger and more insecure; I wanted to be a part of the world, I had this strong urge to fit in. I had to learn how to manage my anxiety and socialising became more exhausting stemming from my fear of being 'odd' or 'different', I didn’t want to be called out for being different- it was not a compliment at that age, it always felt like a being the joker in the card deck. I was intensely afraid of being judged or labelled as such. Being told I was a 'weirdo' didn't help at all, that type of criticism is what got to me the most. People made me feel like I needed to change, like I was too African, even in a joking manner it didn't help- because although I was okay with who I was, I did feel like I had to change and westernise myself to fit in. I ended up hanging around with people that didn't care, doing stupid things I didn’t even want to do, dating people I didn't connect with. Eventually I got tired of people using me for entertainment, tired of catering to those who refused to understand. I still have to admit there were many periods that I lowered my frequency to be on the wavelength of others that did not match mines at all, I hate that I'm someone who always feels the need to explain myself so people don't think I'm a bad person and even though I don't owe it to everyone and now I am able to make better choices and I'm no longer easily influenced, it still hurts that i was ever around people that made me feel like I was over exaggerating my mental health or uncomfortable to a point where I learned to downplay it or the mention of it. Now as a coping mechanism I’ve become so facetious and sarcastic about my trauma it's a struggle to take myself seriously at times. Users and abusers belittled me to such a point where I felt they'd underestimated my intelligence and most of all humiliated me. It made me tired of justifying myself so now most days I’m just a mute, but I really do finally have good people in my life who deserve some sort of explanation and it's a shame they don't get to be experience a truly present consistent me. It’s just after having the wrong eyes on me, I don’t want anything to see me. I hate attention because I’m so embarrassed of myself I don’t want to be noticed. People looking at me make me want to kill myself.

I've been told to move past my rage, to let go and become a grounded and level headed person. I've been told there is hope for all of us. Must be nice to believe that, all I could wonder was what it was like to get angry without getting homicidal and suicidal. Even on most days where nothing extreme would happen besides negative emotions, my brain still travelled to a dark realm. I've come to a point where I want to live in my daydream universe wile I physically rot away. That's my business. Sometimes I feel as though all my friendships are on a timer, or more so it's that my timer is about to go off, so I subconsciously shy away and make sure i have no deep friendships. Just in case my head decides to do something stupid.

I don't want to have no friends, I want to have friends and I do value friendships so much more than entitled relationships, I just have a difficulty maintaining friendships because it's exhausting for me, it takes a lot of energy to be social and on a level that isn't just superficial where I can just let go and allow myself to fully be. Sometimes I have a hard time relating to other people, and thus I may feel I don’t belong or don’t quite fit in- causing me to feel irritated, paranoid or even in pain during social situations. It's not always this bad, and I don't mean for it to sound dramatic. It's different when In person and I’m really relaxed and comfortable with the company. However virtually socialising and expressing will always be extremely anxiety enducing and its something I need to overcome especially going into this new phase of Artificial Intelligence.  So if I start to drift away it most likely isn't a reflection of you. The cycle goes I need alone time to recharge then I realise how long has passed and I just feel so bad I haven’t gotten back, I tell myself I’m an awful friend for dissociating for so long, and then I don’t know how to explain that so my anxiety rises, mood drops and I spiral back into a pit of depression, often wanting to relapse but refraining from doing so. Sometimes I manage to get out of the pit, but by then so much has piled up I don't know where or how to begin again.

I don't feel like I could have a normal friendship as well as romantic relationship. It's hard for me to long term imagine myself being fully relaxed enough to let my guard down and not reluctant to express. I don’t think there’s any condition where ill just be came and enjoy a connection without worrying that the other person isn’t putting in as much effort, or they have an image of me, or that I’ve amplified the emotions and even though I feel them that way do they really understand me or love me as much. Silence is so upsetting and I hate the fact I do it when I'm afraid of myself or don't feel good enough. I never intent for it to become 'the silent treatment' because in reality its not treating anyone, it's more a reflection of what I’m internalizing and not wanting or being unable to project and express those feelings without feeling like party pooper, an attention seeker or 'too deep'. I don't mean to give people false hope, I love the people in my life so much and every one I’ve met on this journey. I'm learning to look at life through a different lens and the people who contributed to my suffering will not be the definition of me. People have led me to believe so much and strung me along, not letting me go- and I realised those entitled controlling abusive relationships were not serving me. I couldn't keep doing it. Now even though I want closeness I end up pushing people away or leaving them in the dark because of fear, especially of something new because I've never experienced anything good and true for a long enough duration of time to rid me of that fear. I also have fear of rejection or hurting, I fear becoming too emotionally invested and becoming co dependant so I end up wanting to avoid the pain than actually wanting to experience the joy and growth the relationship could offer, so I end it before it begins to avoid any possible pain. I feel like I don't deserve these connections,and sometimes the depression runs so deep I have to push people away in case I want to do something stupid- I don’t want them to feel at fault, or obligated to be able to handle me. Sometimes I really can just only be with myself and my thoughts so I hide but it may appear that I’m pushing others away because of my isolation and neglect.

With everyone I know, I get this feeling that they're too good for me, their energy is so radiant and loving but I feel so broken and don’t want to depend on that. I've had perfectly ideal people come into my life and I feel they’re too good for me because I have a lot of work to do on myself first, primarily I need to build up confidence and self esteem because it's the root of most my issues. I want to relate to people, share our deepest fears and wishes without fear of judgement. It's not that I don't want to get better, I simply cannot remember what it was like to have an actual honest to god normal personality. The feeling of being a mentally unstable chameleon is all I have  now. I AM my illness, that's the only identifier I have left. I can't remember normality.

I understand that I’m lucky and I’m not ungrateful for the things and people I do have, it doesn’t mean that my life doesn’t suck because of those lucky things. I often think about if someone created technology to transfer life to another, I’d happily give them mine because they'd live it much better than me, I’m not worth anything to myself. I never wanted to be someone to cause pain on the people I love but now I do, even if that’s just through silence. I just disappear when I haven’t been doing well and  although I know things get better, recovery isn’t linear and that not all my days are bad, I just have extreme chronic feelings of emptiness.

I struggle to trust people because I don't want to be hurt but I need people so much, I hate feeling unloved. It's so overwhelming because I feel everything so extremely as if I’m going to explode.

My sense of self and reality feels destroyed, my future and dreams are uncertain and it's hard for me to move on, sometimes it scares me what I’m doing to people without the intention of it, being too much or not enough- or at least feeling that way. It's hard for me to give myself a reason and it's not on the people around me to fill my empty void, I hate forcing people to be my friend or understand my illness. I cant expect anyone to want to- it feels like I’m holding their hand while they pull it away; and even though it's not the case I feel awful, I constantly feel like I’m in a more pessimistic head space. I'm worried people will realise I'm as pathetic as I say I am.

#LCZABIBU #deathwillonlybethebeginning