#i guess i’m grieving that loss now that i have the time to.

[atlafan]

20 & 28 from the prompt list pls!

20. “I’m gonna fuck you so good you forget all about that bastard.”

28. “I love that we both already finished and your legs are still shaking.”

smut prompts

—————————————————————-

“He did what?” Harry’s jaw fell open as his dear friend, Y/N, told him about why she was newly single.

“He accepted a job across the country and expected me to drop everything to go with him! He didn’t even tell me he was looking for other opportunities. I mean, it’s a big step up for him, but to assume I’d quit my own job to go play house with him??? My whole family is here. I’d be sick to my stomach knowing I couldn’t see my nephews as regularly as I do now.” She sighed heavily and looked at her friend. “Can I crash here for a few days? If I go back to my place, I know he’ll show up and try to convince me to go with him again.”

“So, it’s over, just like that?”

“Yup. I’m not sabotaging my own career for a man. We’re clearly on different wave lengths, I guess it’s better to find out now.”

“I’m sorry, Y/N. Of course you can stay with me. Stay as long as you like.”

“Thank you.” She wraps her arms around his neck and sighs. “You’re such a good friend.”

Harry’s been waiting for Y/N and her boyfriend to break up for ages. He’s not one of those guys who’s only friends with a girl because he wants it to lead to more. That would be shitty of him. But he and Y/N have been friends for a while now, and as years have gone by, he’s started looking at her differently. A tiny crush started to bloom. He noticed how her laugh made him feel and how her smile gave him butterflies. It was gradual, natural. But he wasn’t sure how to bring this up to her, and there was never a good time. She was in a relationship, and he assumed she was happy, so he never let on about his feelings.

But now, Y/N is single. Harry’s not going to pounce on her right away. He knows she’ll need time to grieve the loss of her relationship. He also doesn’t want her to think he’s taking advantage of the vulnerable state she’s in. So, he’ll continue being the good friend that he is, and when the time is right, he’ll tell her how he feels.

//

Y/N was never one to wear her heart on her sleeve. She didn’t cry in public. She wanted people to think she was fine at all times. But after a month or so of being single, she found herself moping around a lot. She thought about her ex all the time. She hated it, but it was hard not to think of him. She wanted to know how his new job was going because she still cared. But then she’d remind herself that he probably doesn’t care how she’s doing, and then she’d distract herself with something to do.

Then, on a random Tuesday, two months later, a mutual friend sent her a message saying her ex was in a new relationship. He was posting her on main, laughing and smiling.

And that’s when Y/N finally cracked. She cried. She cried her eyes out until they were swollen and puffy. She couldn’t sleep when she tried to go to bed, so she texted Harry and asked if she could come over. He said yes.

“I don’t even know why I care.” She groaned as she told him about the ordeal. “How are men able to move on so quickly? I think about him every day. He always crosses my mind. I’m not even doing it on purpose. He probably never thinks about me.”

“He probably thinks about you all the time and started dating again to fill the void. That’s what I would do if I fucked up as badly as he did.”

“You know what bugs me the most? I have confirmation that he’s having sex. Someone else is giving him orgasms when all I’ve had for the last three months are my own hands and my vibrator. I’m too scared to meet some random dude from an app. I’m losing my mind, Harry. I feel like a feral cat in heat.” She chugs some water and takes a deep breath.

“You’re that horny, huh?”

“You have no idea. Masturbating and watching porn is fun and all, don’t get me wrong, but after a while it’s not exactly exciting. Feels like a chore.”

“I’m going to propose something, and I really want you to think about it before you decide it isn’t a good idea.” He runs a hand through his hair. “What if we had sex?”

“We, like, you and I?”

“Yeah.”

“No offense, but the idea of being pity fucked by my friend isn’t exactly getting my panties wet.”

“It’s not a pity fuck. Don’t be mad, but I’ve wanted to have sex with you for a very long time.”

“Great, so you’ve only been friends with me-“

“Don’t even go there because it’s not like that. We’ve been friends for five years. The last two, you were dating that asshole. A crush sort of snuck up on me around the time you and him started dating. I felt weirdly jealous every time you’d blow our friend group off to go be with him. And when I really thought about why, I realized that it was because I liked you as more than a friend.”

“You’ve liked me for two years?”

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

“You were in love with him. I didn’t want to get in the way of your happiness. I’m fine if we just stay friends. I want you in my life, I don’t care how.”

“Why didn’t you make a move right after we broke up?”

“Other than not wanting to be your rebound, I knew you just needed a friend. You were vulnerable, I couldn’t take advantage of that.”

“You’d really want to fuck so quickly? Don’t you want to take me out on a date first?”

“You’re not the only one who feels feral, Y/N.”

“I can’t believe how stupid and oblivious I am.” She slides her hands down her face. “You’re a great guy, I’d be lucky to date you. My family already adores you. We practically go on dates all the time as it is.” She facepalms, then looks at him. “You really would fuck me right now?”

“Yes. Do…are you even attracted to me…sexually?”

“Harry, you’re the prettiest guy I’ve ever seen. Of course I’m attracted to you.”

“How would I have known that?! I’m not a mind reader!”

“Don’t raise your voice at me, I’m sad!”

“You’ve been sad for three goddamn months.” He steps towards her, backing her up to the sink counter, caging her in. “And I’m over it. I’m gonna fuck you so good you forget all about that bastard.”

“Oh, wow.” Her eyelids become hooded as she looks at him. “Yes.” She nods. “Please, I want that. I want you to fuck me, Harry.”

“Good. Jump.”

She puts her hands on his shoulders and jumps so she can wrap her legs around his waist. Harry’s mouth crashes to hers as he carries her to his bedroom. Y/N feels lightheaded as he lays her down, staying on top of her. Her fingers squeeze at his hair as she licks into his mouth. He tastes like mint, and it makes her moan. His hands slide up under her shirt, pawing at her breasts over her bra.

“Fuck, just take it off. Take it all off.” She whines, and he smirks down at her.

“Look who’s all eager all of a sudden.” He sits up and takes his own shirt off. Before he can reach for Y/N’s, she’s tackling him down and sponging kisses to his chest. Her tongue glides down over his butterfly tattoo. She inches further down until she’s nosing at his erection over his joggers. “I’m supposed to be taking care of you.”

“Don’t care, want it.” She tucks her fingers into the waistband of his joggers and looks up at him. “Can I?”

“Yes.”

He lifts his hips to help her and she gets the garment off. She kisses him over his briefs and licks his tip through the material. She even takes it into her mouth like this, and it rips a moan from Harry’s throat. Her eyes snap to his, completely blown out.

“God, I should have known you were vocal.” She whimpers. She tugs his briefs down and wastes no time getting the head of Harry’s cock into her mouth. She runs her tongue over his slit and suckles on the blurts of precome oozing out. She wraps her hand around him and slides her mouth off. “Jesus, you’re so big. I’m gonna see if I can get it down my throat.”

“You don’t have to, what you did before felt great.” He runs a hand through her hair and whimpers again.

“No, I want to choke on it. I really like giving head.”

“That’s something we have in common.” He smirks.

She spits onto his tip and takes him back into her mouth. She doesn’t go slow, she goes down fast and chokes, then pulls off, spitting on him to make it wet and messy, then she repeats. She does it until her throat can handle keeping him there for a moment. She swallows around him a few times before coming off and pumping him with her hand.

“Do you want to come in my mouth?”

“Are you gonna be a good girl and swallow it?”

“Fuck, and you’re kinky?! Should’ve done this a long time ago, Harry.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yes, I’ll swallow it.”

“Then go on and take it.”

She’s not pretty about it. She chokes and gags and sucks and bobs until Harry’s spurting rope after rope down her throat. He sits up after she pulls off and slots his mouth over hers. He grips the hem of her short and lifts it off. She unhooks her bra and lays back on the bed. Her back arches the second Harry’s tongue is circling her nipple.

“Best tits I’ve ever fucking seen.” He growls as he works his way to her other nipple. “So big and soft.”

“You don’t mind that they’re not all perky?”

“Why would I? A boob is a boob is a boob.” He sucks a good amount of one into his mouth, leaving marks from his teeth on her sensitive skin. He kisses down her stomach and hooks his fingers into the waistband of her leggings. “Can I take these off?”

“Yes.” She smiles softly. “And my panties too, please. I don’t like the feeling of sitting in my cold, wetness.”

“Heard.” He pulls both of the garments off and tosses them to the floor before splitting her thighs open. She’s glistening for him. He wells up some spit and watches it fall on and down her slit. “So fucking pretty.”

He spreads her lips apart, running his fingers through her sticky folds. His thumbs spread apart the top so he can find her clit. He taps on it with his finger, making her gasp.

“Did I find it, baby?” It’s rhetorical because before she can answer, his licking over it.

He wraps his lips around it and sucks hard, rapidly. He flicks the tip of his tongue over it, swirls it around, spits on it, then goes back to sucking. The sounds are wet and obscene. Y/N has a hand stuffed in his hair while the other clutches at the sheets. She moans out when she feels his middle finger sink inside her.

“So fucking tight.” He groans.

“I can take another, please, wanna feel you stretch me out.”

Harry grins and lets his ring finger join the middle. He works them in and out of her, wanting to prep her hole for what’s to come. Then he lets them stay deep inside and curls them to her front wall as he shallowly thrusts in and out. He gets his mouth back on her clit and uses his free hand to keep her thigh down and open.

“Fuck, just like that.” Her head rolls back and her mouth hangs open as she rolls her hips forward to meet his thrusts. “Harry, shit, you’re so good. Don’t stop.” Her toes start curling and her legs start shaking, and Harry laughs so sinisterly low that it makes her head dizzy. One of her heels digs into his shoulder blade. She’s panting and moaning and writing under him. “Oh, oh fuck.” She feels the coil deep in her belly about to snap. “Oh, fuck, I’m gonna come, don’t stop.” The bed starts creaking and the headboard starts thudding against the wall. Harry’s rutting his hips into the mattress and moaning into her. “Harry, Harry, Harryyyyyy, fuck, I’m coming, I’m coming, I’m coming.” Her back arches off the bed as she lets go. Harry fucks her through it, keeping his fingers deep inside her. He gives her throbbing clit a break, then slowly takes his fingers out when he hears her breathing evening out.

He sucks his fingers into his mouth, and his surprised when Y/N grips his jaw to pull him down to her. He takes his fingers out and replaces them with her mouth. They moan against each other, both relishing in the filthy kiss.

“Do you want to keep going?” He asks.

“Are you hard again?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s some good stamina.” She smirks.

“Eating you out made me hard again. Taste so fucking good.” He reaches into his side table drawer and pulls out a foil packet. He sits back on his feet and rips it open to roll onto his cock.

“Do you mind if I play the role of a pillow princess? Kind of want you to just do what you want with me.”

“Yeah? Does being used turn you on?”

“Like this…by you…it does.”

“This might hurt a little since it’s been a while for you. If you need me to stop, just tell me and I will.”

“Okay.”

Harry lines himself up and slowly pushes inside. Y/N bites into his shoulder. The stretch burns, but the pain soon turns to pleasure once he’s all the way in. His tip is already nudging into her g-spot.

“Good?” He asks.

“Yes, thank you. You can move.”

He pulls out about halfway before thrusting back in. Y/N is so sweet for him, he slips out a couple of times before he can get a rhythm going. He sits up and throws her legs over his shoulders, pounding into her. The sound of skin slapping against skin fills the room. She raises her hips and starts moaning uncontrollably. The angle is perfect. He thumbs at her clit, and her nails dig into the meat of his thighs.

“I’m getting close.” She twitches under him, wanting to close her legs to get some relief, but she can’t. “Please, don’t stop.” She whimpers up at him. “Feels so good.”

“Love watching you take it.” He grunts. “We fit so perfectly, your pussy was made for me.”

“Oh, fuck!” Apparently, that’s all she needed in order to come. She drenches his cock, which surprises the both of them. “Oh my god!” She cries out, a second wave of pleasure washing over her. It’s like the never ending orgasm. “Please tell me I didn’t just pee on you.” She sits up on her elbows and is mortified by the wet spot between them. “I had all that water beforehand-“

“You didn’t pee, Y/N.” Harry chuckles. “You just squirted a little. Well, a lot, but you know what I mean.”

“I’ve never done that before.” She blinks.

“Poor thing.” He pouts down at her. “Didn’t it feel so good to get a release like that?” He places his hands on the back of her thighs and pushes them down until her knees are on either side of her head. “Hm?”

“Yes, felt amazing.”

“I’ll make you do it again, baby, don’t worry. Gonna give it to you like you deserve. Hold your legs there for me.” He grips her hips and starts moving her on and off his cock. He watches as her eyes roll back and he laughs lowly. “Feel good?”

“Soooo good, oh my god.”

His fingers comes together and he slaps her clit, over and over and over until she’s panting and crying out and making a mess. He pulls out to move her onto her side. She sighs contently, happy to give her legs a break. But it’s not long until Harry is putting one of her legs over his shoulder and sliding back in, fucking her from the side.

“Christ, can feel you in my guts.”

“M’not hitting your cervix right? It still feels good?”

“Feels amazing, keep going.”

“Rub your clit. I wanna come at the same time.”

She slides her hand down and touches herself. She could honestly come from the sound of Harry moaning alone, but his cock beating into her g-spot is also a big help. She screams his name as she comes, making another mess. Harry grunts and whimpers and moans as he fills the condom.

He waits until they’ve both caught their breaths to pull out. Y/N rolls onto her back while Harry throws the condom away. The bed creaks as he lays back down next to her. Her lower half twitches every so often, her thighs still quivering.

“I love that we both already finished and your legs are still shaking.” He turns onto his side and draws shapes into her belly.

“Shut up.” She breathes. “I can’t even feel them.”

“You should really come with me to Pilates more often.”

“Who needs Pilates when you’re going to be fucking me like that regularly?” She turns her head to the side to look at him.

“Oh, am I going to be fucking you regularly? I didn’t get that memo.” He smirks.

“Yes, generally, when two people start dating, they fuck regularly.”

“Are you serious?” He sits up, hope painted all over his face. “You can really see us being a romantic couple?”

“Yeah.” She smiles up at him and caresses his cheek. “I’d really like to give this a shot.”

“Oh, Y/N, that makes me so happy.” He moves to lay on top of her and buries his face in her neck. She holds him to her chest, content with having his weight on her.

“Harry?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for being you.”

He moves to look at her and pecks her lips. “You’re welcome.”

#harry styles imagine #harry styles fic #harry styles smut #harry styles fluff #harry styles x reader #harry styles y/n #harry styles x y/n #harry styles fanfic #harry styles #harry styles au #harry styles blurb #prompts

[starvail]

just lyney a common criminal.

lyney / gn!detective!reader

synopsis : you never imagined that you would experience such a detrimental loss of trust, in someone you thought you would spend your future with, in just a few hours - but you guess you haven’t thought there would be a day where you would have to interrogate your partner over his true identity, either.

content : very short, established relationship, angst, hurt/no comfort. major 4.0 archon quest spoilers!!

words : < 1k

a/n : the povs are constantly changing to highlight how disorganised the reader and lyney’s thoughts are on each other because of the current events. so if you think the narrative is messy, it’s intentional!

“15:33, chief detective [full name]. interrogating mister lyney snezhevich for being prime suspect for…”

lyney doesn’t like this. the way you say his name sounds so bitter and cold, similar to the biting weather in snezhnaya. your voice wasn’t it’s usual inviting tone, your posture was tense, with shoulders back and head tilted while you read the documents that were flush against the table.

“…discrepancies to the testimony you have given to the court trial will result in a one hundred thousand mora fine and another public hearing.”

this would be the first time where lyney will have experienced your work persona and he wished he never had to at all.

not because he is worried about what you would do to him, nor potential punishments for the crimes he supposedly committed, but because he knows that you are unforgiving and merciless; as long as he is in this room, with handcuffs around his wrists and crimes to his name, in your eyes, the two of you are nothing more than strangers that know a little too much about each other.

however, in your own case, you think that perhaps you don’t really know lyney at all, the real one anyways.

“i don’t understand why you’re interrogating me like i���m some common criminal,” lyney tries to jokingly reason for you to relax, but your hardened expression does not falter in the presence of his plea.

not wanting this to be included in the recording, you pause the device.

“sir,” something dies inside lyney when you address him with such formality. no ‘love’, no ‘sweetheart’, no ‘starlight’. in your mind, he had lost that privilege the moment the papers were served to you.

“we are in a professional setting. i ask that you keep all conversation unrelated to the trial to yourself, or until after the record has finished.”

“but it’s me, lyney. your lyney.” his hands attempt to reach out for your own, “you don’t have to act like this with me-”, but you pull back. he visibly wilts at the rejection, you swear you hear something shatter.

and your heart hurts, burning with remorse. it squeezes and squirms at the sight of your partner, wanting nothing more than to comfort him, to tell him that this wouldn’t take long and that everything is okay.

but absolutely nothing is okay, your mind echoes back.

for all the years you have known him for, it’s not okay that he didn’t tell you that he was a fatuus; that he was from the house of hearth; that his father was arlecchinco.

it’s not okay that you realised that the very reason why he kept you company, why he held your hands so tightly, why he ‘courted’ you in the first place; was so that a harbinger had surveillance on fontaine’s security affairs with access to a direct source, that being you.

it doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots on that note.

you sigh, wanting nothing more than for this to be over, to go home and to grieve the loss of your lover - the imagine you had of him, more so.

“sir, the moment you stepped foot into my interrogation room is the moment you have become ‘some common criminal’. now, i implore that you answer the questions i had previously mentioned.”

you click the device back on again and lyney is forced to face the music.

an hour passes and the interrogation is over the moment the story was concluded, but lyney is not fully present to care. he’s too focused on you. on how no matter what he said, or the amount of time had passed, your cold shoulder still persists.

“thank you for your cooperation, sir.” checking over your documents and the recording, you silently pack everything up, ignoring how indigo eyes stare at you.

but no matter how much you willed them to stop, your hands wouldn’t stop trembling.

you are barely able to insert the key to free lyney from the constraints, let alone pocket the cuffs.

“darling, can we talk, please?” lyney is quick to stand and asserts a firm but gentle hold on your hands. he notes how frosty your finger tips are and he starts thinking that he should warm them-

but you are already forcing yourself away from him. lyney watches you ball your hands into fists and kept them close, as if the notion of his touch disgusts you.

“were you ever going to tell me?” with your voice barely above a whisper, lyney watches your tough exterior begin to crumble. a straight to the point question, and gods, you couldn’t even look at him.

despite this, the both of you knew the answer already.

“… i… i just…!”

he never intended for you to ever find out.

lyney can see your irises swirling with uncertainty and disdain, all directed at him.

he wants to retort that while he hasn’t been honest with you, he does trust you. that, if he were to tell you everything, you would be in danger, a target. he’s been lying to protect you, to protect the ‘us’.

“i… can’t, darling.”

and it’s ironic, that lyney, a renowned entertainer that frequently showcases his abilities to hundreds, is now struggling to find the words and confidence to fully explain himself. years of trained silence and secrecy has rendered him voiceless. lyney does not know where to even begin, but he can feel the ghost of his father’s constricting fingers wrapping around his neck.

“then i think we are done here.”

“(name)-”

“have a good day, sir.”

you do not look back. the door clicks shut. and lyney is alone.

#genshin x reader #genshin impact lyney #lyney x reader #gn!reader #gender neutral reader #genshin angst

[bluepeachstudios]

Not the Soft (Ame Writes)

Guys I swear this isn't the soft I promised-- I wrote. A Ghost. As part of the @tmntaucompetition and as a way to cope with @somerandomdudelmao's absolutely devastating last update to their apocalypse series. Cause it sat in my head a little too long.

It is sad. Sorry. <3

Once more, Ghost was somewhere he didn’t want to be. Another portal to fall through, another swarm of alternate versions. It was different this time. More of them were kids, they weren’t all from the boys’ realities. He’d even seen a few from his own. He avoided them now, like the plague. He couldn’t stand to be near them, couldn’t stand to see them happy like that. It hurt too much.

He saw a few he recognized from the last interdimensional competition. The grown up Mikey who handed Leo a bat was familiar. The kids with the actual ghost were familiar. The older Leo and little Leo both missing arms and passing out water bottles were familiar. The computer Donnie was familiar, but he didn’t want to think about what had led to that, just as he didn’t want to think of it last time.

It wasn’t a shock when he spotted the next familiar group. He recognized them the easiest from their robot Raph, but he almost didn’t. Their demeanor was so different from when he’d last seen them, cheering Tello on.

Just one look over them and he knew.

Grief was so easy for him to see now. As much as they were trying to hide it, to brush it off to people who asked, he could see it in their eyes, in their shoulders. They were so different.

The first thing he felt was an unbelievable loss.

It felt like just last month he’d held Tello’s hand and smiled at the crowd. Hugged him once they’d escaped prying eyes. Told him to be better than Ghost had been.

His grown son from another dimension, one who didn’t even know him, was dead.

It hit him like a knife, a wet thud into his heart. Some part of him screamed in his head, drowning out all the other noise, all the other turtles but the three that had been left behind. He felt the desperate urge to find his own Donnie, to check that he was breathing to hear his heartbeat, to listen to his voice, feel his hands in his own.

Ghost swallowed it. Swallowed the grief that was seeing his child dead, even in another world, in another dimension, another time. Swallowed the scream. Swallowed the urge to ground himself with Donnie. He didn’t want to scare him.

He didn’t want to scare any of them, yet there he was, just watching the three turtles and their human companions.

He couldn’t bring himself to approach them. It felt unfair. It felt like he was seeing something he wasn’t supposed to be seeing; a version of his family after they’d lost their Donatello. He felt like he didn’t deserve this, like this was some window into what had happened after he’d disappeared. Like he was intruding.

They had lost their Donatello, and he was a Donatello who was lost.

Promise me you won’t let anything happen to them.

I guess that’s just what we do.

He’d been so caught up in telling Tello to take care of his family he’d forgotten the most important part of the whole thing.

Take care of yourself.

Guilt crashed through him. Guilt on his own behalf, guilt on Tello’s. He wasn’t responsible for every Donatello in every version of themselves, but sometimes it felt like he was the cause of it all. Like he was the first, the one who had doomed every Donatello to a fate of being lost, to a fate of failing to protect their family.

He added another soul to grieve on his shoulders. Another photograph he couldn’t have. Another life he couldn’t speak of.

He meant to walk away, but Leonardo spotted him across the arena. Recognition made him perk up for a moment, and then his expression fell as he saw the knowing look in Ghost’s eyes.

Ghost took a breath. They met in the middle.

It was like fitting a piece into a puzzle where the picture didn’t match.

He didn’t know what else to do but murmur a soft, “I’m so sorry.”

He was apologizing for so much more than just the loss of Tello. He was apologizing to them and his own brothers. To every version of them that Donatello had failed.

Then Mikey gave him a worried look, and it felt all so unfair again. Some part of himself that made him ill wanted to know how Tello died, what they’d done to prevent it, what hadn’t worked. He wanted to know how they were holding up, what they were doing without Tello, how they were functioning, if they were functioning at all.

He squashed the selfish part of himself, the part that wanted to know if his family could have felt the same ways. These were a version of his kids, and here he was with the urge to interrogate them about their brother’s death.

Ghost swallowed it. Mikey still gave him a sad smile.

“He was with us,” Mikey said softly. “In our arms. He went peacefully, in his sleep.”

Ghost’s expression twisted from the flat gaze he’d managed to hold. God, that was his son saying that. That was his son that had died. Not them exactly, but enough like them that it felt like he was being told his children had died in a war that he wasn’t allowed to be a part of.

He couldn’t even cry for them. It felt unfair to be so upset, to be so ruined over a Donatello that wasn’t even his.

He swallowed it.

“He loved you all so much,” Ghost whispered. Even that felt unfair to say, but he knew, and he needed them to know. He needed them to know.

“We know,” Leo replied. He touched the hilt of the sword at his waist, running a shock of purple fabric through his fingers.

Ghost took a breath. It felt like he had to force himself to breathe, like he had forgotten how. Instinctively, he signed, circling his fist over his chest in an apology, thinking they were the same as his kids, that they could read sign language somehow.

He pressed his hand over his chest and got control of his breathing again. Found his voice. “That’s good.”

He hoped the depth of it all didn’t show on his face. He was trying to keep his expression as flat as possible, but it felt like he’d lost someone important. He wasn’t great at dealing with that.

Obviously. He’d been grieving for 24 years.

“I’ll see you guys around,” Ghost whispered, bowing his head slightly. A small, polite gesture he picked up from his own father.

He turned and walked away.

He couldn’t bring them anything but more grief.

There was no solace in his words he could offer, no pain he could lessen with his presence.

He was the wrong missing piece.

He couldn’t fill their void just like they couldn’t fill his.

His son was dead.

His brothers were gone.

The world was ending but continuing on.

He swallowed it and pulled his hood up.

#ame writes #tmnt ghost in the shell #tmnt au competition #cass apocalyptic series

[intuitivemoonbaby]

Who’s coming towards you?

Hey Moonbabies! Welcome or welcome back to another tarot pick a card reading. Today i’ll be asking tarot “who’s coming towards you”. Man exes are all over these readings so be prepared.

Remember, to pick the pile you most resonate with. Ground yourself, take a few deep breaths and pick your pile. Trust your intuition! Don’t second guess yourself. Please just take what resonates and leave the rest :) If pile(s) don’t resonate, then this reading may not be for you. Now scroll for your reading.

Pile One {Tom Holland}

The person coming towards you is an ex. They could’ve juggled you with someone else or put their work above you. They also could be a Taurus or have fire placements (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). This person seems traditional or comes from a traditional family. They want to rush in with an offer. They are very passionate about you. I’m picking up a lot of sexual energy. You guys could’ve been in a situation-ship or a sneaky link/friends with benefits type thing. They miss you. They’re grieving you. I’m picking up LGBTIA+ energy. Hello fellow gays :) Going back to the traditional family thing. They could’ve left you because of their family and/or friends? homophobia? This person may have been in the closet. They definitely want to rekindle this connection. If they chose someone over you, that relationship crumbled or is going to. They feel lost with you. I’m hearing lost with you. Listen to “Lost without you” by Robin Thicke. Gosh, I haven’t heard that song since my childhood.

I don’t know if you’ll actually take this person back. Seems like you are focusing on yourself and your goals. You’re definitely stepping into your power. You’re raising your standards and not taking anyone’s shit. You could’ve gone through a glow up since the last time you’ve seen this person.

Pile Two {Rihanna}

Okay first off, you need to trust yourself more. You’re intuition is strong! I think you’re seeking clarity on something. Rest, relaxation, and meditation will help you find it. Once you do that, things will start to make more sense. Maybe something to do with your past??

This person coming towards you is either brand new or someone from your past (not necessarily an ex, but could be a childhood friend, classmate, ex-coworker, mutual friend). Take what resonates. This person could be a water sign (Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces). They don’t know if they want to come towards you or not. They have a lot of doubts, anxieties and fears. They’re working through them though and when they do they’ll come towards you. This individual is emotionally mature. They’re also grounded, loyal and dependable. You could’ve manifested this person or vice versa. They see you as someone who is independent and has their shit together. They feel like they could bring more balance and harmony in your life.

Pile Three {Angelina Jolie}

The person coming towards you is either an ex or a past life relationship. I’m picking up both energies. This individual is in solitude and they’re going through some type of loss or grief. From you, if it’s an ex. Once they heal and release this pain, they’ll come in. This person could be an earth sign (Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn) or a fire sign (Aries, Leo, Sagittarius). They are free spirited, charming, passionate, fearless, and reliable. They view you as a star; a wish come true. This is a fated connection. I mean the 2 of cups with the 10 of cups and 4 of wands?? If you don’t read tarot that’s very positive cards. Y’all are meant to be together! This relationship has marriage potential!

Right now, you could be working on yourself. Going through awakenings and becoming the best version of yourself. It seems like you’re pouring a lot of love into yourself. You’re going to take a leap of faith into this connection and you won’t regret it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I hope your reading resonated! Have a great day! <3

ɪɴᴛᴜɪᴛɪᴠᴇᴍᴏᴏɴʙᴀʙʏ☽

#pac reading #pick a card #free tarot #pick a photo #pick a picture #pick a pile #tarot cards #tarot reader #tarot reading #pac #tarotcommunity #pick a image #free readings

[thedevilsoftruth]

All I Have ~ Loki x Fem!reader

Warning; MAJOR,MAJOR,MAJOR, INFINITY WAR AND THOR RAGNAROK SPOILERS PLEASE DONT READ IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THEM!!!! Smut, Alcohol mentions, Ragnarok/ dom Loki, loss of virginity, major character death, oral ( f receiving ) Minors dni

Summary: After the fall of Asgard, you and Loki get to mourn the people you lost.

Notes; I watched Infinity war and endgame for the first time a few nights ago and I am depression, so I thought what better way to cope with that than to make a really sad smutshot!? Enjoy!!!

Word count: 3k

Read time: 12 minutes

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Loki had been your best friend for centuries, you both fought by each others side and often trained a lot together. You two were thick as thieves, and a lot of your good memories were with him. But little had you known that tonight your way of viewing one of the closest people to you would change forever.

But finally you were able to get to sit down with your friends after a long day of trying to save the people of Asgard. Althought Asgard was completely destroyed, at least you still had the people. You, Thor and Loki were sitting on a couch together in the ship and drinking booze to try to think happy after everything that happened.

“ and then he turned back and was like, “ aha it’s me! “ and then he stabbed me— do you remember that, brother? “ Thor wheezed, smacking Lokis shoulder in the process. Thor had already told this story today, but he had to admit it was great. Loki’s lips twitched a bit like he were trying to hold in the laugh. You laughed along with them, your mind a bit fuzzy from the booze. Loki hadn’t been drinking much, which was surprising since he loved it as much as Thor did.

“ how about that time you tried to push me off the roof, brother!? yeah? “ Thor wheezed again, Loki couldn’t hold it in anymore and hollered with laughter. The small room was filled with the sounds of you three laughing like all was good. Soon the laughter died out and Thor stood up.

“ I’m going to try and get a little nap in. “ he sighed. you had to admit, the man needed it. You and Loki smiled at him and nodded.

“ Have fun, you two. “ he said with a slight smile before walkig out of the room and closing the door behind himself.

Loki turned to look at you and smiled.

“ Shall we continue the party, darling? “ he asked with a wicked grin. You knew that meant he had something Mischievous in mind. Oh but you didn’t know if you could stay any longer, you were getting tired as well.You simply shook your head.

“ Oh, I’m not so sure. I should probably leave “ You raised yourself from the couch but he put his hand on top of yours, taking you off guard.

“ Stay with me. “ He pulled you back down on the couch with him and looked at you with somber eyes. His hand brushed your cheek gently, his eyes staring into yours. He leaned in with you, his lips brushing against yours ever so lightly. At first you didn’t feel anything until you begun to follow along into the kiss. You had never felt feelings for him, but maybe he felt for you. He pulled away slowly, his thumb caressing your cheekbone softly.Your face was flushed red. His eyes were watery now, his hand falling back down to his side.

“ please. “ the words came out of his mouth under his breath so lightly it was like the cold breeze on a warm summer day. You nodded your head and got comfortable in your seat again.

“ Very well. I guess I don’t really have anywhere else to go. “ You said, feeling your tears building back up again. Loki nodded, knowing what you were feeling and rubbing your hand comfortingly.

“ you know, we never really had our time to truly grieve for the ones we lost today. “ he said, still smiling despite shedding a tear himself. Your head felt heavy, tears streaming down your cheeks like a waterfall.

“ I just— I saw my whole family die before my eyes today. “ You spoke through sobs, your nose burning as you recalled the memories you wished weren’t true. Loki’s hand went to your back and pulled you into his warm embrace. He gave the top of your head a kiss and he sniffed quietly.

“ Thors all I have left. “ he said with a shaky laugh. You felt tears rushing harder. Your chest felt like it was being blocked off and you could barely breathe.

“ I don’t have anything left. “ you sobbed into his chest. You were probably getting his shirt wet from your snot and tears but you didn’t care. Loki hummed and sniffed again.

“ That’s not entirely true, love. “ he spoke, running his hand through your hair gently. You looked up at him with a raised brow.

“ You have me. I’m here for you. “ he said, looking down at you with the kindest eyes you had ever seen. something deep inside those eyes were filled with such loss and sadness, it made you want to cry even more of that was possible. It was odd because you had never seen Loki genuinely cry.

You chortled through your sobs and buried your face in his chest again. His hand ran up and down your back soothingly, making you melt further into his embrace.

“ Thank you, Loki. “you choked out, your voice muffled by his armored chest. He chuckled and pressed another kiss to your forehead.

“ it’s obvious but… “ He took his hand off yours and used it to lift your chin to force your gaze up to him. “ I love you, y/n. “ and with that his lips crashed with yours again, except this time more rough. His hands wrapped around your waist and moved your body backwards, making you lay down on your back as he hovered above you. His tongue slid into your mouth, dancing with yours like some somber tango. His hands reached underneath your long layered skirt and moved it down to your waist so he could position himself between you nicely. He pulled his mouth away from your so you both could catch your breaths.

“ I l- love you too, Loki. “ you panted, your cheeks sticky and wet from the dried tears. His lips curled back into that familiar smile.

“ watch this. “ he said lowly, the with the flash of green he was magicked out of his clothes. You chuckled, of course he was going to do that. Your eyes wondered every part of his naked form, admiring his every curve and muscle. His hand then went on your chest and his lips pecked yours once again.

“ and this. “ he spoke with a grin. you opened your eyes to see that you were naked as well. You whimpered at the sudden coldness hitting your bare body.

“ Loki what if someone comes in? “ you asked, covering your chest at the thought of it. Loki shook his head and laughed.

“ we’re fine, darling. the door is locked. “ Loki said nonchalantly, lowering his head in between your thighs, making you blush madly. Loki smirked and kissed your lower abdomen gently. His warm breath on your skin was sending shocks through your body.

“ do you want to see real magic though? “ Loki’s voice was low and gravely as he looked at your through his brows. You looked at him curiously, tilting your head a bit. He chuckled, his lips trailing from your stomach to the wet mess in between your thighs. You gasped and clasped your hand to your mouth as his greedy mouth made contact with your mound. His warm tongue explored your folds as his hands rested comfortably on the back of your thighs. You started to buck your hips up a little as he kissed you deeper, making you moan louder and louder with each blissful movement. His lips sucked and licked your clit with his oh so talented tongue, making you feel pleasure like no other. Having this happen after all the tears put everything off your mind, which is just what the both of you needed. Maybe Loki was the one who you could see yourself spending the rest of your life with. You had hoped this would be something more taht just one night and he truly meant he loved you. His tongue was certainly saying so.

He lifted your leg and placed it across his shoulders and continued to eat at you hungrily, moving the tip of his tongue in circles around your throbbing bud. You gripped his hair curly as the waves of ecstasy washed over you like a tsunami. The tips of his lips pecked your clit, his tongue peeking out again to dance with your wet folds. He gave your wetness one last kiss before rising himself back up to kiss your lips.

“ Are you sure you want me to take you? “ Loki said breathless as he pulled away. His head dropped into your neck and begun pecking at it lightly.

“ I am certain. Please be my first, Loki. “ You whispered, tugging at his long inky curls. He leaned in to kiss your lips again, you could feel his smile through the kiss like this moment was all he had wanted. He groaned into your mouth his hands pulled yours out of his hair, intertwining your fingers with his in the process. His lips trailed back down to your neck again as his erect length came into contact with your aching entrance. His pace started off a bit slow and leisured, his hips rocking against yours like a beautiful tempo. Moans escaped your lips, your hips bucking upwards in anticipation as he gave you just what you needed. Pleasure was washing over you intensely, your fingers were curling into Lokis skin as a way to cling onto something. The room was beginning to get hot and your bodies rubbed together passionately.

Loki moaned into your neck, both of your breaths beginning to get ragged. He rose up and grabbed the top cushion of the white couch, his pace increasing and becoming rougher with each thrust.

“ oh f-fuck, min kjære.. “ he moaned, his head cranked back and his eyes shut tight while pumping wildly into you. You cried loudly and arched your back, feeling him inching closer to the spot you so needed him to hit. He let go of your hand and gripped the cushion beneath you both, propelling his memeber into you briskly. Your lips met his again, but this time it was sloppy and needy while your fingernails dug into the skin of his back. You clung onto him like he was your only support, your legs wrapping around his waist to deepen his thrusts. The feeling was pure bliss. This was nothing like you had felt before, nothing you had ever experienced. But you felt lucky. making love with a Prince who you not only didn’t know you loved into now, but who also loves you and knows you better than anyone else in this world. Your bond with him was strong and now you felt closer to him than ever.

“ Loki, I’m so- ah! c-close! “ you moaned, your head toy lying back and your eyes rolling to the back of you head as he brought you closer to heaven. You didn’t think you could take it anymore. You grabbed his shoulders and flipped your positions so you were on top. Loki chuckled, his hands going to your hips as you frantically rolled them forward and back on his waist.

“ oh, y/n… “ he sighed out in ecstasy as you bounced and rocked against his pulsating length. His hands slipped down to your ass and grabbed it firmly as you rode him like it was the last thing you could do. He moaned and flipped you back on the bottom, his hardness hitting your sweet spot repeatedly and making you scream in elation. Your chest heaved up and down rapidly, your body shaking as a burning sensation grew inside you. Loki felt it too.

“ Come for me, min kjære. Drip all over me as much as you need to. “ he groaned, kissing your lips hungrily while his blistering pumps never tried out. And just like that, your orgasm hit and shocks of pleasure went through your whole body and made you quiver. You shuddered while the warm liquid discharged your sopping cunt, staring into Loki’s eyes while doing so. The release made you felt empty, yet so complete. But Loki wasn’t entirely finished. He smirked and patted your thighs.

“ Legs up, baby. “ He panted with a smile on his face, his voice low and laced with desire. You whimpered and weakly moved your legs in the air. He grabbed the back of your calf’s and pulled them over his broad shoulders, his length still buried deep within you. With just one simple move of his cock, he was able to make you scream louder than before. Your cunt was stretched and dripping, sensitive and prone to relase again if he continued to push you over the edge. Your eyes didn’t want to open, but you knew he was staring at you with a mischievous smirk.

“ oh gods, look at you. “ he chuckled as he began rocking his hips again. You moaned loudly and cried out as he hit that spot again. You gripped his forearms, your nails digging into his skin while his pace built back up. Your chest was shaking as it heaved up in down, you felt like you couldn’t breathe from the intensity of the moment. His name left your mouth like a soft melody to his ears, his skin smacking against yours and his memeber rubbing against your cunt and creating loud wet noises.

“ keep moaning like that, baby. “ he breathed, clenching your soft thig harshly while he thrashed against you. You cried, feeling that burning sensation again as he drove recurrently into your sweet spot.

“ ha— L-Loki I’m gonna cum again! D-don’t stooop..“ You moaned, your head tilting back as you screamed and cried in orgasmic bliss. Loki growled and with one final thrust, he came undone into your soaking cunt, filling you up and coating your cunt from deep within your core. You also reached your second peak around his shaft, adding to the mess. The second you came, your body fell limp and he let go of your legs.

“ good girl. “ he praised, pecking your trembling lips. Your legs were shaking and your body was convulsing from the intensity. You looked at him with wide eyes, still trying to comprehend everything that had just happened. He slowly pulled out, making more of your mixed orgasms spill out if you. You both panted and laid there for a moment, kissing and holding hands silently. You felt your nose burning and you started crying again. As much as you were happy, you were also still very sad from earlier.

“ I love you, Loki. Please don’t leave me too, just promise me you’ll stay with me until death parts us. “ You whimpered softly, tears rolling down your soft cheeks again. Loki looked at you with wide eyes, feeling a tight sensation in his chest that he had never felt before. He nodded with a warm smile, his pale nose now red as he felt his eyes getting watery as well.

“ yes, yes, of course. I profoundly promise you from the bottom of my heart, that I will never leave you no matter the circumstances. “ he said, pulling your hand in and giving your skin a gentle kiss. With a flash of green, he used his magic to clothe your bodies. Loki had never genuinely fallen in love with someone, he had dated multiple people in his very long life but he had never fallen this hard. But those eyes he gave you. He looked at you a way he never looked at anyone, those soft and kind green eyes that looked at you with a smile despite seeing everything that it had seen in the past.

You sniffed and your thumb brushed his cheek gently.

“ My prince, “ you whispered through a smile. He sniffed and chuckled, leaning down to kiss your lips again.

“ My queen, “ he responded with a chuckle, knowing he had done better than you. You chuckled and rolled your eyes, your fingers moving to tangle around his dark hair as his head lowered down to peck your sternum. His warm breath tickled your skin, his soft lips abrading your breasts. You made a small noise as his lips sucked on your skin harsh enough it was sure to leave a mark. But the passion of the moment was quickly broken up when there was a loud crash from afar followed by the sounds of screaming. Lokis head shot up from your chest, his eyes filled with terror and confusion.

“ Loki, what was that? “ you asked, your head looking around the room as if you would find the answers there. He shook his head, but it all happened too quickly. There was a loud frantic pound at the door.

“ Brother! Asgards under attack, Brother! “ Thors panicked voice yelled from the other side of the door. You stared at Loki in horror as he immediately got off you and rushed to the door. You had never seen him so scared in his life, it was almost like he knew why and how this was happening. He gave you once last glance as you stood up and rushed for him.

“ Loki what’s going on? “ you asked, utterly terrified as you grabbed his arm and tried to stop him. A tear ran down his cheek and he wiped away your own tears with his thumb.

“ I don’t know, darling but I need you to stay here. “ He said, his voice strong but with an undertone of fear. You felt your heart racing, you didn’t want anything happening to him or your people. You shook your head and sobbed.

“ no, no, no let me go with you! “ you said, holding his hand in your own while as he stared at the door and then back at you.

“ no, I can’t have anything happening to you. please just stay here. “ he said, giving your forehead a quick kiss as his hand pulled on the door handle.

“ Loki, don’t leave me— “ He kissed your lips one last time before quickly turning away.

“ I promise you I will come back for you. Please just stay here, darling. “ But that promise would never be fulfilled, Loki wouldn’t be coming back for you.

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min kjære ~ my dear or my love

#loki #loki laufeyson #loki odinson #marvel cinematic universe #mcu loki #loki smut #loki x reader #marvel #marvel mcu #loki of asgard #loki x y/n #mcu fanfiction #mcu smut #marvel smut #thor ragnarok

[sleeplesslionheart]

The Haunting of Bly Manor as Allegory: Self-Sacrifice, Grief, and Queer Representation

As always, I am extremely late with my fandom infatuations—this time, I’m about three years late getting smitten with Dani and Jamie from The Haunting of Bly Manor.

Because of my lateness, I’ll confess from the start that I’m largely unfamiliar with the fandom’s output: whether fanfiction, interpretations, analyses, discourse, what have you. I’ve dabbled around a bit, but haven’t seen anything near the extent of the discussions that may or may not have happened in the wake of the show’s release, so I apologize if I’m re-treading already well-trod ground or otherwise making observations that’ve already been made. Even so, I’m completely stuck on Dani/Jamie right now and have some thoughts that I want to compose and work through.

This analysis concerns the show’s concluding episode in particular, so please be aware that it contains heavy, detailed spoilers for the ending, as well as the show in its entirety. Additionally, as a major trigger warning: this essay contains explicit references to suicide and suicidal ideation, so please tread cautiously. (These are triggers for me, and I did, in fact, manage to trigger myself while writing this—but this was also very therapeutic to write, so those triggering moments wound up also being some healing opportunities for me. But definitely take care of yourself while reading this, okay?).

After finishing Bly and necessarily being destroyed by the ending, staying up until 2:00 a.m. crying, re-watching scenes on Youtube, so on and so forth, I came away from the show (as others have before me) feeling like its ending functioned fairly well as an allegory for loving and being in a romantic partnership with someone who suffers from severe mental illness, grief, and trauma.

Without going too deeply into my own personal backstory, I want to provide some opening context, which I think will help to show why this interpretation matters to me and how I’m making sense of it.

Like many of Bly’s characters, I’ve experienced catastrophic grief and loss in my own life. A few years ago, my brother died in some horrific circumstances (which you can probably guess at if you read between the lines here), leaving me traumatized and with severe problems with my mental health. When it happened, I was engaged to a man (it was back when I thought I was straight (lol), so I’ve also found Dani’s comphet backstory to be incredibly relatable…but more on this later) who quickly tired of my grieving. Just a few months after my brother’s death, my then-fiancé started saying things like “I wish you’d just go back to normal, the way you were” and “I’ve gotten back on-track and am just waiting for you to get back on-track with me,” apparently without any understanding that my old “normal” was completely gone and was never coming back. He saw my panic attacks as threatening and unreasonable, often resorting to yelling at me to stop instead of trying to comfort me. He complained that he felt like I hadn’t reciprocated the care that he’d provided me in the immediate aftermath of my brother’s loss, and that he needed me to set aside my grief (and “heal from it”) so that he could be the center of my attention. Although this was not the sole cause, all of it laid the groundwork for our eventual breakup. It was as though my trauma and mourning had ruined the innocent happiness of his own life, and he didn’t want to deal with it anymore.

Given this, I was powerfully struck by the ways that Jamie handles Dani’s trauma: accepting and supporting her, never shaming her or diminishing her pain.

Early in the show—in their first true interaction with one another, in fact—Jamie finds Dani in the throes of a panic attack. She responds to this with no judgment; instead, she validates Dani’s experiences. To put Dani at ease, she first jokes about her own “endless well of deep, inconsolable tears,” before then offering more serious words of encouragement about how well Dani is dealing with the circumstances at Bly. Later, when Dani confesses to seeing apparitions of Peter and Edmund, Jamie doesn’t pathologize this, doubt it, or demean it, but accepts it with a sincere question about whether Dani’s ex-fiancé is with them at that moment—followed by another effort to comfort Dani with some joking (this time, a light-hearted threat at Edmund to back off) and more affirmations of Dani’s strength in the face of it all.

All of this isn’t to say, however, that Dani’s grief-driven behaviors don’t also hurt Jamie (or, more generally, that grieving folks don’t also do things that hurt their loved ones). When Dani recoils from their first kiss because of another guilt-inspired vision of Eddie, Jamie is clearly hurt and disappointed; still, Jamie doesn’t hold this against Dani, as she instead tries to take responsibility for it herself. A week later, though, Jamie strongly indicates that she needed that time to be alone in the aftermath and that she is wary that Dani’s pattern of withdrawing from her every time they start to get closer will continue to happen. Nonetheless, it’s important to note that this contributes to Dani’s recognition that she’s been allowing her guilt about Eddie’s death to become all-consuming, preventing her from acting on her own desires to be with Jamie. That recognition, in turn, leads Dani to decide to move through her grief and beyond her guilt. Once she’s alone later in the evening after that first kiss, Dani casts Eddie’s glasses into the bonfire’s lingering embers; she faces off with his specter for a final time, and after burning away his shadow, her visions of him finally cease. When she and Jamie reunite during their 6:00 a.m. terrible coffee visit, Dani acknowledges that the way that she and Jamie left things was “wrong,” and she actively tries to take steps to “do something right” by inviting Jamie out for a drink at the village pub…which, of course, just so happens to be right below Jamie’s flat. (Victoria Pedretti’s expressions in that scene are so good).

Before we continue, though, let’s pause here a moment to consider some crucial factors in all of this. First, there is a significant difference between “moving through one’s grief” and simply discarding it…or being pressured by someone else to discard it. Second, there is also a significant difference between “moving through one’s grief” and allowing one’s grief to become all-consuming. Keep these distinctions in mind as we go on.

Ultimately, the resolution of the show’s core supernatural conflict involves Dani inviting Viola’s ghost to inhabit her, which Viola accepts. This frees the other spirits who have been caught in Bly Manor’s “gravity well,” even as it dooms Dani to eventually be overtaken by Viola and her rage. Jamie, however, offers to stay with Dani while she waits for this “beast in the jungle” to claim her. The show’s final episode shows the two of them going on to forge a life together, opening a flower shop in a cute town in Vermont, enjoying years of domestic bliss, and later getting married (in what capacities they can—more on this soon), all while remaining acutely aware of the inevitability of Dani’s demise.

The allegorical potentials of this concluding narrative scenario are fairly flexible. It is possible, for instance, to interpret Dani’s “beast in the jungle” as chronic (and/or terminal) illness—in particular, there’re some harrowing readings that we could do in relation to degenerative neurological diseases associated with aging (e.g. dementia, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, progressive supranuclear palsy, etc.), especially if we put the final episode into conversation with the show’s earlier subplot about the death of Owen’s mother, its recurring themes of memory loss as a form of death (or, even, as something worse than death), and Jamie’s resonant remarks that she would rather be “put out of her misery” than let herself be “worn away a little bit every day.” For the purposes of this analysis, though, I’m primarily concerned with interpreting Viola’s lurking presence in Dani’s psyche as a stand-in for severe grief, trauma, and mental illness. …Because, even as we may “move through” grief and trauma, and even as we may work to heal from them, they never just go away completely—they’re always lurking around, waiting to resurface. (In fact, the final minutes of the last episode feature a conversation between older Jamie and Flora about contending with this inevitable recurrence of grief). Therapy can give us tools to negotiate and live with them, of course; but that doesn’t mean that they’re not still present in our lives. The tools that therapy provides are meant to help us manage those inevitable resurfacings in healthy ways. But they are not meant to return us to some pre-grief or pre-trauma state of “normality” or to make them magically dissipate into the ether, never to return. And, even with plenty of therapy and with healthy coping mechanisms, we can still experience significant mental health issues in the wake of catastrophic grief, loss, and trauma; therapy doesn’t totally preclude that possibility.

In light of my own experiences with personal tragedy, crumbling mental health, and the dissolution of a romantic partnership with someone who couldn’t accept the presence of grief in my life, I was immediately enamored with the ways that Jamie approaches the enduring aftereffects of Dani’s trauma during the show’s final episode. Jamie never once pressures Dani to just be “normal.” She never once issues any judgment about what Dani is experiencing. At those times when Dani’s grief and trauma do resurface—when the beast in the jungle catches up with her—Jamie is there to console her, often with the strategies that have always worked in their relationship: gentle, playful ribbing and words of affirmation. There are instances in which Dani doesn’t emote joyfulness during events that we might otherwise expect her to—consider, for instance, how somber Dani appears in the proposal scene, in contrast to Jamie’s smiles and laughter. (In the year after my brother’s death, my ex-fiancé and his family would observe that I seemed gloomy in situations that they thought should be fun and exciting. “Then why aren’t you smiling?” they’d ask, even when I tried to assure them that I was having a good time, but just couldn’t completely feel that or express it in the ways that I might’ve in the past). Dani even comments on an inability to feel that is all too reminiscent of the blunting of emotions that can happen in the wake of acute trauma: “It’s like I see you in front of me and I feel you touching me, and every day we’re living our lives, and I’m aware of that. But it’s like I don’t feel it all the way.” But throughout all of this (and in contrast to my own experiences with my ex), Jamie attempts to ground Dani without ever invalidating what she’s experiencing. When Dani tells her that she can’t feel, Jamie assures her, “If you can’t feel anything, then I’ll feel everything for the both of us.”

A few days after I finished the show for the first time, I gushed to a friend about how taken I was with the whole thing. Jamie was just so…not what I had experienced in my own life. I loved witnessing a representation of such a supportive and understanding partner, especially within the context of a sapphic romance. After breaking up with my own ex-fiancé, I’ve since come to terms with my sexuality and am still processing through the roles that compulsory heterosexuality and internalized homophobia have played in my life; so Dani and Jamie’s relationship has been incredibly meaningful for me to see for so, so many reasons.

“I’m glad you found the show so relatable,” my friend told me. “But,” she cautioned, “don’t lose sight of what Dani does in that relationship.” Then, she pointed out something that I hadn’t considered at all. Although Jamie may model the possibilities of a supportive partnership, Dani’s tragic death espouses a very different and very troubling perspective: the poisonous belief that I’m inevitably going to hurt my partner with my grief and trauma, so I need to leave them before I can inflict that harm on them.

Indeed, this is a deeply engrained belief that I hold about myself. While I harbor a great deal of anger at my ex-fiancé for how he treated me, there’s also still a part of me that sincerely believes that I nearly ruined his and his family’s lives by bringing such immense devastation and darkness into it. On my bad days (which are many), I have strong convictions about this in relation to my future romantic prospects as well. How could anyone ever want to be with me? I wonder. And even if someone eventually does try to be with me, all I’ll do is ruin her life with all my trauma and sadness. I shouldn’t even want to be with anyone, because I don’t want to hurt someone else. I don’t want someone else to deal with what I’ve had to deal with. I even think about this, too, with my friends. Since my brother’s death and my breakup, I’ve gone through even more trauma, pain, grief, and loss, such that now I continue to struggle enormously with issues like anhedonia, emotional fragility, and social anxiety. I worry, consequently, that I’m just a burden on my friends. That I’m too hard to be around. That being around me, with all of my pain and perpetual misfortune, just causes my friends pain, too. That they’re better off not having to deal with me at all. I could spare them all, I think, by just letting them go, by not bothering them anymore.

I suspect that this is why I didn’t notice any issues with Dani’s behavior at the end of Bly Manor at first. Well…that and the fact that the reality of the show’s conclusion is immensely triggering for me. Probably, my attention just kind of slid past the truth of it in favor of indulging in the catharsis of a sad gay romance.

But after my friend observed this issue, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I realized, then, that I hadn’t extended the allegory out to its necessary conclusion…which is that Dani has, in effect, committed suicide in order to—or so she believes, at least—protect Jamie from her. This is the case regardless of whether we keep Viola’s ghost in the mix as an actual, tangible, existing threat within the show’s diegesis or as a figurative symbol of the ways that other forces can “haunt” us to the point of our own self-destruction. If the former, then Dani’s suicide (or the more gentle and elusive description that I’ve seen: her act of “giving herself to the lake”) is to prevent Viola’s ghost from ever harming Jamie. But if the latter, if we continue doing the work of allegorical readings, then it’s possible to interpret Bly’s conclusion as the tragedy of Dani ultimately succumbing to her mental illness and suicidal ideation.

The problems with this allegory’s import really start cropping up, however, when we consider the ways that the show valorizes Dani’s actions as an expression of ultimate, self-sacrificing love—a valorization that Bly accomplishes, in particular, through its sustained contrasting of love and possession.

The Implications of Idealizing Self-Sacrifice as True Love

During a pivotal conversation in one of the show’s early episodes, Dani and Jamie discuss the “wrong kind of love” that existed between Rebecca Jessel and Peter Quint. Jamie remarks on how she “understands why so many people mix up love and possession,” thereby characterizing Rebecca and Peter’s romance as a matter of possession—as well as hinting, perhaps, that Jamie herself has had experiences with this in her own past. After considering for a moment, Dani agrees: “People do, don’t they? Mix up love and possession. […] I don’t think that should be possible. I mean, they’re opposites, really, love and ownership.” We can already tell from this scene that Dani and Jamie are, themselves, heading towards a burgeoning romance—and that this contrast between love and possession (and their self-awareness of it) is going to become a defining feature of that romance.

Indeed, the show takes great pains to emphasize the genuine love that exists between Dani and Jamie against the damaging drive for possession enacted by characters like Peter (who consistently manipulates Rebecca and kills her to keep her ghost with him) and Viola (who has killed numerous people and trapped their souls at Bly over the centuries in a long since forgotten effort to reclaim her life with her husband and daughter from Perdita, her murderously jealous sister). These contrasts take multiple forms and emerge from multiple angles, all to establish that Dani and Jamie’s love is uniquely safe, caring, healing, mutually supportive, and built on a foundation of prevailing concern for the other’s wellbeing. Some of these contrasts are subtle and understated. Consider, for instance, how Hannah observes that Rebecca looks like she hasn’t slept in days because of the turmoil of her entanglements with Peter, whereas Jamie’s narration describes how Dani gets the best sleep of her life during the first night that she and Jamie spend together. Note, too, the editing work in Episode 6 that fades in and out between the memories of the destructive ramifications of Henry and Charlotte’s affair and the scenes of tender progression in Dani and Jamie’s romance. Other contrasts, though, are far more overt. Of course, one of the most blatant examples (and most pertinent to this analysis) is the very fact that the ghosts of Viola, Peter, and Rebecca are striving to reclaim the people they love and the lives that they’ve lost by literally possessing the bodies and existences of the living.

The role of consent is an important factor in these ghostly possessions and serves as a further contrast with Dani and Jamie’s relationship. Peter and Rebecca frequently possess Miles and Flora without their consent—at times, even, when the children explicitly tell them to stop or, at the very least, to provide them with warnings beforehand. While inhabiting the children, Peter and Rebecca go on to harm them and put them at risk (e.g. Peter smokes cigarettes while in Miles’s body; Rebecca leaves Flora alone and unconscious on the grounds outside the manor) and to commit acts of violence against others (e.g. Peter pushes Hannah into the well, killing her; Peter and Rebecca together attack Dani and restrain her). The “It’s you, it’s me, it’s us,” conceit—with which living people can invite Bly’s ghosts to possess them, the mechanism by which Dani breaks the curse of Bly’s gravity well—is a case of dubious consent at best and abusive, violent control at worst. (“I didn’t agree,” Rebecca says after Peter leaves her body, releasing his “invited” possession of her at the very moment that the lake’s waters start to fill her lungs).

Against these selfish possessions and wrong kinds of love, Jamie and Dani’s love is defined by their selfless refusal to possess one another. A key characteristic of their courtship involves them expressing vulnerability in ways that invite the other to make their own decisions about whether to accept and how to proceed (or not proceed). As we discussed earlier, Dani and Jamie’s first kiss happens after Dani opens up about her guilt surrounding her ex-fiancé’s death. Pausing that kiss, Jamie checks, “You sure?” and only continues after Dani answers with a spoken yes. (Let’s also take this moment to appreciate Amelia Eve’s excellent, whispered “Thank fuck,” that isn’t included in Netflix’s subtitles). Even so, Dani frantically breaks away from her just moments later. But Jamie accepts this and doesn’t push Dani to continue, believing, in fact, that Dani has withdrawn precisely because Jamie has pushed too much already. A week later, Dani takes the initiative to advance their budding romance by inviting Jamie out for a drink—which Jamie accepts by, instead, taking Dani to see her blooming moonflowers that very evening. There, in her own moment of vulnerability, Jamie shares her heart-wrenching and tumultuous backstory with Dani in order to “skip to the end” and spare Dani the effort of getting to know her. By openly sharing these difficult details about herself, Jamie evidently intends to provide Dani with information that would help her decide for herself whether she wants to continue their relationship or not.

Their shared refusal to possess reaches its ultimate culmination in that moment, all those years later, when Dani discovers just how close she’s come to strangling Jamie—and then leaves their home to travel all the way back to Bly and drown herself in the lake because she could “not risk her most important thing, her most important person.” Upon waking to find that Dani has left, Jamie immediately sets off to follow her back to Bly. And in an absolutely heartbreaking, beautiful scene, we see Jamie attempting the “you, me, us,” invitation, desperate for Dani to possess her, for Dani to take Jamie with her. (Y’all, I know I’m critiquing this scene right now, but I also fuckin’ love it, okay? Ugh. The sight of Jamie screaming into the water and helplessly grasping for Dani is gonna stay with me forever. brb while I go cry about it again). Dani, of course, refuses this plea. Because “Dani wouldn’t. Dani would never.” Further emphasizing the nobility of Dani’s actions, Jamie’s narration also reveals that Dani’s self-sacrificial death has not only spared Jamie alone, but has also enabled Dani to take the place of the Lady of the Lake and thereby ensure that no one else can be taken and possessed by Viola’s gravity well ever again.

And so we have the show’s ennoblement of Dani’s magnanimous self-sacrifice. By inviting Viola to possess her, drowning herself to keep from harming Jamie, and then refusing to possess Jamie or anyone else, Dani has effectively saved everyone: the children, the restive souls that have been trapped at Bly, anyone else who may ever come to Bly in the future, and the woman she loves most. Dani has also, then, broken the perpetuation of Bly’s cycles of possession and trauma with her selfless expression of love for Jamie.

The unfortunate effect of all of this is that, quite without meaning to (I think? I hope—), The Haunting of Bly Manor ends up stumbling headlong into a validation of suicide as a selfless act of true love, as a force of protection and salvation.

So, before we proceed, I just want to take this moment to say—definitively, emphatically, as someone who has survived and experienced firsthand the ineffably catastrophic consequences of suicide—that suicide is nothing remotely resembling a selfless “refusal to possess” or an act of love. I’m not going to harp extensively on this, though, because I’d rather not trigger myself for a second time (so far, lol) while writing this essay. Just take my fuckin’ word for it. And before anybody tries to hit me with some excuse like “But Squall, it isn’t that the show is valorizing suicide, it’s that Dani is literally protecting Jamie from Viola,” please consider that I’ve already discussed how the show’s depiction of this lent itself to my own noxious beliefs that “all I do is harm other people with my grief, so maybe I should stop talking to my friends so that they don’t have to deal with me anymore.” Please consider what these narrative details and their allegorical import might tell people who are struggling with their mental health—even if not with suicidal ideation, then with the notion that they should self-sacrificially remove themselves from relationships for the sake of sparing loved ones from (assumed) harm.

Okay, that said, now let’s proceed…‘cause I’ve got even more to say, ‘cause the more I mulled over these details, the more I also came to realize that Dani’s self-sacrificial death in Bly’s conclusion also has the unfortunate effect of undermining some of its other (attempted) themes and its queer representation.

What Bly Manor Tries (and Fails) to Say about Grief and Acceptance

Let’s start by jumping back to a theme we’ve already addressed briefly: moving through one’s grief.

The Haunting of Bly Manor does, in fact, have a lot to say about this. Or…it wants to, more like. On the whole, it seems like it’s trying really hard to give us a cautionary tale about the destructive effects of unprocessed grief and the misplaced guilt that we can wind up carrying around when someone we love dies. The show spends a whole lot of time preaching about how important it is that we learn to accept our losses without allowing them to totally consume us—or without lingering around in denial about them (gettin’ some Kübler-Ross in here, y’all). Sadly, though, it does kind of a half-assed job of it…despite the fact that this is a major recurring theme and a component of the characterizations and storylines of, like, most of its characters. In fact, this fundamentally Kübler-Rossian understanding of what it means to move through grief and to accept loss and mortality appears to be the show’s guiding framework. During his rehearsal dinner speech in the first episode, Owen proclaims that, “To truly love another person is to accept that the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them,” with such eerie resonance—as the camera stays set on Jamie’s unwavering gaze—that we know that what we’re about to experience is a story about accepting the inevitable losses of the people we love.

Bly Manor is chock full of characters who’re stuck in earlier stages of grief but aren’t really moving along to reach that acceptance stage. I mean, the whole cause of the main supernatural haunting is that Viola so ferociously refuses to accept her death and move on from her rage (brought about by Perdita’s resentment) that she spends centuries strangling whoever she comes across, which then effectively traps them there with her. And the other antagonistic ghostly forces, Rebecca and Peter, also obviously suck at accepting their own deaths, given that they actually believe that possessing two children is a perfectly fine (and splendid) way for them to grasp at some semblance of life again. (Actually…the more that I’ve thought about this, the more that I think each of the pre-acceptance stages of grief in Kübler-Ross’s model may even have a corresponding character to represent it: Hannah is denial; Viola is anger; Peter and Rebecca are bargaining; Henry is depression. Just a little something to chew on).

But let’s talk more at-length about this theme in relation to two characters we haven’t focused on yet: Hannah and Henry. For Hannah, this theme shows up in her struggles to accept that her husband, Sam, has left her (Charlotte wryly burns candles in the chapel as though marking his passing, while Hannah seems to be holding out hope that he might return) and in her persistent denial that Peter-as-Miles has killed her. As a ghost, she determinedly continues going about her daily life and chores even as she’s progressively losing her grip on reality. Henry, meanwhile, won’t issue official notifications of Dominic’s death and continues to collect his mail because doing otherwise would mean admitting to the true finality of Dominic’s loss. At the same time, he is so, completely consumed by his guilt about the role that he believes he played in Charlotte and Dominic’s deaths that he’s haunting himself with an evil alter-ego. His overriding guilt and despair also result in his refusal to be more present in Miles and Flora’s lives—even with the knowledge that Flora is actually his daughter.

In the end, both Hannah and Henry reach some critical moments of acceptance. But, honestly, the show doesn’t do a great job of bringing home this theme of move through your grief with either of them…or with anybody else, really. Peter basically winds up bullying Hannah into recognizing that her broken body is still at the bottom of the well—and then she accepts her own death right in time to make a completely abortive attempt at rescuing Dani and Flora. Henry finally has a preternatural Bad Feeling about things (something about a phone being disconnected? whose phone? Bly’s phone? his phone? I don’t understand), snaps to attention, and rushes to Bly right in time to make an equally abortive rescue attempt that leaves him incapacitated so that his not-quite-ghost can hang out with Hannah long enough to find out that she’s dead. But at least he decides to be an attentive uncle/dad to Miles and Flora after that, I guess. Otherwise, Hannah and Henry get handwaved away pretty quickly before we can really witness what their acceptance means for them in any meaningful detail. (I blame this on some sloppy writing and the way-too-long, all-about-Viola eighth episode. And, on that note, what about the “acceptances” of Rebecca, Peter, and Viola there at the end? Rebecca does get an interesting moment of acceptance—of a sort—with her offer to possess Flora in order to experience Flora’s imminent drowning for her, thereby sparing the child by tucking her in a happy memory. Peter just…disappears at the end with some way-too-late words of apology. Viola’s “acceptance,” however, is tricky…What she accepts is Dani’s invitation to inhabit her. More on this later).

Hannah and Henry’s stories appear to be part of the show’s efforts to warn us about the ways that unprocessed, all-consuming grief can cause us to miss opportunities to have meaningful relationships with others. Hannah doesn’t just miss her chance to be with Owen because…well, she’s dead, but also because of her unwillingness to move on from Sam beforehand. Her denial about her own death, in turn, prevents her from taking the opportunity as a ghost to tell Owen that she loves him. Henry, at least, does figure out that he’s about to lose his chance to be a caring parental figure to his daughter and nephew—but just barely. It takes the near-deaths of him and the children to finally prompt that realization.

Of the cast, Dani gets the most thorough and intentional development of this move through your grief theme. And, importantly, she learns this lesson in time to cultivate a meaningful relationship that she could’ve easily missed out on otherwise. As we’ve already discussed, a critical part of Dani’s character arc involves her realization that she has to directly confront Edmund’s death and start absolving herself of her guilt in order to open up the possibility of a romantic relationship with Jamie. In Episode 4, Jamie’s narration suggests that Dani has had a habit of putting off such difficult processes (whether in regards to moving through her grief, breaking off her engagement to Edmund, or coming to terms with her sexuality), as she’s been constantly deferring to “another night, another time for years and years.” Indeed, the show’s early episodes are largely devoted to showing the consequences of Dani’s deferrals and avoidances. From the very beginning, we see just how intrusively Dani’s unresolved guilt is impacting her daily life and functioning. She covers up mirrors to try to prevent herself from encountering Edmund’s haunting visage, yet still spots him in the reflections of windows and polished surfaces. Panic attacks seem to be regular occurrences for her, sparked by reminders of him. And all of this only gets worse and more disruptive as Dani starts acting on her attraction to Jamie.

It's only after Dani decides to begin moving through her grief and guilt that she’s able to start becoming emotionally and physically intimate with Jamie. And the major turning point for this comes during a scene that features a direct, explicit discussion of the importance of accepting (and even embracing) mortality.

That’s right—it’s time to talk about the moonflower scene.

In a very “I am extremely fed up with people not being able to deal with my traumatic past, so I’m going to tell you about all of the shit that I’ve been through so that you can go ahead and decide whether you want to bolt right now instead of just dropping me later on” move (which…legit, Jamie—I feel that), Jamie sits Dani down at her moonflower patch to give her the full rundown of her own personal backstory and worldview. Her monologue evinces both a profound cynicism and a profound valuation of human life…all of which is also suggestive, to me at least, of a traumatized person who at once desperately wishes for intimate connection, but who’s also been burned way too many times (something with which I am wholly unfamiliar, lol). She characterizes people as “exhaustive effort with very little to show for it,” only to go on to wax poetic about how human mortality is as beautiful as the ephemeral buds of a moonflower. This is, in essence, Jamie’s sorta convoluted way of articulating that whole “To truly love another person is to accept that the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them” idea.

After detailing her own past, Jamie shifts gears to suggest that she believes that cultivating a relationship with Dani—like the devoted work of growing a tropical, transient Ipomoea alba in England—might be worth the effort. And as part of this cultivation work, Jamie then acknowledges Dani’s struggles with her guilt, while also firmly encouraging her to move through it by accepting the beauty of mortality:  

“I know you’re carrying this guilt around, but I also know that you don’t decide who lives and who doesn’t. I’m sorry Dani, but you don’t. Humans are organic. It’s a fact. We’re meant to die. It’s natural…beautiful. […] We leave more life behind to take our place. Like this moonflower. It’s where all its beauty lies, you know. In the mortality of the thing.”

After that, Jamie and Dani are finally able to make out unimpeded.

Frustratingly, though, Jamie’s own dealings with grief, loss, and trauma remain terribly understated throughout the show. Her monologue in the moonflower scene is really the most insight that we ever get. Jamie consistently comes off as better equipped to contend with life’s hardships than many of Bly’s other characters; and she is, in fact, the sole member of the cast who is confirmed to have ever had any sort of professional therapy. She regularly demonstrates a remarkable sense of empathy and emotional awareness, able to pick up on others’ needs and then support them accordingly, though often in gruff, tough-love forms. Further, there are numerous scenes in which we see Jamie bestowing incisive guidance for handling difficult situations: the moonflower scene, her advice to Rebecca about contacting Henry after Peter’s disappearance, and her suggestion to Dani that Flora needs to see a psychologist, to name just a few. As such, Jamie appears to have—or, at least, projects—a sort of unflappable groundedness that sets her apart from everyone else in the show.

Bly only suggests that Jamie’s struggles run far deeper than she lets on. There are a few times that we witness quick-tempered outbursts (usually provoked by Miles) and hints of bottled-up rage. Lest we forget, although it was Flora who first found Rebecca’s dead body floating in the water, it was Jamie who then found them both immediately thereafter. We see this happen, but we never learn anything about the impact that this must have had on her. Indeed, Jamie’s exposure to the layered, compounding grief at Bly has no doubt inflicted a great deal of pain on her, suggested by details like her memorialization of Charlotte and Dominic during the bonfire scene. If we look past her flippancy, there must be more than a few grains of truth to that endless well of deep, inconsolable tears—but Jamie never actually shares what they might be. Moreover, although the moonflower scene reveals the complex traumas of her past, we never get any follow-up or elaboration about those details or Dani’s observation of the scar on her shoulder. For the most part, Jamie’s grief goes unspoken.

There’s a case to be made that these omissions are a byproduct of narrator Jamie decentering herself in a story whose primary focus is Dani. Narrator Jamie even claims that the story she’s telling “isn’t really my story. It belongs to someone I knew” (yes, it’s a diversionary tactic to keep us from learning her identity too soon—but she also means it). And in plenty of respects, the telling of the story is, itself, Jamie’s extended expression of her grief. By engaging in this act of oral storytelling to share Dani’s sacrifice with others—especially with those who would have otherwise forgotten—Jamie is performing an important ritual of mourning her wife. Still, it’s for exactly these reasons that I think it would’ve been valuable for the show to include more about the impacts that grief, loss, and trauma had on Jamie prior to Dani’s death. Jamie’s underdevelopment on this front feels more like a disappointing oversight of the show’s writing than her narrator self’s intentional, careful withholding of information. Additionally, I think that Bly leaves Jamie’s grieving on an…odd note (though, yes, I know I’m just a curmudgeonly outlier here). Those saccharine final moments of Jamie filling up the bathtub and sleeping on a chair so that she can face the cracked doorway are a little too heavy-handedly tear-jerking for my liking. And while this, too, may be a ritual of mourning after the undoubtedly taxing effort of telling Dani’s story, it may also suggest that Jamie is demurring her own acceptance of Dani’s death. Is the hand on her shoulder really Dani’s ghost? Or is it Jamie’s own hopeful fabrication that her wife’s spirit is watching over her? (Or—to counter my own point here and suggest a different alternative—could this latter idea (i.e. the imagining of Dani’s ghost) also be another valid manner of “accepting” a loss by preserving a loved one’s presence? “Dead doesn’t mean gone,” after all. …Anyway, maybe I would be more charitable to this scene if not for the hokey, totally out-of-place song. Coulda done without that, seriously).

But let’s jump back to the moonflower scene. For Dani, this marks an important moment in the progression of her own movement through grief. In combination, her newfound readiness to contend with her guilt and her eagerness to grow closer to Jamie enable Dani to find a sense of peace that she hasn’t experienced since Eddie’s death…or maybe ever, really (hang on to this thought for this essay’s final section, too). When she and Jamie sleep together for the first time, not only does Dani actually sleep well, but she also wakes the next morning to do something that she hasn’t done to that point and won’t do again: she comfortably looks into a mirror. (One small qualification to this: Dani does look into her own reflection at the diner when she and Jamie are on their road trip; Viola doesn’t interfere then, but whether this is actually a comfortable moment is questionable). Then, shifting her gaze away from her own reflection, she sees Jamie still sleeping soundly in her bed—and smiles. It’s a fleeting moment of peace. Immediately after that, she spots Flora out the window, which throws everything back into accumulating turmoil. But that moment of peace, however fleeting, is still a powerful one.

However, Bly teases this narrative about the possibilities of finding healing in the wake of traumatic loss—especially through the cultivation of meaningful and supportive relationships with others—only to then totally pull that rug out from under Dani in the final episode.

During that final episode, we see that Dani’s shared life with Jamie has supported her in coming to terms with Viola’s lurking presence, such that “at long last, deep within the au pair’s heart, there was peace. And that peace held for years, which is more than some of us ever get.” But it’s at the exact moment that that line of narration occurs that we then begin to witness Dani’s steady, inexorable decline. Sure, we could say that Dani “accepts” Viola’s intrusions and the unavoidable eventuality that the ghost will seize control of her. But this isn’t a healthy acceptance or even a depiction of the fraught relationships that we can have with grief and trauma as we continue to process them throughout our lives. At all. Instead, it’s a distinctive, destructive sense of fatalism.

“I’m not even scared of her anymore,” Dani tells Jamie as the flooded bathtub spills around them. “I just stare at her and it's getting harder and harder to see me. Maybe I should just accept that. Maybe I should just accept that and go.” Remember way back at the beginning of this essay when I pointed out that there’s a significant difference between “moving through one’s grief” and allowing one’s grief to become all-consuming? Well, by the time we reach the bathtub scene, Dani’s grief and trauma have completely overtaken her. Her “acceptance” is, thus, a fatalistic, catastrophizing determination that her trauma defines her existence, such that she believes that all she has left to do is give up her life in order to protect Jamie from her. For a less ghostly (and less suicidal ideation-y) and more real-life example to illustrate what I’m getting at here: this would be like me saying “I should just accept that I’m never going to be anything other than a traumatized mess and should stop reaching out to my friends so that I don’t keep hurting them by making them deal with what a mess I am.” If I said something like this, I suspect (hope) that you would tell me that this is not a productive acceptance, but a pernicious narrative that only hurts me and the people who care about me. Sadly, though, this kind of pernicious narrative is exactly what we get out of Bly’s ending allegory.

“But Squall,” you may be thinking, “this scene is representing how people who struggle with their mental health can actually feel. This is exactly what it can be like to have severe mental illness, even for folks who have strong support systems and healthy, meaningful relationships. And there’s value in showing that.”

And if you’re thinking that, then first of all—as I have indicated already—I am aware that this is what it can be like. Very aware. And second of all, you make a fair point, but…there are ways that the show could’ve represented this without concluding that representation with a suicide that it effectively valorizes. I’ll contend with this more in the final section, where I offer a few suggestions of other ways that Bly could’ve ended instead.

I just want to be absolutely clear that I’m not saying that I think all media portrayals of mental illness need to be hopeful or wholesome or end in “positive” ways. But what I am saying is that Bly’s conclusion offers a really fuckin’ bleak outlook on grief, trauma, and mental illness, especially when we fit that ending into the framework of the show’s other (attempted) core themes, as well as Dani’s earlier character development. It’s especially bleak to see this as someone with severe mental health issues and who has also lost a loved one to suicide—and as someone who desperately hopes that my life and worldview won’t always stay so darkly colored by my trauma.

Additionally, it’s also worth pausing here to acknowledge that fatalism is, in fact, a major theme of The Beast in the Jungle, the 1903 Henry James novella on which the ninth episode is loosely based. I confess that I’ve only read about this novella, but haven’t read the story itself. However, based on my (admittedly limited) understanding of it, there appears to be a significant thematic rupture between The Beast in the Jungle and The Haunting of Bly Manor in their treatments of fatalism. In the end of the novella, its protagonist, John Marcher, comes to the realization that his fatalism has been a horrible mistake that has caused him to completely miss out on an opportunity for love that was right in front of him all along. The tragic fate to which Marcher believed that he was doomed was, in the end, his own fatalism. Dani, in contrast, never has this moment of recognition, not only because her fatalism leads to her own death, but also because the show treats her fatalism not as something that keeps her from love, but instead as leading her towards a definitive act of love.

All of this is exactly why Dani’s portrayal has become so damn concerning to me, and why I don’t believe that Bly’s allegory of “this is what it’s like to live with mental illness and/or to love (and lose) someone who is mentally ill” is somehow value-neutral—or, worse, something worth celebrating.

How Dani’s Self-Sacrifice Bears on Bly’s Queer Representation

In my dabblings around the fandom so far, I’ve seen a fair amount of deliberation about whether or not Bly Manor’s ending constitutes an example of the Bury Your Gays trope.

Honestly, though, I am super unenthused about rehashing those deliberations or splitting hairs trying to give some definitive “yes it is” or “no it isn’t” answer, so…I’m just not going to. Instead, I’m going to offer up some further observations about how Dani’s self-sacrificial death impinges on Bly’s queer representation, regardless of whether Bury Your Gays is at work here or not.

I would also like to humbly submit that the show could’ve just…not fucked around in proximity of that trope in the first place so that we wouldn’t even need to be having these conversations.

But anyway. I’m going to start this section off with a disclaimer.

Even though I’m leveling some pretty fierce critiques in this section (and across this essay), I do also want to say that I adore that The Haunting of Bly Manor and its creators gave us a narrative that centers two queer women and their romantic relationship as its driving forces and that intentionally sets out to portray the healing potentials of sapphic love as a contrast to the destructive, coercive harms found in many conventional dynamics of hegemonic heteronormativity. I don’t want to downplay that, because I’m extremely happy that this show exists, and I sincerely believe that many elements of its representation are potent and meaningful and amazing. But…I also have some reservations with this portrayal that I want to share. I critique not because I don’t love, but because I do love. I love this show a lot. I love Dani and Jamie a lot. I critique because I love and because I want more and better in future media.

So, that being said…let’s move on to talk about Dani, self-sacrifice, and compulsory heterosexuality.

Well before Dani’s ennobled death, Bly establishes self-sacrifice as a core component of her characterization. It’s hardwired into her, no doubt due to the relentless, entangled educational work of compulsory heterosexuality (comphet) and the aggressive forms of socialization that tell girls and women that their roles in life are to sacrifice themselves in order to please others and to belong to men. Indeed, Episode 4’s series of flashbacks emphasizes the interconnectedness between comphet and Dani’s beliefs that she is supposed to sacrifice herself for others’ sakes, revealing how these forces have shaped who she is and the decisions that she’s made across her life. (While we’re at it, let’s also not lose sight of the fact that Dani’s profession during this time period is one that—in American culture, at least—has come to rely on a distinctively feminized self-sacrificiality in order to function. Prior to becoming an au pair, Dani was a schoolteacher. In fact, in one of Episode 4’s flashbacks, Eddie’s mother points out that she appreciates Dani’s knack for identifying the kids that need her the most, but also reminds Dani that she needs to take care of herself…which suggests that Dani hadn’t been: “Save them all if you can, but put your own oxygen mask on first”).

In the flashback of her engagement party, Dani’s visible discomfort during Edmund’s speech clues us in that she wasn’t preparing to marry him because she genuinely wanted to, but because she felt like she was supposed to. The “childhood sweethearts” narrative bears down on the couple, celebrated by their friends and family, vaunted by cultural constructs that prize this life trajectory as a cherished, “happily ever after” ideal. Further illustrating the pressures to which Dani had been subject, the same scene shows Eddie’s mother, Judy O’Mara, presenting Dani with her own wedding dress and asking Dani to wear it when she marries Eddie. Despite Mrs. O’Mara’s assurances that Dani can say no, the hopes that she heaps onto Dani make abundantly clear that anything other than a yes would disappoint her. Later, another flashback shows Dani having that dress sized and fitted while her mother and Mrs. O’Mara look on and chatter about their own weddings and marriages. Their conversation is imbued with further hopes that Dani’s marriage to Edmund will improve on the mistakes that they made in their lives. Meanwhile, Dani’s attentiveness to the tailor who takes her measurements, compliments her body, and places a hand on her back strongly suggests that Dani is suppressing her attraction to women. Though brief, this scene is a weighty demonstration of the ways that the enclosures of heteronormativity constrain women into believing that their only option is to deny homosexual attraction, to forfeit their own desires in order to remain in relationships with men, and to prioritize the hopes and dreams and aspirations of the people around them above their own.

Dani followed this pathway—determined for her by everyone else except herself—until she couldn’t anymore.

During the flashback of their breakup, Dani explains to Eddie that she didn’t end their relationship sooner because she thought that even just having desires that didn’t match his and his family’s was selfish of her: “I should’ve said something sooner. […] I didn’t want to hurt you, or your mom, or your family. And then it was just what we were doing. […] I just thought I was being selfish, that I could just stick it out, and eventually I would feel how I was supposed to.” As happens to so many women, Dani was on the cusp of sacrificing her life for the sake of “sticking out” a marriage to a man, all because she so deeply believed that it was her duty to satisfy everyone’s expectations of her and that it was her responsibility to change her own feelings about that plight.

And Eddie’s response to this is telling. “Fuck you, Danielle,” he says. “Why are you doing this to me?”

Pay close attention to those last two words. Underline ‘em. Bold ‘em. Italicize ‘em.

“Why are you doing this to me?”

With those two words, Eddie indicates that he views Dani’s refusal to marry him as something that she is doing to him, a harm that she is committing against him. It is as though Dani is inflicting her will on him, or even that she is unjustly attackinghim by finally admitting that her desires run contrary to his own, that she doesn’t want to be his wife. And with this statement, he confirms precisely what she anticipated would happen upon giving voice to her true feelings.

What space did Edmund, his family, or Dani’s mother ever grant for Dani to have aspirations of her own that weren’t towards the preordained role of Eddie’s future wife? Let’s jump back to that engagement party. Eddie’s entire speech reveals a very longstanding assumption of his claim over her as his wife-to-be. He’d first asked Dani to marry him when they were ten years old, after he mistakenly believed that their first kiss could get Dani pregnant; Dani turned him down then, saying that they were too young. So, over the years, as they got older, Eddie continued to repeatedly ask her—until, presumably, she relented. “Now, we’re still pretty young,” he remarks as he concludes his speech, “but I think we’re old enough to know what we want.” Significantly, Eddie speaks here not just for himself, but also for Dani. Dani’s voice throughout the entire party is notably absent, as Eddie and his mother both impose their own wishes on her, assume that she wants what they want, and don’t really open any possibility for her to say otherwise. Moreover, although there’s a palpable awkwardness that accompanies Eddie’s story, the crowd at the party chuckles along as though it’s a sweet, innocent tale of lifelong love and devotion, and not an instance of a man whittling away at a woman’s resistance until she finally caved to his pursuit of her.

All of this suggests that Eddie shared in the socialized convictions of heteropatriarchy, according to which Dani’s purpose and destiny were to marry him and to make him happy. His patterns of behavior evince the unquestioned presumptions of so many men: that women exist in service to them and their wants, such that it is utterly inconceivable that women could possibly desire otherwise. As a political institution, heteropatriarchy tells men that they are entitled to women’s existences, bodies, futures. And, indeed, Eddie can’t seem to even imagine that Dani could ever want anything other than the future that he has mapped out for them. (Oh, hey look, we’ve got some love vs. possession going on here again).

For what it’s worth, I think that the show’s portrayal of compulsory heterosexuality is excellent. I love that the writers decided to tackle this. Like I mentioned at the beginning, I found all of this to be extremelyrelatable. I might even be accused of over-relating and projecting my own experiences onto my readings here, but…there were just too many resonances between Dani’s experiences and my own. Mrs. O’Mara’s advice to Dani to “put your own oxygen mask on first” is all too reminiscent of the ways that my ex’s parents would encourage me to “heal” from my brother’s loss…but not for the sake of my own wellbeing, but so that I would return to prioritizing the care of their son and existing to do whatever would make him happy. I’ll also share here that what drove me to break up with my ex-fiancé wasn’t just his unwillingness to contend with my grief, but the fact that he had decided that the best way for me to heal from my loss would be to have a baby. He insisted that I could counteract my brother’s death by “bringing new life into the world.” And he would not take no for an answer. He told me that if I wouldn’t agree to try to have children in the near future, then he wasn’t interested in continuing to stay with me. It took me months to pluck up the courage, but I finally answered this ultimatum by ending our relationship myself. Thus, like Dani, I came very close to sacrificing myself, my wants, my body, my future, and my life for the sake of doing what my fiancé and his family wanted me to do, all while painfully denying my own attraction to women. What kept me from “sticking it out” any longer was that I finally decided that I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself for a man I didn’t love (and who clearly didn’t love me) and decided, instead, to reclaim my own wants and needs away from him.

For Dani, however, the moment that she finally begins to reclaim her wants and needs away from Eddie is also the moment that he furiously jumps out of the driver’s seat and into the path of a passing truck, which leaves her to entangle those events as though his death is her fault for finally asserting herself.

Of course, the guilt that Dani feels for having “caused” Eddie’s death isn’t justa matter of breaking up with him and thereby provoking a reaction that would prove fatal—it’s also the guilt of her suppressed homosexual desire, of not desiring Eddie in the first place. In other words, internalized homophobia is an inextricable layer of the culpability that Dani feels. Internalized homophobia is also what’s haunting her. As others (such as Rowan Ellis, whose deep dive includes a solid discussion of internalized homophobia in Bly, as well as a more at-length examination of Bury Your Gays than I’m providing here) have pointed out, the show highlights this metaphorically by having Dani literally get locked into a closet with Edmund’s ghost in the very first episode. Further reinforcing this idea is the fact that these spectral visions get even worse as Dani starts to come to terms with and act on her attraction to Jamie, as though the ghost is punishing her for her desires. Across Episode 3, as Dani and Jamie begin spending more time together, Edmund’s ghost concurrently begins materializing in more shocking, visceral forms (e.g. his bleeding hand in Dani’s bed; his shadowy figure lurking behind Dani after she’s held Jamie’s hand) that exceed the reflective surfaces to which he’d previously been confined. This continues into Episode 4, where each of Eddie’s appearances follows moments of Dani’s growing closeness to Jamie. A particularly alarming instance occurs when Dani just can’t seem to pry her gaze away from a dressed-up Jamie who’s in the process of some mild undressing. Finally turning away from Jamie, Dani becomes aware of Eddie’s hands on her hips. It’s a violating reminder of his claims over her, horrifying in its invocation of men’s efforts to coerce and control women’s sexuality.

It is incredibly powerful, then, to watch Dani answer all of this by becoming more resolute and assertive in the expression of her wants and needs. The establishment of her romantic relationship with Jamie isn’t just the movement through grief and guilt that we discussed earlier; it’s also Dani’s defiance of compulsory heterosexuality and her fierce claiming of her queer existence. Even in the face of all that’s been haunting her, Dani initiates her first kiss with Jamie; and Eddie’s intrusion in that moment is only enough to temporarily dissuade her, as Dani follows this up by then asking Jamie out for a drink at the pub to “see where that takes them” (i.e. up to Jamie’s flat to bang, obviously). The peace that Dani finds after having sex with Jamie for the first time is, therefore, also the profound fulfillment of at last having her first sexual experience with a woman, of finally giving expression to this critical part of herself that she’d spent her entire life denying. Compulsory heterosexuality had dictated to Dani that she must self-sacrifice to meet the strictures of heteropatriarchy, to please everyone except herself; but in her relationship with Jamie, Dani learns that she doesn’t have to do this at all. This is only bolstered by the fact that, as we’ve talked about at length already, Jamie is very attentive to Dani’s needs and respectful of her boundaries. Jamie doesn’t want Dani to do anything other than what Dani wants to do. And so, in the cultivation of their romantic partnership, Dani thus comes to value her own wants and needs in a way that she hasn’t before.

The fact that the show nails all of this so fucking well is what makes all that comes later so goddamn frustrating.

The final episode chronicles Dani and Jamie forging a queer life together that the rest of us can only dream of, including another scene of Dani flouting homophobia and negotiating her own internal struggles so that she can be with Jamie. “I know we can’t technically get married,” she tells Jamie when she proposes to her, “but I also don’t really care.” And with her awareness that the beast in the jungle is starting to catch up with her, Dani tells Jamie that she wants to spend whatever time she has left with her.

But then…

A few scenes later—along with a jump of a few years later, presumably—Jamie arrives home with the licenses that legally certify their civil union in the state of Vermont. It’s a monumental moment. In 2000, Vermont became the first state to introduce civil unions, which paved the way for it to later (in 2009) become the first state to pass legislation that recognized gay marriages without needing to have a court order mandating that the state extend marriage rights beyond opposite-sex couples. I appreciate that Bly’s creatorsincorporated this significant milestone in the history of American queer rights into the show. But its positioning in the show also fuckin’ sucks. Just as Jamie is announcing the legality of her and Dani’s civil union and declaring that they’ll have another marriage ceremony soon, we see water running into the hallway. This moves us into that scene with the flooded bathtub, as Jamie finds Dani staring into the water, unaware of anything else except the reflection of Viola staring back at her. Thus, it is at the exact moment when her wife proudly shares the news of this incredible achievement in the struggle for queer rights—for which queer folks have long fought and are continuing to fight to protect in the present—that Dani has completely, hopelessly resigned herself to Viola’s possession.

I want to be careful to clarify here that, in making this observation, I don’t mean to posit some sort of “Dani should have fought back against Viola” argument, which—within the context of our allegorical readings—might have the effect of damagingly suggesting that Dani should have fought harder to recover from mental illness or terminal disease. But I do mean to point out the incredibly grim implications that the juxtaposition of these events engenders, especially when we contemplate them (as we did in the previous section) within the overall frameworks of the show’s themes and Dani’s character development. After all that has come before, after we’ve watched Dani come to so boldly assert her queer desire and existence, it is devastating to see the show reduce her to such a despairing state that doesn’t even give her a chance to register that she and Jamie are now legal partners.

Why did you have to do this, Bly? Why?

Further compounding this despair, the next scene features the resumption of Dani’s self-sacrificial beliefs and behaviors, which results in her demise, and which leaves Jamie to suffer through the devastation of her wife’s death. This resumption of self-sacrifice hence demolishes all of that beautiful work of asserting Dani’s queer existence and learning that she doesn’t need to sacrifice herself that I just devoted two thousand words to describing above.

Additionally, in the end, Dani’s noble self-sacrifice also effects a safe recuperation of heteronormativity…which might add more evidence to a Bury Your Gays claim, oops.

And that is because, in the end, after we see Jamie screaming into the water and Dani forever interred at the bottom of the lake in which she drowned herself, we come to the end of Jamie’s story and return to Bly Manor’s frame narrative: Flora’s wedding.

At the start of the show, the evening of Flora and Unnamed Man’s (Wikipedia says his name is James? idk, w/e) rehearsal dinner provides the occasion and impetus for Jamie’s storytelling. Following dinner, Flora, her fiancé, and their guests gather around a fireplace and discuss a ghost story about the venue, a former convent. With a captive audience that includes her primary targets—Flora and Miles, who have forgotten what happened at Bly and, by extension, all that Dani sacrificed and that Jamie lost so that they could live their lives free of the trauma of what transpired—and with a topically relevant conversation already ongoing, Jamie interjects that she has a ghost story of her own to share…and thus, the show’s longer, secondary narrative begins.

When Jamie’s tale winds to a close at the end of the ninth episode, the show returns us to its frame, that scene in front of the cozy, crackling fire. And it is there that we learn that it is, in fact, Jamie who has been telling us this story all along.

As the other guests trickle away, Flora stays behind to talk to Jamie on her own. A critical conversation then ensues between them, which functions not only as Jamie’s shared wisdom to Flora, but also as the show’s attempt to lead viewers through what they’ve just experienced and thereby impart its core message about the secondary narrative. The frame narrative is, thus, also a direct address to the audience that tells us what we should take away from the experience. By this point, the show has thoroughly established that Jamie is a gentle-but-tough-love, knowledgeable, and trustworthy guide through the trials of accepting grief and mortality, and so it is Jamie who leaves Flora and us, the audience, with the show’s final word about how to treasure the people we love while they are still in our lives and how to grieve them if we survive beyond them. (But, by this point in this essay, we’ve also learned that Bly’s messages about grief and mortality are beautiful but also messy and unconvincing, even with this didactic ending moment).

With all of this in mind, we can (and should) ask some additional questions of the frame narrative.

One of those questions is: Why is the secondary narrative being told from/within this particular frame?

Answering this question within the show’s diegesis (by asking it of the narrator) is easy enough. Jamie is performing a memorialization of Dani’s life and sacrifice at an event where her intended audience happens to be gathered, ensuring that Miles and Flora begin to recognize what Dani did for them in a manner that maybe won’t just outright traumatize them.

Okay, sure, yeah. True. Not wrong.

But let’s interrogate this question more deeply—let’s ask it of the show itself. So, Bly Manor: Why is the secondary narrative being told from/within this particular frame?

We could also tweak this question a bit to further consider: What is the purpose of the frame? A frame narrative can function to shape audiences’ interpretations of and attitudes towards the secondary narrative. So, in this case, let’s make our line of questioning even more specific. What does the frame of Flora’s wedding do for Bly’s audiences?

Crucially, the framing scene at the fireplace provides us with a sense that we’ve returned to safety after the horror of the ghost story we’ve just experienced. To further assure us of this safety, then, Bly’s frame aims to restore a sense of normality, a sense that the threat that has provoked fear in us has been neutralized, a sense of hope that endures beyond tragedy. Indeed, as we fade from the secondary narrative and return to the frame, Jamie’s narration emphasizes how Dani’s selfless death has brought peace to Bly Manor by breaking its cycles of violence and trauma: “But she won’t be hollow or empty, and she won’t pull others to her fate. She will merely walk the grounds of Bly, harmless as a dove for all of her days, leaving the only trace of who she once was in the memory of the woman who loved her most.”

What Dani has accomplished with her self-sacrifice, then, is a longstanding, prevailing, expected staple of Western—and especially American—storytelling: redemption.

American media is rife with examples of this narrative formula (in which an individual must take selfless action—which may or may not involve self-sacrificial death—in order to redeem an imperiled community by restoring a threatened order) to an extent that is kind of impossible to overstate. Variations of this formula are everywhere, from film to television to comics to videogames to news reports. It is absolutely fundamental to our cultural understandings of what “heroism” means. And it’s been this way for, umm…a long time, largely thanks to that most foundational figure of Western myth, some guy who was crucified for everybody’s sins or something. (Well, that and the related popularization of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey, but…I’m not gonna go off onto a whole rant about that right now, this essay is already too long as it is).

In Bly Manor, the threatened order is the natural process of death itself, which Viola has disrupted with a gravity well that traps souls and keeps them suspended within physical proximity of the manor. Dani’s invitation to Viola is the initial step towards salvation (although, I think it’s important to note that this is not entirely intentional on Dani’s part. Jamie’s narration indicates that Dani didn’t entirely understand what she was doing with the “It’s you, it’s me, it’s us” invitation, so self-sacrifice was not necessarily her initial goal). It nullifies the gravity well and resumes the passage of death, which liberates all of the souls that have been trapped at Bly and also produces additional opportunities for others’ atonements (e.g. Peter’s apology to Miles; Henry’s guardianship of the children). But it’s Dani’s suicide that is the ultimate completion of the redemptive task. It is only by “giving herself to the lake” that Dani is able to definitively dispel Viola’s threat and confer redemptive peace to Bly Manor.

It’s tempting to celebrate this incredibly rare instance of a queer woman in the heroic-redemptive role, given that American media overwhelmingly reserve it for straight men. But I want to strongly advise that we resist this temptation. Frankly, there’s a lot about the conventional heroic-redemptive narrative formula that sucks, and I’d rather that we work to advocate for other kinds of narratives, instead of just championing more “diversity” within this stuffy old model of heroism. Explaining what sucks about this formula is beyond the purview of this essay, though. But my next point might help to illustrate part of why it sucks (spoiler: it’s because it tends to prop up traditional, dominant structures of power and relationality).

So…What I want us to do is entertain the possibility that Dani’s redemptive self-sacrifice might serve specific purposes for straight audiences, especially in the return to the frame at the end.

Across The Haunting of Bly Manor, we’ve seen ample examples of heterosexuality gone awry. The show has repeatedly called our attention to the flaws and failings of heterosexual relationships against the carefully cultivated safety, open communication, and mutual fulfillment of a queer romance between two women. But, while queer audiences may celebrate this about this show, for straight audiences, this whole situation might just wind up producing anxiety instead—as though heterosexuality is also a threatened order within the world of Bly Manor. More generally, asking straight audiences to connect with a queer couple as the show’s main protagonists is an unaccustomed challenge with which they’re not normally tasked; thus, the show risks leaving this dominant viewer base uncomfortable, threatened, and resentful, sitting with the looming question of whether heterosexuality is, itself, redeemable.

In answer to this, Dani’s self-sacrifice provides multiple assurances to straight audiences. To begin with, her assumption of the traditional heroic-redemptive role secures audiences within the familiar confines of that narrative formula, which also then promises that Dani is acting as a protector of threatened status quos and not as another source of peril. What Bly Manor is doing here is, in effect, acknowledging that it may have challenged (and even threatened) straight audiences with its centerpiece of a queer romance—and that, likewise, queers themselves may be challenging the status quos of romantic partnerships by, for instance, demanding marriage rights and improvements in media representations—while also emphatically reassuring those audiences in the wake of that challenge that Dani and Jamie haven’t created and aren’t going to create too much disturbance with their queerness. They’re really not that threatening, Bly swears. They’re harmless as a dove. They’re wholesome. They’re respectable. They—and queer folks more generally—aren’t going to totally upend everything, really. Look, they’ll even sacrifice themselves to save everyone and redeem imperiled communities and threatened orders—even heterosexuality itself!

A critical step towards achieving this assurance is the leveling of the playing field. In order for the show to neutralize the threat of queerness for straight audiences, comfort them with a return to safety, and promise them that heterosexuality is redeemable, the queer women need to have an on-screen tragic end to their relationship just like all of the straight couples have. And so, Dani must die and Jamie must grieve.

That accomplished, the show then immediately returns to the frame, the scene at the fireplace following Flora’s rehearsal dinner.

There—after we’ve witnessed so much queer joy and queer tragedy crammed into this final episode—we see Flora and her fiancé, bride and groom, sitting together, arms linked, taking in all that Jamie has to tell them. And with this warm, idyllic image of impending matrimony between man and wife, the safety to which straight audiences return in the frame is, therefore, also the safety of a heterosexuality that can find its redemption through Dani’s self-sacrifice. Not only does Dani’s death mean that Flora can live (and go on to marry her perfectly bland, unremarkable husband, all without the trauma of what happened at Bly), but it also means that she—and, with her, straight audiences—can ultimately benefit from the lessons about true love, loss, and grieving that Dani’s self-sacrifice and Jamie’s story bestow.

And so, Bly Manor concludes with a valorization of redemptive self-sacrifice and an anodyne recuperation of heteronormativity, bequeathing Flora with the opportunities to have and to hold the experiential knowledge that Dani and Jamie have provided for her. Here, queer tragedy serves up an educational opportunity for heterosexual audiences in a challengingly “inclusive,” but otherwise essentially non-threatening manner. The ending is a gentle, non-traumatizing, yet frank lesson to heterosexual audiences in the same way that Jamie’s story is a gentle, non-traumatizing, yet frank lesson to Flora.

Did the show’s creators intentionally do all of this to set about providing such assurances to straight audiences? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t really know—or care! But, especially in light of incidents like the recent “Suletta and Miorine’s relationship is up to interpretation” controversy following the Gundam: Witch from Mercury finale, I absolutely do not put it past media corporations and content creators to very intentionally take steps to prioritize the comfort of straight audiences against the threats of queer love. And anyway, intentional or not, all of this still has effects and implications loaded with meaning, as I have tried to account for here.

Honestly, though, I can’t quite shake the feeling that there’s some tension between Jamie, Owen, and maybe also Henry about Jamie’s decision to publicly share Dani’s story in front of Flora and Miles. Owen’s abrupt declaration that it’s getting late and that they should wrap up seems like an intervention—like he’s been as patient and understanding as he possibly could up to that point, but now, he’s finally having to put a stop to Jamie’s deviance. I can’t help but read the meaningful stares that pass between them at both ends of the frame as a complex mixture of compassion and fraught disagreement (and I wish that the show had done more with this). The scene where Dani and Jamie visit Owen at his restaurant seems to set up the potential for this unspoken dispute. By their expressions and mannerisms (Dani’s stony stare; the protective way that Jamie holds her as her own gaze is locked on Dani), it’s clear that Dani and Jamie are aghast that Flora and Miles have forgotten what happened and that Owen believes that they should just be able to live their lives without that knowledge. And it’s also clear, by her very telling of Dani’s story, that Jamie disagrees with him. Maybe I’m over-imposing my own attitudes here, but I’m left with the impression that Jamie resents the coddling of Miles and Flora just like I’m resenting the coddling of straight audiences…that Jamie resents that she and Dani have had to give up everything so that Miles and Flora can continue living their privileged lives just like I’m resenting the exploitation of queer tragedy for the sake preserving straight innocence. (As Jamie says to Hannah when Dani puts the children to work in the garden: “You can’t give them a pass forever.” Disclaimer: I’m not saying that I want Miles and Flora to be traumatized, but I am saying that I agree with Jamie, because hiding traumatic shit is not how to resolve inter-generational trauma. Anyway—).

Also, I don’t know about y’all, but I find Flora and Jamie’s concluding conversation to be super cringe. Maybe it’s because I’m gay and just have way too much firsthand experience with this sort of thing from my own comphet past, but Flora’s whole “I just keep thinking about that silly, gorgeous, insane man I’m marrying tomorrow. I love him. More than I ever thought I could love anybody. And the crazy thing is, he loves me the same exact amount,” spiel just absolutely screams “woman who is having to do all of the emotional work in her relationship with an absolutely dull, mediocre, emotionally illiterate man and is desperately trying to convince herself that he does, in fact, love her as much as she (believes) that she loves him.”

I feel like this is a parody of straightness?? Is this actually sincere??

This is what Dani gave up her life to redeem??

To me, this is just more bleak shit that Bly leaves us with. It is so painful to watch.

Bless.

Okay, so I know that I said that I wasn’t going to offer a definitive yes or no about whether Bly commits Bury Your Gays with Dani’s death, but…after writing all of this out, I’m honestly kinda leaning towards a yes.

But I’m already anticipating that folks are gonna push back against me on this. So I just want to humbly submit, again, that Bly could have just not done this. It could have just not portrayed Dani’s death at all.

To really drive this point home, then, I’m going to conclude this essay by suggesting just a few ways that The Haunting of Bly Manor could have ended without Dani’s self-sacrificial death—or without depicting her death on-screen at all.

Bly Manor Could Have Ended Differently

Mike Flanagan—creator, director, writer, editor, executive producer, showrunner, etc. of The Haunting of Bly Manor—has stated that he believes that the show’s ending is a happy one.

I, on the other hand, believe that Bly’s ending is…not. In my view, the way that the ending treats Dani is unnecessarily cruel and exploitative. “Happy ending”—really? If I let myself be cynical about it (which I do), I honestly think that Dani’s death is a pretty damn transparent effort to squeeze out some tears with a sloppy, mawkish, feel-good veneer slapped over it. And if we peel back that veneer and look under it, what we find is quite bleak.

To be fair, for a psychological horror show that’s so centrally about grief and trauma, Bly Manor does seem to profess an incredibly strong sense of hopefulness. Underlying the entirety of the show is a profound faith in all the good and beauty that can come from human connection, however fleeting our lives may be—and even if we make a ton of dumb, awful mistakes along the way. If I’m being less cynical about it, I do also think that the show’s ending strives to demonstrate a peak expression of this conviction. But—at least in my opinion—it doesn’t succeed in this goal. In my writing of this essay, I’ve come to believe that the show instead ends in a state of despair that is at odds with what it appears to want to achieve.

So, in this final section, I’m going to offer up a few possibilities for ways that the show could have ended that maybe wouldn’t have so thoroughly undermined its own attempted messages.

Now, if I were actually going to fix the ending of The Haunting of Bly Manor, I would honestly overhaul a ton of the show to arrive at something completely different. But I’m not going to go through all the trouble of rewriting the entire show here, lol. Instead, I’m going to work with most of what’s already there, leading out from Viola’s possession of Dani (even though I don’t actually like that part of the show either – maybe someday I’ll write about other implications of Viola’s possession of Dani beyond these allegorical readings, but not right now). I’m also going to try to adhere to some of the show’s core themes and build on some of the allegorical possibilities that are already in place. Granted, the ideas that I pose here wouldn’t fix everything, by any stretch of the imagination; but they would, at least (I hope), mitigate some of the issues that I’ve outlined over the course of this essay. And one way or another, I hope that they’ll help to demonstrate that Dani’s self-sacrificial death was completely unnecessary. (Seriously, just not including Dani’s death would’ve enabled the show to completely dodge the question of Bury Your Gays and would’ve otherwise gone a long way towards avoiding the problems with the show’s queer representation).

So, here's how this is going to work. First, I’m going to pose a few general, guiding questions before then proposing an overarching thematic modification that expands on an idea that’s already prominent across the show. This will then serve as the groundwork for two alternative scenarios. I’m not going to go super into detail with either of these alternatives; mostly, I just want to demonstrate that the show that could’ve easily replaced the situation leading to Dani drowning herself. (For the record, I also think that the show could’ve benefitted from having at least one additional episode—and from some timing and pacing restructuring otherwise. So, before anybody tries an excuse like “but this wouldn’t fit into the last episode,” I want to urge that we imagine these possibilities beyond that limitation).

Let’s start off by returning to a point that I raised in the earlier conversation about grief and acceptance: the trickiness of Viola’s “acceptance.”

What Viola “accepts” in the end aren’t her losses or her own mortality, but Dani’s desperate, last-ditch-effort invitation to inhabit her. Within the show’s extant ending, Viola never actually comes to any kind of acceptance otherwise. Dani’s suicide effectively forces her dissolution, eradicating her persistent presence through the redemptive power of self-sacrifice. But in all of my viewings of the show and in all of my efforts to think through and write about it, there’s a question that’s been bugging me to no end: Why does Viola accept Dani’s invitation in the first place?

We know that Peter figured out the “it’s you, it’s me, it’s us” trick in his desperation to return to some form of life and to leave the grounds of Bly Manor. But…what is the appeal of it for Viola? How do her own motivations factor into it? For so long, Viola’s soul has been tenaciously persisting at Bly all so that she can repeatedly return to the physical locus of her connection with her husband and daughter, their shared bedroom in the manor. She’s done this for so long that she no longer even remembers why she’s doing it—she just goes back there to grab whatever child she can find and strangles whoever happens to get in her way. So what would compel her to accept Dani’s invitation? What does she get out of it—and what does she want out of it? What does her acceptance mean? And why, then, does her acceptance result in the dissipation of the gravity well?

We can conjecture, certainly. But the show doesn’t actually provide answers to these questions. Indeed, one of the other major criticisms that I have of Bly is that it confines all of Viola’s development to the eighth episode alone. I really think that it needed to have done way more to characterize her threat and at least gestureat her history sooner, rather than leaving it all to that penultimate episode, interrupting and drawing out the exact moment when she’s about to kill Dani. (Like, after centuries of Viola indiscriminately killing people, and with so many ghosts that’ve been loitering around for so long because of that, wouldn’t Bly Manor have rampant ghost stories floating around about it by the time Dani arrives? But there’s only one minor suggestion of that possibility: Henry indicating that he might’ve met a soldier ghost once. That’s it. And on that note, all of the ghosts at the manor needed to have had more screentime and development, really). Further, it’s disappointing that the show devotes that entire eighth episode to accounting for Viola’s motivations, only to then reduce her to Big, Bad, Unspeakable Evil in the final episode, with no rhyme or reason for what she’s doing, all so that she can necessitate Dani’s death.

As we continue pondering these unanswered questions, there’s also another issue that I want to raise, which the show abandons only as an oblique, obscure consideration. And that is: How the hell did Jamie acquire all that extensive knowledge about Viola, the ghosts of the manor, and all that happened, such that she is able to tell Bly’sstory in such rich detail? My own sort of headcanon answer to this is that Viola’s possession of Dani somehow enabled Viola to regain some of her own memories—as well as, perhaps, a more extended, yet also limited awareness of the enduring consciousnesses of the other ghosts—while also, in turn, giving Dani access to them, too. Dani then could have divulged what she learned to Jamie, which would account for how Jamie knows so much. I bring this up because it provides one possible response to the question of “What does Viola get out of her possession of Dani?” (especially given the significant weight that the show places on the retention of one’s memories—more on this in a moment) and because this is an important basis for both of my proposed alternative scenarios.

Before we dig into those alternative scenarios, however, there’s also a thematic modification that I want to suggest, which would help to provide another answer to “What does Viola get out of her possession of Dani?” while also alleviating the issues that lead into the valorization of Dani’s suicide. That thematic modification involves how the show defines love. Although Bly’s sustained contrasts between love and possession have some valuable elements, I think that the ending would’ve benefitted from downplaying the love vs. possession theme (which is where we run into so much trouble with Dani’s self-sacrifice, and which has also resulted in some celebratory conflations between “selflessness” and self-sacrifice that I’ve seen crop up in commentary about the show—but, y’all, self-sacrifice is not something to celebrate in romantic partnerships, so please, please be careful idolizing that) to instead play up a different theme: the idea that love is the experience of feeling such safety and security with another person that we can find opportunities for peace by being with them.

Seeking peace—and people with whom to feel safe enough to share traumas and experience peace—is a theme that already runs rampant across the show, so this modification is really just a matter of accentuating it differently. It’s also closely linked to the moving through grief theme that we’ve already discussed at length, as numerous characters in Bly express desires for solitude with loved ones as a way of finding relief and healing from their pain, grief, and trauma. (And I suspect that I latched onto this because I have desperately wanted peace, calm, and stillness in the midst of my own acute, compounding traumas…and because my own former romantic partner was obviously not someone with whom I felt safe enough to experience the kind of peace that would’ve allowed me to begin the process of healing).

We run into this idea early in the development of Jamie and Dani’s romance, as narrator Jamie explains in the scene leading up to their first kiss, “The au pair was tired. She’d been tired for so long. Yet without even realizing she was doing it, she found herself taking her own advice that she’d given to Miles. She’d chosen someone to keep close to her that she could feel tired around.” Following this moment, at the beginning of Episode 5, narrator Jamie then foregrounds Hannah’s search for peace (“The housekeeper knew, more than most, that deep experience was never peaceful. And because she knew this ever since she’d first called Bly home, she would always find her way back to peace within her daily routine, and it had always worked”), which calls our attention to the ways that Hannah has been retreating into her memory of her first meeting with Owen as a crucial site of peace against the shock of her own death. Grown-up Flora even gushes about “that easy silence you only get with your forever person who loves you as much as you love them” when she’s getting all teary at Jamie about her husband-to-be.

Of course, this theme is already actively at work in the show’s conclusion as well. During her “beast in the jungle” monologue, Dani tells Jamie that she feels Viola “in here. It’s so quiet…it’s so quiet. She’s in here. And this part of her that’s in here, it isn’t…peaceful.” As such, Viola’s whole entire issue is that, after all those centuries, she has not only refused to accept her own death, but she’s likewise never been at peace—she’s still not at peace. Against Viola’s unpeaceful presence, however, Dani does find peace in her life with Jamie…at least temporarily, until Viola’s continued refusal of peace leads to Dani’s self-destructive sense of fatalism. Still, in her replacement of Viola as the new Lady of the Lake, Dani exists as a prevailing force of peace (she’s “harmless as a dove”); however, incidentally, she only accomplishes this through the decidedly non-peaceful, violent act of taking her own life.

But…what if that hadn’t been the case?

What if, instead, the peace that Dani finds in her beautiful, queer, non-self-sacrificing existence with Jamie had also enabled Viola to find some sense of peace of her own? What if, through her inhabitation of Dani, Viola managed to, like…calm the fuck down some? What if Dani’s safety and solitude worked to at least somewhat assuage Viola’s rage—and even guide her towards some other form of acceptance?

Depending on how this developed, the show could’ve borne out the potential for a much more subversive conclusion than what we actually got. Rather than All-Consuming-Evil Viola’s forced dissolution through the violence of Dani’s redemptive self-sacrifice (and its attendant recuperation of heteronormativity), we could’ve instead had the makings of a narrative about sapphic love as a source of healing that’s capable of breaking cycles of violence and trauma. And I think that it would’ve been possible for the show to accomplish this without a purely “happy” ending in which everything was just magically fine, and all the trauma dissipated, and there were no problems in the world ever again. The show could have, in fact, managed this while preserving the allegorical possibilities of Viola’s presence as mental and/or terminal illness.

But, before I can start describing how this could’ve happened, there’s one last little outstanding problem that I need to address. In the video essay that I cited earlier, Rowan Ellis suggests that there are limitations to the “Viola as a stand-in for mental/terminal illness” reading of the show because of the fact that Dani invites Viola into herself and, therefore, willingly brings on her own suffering. But I don’t think that this is quite the case or that it interferes with these allegorical readings. As I’ve already mentioned at various points, Dani doesn’t entirely understand the implications of what she’s doing when she issues her invitation to Viola; and even so, the invitation is still a matter of a dubious consent that evidently cannot be withdrawn once initially granted—at the absolute most generous characterization. Dani’s invitation is a snap decision, a frantic attempt to save Flora after everyone and everything else has failed. Consequently, we don’t necessarily have to construe Viola’s presence in Dani’s life as a matter of Dani “willingly inviting her own suffering,” but can instead understand it as the wounds and traumas that persist after Dani has risked her life to rescue Flora. In this way, the show could have also challenged the traditional heroic-redemptive narrative formula by offering a more explicit commentary on the all-too-often unseen ramifications of selflessly “heroic” actions (instead of just heedlessly perpetuating their glorification and, with them, self-sacrifice). Dani may have saved Flora—but at what cost to herself? What long-term toll might this lasting trauma exact on her?

And with that, we move into my two alternative ending scenarios.

Alternative Ending 1: Progressive Memory Loss

Memory and its loss are such significant themes in Bly Manor that theycould use an essay all their own.

I am, however, going to refrain from writing such an essay at this moment in time (I’m already super tired from writing this one, lol).

Still, the first of my alternative scenarios would bring these major themes full-circle—and would make Jamie eat her words.

In this alternative scenario, Viola would find some sense of peace—even if fraught and, at times, tumultuous—in her possession of Dani. As her rage subsides, she is even able to regain fragmented pieces of her own memory, which Dani is also able to experience. The restoration of Viola’s memory, albeit vague and scattered, leads Dani to try to learn even more about Viola’s history at Bly in an effort to at least partially fill in the gaps. As time goes on, though, Viola’s co-habitation within Dani’s consciousness leads to the steady degradation of Dani’s own memory. The reclamation of Viola’s memories would occur, then, concomitant with a steady erosion of both herself and Dani. Thus, Dani would still undergo an inexorable decline across the show’s ending, but one more explicitly akin to degenerative neurological diseases associated with aging, accentuating the “Viola as terminal illness” allegory while also still carrying resonances of the residual reverberations of trauma (given that memory loss is often a common consequence of acute trauma). Jamie would take on the role of Dani’s caregiver, mirroring and more directly illuminating the role that Owen plays for his mother earlier in the show. By the show’s conclusion, Dani would still be alive, including during the course of the frame narrative.

I mentioned earlier in this essay that I’ve endured even more trauma and grief since my brother’s death and since my breakup with my ex-fiancé. So, I’ll share another piece of it with you now: shortly after my breakup, my dad was diagnosed with one of those degenerative neurological diseases that I listed way back at the very beginning. I moved home not only to get away from my ex, but also to become a caregiver. In the time that I’ve been home, I’ve had no choice but to behold my dad’s continuous, irreversible decline and his indescribable suffering. He has further health issues, including a form of cancer. As a result, he now harbors a sense of fatalism that he’ll never be able to reconcile—he does not have the cognitive capacities to address his despair or turn it into some other form of acceptance. He is merely, in essence, awaiting his death. Hence, fatalism is something that I have had to “accept” as a regular component of my own life. (In light of this situation, you may be wondering if I have thoughts and opinions on medical aid in dying, given all that I have had to say so far about fatalism and suicide. And the answer is yes, I do have thoughts and opinions…but they are complex, and I don’t really want to try to account for them here).

Indeed, I live in a suspended, indefinite state of grieving. Day in and day out, I watch my father perish before my eyes, anticipating the blow of fresh grief that will strike when he dies. I watch my mother’s grief. I watch my father’s grief. He forgets about the symptoms of his disease; he looks up his disease to try to learn about it; he re-discovers his inevitable demise anew; the grieving process restarts again. (“She would wake, she would walk, she would forget […] and she would fade and fade and fade”).

What, then, does acceptance look like when grief is so ongoing and so protracted?

What does acceptance look like in the absence of any possibility of acceptance?

Kübler-Ross’s “five stages of grief” model has been a meaningful guide for countless folks in their efforts to navigate grief and loss. Yet, the model has also been subject to a great deal of critique. Critics have accused the model of, among other things, suggesting that grieving is a linear process, whereby a person moves from one stage to the next and then ends conclusively at acceptance (when grieving is, in fact, an incredibly uneven, nonlinear, and inconclusive process). Relatedly, they have also called attention to the fact that the model commonly gets used prescriptively in ways that usher grieving folks towards the end goal of acceptance and cast judgment on those who do not reach that stage. These are criticisms that I would level at Bly’s application of Kübler-Ross as well. Earlier, we thoroughly covered the show’sissues with grief and acceptance as major themes; but in addition to those issues, Bly alsotends to steer its characters towards abrupt endpoints of acceptance, while doling out punishments to those who “refuse” to accept. At root, there are normative ascriptions at work in the show’s very characterization of deferred acceptance as refusal and acceptance itself as an active choice that one has to make.

This alternative ending, then, would have the potential to challenge and complicate the show’s handling of grief by approaching Jamie’s grieving and Dani’s fatalism from very different angles. As Dani’s caregiver, Jamie would encounter and negotiate grief in ongoing and processual ways, which would continue to evolve as her wife’s condition worsens and her caregiving responsibilities mount, thereby lending new layers of meaning to the message that “To truly love another person is to accept that the work of loving them is worth the pain of losing them.” Dani’s fatalism here could also serve as a different interpretation of James’s Beast in the Jungle; perhaps her sense of fatalism ebbs and flows, morphs and contorts along with the progression of her memory loss as she anticipates the gradual whittling-away of her selfhood—or even forgets that inevitability entirely. Still a tragic, heart-rending ending to the show, this scenario may not have the dramatic force of Jamie screaming into the waters of the lake, but it would be a relatable depiction of the ways that many real-life romances conclude. (And, having witnessed the extent of my mom’s ongoing caregiving for my dad, lemme tell ya: if y’all really want a portrayal of selflessness in romantic partnerships, I can think of nothing more selfless than caring for one’s terminally ill partner across their gradual death).

Additionally, this scenario could allow the show to maintain the frame narrative, while also packing fresh complexities into it.

Perhaps, in this case, Dani is still alive, but Jamie has come to Flora’s wedding alone, leaving Dani with in-home caregivers or within assisted living or some such. She comes there determined to ensure that Miles and Flora regain at least some awareness of what Dani did for them—that they remember her. The act of telling Dani’s story, then, becomes not only the performance of a mourning ritual, but also a vital way of preserving and perpetuating Dani’s memory where both the children and Dani, herself, can no longer remember. To be sure, such purposes already compel Jamie’s storytelling in the show: Narrator Jamie indicates that the new Lady of the Lake will eventually lose her recollection of the life she had with the gardener, “leaving the only trace of who she once was in the memory of the woman who loved her most.” But in the context of a conclusion so focused on memory loss, this statement would take on new dimensions of import. In this way, the frame narrative might also more forcefully prompt us, the audience, to reflect on the waysthat we can carry on the memories of our loved ones by telling their stories—and also, maybe, the responsibilities that we may have to do so. “Almost no one even remembers how she was when her mind hadn’t gone,” Jamie remarks after returning from Owen’s mother’s funeral, a subtle indictment of just how easily we can lose our own memories of those who suffer from conditions like dementia—how easily we can fail to carry on the stories of the people they were before and to keep their memories alive. (“We are all just stories in the end,” Olivia Crain emphasizes during the eulogy for Shirl’s kitten in The Haunting of Hill House. In fact, there’re some interesting comparative analyses we could do about storytelling and the responsibilities incumbent on storytellers between these two Flanagan shows).

Along those lines, I think that this would’ve been an excellent opportunity for the show to exacerbate and foreground those latent tensions between Jamie and Owen (and maybe also Henry) about whether to share Dani’s story with the now-adult children.

In the show’s explorations of memory loss, there’re already some interesting but largely neglected undercurrents churning around about the idea that maybe losing one’s memory isn’t just a curse or a heartbreaking misfortune (as it is for Viola, the ghosts of Bly Manor, and Owen’s mother), but can, in certain circumstances, be a blessing. Bly implies—via Owen and the frame narrative—that Miles and Flora have been able to flourish in their lives because they have forgotten what happened at Bly and still remain blissfully unaware of it…which, to be clear, is only possible because of the sacrifices that Dani and Jamie have made. But this situation raises, and leaves floating there, a bunch of questions about the responsibilities we have to impart traumatic histories to younger generations—whether interpersonally (e.g. within families) or societally (e.g. in history classrooms). Cycles of trauma don’t end by shielding younger generations from the past; they especially don’t end by forcing impacted, oppressed, traumatized populations (e.g. queer folks) to shoulder the burdens of trauma on their own for the sake of protecting another population’s innocent ignorance. But how do we impart traumatic histories? How do we do so responsibly, compassionately, in ways that respect those harrowing pasts—and those who lived them, those most directly impacted by them—without actively causing harm to receiving audiences? On the other hand, if we over-privilege the innocence of those who have forgotten or those who weren’t directly impacted, what do we lose and what do we risk by not having frank, open conversations about traumatic histories?

As it stands, I think that Bly is remiss in the way it tosses out these issues, but never actually does anything with them. It could have done much, much more. In this alternate ending, then, there could be some productive disagreement among Jamie, Owen, and Henry about whether to tell Flora and Miles, what to tell them, how to tell them. Perhaps, in her seizing of the conversation and her launching of the story in such a public way, Jamie has taken matters into her own hands and has done so in a way that Owen and Henry can’t easily derail. Perhaps Owen sympathizes but does, indeed, abruptly cut her off just before her audience can completely connect the dots. Perhaps Henry is conflicted and doesn’t take a stand—or perhaps he does. Perhaps we find out that Henry had been torn about whether to even invite Jamie because of the possibility of something like this happening. Or, perhaps Henry wants the children to know and believes that they should hear Dani’s story from Jamie. Perhaps we see scenes of past quarrels between Jamie and Owen, Owen and Henry. Perhaps, once the story has ended, we see a brief aftermath conversation between Owen and Jamie about what Jamie has done, their speculations about how it may impact Miles and Flora. Perhaps the show presents these conversations in ways that challenge us to reflect on them, even if it does not provide conclusive answers to the questions it raises, and even if it leaves these conflicts open-ended, largely unresolved.

Alternative Ending 2: Living with the Trauma

If Bly’s creators had wanted Viola’s inhabitation of Dani to represent the ongoing struggles of living—and loving someone—with severe mental illness and trauma, they could have also just…done that? Like, they could have just portrayed Jamie and Dani living their lives together and dealing with Viola along the way. They could have just let that be it. It wouldn’t have been necessary to include Dani’s death within the show’s depicted timeline at all.

The show could’ve more closely aligned its treatment of Dani’s fatalism with James’s Beast in the Jungle—but with, perhaps, a bit more of a hopeful spin. Perhaps, early on, Dani is convinced that her demise is imminent and incontrovertible, much as we already see in the final episode’s diner scene. For a while, this outlook continues to dominate her existence in ways that interfere with her daily functioning and her relationship with Jamie. Perhaps there’s an equivalent of the flooded bathtub scene, but it happens much earlier in the progression of their partnership: Dani despairs, and Jamie is there to reinforce her commitment to staying with Dani through it all, much like her extant “If you can’t feel anything, then I’ll feel everything for the both of us” remarks. But maybe, as a result of this, Dani comes to a realization much like The Beast in the Jungle’s John Marcher—but one that enables her to act on her newfound understanding, an opportunity that Marcher never finds before it’s too late. Maybe she realizes that her fatalism has been causing her to miss out on really, truly embracing the life that she and Jamie have been forging together, thus echoing the show’s earlier points about how unresolved trauma can impede our cultivation of meaningful relationships. Maybe she realizes that her life with Jamie has been passing her by while she’s remained so convinced that Viola will claim that life at any moment. Maybe she comes to understand that her perpetual sense of dread has been hurting Jamie—that Jamie needs her in the same ways that she needs Jamie, but that Dani’s ever-present sense of doom has been preventing her from providing for those needs. And maybe this leads to a re-framing of the “you, me, us,” conceit, with a scene in which Dani acknowledges the extent to which her fatalism has been dictating their lives; in light of this acknowledgement, she and Jamie resolve—together—to continue supporting each other as they navigate Viola’s lasting influences on their lives.

By making this suggestion, I once again do not want to seem like I’m advocating that “Dani should fight back against Viola” (or, in other words, that “Dani should fight harder to win the battle against her mental illness”). But I do want to direct us back to a point that I raised at the very beginning: grieving, traumatized, and mentally ill folks can, indeed, cause harm to our loved ones. Our grief, trauma, and mental illness don’t excuse that fact. But what that means is that we have to take responsibility for our harmful actions. What it absolutely does not mean is that our harms are inevitable or that our loved ones would be better off without us.It means recognizing that we still matter and have value to others, despite the narratives we craft to try to convince ourselves otherwise. It means acknowledging the wounds that fatalistic, “everybody is better without me” assumptions can inflict. It means identifying the ways that we can support and care for our loved ones, even through our own struggles with our mental health.

“Fighting harder to win the battle against mental illness” is a callous and downright incorrect framing of the matter; but there are, nevertheless, intentional steps that we must take to heal from trauma, to receive treatment for our mental illnesses, to care for ourselves, to care for our loved ones. For instance…the very process of writing this essay incited me to do a lot of reflecting on the self-defeating narratives that I have been telling myself about my mental health and my relationships with others. And that, in turn, incited me to do some course-correcting. I thought about how much I want to work towards healing, however convoluted and intricate that process may be. I thought about how I want to support my family. How I want to foster a robust social support network, such that I feel a genuine sense of community. How I want to be an attentive friend. How, someday, if I’m fortunate enough to have a girlfriend, I want to be a caring, present, and equal partner to her; I want to emotionally nourish her through life’s trials and turmoil, not just expect her to provide that emotional nourishment for me. I started writing this essay in August; and since then, because of it, I’ve held myself accountable by reaching out to friends, spending time with them, trying to support them. I’ve also managed to get myself, finally, to start therapy. And my therapist is already helping me address those self-defeating narratives that have led me to believe that I’m just a burden on my friends. So, y’know, I’m workin’ on it.

But it ain’t pretty. And it also ain’t a linear upward trajectory of consistent improvement. It’s messy. Sometimes, frankly, it’s real ugly.

It could be for Dani, too.

Even with her decision to accept the certainties and uncertainties of Viola’s intrusive presence in her life, to live her life as best she can in the face of it all, perhaps Dani still struggles from day to day. Perhaps some days are better than others. Perhaps Viola, as I suggested earlier, begins finding some modicum of peace through her possession of Dani; nonetheless, her rage and disquiet never entirely subside, and they still periodically overtake Dani. Perhaps Dani improves, only to then backslide, only to then find ways to stabilize once again. In this way, the show could’ve more precisely portrayed the muddled, tumultuous lastingness of grief and trauma throughout a lifetime—without concluding that struggle with a valorized suicide.

Such portrayals are not unprecedented in horror. As I contemplated this ending possibility, I couldn’t help but think of The Babadook (2014), another piece of horror media whose monster carries allegorical import as a representation of the endurance and obtrusion of unresolved trauma. The titular monster doesn’t disappear at the film’s end; Sam emphasizes, in fact, that “you can’t get rid of the Babadook.” And so, even after Amelia has confronted the Babadook and locked him in the basement of the family’s home, he continues to lurk there, still aggressive and threatening to overcome her, but able to be pacified with a bowlful of worms. Like loss and trauma, the Babadook can never be totally ignored or dispelled, only assuaged with necessary, recurrent attention and feedings.

Bly could have easily done something similar with Viola. Perhaps, in the same way that Amelia has to regularly provide the Babadook with an offering of worms, Dani must also “feed” Viola to soothe her rage. What might those feedings look like? What might they consist of? Perhaps Viola draws Dani back to Bly Manor, insisting on revisiting those same sites that have held implacable sway over her for centuries. Perhaps these visits are what permit Dani to gradually learn about Viola: who she was, what she has become, why she has tarried between life and death for so long. Perhaps Dani also learns that these “feedings” agitate Viola for a while, stirring her into fresh furor—but that, in their wake, Viola also settles more deeply and for longer periods. Perhaps they necessitate that Dani and Jamie both directly confront their own traumas, bring them to the surface, attend to them. Perhaps, together, they learn how to navigate their traumas in productive, mutually supportive ways. Perhaps this is also what quiets Viola over time, even if Dani is never quite sure whether Viola will return to claim her life.

You may be wondering, then, about what happens with the frame narrative in this scenario. If Dani doesn’t meet some tragic demise, what happens to the role and significance of grieving in the act of Jamie’s storytelling? Would Jamie’s storytelling even occur? Wouldn’t Dani just be at Flora’s wedding, too? Would we miss the emotional gut-punch of the reveal of the narrator’s identity at the end?  

Perhaps, in this case, the ending removes some of the weight off of the grief theme to instead foreground those troubled deliberations about how to impart traumatic histories (as we covered in the previous scenario). As such, the frame could feature those conflicts between Jamie (and Dani here too this time), Owen, and Henry concerning whether or not to tell Dani’s story to Miles and Flora. Perhaps Dani decides not to attend the wedding, wary of contributing to this conflict at the scene of what should be a joyous occasion for Flora; perhaps she feels like she can’t even face the children. And then, without Dani there, perhaps an overwrought Jamie jumps into the story when the opportunity presents itself—whether impulsively or premeditatedly.

Or…Perhaps the show could’ve just scrapped the frame at Flora’s wedding and could’ve done something else instead. What might that be? I have no idea! Sky’s the limit.

At any rate, even with these changes, it would’ve still been possible to have the show conclude in a sentimental, tear-jerking way (which seems to be Flanagan’s preference). Perhaps Jamie’s storytelling does spark the return of the children’s memories. Perhaps, as they begin to remember, they reach out to Dani and Jamie, wanting to connect with them, wanting especially to see Dani again. And then, perhaps, the show could’ve ended with a scene of Miles and Flora finally reuniting with Dani—emotional, sweet, and memorable, no valorized suicide or exploitation of queer tragedy needed.

Conclusion

In my writing of this essay—and over the course of the Bly Manor and Hill House rewatches that it inspired—I’ve been finding myself also doing a great deal of reflection about the possibilities and purposes of horror media. I’ve been thinking, in particular, about the potential for the horror genre to provide contained settings in which we can face and explore our deepest fears and traumas in (relatively) safe, controlled ways. Honestly, I think that this is part of why I enjoy Flanagan’s work so much (even if it also enrages me at the same time). If you’ve read this far, you’ll have seen just how profoundly I relate to so much of the subject matter of The Haunting of Bly Manor. It has been extremely meaningful and valuable for me to encounter the show’s depictions of topics like familial trauma, grief, loss, compulsory heterosexuality, caregiving for aging parents, so on, all of which bear so heavily on my own existence. Bly Manor produced opportunities for me to excavate and dig deeply into the worst experiences of and feelings about my life: to look at them, understand them, and give voice to them, when I’m otherwise inclined to bury them into inconspicuous docility.

Even so, the show does not handle these relatable topics as well as it could have. Flanagan and the many contributors to this horror anthology can’t just preach at us about the responsibilities of storytellers; they, too, have responsibilities as storytellers in the communication of these delicate, sensitive, weighty human experiences. And so, to reinforce a point that I made earlier, this is why I’ve written this extensive critique. It’s not because I revile the show and want to condemn it—it’s because I cherish Bly Manor immensely. It’s because I wanted more out of it. It’s because I want to hold it and its creators accountable. It’s because I want folks to think more critically about it (especially after how close I came to unreflectively accepting its messages in my own initial reception of it).

Television usually doesn’t get me this way. It’s been a long time since I was this emotionally attached to a show. So this essay has been my attempt to honor Bly with a careful, meticulous treatment. I appreciate all of the reflection and self-work that it has inspired me to undertake. I’ve wanted to pay my respects in the best way I know how: with close, thorough analysis.

If you’ve read all this mess, thanks for taking the time to do so. I hope that you’ve been able to get something out of it, too.

Representation matters, y’all.

The end.

#the haunting of bly manor #bly manor #thobm #dani clayton #jamie taylor #dani x jamie #damie #sapphic romance #lesbian romance #mental health #compulsory heterosexuality #queer representation #not a fix-it fic but a fix-it essay

[leechanpremacy]

People You Know

After the death of his wife, he starts a whole new life in a whole new city with his three year old twins only to meet someone from his past. What a way to start something new, right?

pairings: psychiatrist!jeonghan, parent!jeonghan x doctor!reader petowner!reader

tags: fluff, crack, slow burn, exes to lovers, romance, angst (if you think into it really deeply), swearings

word count:

notes: i’ve been dreading to write jeonghan as a parent of twins, now having the motivation and inspiration to write the plot, IM ON CLOUD NINE!!! lmao i’m also planning on posting this as an au on twitter if time, and motivation persists as my alter ego’s such a lazy ass bitch that takes at least half a month to find motivation to do updates on on-going twitter series’ THIS might also be turned in to a series (fuck, my mingyu series long forgotten 💀)

prologue | masterlist | two

Yoon Jeonghan was a person whom you can't forget. You let yourself relish his new appearance. Long gone was the long slick hair he sported back in college. His short haircut with his bang fringes poking his eyes made him look somewhat younger. His cheeks are more defined than you can remember, and his bright doe eyes that were healthy before now have bags underneath, finally noticing the mole you adorned long ago.

It seems that he did the same, as his lips narrowed open, shock still painted on his face as his eyes traveled around your face. The only thing that woke you two up from your daydream was, "Dada!" Two of the kids ran towards Jeonghan to hug him by his legs.

Stumbling a bit from the impact, his eyes lingered a bit longer from you before turning his attention to the two children, crouching down to hug them and mumble a few words.

Blinking a few more times, let it sink in that the two children that ran towards you and your dog were, Jeonghan's children. A small smile formed on your lips, "You're a dad now, huh?" You softly said, still wearing the small smile as you locked eyes with him again.

"They're twins, Yuna and Yejun. They're turning four this year." He replies, standing up again whilst holding both on his sides. Your eyes then drifted to the two, taking a closer look. Knowing that these were his children, you were suddenly intrigued to see who they took after.

You were guessing that you were staring at the twins a bit longer than you intended as you heard Jeonghan introduce you as one of their aunts. "Hi! You guys still want to touch her?" Pointing to your dog, piquing their attention again. You saw both of them look up to Jeonghan, asking for permission before running towards your crouching figure to pet your dog, Manju.

You still held your dog by its snout, letting the children pet his body. "Is that..?" You could tone of hesitance in his voice. Without meeting his eyes, "It's her daughter, she passed a year ago." Whilst shaking your head, quickly patting Manju's head making it lean to your hand, wanting more.

"Oh," You watched the two children giggling to themselves as they kept on patting your dog's body which Manju enjoys, noticing the rapid wag of her tail with each stroke that the twins make.

"She looks just like her," Jeonghan mumbles, making you slightly jolt from your position as you didn't notice him crouching down next to you to pat Manju's head.

"She acts like her too. Not that much of a people pleaser dog." You joked, hearing him chuckle again after how many years. "Then I guess Michi must've told her about me then." He softly says, making you look at him.

Michi, - your current dog, Manju's, mother - you and Jeonghan's lovebug. Just the mention of your passed dod makes your heart swell and Jeonahan's presence makes it a lot worse. You felt tears building up in your eyes, causing you to break free from Jeonghan's eyes.

You still weren't over grieving from the loss of your best friend. She was the only one who stayed with you from that dreadful college years up to your med school. She stayed longer than anyone could have, and that's why you weren't done grieving even if she was already gone for a year. "Dada," One called, capturing both of your attention.

It's somehow sweet that someone you knew is now being called like that. So sweet and soft, enough to you feel blue. How would it feel to be called by your child? You thought.

"I'm sorry, Y/N, I have to go. I still have some stuff to unpack. We just moved here in the city." Is Jeonghan effortlessly picking up both his kids, "Moved? Here?" You asked, quite shocked at the news. As far as you remember, he moved to a larger city to pursue law. Was he retired?

"Yeah," Sporting a smile that you remembered like the back of your hand, "See you around?" He adds, walking away from you.

You suddenly felt a wave of emotions rushing through your body. You didn't even have the chance to bid him goodbye as you were too busy relishing the smile he wore before he walked away.

It must be the nostalgia, making you feel emotions you thought were long gone. Seeing him again after a few years, with his own little family made you happy. Finally seeing him smile again after you broke his heart when you walked away from him that night.

“I’m telling you Seungcheol, I didn’t know she lived here!” Jeonghan dramatically says through the phone as he folded their clean clothes to store it in their closet.

“I’m not even saying anything! It’s you who’s overreacting, not me!” Rolling his eyes, “Oh you fucker, don’t get me started with your scoffs and stifled laughs!” Sighing, Jeonghan was left hopeless upon hearing his friend’s laughter echo through the room.

“Can you shut the fuck up? My children are asleep.” Jeonghan had his lips curved into an annoyed smirk, “I can see you glaring from here ya’ know?”

“On the brighter side, isn’t it nice to have a familiar face in an unfamiliar environment? Plus, you could ask Y/N to babysit the twins on October,” Seungcheol finally calmed down, giving Jeonghan a few grounded words.

“I think you don’t get the whole concept of ‘let’s not see each other again’ here, Choi Seungcheol.” He could hear his friend groaning on the full name, “Dumbass! She meant it to be - not being in a relationship! Not - literally not! Seeing! Each other! So much for topping the boards,” Jeonghan heard the last part but paid no attention. He knows that too. That you didn’t mean it to literally not see each other’s face. But at that time, he had no face to meet you even if you were the one who called it off. Too hurt to even see you from afar. Too bruised to even hear from you.

“I also don’t think were in a relationship where I can just ask her to babysit my twins because unfortunately, my first day of work is on my birthday!” Jeonghan can imagine Seungcheol shaking his head at him. “I also don’t have her number.” There was a long stretch of silence before he could hear Seungcheol’s sigh.

“Y/N, she didn’t changed her number. I’m sure you still have it.” Having his breath hitched, he stopped functioning for a while, “Don’t be such a sussy Han, it’s all in the past. Besides, you got married. All your unresolved feelings for Y/N should either be gone or just waiting to be answered.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

Sweat running down your forehead as you reached your kitchen’s counter top, almost flopping yourself just to reach the fridge. Not even minding to get a glass to pour water on. You don’t know why embarrassment is only hitting you now. How embarrassing on acting so casual with someone you left in the dark, as if you didn’t leave him hanging during your third year on college.

Wiping your lips that had excess water dripping down to your chin, you had your gaze hardened on the wall. How can he possibly talk to you when he avoided you at all cost after the breakup? Even hearing from his friends that he would always change the topic when it somehow swerved to you.

Just then, you heard your phone ding, immediately checking just in case it was a text from the hospital.

Heaving a sigh, you quickly typed in ‘otw’, scurrying away to your room to fix yourself before going back to the hospital.

“Doc, we’ve already calmed him down. His vitals are slowly coming back to normal.” The nurse informed you as you briskly walked towards the said patient’s warden. You just nodded in acknowledgment, slowly forgetting the incident earlier.

Being an general doctor was a pain, especially if most of your current patients are alcoholic. No matter how many nags and warnings you told them, they just don’t listen. Now, one of your patients who recently received a liver from his daughter went on a drinking spree. Now that his his newly transplanted liver almost gave up, you can feel stress working up its way to your head - almost giving you migraine like headaches just by the thoughtless behavior the old man lying on the bed portrayed.

The door swings open, gaining your attention, you then saw the wife and their daughter and you can’t help but feel bad for them. They just paid hundred thousands just to pay the hospital bills from the surgery and now, their patriarch had a surge of major side effects from the alcohol content he consumed.

“He consumed too much alcohol, that the liver almost gave up since it was still adjusting with his body. Good thing he was brought here immediately. He’s already stable. He needs to be monitored for a span of two weeks at least, just to make sure his liver won’t act out again.” You explained sternly to the family who only nodded and kept thanking you for saving the man again.

Heaving a big sigh as you closed the door to the room, you held your head, trying to rub the pain out. “Did you even sleep?” A familiar voice chirped beside you, “What do you think?” You said sarcastically before making your way to the headquarters.

“Judging by the way you tried to rub your temples and your mean attitude, you didn’t even sleep a wink with your uhm,” You could hear him counting in a small voice, “Three hours free time.” Halting, you quickly turned to him, making his squinted eyes go round.

“Did you know Jeonghan had kids?” You genuinely asks. The latter furrowed his brows, searching any other reaction from you. “Yeah..” Still trying to see if you’d react in any way other than relief washing down your face.

“Glad he found someone that’ll take care of him.” You said with a smile. You were about to turn when you halted from his words, “You.. Did you not know?” Confusion then etched both your faces.

“Know what, Hoshi?” He pursed his lips, contemplating whether to tell you or not, “What ‘cha guys doin’?” Dino’s voice erupted from your back. Dino noticed Hoshi’s panicking gaze but you didn’t remove your eyes on the latter.

You felt Dino’s presence beside you but you paid no attention to him, “Hoshi, what is it?” You asked again, more curious and fraught on his answer.

“What is what?” Dino joined causing you to whip his head to him. “What do you know about Jeonghan?” You asked him, catching him off-guard.

“I just know he moved here in the city, and he’s planning to start working here on October.” Furrowing your brows more, “What’s this about? Why’re you suddenly asking things about him?” You were too lost in your thoughts to answer him.

Didn’t he want to pursue law? Why would he work here at the hospital? Or will he work here as a legal guidance? Legal advisor? Didn’t he go to larger city so he could expand his connections?

Dino was now frowning at you, looking towards Hoshi with a questioning look. The latter shrugged and shook his head, also unaware of her sudden interest towards Jeonghan.

You raised you head again, now looking to Dino who had his one brow raised, already knowing what you’re going to ask, “You didn’t asked. And we thought you wouldn’t like to hear any news from him. Be it good or bad.”

“Yeah. Totally learned my lesson that one time.” Hoshi added. You frowned at your two friends - who was unfortunately, friends with Jeonghan also.

You and Jeonghan weren’t in the same circle before, it just happened that your friends and his friends clicked that much for it to become one. You still were in contact with some of his friends, but you took courtesy of not asking things about him and they respected that by not sharing anything too, without you asking.

“I met him earlier at the park. Also met his twins. He casually talked to me, and it made me feel anxious. He wasn’t like that when I last heard from him, wasn’t he angry anymore?” You ranted, lying on the bed as you munched your caramelized popcorn.

“Maybe? It’s been like what? Seven years? It must’ve dried out during those past years.” Closing his book before turning to face your lying body on the bunk bed. “Besides Y/N, why are you so worried about him working here? Do you not want him to be here that much?”

“No, its not that. It’s just, Wonwoo, I inflicted pain, he should be angry!” You kept refuting the same thing over and over again.

“Y/N, if there’s anything that he’ll feel about you, anger is far from it. He’s healed from the pain, he learned and he moved on. I’m sure his wife took care of him well. Isn’t that what you want? Someone to take good care of him?” You halted from Wonwoo’s words. You couldn’t help but look at the bed above you, letting out a smile as you imagined Jeonghan being taken care of well.

As soon as you felt tears suddenly welling up on your eyes, you did your best to refrain them from pouring out. “Yeah, I did.” It was so soft, Wonwoo would’ve missed it if there was other noises aside from the aircon’s ringing. “Did you attend his wedding?” You asked, with a softer voice.

Wonwoo was taken aback by the sudden change of demeanor, “..No, I couldn’t. It was during our OB-residency.” He could see you quietly nod and the red tip of your nose. He could sense immense emotions from you, but he kept quiet about it. He knows its something you don’t ever want to talk about. Most likely, you will never talk about it to them, finally knowing Jeonghan had marry already.

a/n: being this active on writing is kinda worrying me lol i think if i did another chapter, it’d probably be posted in the next two months 😬

#Spotify #seventeen #svt #seventeen au #jeonghan #jeonghan dad #jeonghan x fem #jeonghan imagine #jeonghan drabble #jeonghan au #jeonghan parent #yoon jeonghan #jeonghan x reader #jeonghan x oc

[nine-lives715]

Above the Clouds - Izuku Midoriya x GN reader

Author’s Note: So this is my first time actually writing a story and sharing it, so.. enjoy? Also, I originally thought of this in a femme perspective, because it was originally more for *me*, but it was so cute, I decided to share it. If people end up liking it, I would love to share the next part! But for now, I hope you enjoy the story! Feedback is welcomed :)

TW: Ex Husband (Reader is a widow/widower), Mentions of d3ath and grieving, Izuku is a sweetheart. :)

Following the loss of your husband, your friends had planted the idea of you dating again for quite some time now. As much as you love them, you can’t bring yourself to forget him. He was someone you trusted. You saw the rest of your future with him, and it was hard to forget all the memories you made with him.

Eventually though, a will must have its way. So here you are, a year later, nervously sitting at a dinner table as you wait for your date.

“Hey! Sorry I’m late,” He says. Walking up to you is the most handsome man you’ve ever seen. He seems gentle, and kind. He was tall, with dark green, curly hair topping his head. He wore a dark black jacket, a white t-shirt, and black jeans. He seemed decently put together. “I-It’s alright.” You responded. Why are you so nervous all of a sudden…? You can’t like him… what about your husband?

“It’s nice to meet you! I’m Izuku.” He outstretches his hand for you to shake. He seems slightly nervous as well.

“I’m _____.” You say, taking his hand to shake it. There’s that guilt… deep in your soul. The guilt of replacing your late husband stirs in you. You do your best not to think about it- if you did, you’d likely start crying. And you really didn’t want to scare this guy off on the first date…

He sits down in front of you and settles in. You two engage in light conversation over decent plates of food. He seems like a nice guy. He was nerdy, while also super polite and sweet. The two of you had a lot in common, and there’s definitely chemistry. But, it isn’t until your date is just about over where you’re reminded of him. Izuku starts to pay for the dinner (he insisted, of course). You check your phone for the time as Izuku had asked, and… you know those memory reels that come up on your phone in your photo gallery? That’s what it was.

You stare at your phone in silence. And before you know it, you’re setting your phone down with tears welling up in yours eyes. You almost made it..

Izuku is worried, to say the least. He’s hesitant to speak, wondering if he’ll just make things worse— but he speaks anyway.

“Hey… are you alright?” He asks, gently. You felt as though the words were dying in your throat is you looked at him with tears in your eyes.

“I-I apologize. It’s just…”

Izuku watches you, patiently. “Hey… it’s okay. Take it slow. There’s no rush.”

What? Is he serious? Most guys would have been weirded out by now…right? I guess now I might as well tell him.

“My friends put me up to this. I really.. I don’t know if I’m ready? You see, my husband died about two years ago and…” You trail off, unable to finish your sentence as you try to swallow your tears.

The concern on Izuku’s face is evident, but he showed nothing but warmth as he gently took your hand. “Hey. I understand. Look, I know a better place we can talk about this if you’d like? I would love to help.”

You look up as him in a daze. “Really?”

“Of course.” He smiles, before leaving the check for your dinner down on the table. “Thank you!” He waves to the staff before leaving, gently grabbing your hand and leading you out of the restaurant. He takes you to the back of a park, where a bench sits between two trees. There’s a clear view of the sky, and you can’t help but wonder if he sees what you’re doing.

“…Why here?” You ask, curiosity getting the better of you.

“It’s a nice place to think. I come here myself sometimes. I figured it would make a comfortable atmosphere.” He smiles, before turning to look at you, and— you don’t think you’ve ever seen anyone look at you with kinder eyes than his. “You don’t have to talk about it, but I understand where you’re coming from. I wasn’t entirely ready, myself.”

You stay silent for a moment, half wondering if he’ll continue. He does. “I.. I went through a bad breakup not too long ago. I thought… I kind of thought I would end up with her. I haven’t been entirely motivated to start dating again. But I’m glad I wasn’t alone.”

“I’m sorry,” You say. Breakups are hard.

“It’s not your fault. It’s nothing compared to what you’ve been through. It must be really difficult.”

You’re unsure of how to respond. It was difficult. You choose your words for a moment, deciding to just be honest.

“It doesn’t feel right to move on… it feels like I’m replacing him.” Tears run down the apples of your cheeks. None of this felt right, but still…

“I understand, but you shouldn’t feel that way.” Izuku looks at you, and smiles gently. “He must have loved you a lot. And if that’s the case, then… He would have wanted you to move on. No one wants to end up alone… there’s no harm in finding someone new to spend your time with.”

You watch his eyes. You’re utterly speechless. What do you say? Is it really okay?

Izuku continues, “Nobody will ever replace the memories you made with him. Thats special to you. Finding someone else is you making new memories. There’s no replacing anyone, there.”

You continue to cry, unsure of how to respond. This was really the reassurance you needed- and you were getting it from a stranger!

He gently takes your hand in his own. “If you’re not ready to see anyone yet, I completely understand. But I want to help, so if it’s alright with you, I’d like to stick around. I will wait. And if you’re never ready, I’ll just continue to be your shoulder to cry on, okay?”

You’re in shock. “You mean it..?” Something in your gut told you to stay with him. Deep in your soul, you wanted some kind of bond with him— but you weren’t quite sure what, yet.

“Yeah, I mean it,” He smiles, squeezing your hand. “Anytime.”

You can’t think before you move to wrap your arms around him. You didn’t want to let go.

“Thank you, Izuku.”

“Of course.”

And that’s where it all started.

Thank you for reading! If you’d like to see or be tagged in the next part let me know!!

Have a great day :) ☆

#izuku midoriya #izuku midoriya x reader #midoriya izuku x reader #deku x reader #mha #mha x reader #deku fluff #deku x y/n #izuku x y/n #izuku x you #deku x you #I LOVE IZUKU SO MUCH AHHHHHH #i hope people like this- this is my first time writing for other people 😭😭😭 #I WILL ALSO TAKE REQUESTS #I would love to start writing more— I have so many prompts…

[mochatune]

I really love your characterization, I feel like you're really true to the source material whenever possible ❤ you're good at making cute moments without sugarcoating the unpleasant parts of characters!

I'm curious.. how would Peter/YB react to the reader confronting him about not actually loving them? Reader having been very accepting of him and having a sort of revelation when his Perfect Boyfriend facade slips. (I mean he'd absolutely just cut his losses and go full murder mode but I think it'd be interesting if he actually had any level of introspection.)

If the goal was to flatter me then it worked, like shit, what a beautiful compliment 😂❤️ I got you rn. There is a lot of ways to interpret this hc so I’m hoping what is written is what you were asking for.

——

- Peter had a lot of red flags you’d had looked past. He was perfect and went above the bar when it came to past men who had entered your life. He remembered your birthday, the anniversaries, even those cheesy days like national hug day and he spared no expense into making it special for you even when there was nothing to celebrate.

- this was honestly a big part in why you were so accommodating when he was less than savory to be around, you yourself are surprised with how much of a pushover you were in the past. Guess it shows just how low the bar is for you.

- things eventually just started connecting as you got to know him. The possessiveness being a big part, it felt like ever since getting to know him your social life sort of…. changed. It suddenly felt like there was less time for the other people you cared about, even your family wasn’t spared when it came to him. Everyone was a challenge for him.

- neither of you really ever really established a relationship, you always thought you two were just really close friends I mean … sure there were some moments where it felt like something more but it wasn’t something you were barely even beginning to consider after past relationships left you feeling drained. You were okay with this sort of situationship for the the time being you just hadn’t noticed how much he had really wanted.

- He was always the guy there for you to talk shit with when you were frustrated or the shoulder to cry on, he was practically your best friend ever since Lucy had passed. You still blamed yourself for everything despite no consecutive reports on the case for months now but hey atleast you had someone to help you grieve and move past the tragedy that had happened at that diner. He was always there for you, he said it himself and had done more then enough to prove it through his actions towards you.

- one day he just changed. It’s like the guy you’ve been building trust with for almost half a year now just turned around and showed you a side he’d been forcing himself to hide from you.

- suddenly seeing those eyes that made you feel like prey, it was weird and quite frankly you didn’t like it. You didn’t like how he was treating you like a piece of meat, like any other guy would. It felt like you were beginning to see him for who he was.

- all a guy had done was catcall you, it wasn’t anything. You ignored it and kept it pushing like you always do but he just couldn’t let it go.

- he didn’t do anything, not while you were watching anyways but you saw that change in demeanor. He’s done it before though it was always a flash of an emotion you could not name, it always intimidated you but never for long as he was back to his same old lovable self.

- he sort of just dumps everything on you, everything he’d been keeping in all those nights working up the nerve at the mere thought of embracing you as more than just a friend. All those times you had cried to him but not because of him, it infuriated him that the relationship he’d been making up in his head since practically forever with you was nothing more than a mere delusion he’d created to cope with never actually being with you. That was going to change. Tonight.

- he knew, he just knew you wanted to be with him as much as he did with you so when you told him you were put off by his behavior and that you did not feel for him even a fraction of what he felt for you, hearing that “you wanted some time away from him” threw him through a loop. Not a pretty one either.

- those eyes again, the ones he has flashed at the man earlier. The ones that had you feeling helpless. A wolf in sheep’s clothing.

- it was like a gust of wind when he grabbed you with all his might, a meaty vein pulsing trough his forearm and the eyes of a killer gaping into your soul. A screaming fit paired with it, words along the lines of “why can’t you just accept that you love me” the words of a delusional freak that you know in your bones you should have never even given a single benefit of the doubt. That all this time that gut feeling in back of your mind was true all along.

- you’re in so much distress that it’s all a blur. The over-exertion of your muscles trying to fight back against the agonizing grip of a grown man paired with the ringing in your head from the screams, the wet on your face from the spittle of the man screaming intensely in your face. There’s a thud and suddenly everything is just black.

- you find yourself with a pounding headache and foggy vision bound against a soft surface, most likely a mattress. You try to move but you find your wrist cold from a handcuff keeping you fastened against the bed post. Everything from last night comes back and you’re reliving everything, a panic attack hits you before you calm down again having hope that there may be a way out of this.

- your captor, the person you thought you’d see comes walking in with a slight hop in his step. Almost as if last night never even happened, he has a tray of food. You aren’t sure what it is but you know you want no part in it immediately readying your voice to try and talk your way out of this predicament.

- there’s a stool by the bed your bound to, he sits on it and puts the tray on the bedside table right by your head.

- he tells you good morning in a sickly sweet voice you wish you’d never hear, almost as sickening as the deep purple bruise left on your arm after the mere grip put on you last night.

- you don’t offer a kind response back (who would let’s be honest) but it doesn’t seem like he minds. That flips a switch when the next words fly out of your mouth, almost as if you didn’t even think about who you were talking to before you spoke.

- nasty words continuously come out of your mouth begging him to let you go all the while barking like a chihuahua as if you were trying to hit a nerve. Who could take anyone seriously while they were tied down though?

- he laughs it off, this is why he loves you so much. You have a quality that can’t be copied, your spirit is so pure to him. He can’t help but communicate how much he loves you with a breathy voice and an ethereal stare.

- you’re next words were your biggest mistake, the ones that sealed your fate. You just couldn’t say you loved him back.

- his reaction, it’s not as bad as last night but still terrifying nevertheless. He understands it’s a process in a relationship but to spout such nonsense is enough to rile him up all over again.

- he’s more than offended at being told that he doesn’t really love you and only like the idea of you, you’re more than that to him. You’re essence, the mere presence of you is enough to blow him away. He huffs it away with a smirk, you don’t mean that.

- you’re too weak to fight the cloth clogging your airways, the all to familiar blackness coming back into the corner of your eyes slowly drowning your vision in it as your brain goes numb.

- begging to leave it just won’t work, he knows you really love him and that you want to stay here. You just need time and he’s more than willing to take care of anyone else who seems to think they knows what’s best for you and him.

- just like he did with Lucy.

- overall the guy is fucking delusional, say goodbye to the possibility of him having even a single moment of clarity when it comes to you.

#peter your boyfriend #yb peter #peter #yb fandom #yb your boyfriend #yb game #your boyfriend x reader #your boyfriend visual game #your boyfriend visual novel #your boyfriend game #your boyfriend #yandere

[yakulin]

Out of touch

a/n: Im freezing. I want to write more csm stuff like omg I love it sm, and I also love angst but sometimes I have such a hard time making my words make sense (it’s the ESL in me)

prompt: Your sister died under a devil attack during school, your new partner Aki attempts to help your grieving

cw: cigarette use, death, not proofread

You and Aki had became devil hunters around the same time. Expecting to be each others partners until he had been assigned to Himeno. You got assigned with someone else not long after him.

Over the years the both of you could notice the innocence slowly leaving, no longer the same cheery kids the two of you first met. The last sparkle in your eyes gone when your partner died tragically.

This was around the time Himeno died as well. On the bright side you got partnered with the familiar raven haired boy you had met as a kid. Both grieving, tired, and done with all the devils bullshit.

Months had passed since the two of you had been assigned as partners. He introduced you to smoking through the months, informing you that Himeno was the one that introduced him to it when they where first partnered.

“I’m sorry for your loss..” someone spoke up. They had notified you and Aki about a devil attack at a local school, and you hoped and prayed it wasn’t the one you thought of. Prayers had landed on deaf ears, like always.

“it’s fine” she said coldly, avoiding eye contact with her coworkers as she walked off towards the outside of the building. Aki walked not far behind her. Throughout the time they had been partnered together he learned a lot about her. She always put up a cheery warm front, yet every time after they finished a mission she’d have a hard time finding that persona in her. She was a sensitive person, no matter how much she hated confessing it.

Aki walked outside the building, seeing her lighting up a cigarette. Her eyes red and eyebrows furrowed. I slowly walked up to her, stealing a cigar from her pack as I used her lighter as well. She’d usually give me a glare but today she kept her eyes staring at the ground. “Guess you won’t mind if I keep the whole pack” he said sarcastically, awaiting a response. Nothing.

She continued to smoke, a single tear leaving her eyes. She quickly wiped it away. I turned my attention towards the sky. “You can cry, you know that right?” I reminded. “I know..” she responded shakily. “Why don’t you then?” I questioned. “It’s stupid” her responses were short, i could tell she was on the verge of tears. “It’s normal” I spoke up.

I noticed the shaky grip on her cigar, I lit my own out before taking ahold of hers. Keeping it a safe distance from the both of us as I hugged her closely. Her body was tense. “I don’t judge. Why would I?.. it’s just crying, everyone cried from time to time, just let it out” I whispered to her as I rubbed her back with my free hand.

I felt her trying to push herself from me for a moment, she was hesitant. “I should’ve never allowed her to go to a school near the agency.. I knew something would happen! I knew it! And now.. now she’s gone” she said frustrated. “I’m tired, of loosing the people I love” she said in such a broken tone.

I understood how she felt, I lost my family and ex partner. “I know.. this job is dehumanizing” I whispered, “honestly.. not worth the money anymore” she said wiping her tears away with the back of her hand. “Never was” I responded, she looked at me with her teary red eyes. “You’re right”

She let out a shaky breath, “after my partner died. It finally woke me after years of being in this agency. Why did I join?” She questioned herself, “My memory’s are so scrambled..” she mumbled, “whatever it was, surely it isn’t worth this” she added looking down at my hand that held her cigar.

“Careful” she warned, I looked down at my hand. The fire was close to my hand as it began to shrink, I quickly unlit it on the ashtray atop of a trash can.

“Stop trying to run away from your problems” I spoke up. “You’ve been avoiding the problem this whole conversation” I added. She looked at me guilty. “Don’t tell me because I’m telling you to, do it when you’re ready. Doesn’t even have to be me, just don’t always run to your pack of cigars for comfort” he said, his hand gently laying on her cheek as he wiped a tear from her cheek.

“Understand?”

#x reader #csm x reader #csm x y/n #csm x you #aki x y/n #aki x you #aki hayawaka #aki x reader #aki hayakawa #chainsaw man x y/n #chainsaw man x you #chainsaw man x reader #chainsaw man #csm x fem reader #csm headcanons #csm aki

[save-the-villainous-cat]

Hi, follower and fan of your work here (particularly all the touch starved stuff)! Send me to jail if necessary, but for ages I've been wanting to see someone write this premise and I'd be delighted to see a snippet of your take on it: demon villain and angel hero at odds. Demon villain is ordered to seduce their angel hero, angel hero is ordered to make demon villain fall in love with them. They both succeed. Only if you think that'd be fun to write? Please and thank you!

There were bruises on the angel’s neck. The demon didn’t want to believe that it was possible in the first place. Two very terrible causes ran through their mind. Either, the angel had had a great time with someone else or someone or something had hurt them.

“You’re not in the mood for games, are you?”

“I…” The demon stared at the blue and purple shapes. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter.

“We could make out, if you want to,” the angel said. They were so lovely. So divine and beautiful, it touched the demon in all the right places. And seeing the bruises…

They’d lived for centuries, known creatures far beyond counting. And yet, and yet—

“No,” the demon breathed. “I don’t want that right now.”

They couldn’t stop staring. Either the angel didn’t notice or they didn’t care. Whatever it was, they continued to read in their book. Sometimes, the demon imagined a mortal life, dying when they were old and grey. And sometimes they imagined the angel would be there with them.

“Is something wrong, love?” the angel asked. They’d been spending time for half a year now. And the demon knew their plan had succeeded. The angel was theirs. Not really, but it was so close. Maybe it was just desire or the thrill of acting against the rules. Maybe all of that was why they’d felt happy for once. Unbound by any services. Living for their own desires.

“Did someone hurt you?” they asked quietly. The angel finally looked up from the heavy book.

“Why do you ask?”

“I didn’t know angels could get hurt like this,” the demon admitted. “I’ve only seen angels with swords through their chests and even then…some of them were still alive.”

“Violence isn’t the only thing that can hurt you,” the angel said. The book had their interest once again. It was a book about spells. About rituals.

The demon swallowed.

“What do you mean by that?” they asked. Their hands were shaking and they felt something they hadn’t felt before in their eternal life. It stung.

“Angels are closer to humans than to god. Maybe there is a reason for that. Maybe that’s our torment.” They closed the book gently and looked at their lover. As they tilted their head, the demon got a closer look at the abundance of marks. “Maybe we’re humans that are condemned to be immortal.”

“That’s not answering my question,” the demon remarked. They looked at their marvellous face. It was perfect through and through. They were beautiful.

“Other things than violence can hurt. Love can hurt.”

“What do you mean?” the demon insisted. Now, the demon was alarmed. Love can hurt you. What did that mean? “Who hurt you?”

“You did.” And that made them hold their breath. The demon stared at them. It was easy to imagine a perfect life without all of the suffering. Living in this modern world peacefully was a fantasy they allowed themselves often. But actually living like a human sounded horrible. All the tragedies, the loss…

“I don’t understand.”

“When I’m in great distress or feeling other very big feelings, my body starts to hurt itself. I guess that prevents me from being human. It could be part of god’s creation. I have to admit, I envy them.”

“And what are you feeling right now? Why is it my fault?” The demon knew they had to keep their voice down. Humans wanted their libraries to be quiet. The angel breathed in audibly.

“I am grieving right now,” they said, chewing on their bottom lip.

“Why are you—”

“Why do you care, really?” they asked suddenly, as if they were annoyed. “We’re just pretending after all, aren’t we?”

They were not.

#tomorrow smut? maybe? 😏 #IVE BEEN WRITING REALLY HEAVY STUFF LATELY HELP #also human is a mindset ok?? 😩 #writing snippet #heaven and hell #new tag??? 👀 #heroes and villains #hero #villain #demon #angel #heroxvillain prompt #heroxvillain snippet #hero x villain #heroxvillain #demon x angel #demonxangel

[thegettingbyp2]

Mine

Johnny Knoxville x reader SMUT MINORS DNI

Summary: You and Johnny have to deal with your ex working on the set of Jackass

A/N: So this one really got away from me but it's quickly become my favourite thing that I've written!

Buy me a coffee :)

Johnny didn’t get jealous often; he was secure enough in our relationship to have no reason to get jealous. However, there was the odd time where he’d let himself get jealous and I can’t lie, it can be incredibly attractive on him.

A new medic joined the crew whilst the boys were filming Jackass 3D and it wasn’t until he turned up on set on his first day that me and Johnny realised that it was my ex, Matt. Me and Matt had been together for three years before we broke up after I walked in on him cheating on me and Johnny knew how much that had torn me up, him being there for the whole time I grieved the loss of my relationship. I had now been dating Johnny for just under a year and I can honestly say that I’ve been happier this past year with Johnny than any of the three years I was with Matt for.

‘You okay doll?’ Johnny asked me when we first saw Matt turn up, ‘I can get Jeff to get rid of him if you don’t want him here, it’s completely your call.’

‘No, don’t get rid of him, he was clearly hired for a reason, he must be good at his job and you need someone who knows how to patch a guy up well. We’re all adults, we can be civil. Plus, I’ve got you now, I’m happy,’ I replied, looking up at him.

‘Okay sweetheart, if you change your mind, you let me or one of the guys know, okay?’

‘Okay. What are you filming today?’ I asked as we walked hand in hand closer to the guys getting ready for the stunt.

‘Me and Dunn are going to try this Blowback thing. It’s such a good idea that I don’t want to waste it.’

‘Please be careful.’

‘Always am,’ he said, kissing me before running off to get set up.

I was standing back, watching the guys go through the motions of how the stunt was supposed to work, loving how passionate Johnny was as he talked about it. I was so wrapped up in watching Johnny that I hadn’t realised Matt approach me.

‘Hey (Y/N).’

‘Oh, hi Matt, welcome to Jackass I guess,’ I laughed, feeling nervous around him. I looked back over at Johnny who had noticed Matt and was keeping an eye on me.

‘You okay?’ He mouthed across the field.

I nodded and smiled at him before motioning for him to get back to work.

‘So how have you been?’ Matt asked, not moving from where he stood next to me.

‘I’ve been really good, thank you. I’m dating Johnny and it’s going really well, how have you been?’

‘Yeah, I’ve seen you two in magazines. I’m alright, not seeing anyone at the moment.’

I didn’t really know how to respond so I smiled but Jeff’s call of action drew my attention back to Johnny and Ryan who were about to start running. They ran at the tree but instead of bouncing back off of the stick, the stick snapped, sending them both to the floor, Johnny’s laughter ringing out from the group. As soon as I heard “cut” I ran over to see how they were doing. Once I reached them, I noticed Johnny holding his hand still and close to his body.

‘Hey, what did you do?’ I asked, pulling his hand towards me. It was then that I saw the huge gash between his thumb and finger, it was bleeding badly.

‘Hey, I’m okay, stings a bit is all, probably need a couple of stiches,’ he said, putting his hand on the side of my face, ‘I’ve had worse remember.’

‘How could I forget,’ I laughed quietly as Matt came over and ushered Johnny towards the medical trailer, me following behind.

‘You don’t need to come in for this, (Y/N), less people in here the better,’ Matt said as I stepped into the trailer, clearly trying to minimise the time me and Johnny were together.

‘She’s stayin’,’ Johnny said, taking my hand in his uninjured hand and rubbing his thumb along the back of my hand, not missing Matt watching the encounter.

---

That evening after filming had wrapped, we all headed out to a bar for a few drinks. After Johnny had his hand stitched up, he carried on filming stunts despite my telling him to be careful. We were sat in the corner of the area the cast had taken over, Johnny arm across the back of my chair and his finger tracing small circles on the back of my shoulder.

‘I’m going to get the next round, you want anything doll?’ He asked, leaning into me so I’d be able to hear him.

In response, I lifted my empty glass and shook it slightly, ‘can I have the same again?’

‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ he said, getting up and making sure to kiss me deeply before he left, knowing Matt was watching from the sofa across from us.

As soon as Johnny had left, Matt moved to take his seat, turning his whole body to face me.

‘Everything okay? How was your first day?’ I asked politely, not wanting to be rude.

‘It’s been alright, everyone seems nice. Would have been better if I’d have been able to have a proper chat with you though.’

‘We spoke earlier.’

‘Not a proper conversation though was it, Knoxville was making sure I didn’t get too close to you.’

‘He is my boyfriend, Matt.’

‘I think he’s just insecure now he’s seen us two together. Seen how good we are together,’ he said, leaning closer into me causing me to lean back.

‘We’ve not been “together” for two years now, Matt, you saw to that remember.’

‘Well yeah, but now we work together, I think we can get back together. Someone like Knoxville doesn’t deserve you, you deserve someone who will treat you right and that’s just not who Knoxville is. I’ve spent a day with the guy and he just seems like the type of guy to mess you around.’

Before I could reply, Johnny’s voice came from behind me, ice cold, ‘Matt, can I talk to you outside?’

Matt looked up at Johnny and smirked, ‘sure thing mate,’ he said, getting up and heading outside, ‘see you out there.’

As soon as he was out of earshot, I jumped up from my seat and grabbed Johnny’s arm.

‘Don’t get stupid.’

‘(Y/N), he was trying to get you to break up with me, he’s lucky if the only thing I do is punch him,’ he said, not quite meeting my eyes.

‘Johnny look at me.’ When he didn’t, I gently took his chin in my hand and tugged his head to face me, his eyes meeting mine, my heart breaking when I saw the mix of emotions playing through his eyes, ‘who cares what he says, I’m not going anywhere, you know that right, I love you and him coming back and spending the day trying to separate us isn’t going to change that.’

Johnny’s expression softened as he kissed me gently and pressed his forehead to mine, ignoring the whoops and cheers from the likes of Steve-O and Pontius. ‘I know and I love you too but I can’t let him get away with what he said,’ he kissed my forehead before gently tugging his arm out of my grip and walking out of the bar, me hot on his heels.

---

We got outside to see Matt leaning against the wall, waiting for us. I grabbed Johnny’s hand, him squeezing it in acknowledgement but not taking his eyes off of Matt.

‘Just talk to him PJ,’ the use of his real name causing him to look down at me and reluctantly nod his head. ‘I love you.’ Johnny wrapped his arm around my waist and kissed my forehead again.

‘So what did you want to talk about Knoxville,’ Matt piped up from behind Johnny, making his arm tense around me.

‘I swear doll, if you hadn’t asked so nicely, he’d be on the floor right now,’ Johnny said into my ear, making me giggle and push him slightly.

‘Be nice.’

Johnny sighed and turned to face Matt who was still smirking because he knew how much it pissed Johnny off. He walked closer to him and had a moment of satisfaction as he saw Matts smile falter slightly as he stepped a tiny bit back.

‘Look,’ Johnny said, sighing, trying to reign himself in, ‘you can’t keep doing this man. (Y/N)’s with me now and you can’t keep trying to get in the way of that on set. Yeah, you’re a pretty important crew member and I’m grateful for the good job you did on my hand today but trying to kick (Y/N) out of the trailer? Not on. And then trying to tell her that I’m insecure that she’s going to leave me for you. Dude, you had your chance with her and you blew it, that’s no one’s fault but your own. I love her, and I’m not going to blow my chance with her because she’s the best thing that ever happened to me, you as well, you’re not going to find another girl like her. Just move on and let her be happy okay?’

Silence filled the space between the three of us, tears running down my cheeks as Johnny spoke. Matt hadn’t spoken since Johnny finished. After a while, he leaned around Johnny to look at me.

‘See you tomorrow, (Y/N),’ he said before walking off.

As soon as he rounded the corner, Johnny’s shoulders slumped and he ran his hands over his face as I approached him.

‘That was officially the hardest thing I’ve ever done, I’d taken on 10 bulls before doing that again,’ he said as I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his t-shirt.

‘I’m proud of you,’ I said softly as his arms came up around my body and he squeezed me tightly.

‘Only did it for you doll, now what do you say we go back to mine and I show you just who you belong to?’

---

Johnny pressed me against the front door as soon as it closed behind us, his lips capturing mine in a rough kiss. I felt myself sink into the kiss, knowing that Johnny was in control. He moved his hands down over my ass to the back of my thighs, tapping to let me know to jump up. As soon as my legs were wrapped around his waist, he carried us both into his bedroom whilst I started nipping at his neck, throwing me roughly onto his bed and crawling on top of me.

‘You’re mine, (Y/N), don’t care what he says, you’re mine,’ he growled against my lips as he ripped my top off of my body, groaning when he realised I wasn’t wearing a bra and he leaned down to wrap his lips around my nipple, his hand coming up to play with the other.

‘Yours,’ I gasped, threading my fingers into his hair, holding him against my chest.

He started to kiss down my body, lips connecting with each side of my hips before his lips hit the button of my jeans, smirking as he looked into my eyes as he undid my jeans with his teeth, my head falling back, a groan escaping my throat as he used his hands to pull my jeans and underwear off my body, leaving me completely naked in front of him.

‘God, you’re stunning,’ he said, crawling back up my body, the feel of his jeans and t-shirt against my nipples and clit making me shiver. I moved my hands to the bottom of his t-shirt and started tugging.

‘PJ, need you,’ I panted as he threw his top to his floor and stood to remove his jeans, kissing up my legs before he reached my pussy.

‘Eyes on me sweetheart,’ he said darkly, meeting my eyes as he leaned down and licked a stripe up my pussy before wrapping his lips around my clit and sucking. It wasn’t long until my legs started shaking as I felt my first orgasm wash over me. As I came down, I realised that Johnny hadn’t stopped and he didn’t seem to be planning to anytime soon.

‘Johnny, PJ, can’t,’ I babbled as his tongue kept the same pace on my clit, pushing two of his fingers into me and crooking his fingers, hitting my g-spot which made my legs twitch.

‘Oh I think you can pretty girl, one more, then I’ll fuck you.’ I nodded and threw my head back, letting myself succumb to the please as I soon felt my second orgasm creep up on me. This time, Johnny slowed his pace as I rode the orgasm out, slowing to a stop and crawling up my body.

‘You okay?’ he asked sweetly.

‘Yes, fuck me, please,’ I said, making him laugh as he lined himself up with my entrance and pushed in roughly, not giving me any time to adjust as he started a brutal pace straight away, clearly working out the aggression he’d meant to use on Matt earlier.

‘You’re so good for me, (Y/N),’ he moaned in my ear, sucking a hickey into the skin just below my earlobe, ‘me and no one else, such a good girl.’

His voice combined with the pace of his thrusts were quickly bringing back to the edge, my arms wrapped around his neck and I pulled him down into a rough kiss, our teeth clashing together as his hips sped up and his hand came down to play with my clit. I pulled away from the kiss and held his face in my hands and I looked into his eyes. I’d always thought he had lovely eyes but tonight they were beautiful, a mix of emotions playing through them; love, anger, insecurity.

‘I love you, I’m yours, nothing’s going to change that. I love you PJ Clapp, Johnny Knoxville, whatever you want to call yourself, don’t let him get into your head because he’s just jealous, okay?’

Instead of replying, Johnny slammed his lips back onto mine as he thrust against me three more times before stilling and emptying himself inside of me, my third orgasm rushing over me at the same time. I felt Johnny press his whole weight against me, as he buried his face in my neck before pulling out and rolling to the side. I turned over and propped myself up on my elbow, one hand coming to rest on his face, gently wiping away the tear that he’d let fall.

‘You okay?’

‘I am now,’ he said, taking hold of the hand that was on his face and kissing my palm, ‘I meant everything I said earlier, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I’m not letting you go. Ever.’

I smiled and snuggled into him, ‘well it’s a good thing there’s nowhere else I’d rather be isn’t it.’

#johnny knoxille #johnny knoxville imagine #johnny knoxville x reader #johnny knoxville smut #jackass

[mesillusionssousecstasy]

HOTD 1x10: Daemon Targaryen

People are only thinking with their feelings. They need to analyse the entire episode, and previous episodes with an objective eye. To their defence, it’s true that many Daemon scenes were cut out this season. 

But let’s not forget that Daemon was the one holding everything together in that episode even when he himself was falling apart, grieving his brother and his daughter that the Greens took away from him.

A tragedy is the destruction of something beautiful. For this very reason, I think the show has not invested enough on loving moments between Rhaenyra and Daemon after they get married. Their best moment was 16 years before. So I guess we do need 13 episodes for season one.

Let’s not forget that Rhaenyra never wanted to change Daemon. She loves him for who he is. Rhaenyra literally persuaded him to stay in Westeros and get married for him to fight for her throne and their family, and that’s what he’s doing.

Unfortunate as it was, it made sense for his character to react as he did. Rhaenyra even said Madness had taken him earlier in the episode, because he wouldn’t go to her while she was giving birth. He focused on plotting his war because he was emotion wreck. He doesn’t show his emotions on the outside, but keeps it bottled up. The most we saw were teary eyes and his violent outburst against his wife.

We only see Daemon be physical with her once, which I can argue suggests this was the first time he ever did that, due to how shocked Rhaenyra was. Now, if he never touches her like that again in future seasons, then we can argue it was one time thing that he regretted. He was about to cry afterwards.

Hell, I’m kinda suspecting that was also the reason he went to Vermithor. He could have been borderline suicidal. Or just so cocky that he didn’t care about dying, so long as he got the second largest dragon used to human again.

Everything he does is for family. But he isn’t a good, moral man. He hurt her because he thought she is going to become like Viserys, a weak ruler unable to crush rebellion. He lost a brother, a daughter, learned his brother didn’t trust him enough to tell him about the prophecy, and thought his wife was contemplating bending the knee. The hot-headed man needs to fight for his wife, name and pride but she wants to preserve the realm because of a freaking dream?

After Rhaenyra smiled and mocked him with « he didn’t tell you », given how agitated he was, it was a miracle he didn’t do anything more drastic. Or maybe, he wanted for her to react or kiss him or hit him in retaliation. One simple thing would have made them on equal footing while keeping the essence of their relationship intact. Can you imagine episode 1-5 young Rhaenyra would have taken shit from Daemon without retaliating? No. 

I do ship them. But they are human, and humans make mistakes. I can understand the reason he laid his hands on her, in a moment of utter weakness born from loss, stress, anger, and fear that she was going to bow before the people who Daemon believes murdered his brother, and possibly thinks just murdered his daughter due to the stress Rhaenyra just suffered.

We also saw that when he learned about Luke, he hesitantly approached her, held her hand to comfort her, and she looked at him not in anger, fear, or resentment, but sorrow. The ending shows them holding hands. They still love each other, even after they fight. What I do fear is character assassination.

I do not, and will not, condone his actions, but I do understand why it came to that.

I just hope the show doesn’t destroy their relationship going forward. So much trauma and tragedy is about to unfold. Having Daemon and Rhaenyra remain in love until the bitter end would be a small light in the dark. Now, if in season two they change the whole relationship into an abusive one, that will ruin his character, ruin everything they set up in season one. He has many faults. He is grey. he kills for his family, but he is not immune to weakness. I can forgive and forget him hurting her in that one scene, as you can see the hurt in his eyes afterwards. The way the show portrays them, having pined fro each for over 15 years… I don’t know, it would disappoint me immensely.

They already meet such tragic ends, having them remain in love with other would be one small token of light.

So yes, that’s my rambling current thoughts. Hoping I’m not to repetitive, but I had to let out those out of my chest. It’s 4:47am, Bonsoir.

#hotd #hotd 1x10 #house of the dragon #hotd thoughts #hotd analysis #prince daemon targaryen #daemon targaryen #daemyra #rhaenyra targaryen #daemon x rhaenyra #rhaenyra x daemon

[crazybutgood]

By George, I'm hooked!

So a short while back, while searching for a fic featuring both human and crup George, I tagged a few people whose works I binged recently in a bid to try to recall the author. Amidst the embarrassing chaos where I tagged three guesses (before I finally found the fic written by a fourth), I figured I’d share what it is about these three authors’ writing that has me engaged so thoroughly and often. And to tie it all in a theme, I’ll drop a rec of their fics that feature George Weasley.

An assortment of delights 💝🍫

@schmem14 masterfully crafts the most delicious and unique ideas. Like a box of mystery-flavour chocolates, trying each one gives a new delightful experience of Em’s stories and interpretations of prompts, plots and pairings. And I find myself reaching for another, and another and another…

I have especially really enjoyed her collections where she takes on themes in her inimitably creative way. I’d really recommend checking out the George ones in her collections too, and for now I’ll leave you with this rec:

Peeling Potatoes (Harry/George) (T, 585)

George is still grieving Fred. Harry offers a moment of peace.

An immersive binge-a-thon 🎥🍿

@the-francakes' fics are such a vibe. She has me absolutely engrossed in a variety of stories; it really feels like a chill, cinematic experience. I love browsing through each enticing summary (and lovely banner!) of both old favourites and new updates. I’m always happily transported right there in the bubble of the world she’s created, rooting for the characters and absolutely flailing at the gorgeous plot, until I reach the end and float right along to the next one.

Here's a George rec from her catalogue:

Helping Hands™ (Hermione/George) (G, 1510)

George shows Hermione his new Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes product, Helping Hands™. And they help more than he expected.

A familiar comfort 😌💙

I always sink into @orange-peony's fics with the most satisfying feeling. Her fics are a pleasure to enjoy, curled up in bed with “entire work” clicked, squeeing, sobbing, smiling into a pillow. Her fics are always thrilling in their emotional rollercoaster, and never fail to warm my heart and make me just… feel with every fibre of myself. I absolutely love and crave that reading experience.

This fic is a quintessential example of that Peony experience:

Mirror, Mirror (Lee/George) (E, 22,759)

George feels a wave of relief washing over him at the thought that he still has time, that he can still get his shit together and stop feeling so utterly broken every single moment of the day, and then maybe he will be good enough for Lee. Sometimes he feels like the pain and the loss have woven through every fibre of his being, that his whole body is made out of grief, raw and wretched beyond repair. But then Lee takes his hand, or he threads his fingers through George’s hair, whispering something that George can only feel against his skin, lost words that make him shudder and reach for Lee, to feel him there and have him close. Real.

I hope you enjoy these fics, and check out these authors’ other works on their ao3s as well! Do remember to leave them some love 🥰 And as always, please mind the tags~

An eternal gratitude

Thanks to @stavromulabetaaa and @getawayfox for looking this over! (and for sparking the memory of the fic in the first place~) ❤️❤️

#fic recs #mine #cbg recs #harry potter #george weasley #harry x george #hermione x george #lee x george #hp rarepair #fic #schmem14 #the-francakes #orange-peony

[pitroig]

About JJK236 (leaks), the future of the franchise, and why I have no interest in following the story from now on.

Yes, it contains spoilers.

First, I tried to wait until the official manga chapter was released because commenting on leaks is quite disrespectful to those who patiently wait for the official sources. I couldn't. Also, I wanted more time to grieve and think about Gojo's fate, but I could only last one evening. It's too much to handle, I guess.

Regarding this, I have three ideas:

What a bluff. It wasn't surprising. I mean, the whole Gojo "Throughout Heaven and Earth, I alone am honored" has its roots in sacred texts that refer to Buddha, but it also links the figure of Gojo to an old friend of Western mythology: Icarus. The one who tried to fly too close to the sun and got his wings melted. It's a typical Ancient Greek God punishment for hubris. I honestly thought that Gege had thought of a better outcome for such a complex character.

It's fitting, though, the afterlife scene. Most of the adult characters who have a real impact on the plot are living on borrowed time. The loss and tragedies they went through in their formative years kill their expectations and goals, and they enter autopilot mode, waiting for the next negation to take over. So yes, Gojo comes back to his last growing moment. And I think he will be stuck in there forever, not matter if he goes north or south.

He might not be dead, which also shows poor storytelling skills, quite a bummer for someone like Gege. I mean, he already had a miraculous recovery from death. Two is too close to a joke. Tsk, tsk, Mr. Akutami: if you create a character that has the essence and quality to become a deus ex machina, you have to think ahead about a proper demise, or at least a proper closing - and achievement, a sacrifice - for him. If not, you are throwing yourself into the clutches of bad writing.

That’s the reason why I’m done with JJK.

JJK has lost its unique storytelling and my favorite character is also dead, an in consequence I am not going to keep reading it.

And that's fine. 

Authors must deal with this: brave, true-to-yourself decisions might face disagreement from some people. Fans should also be able to move on. 

My problem is not that I have lost interest in the plot - which is, in truth, what happens here. But thankfully, I still have fanfics and the anime. My problem is that I am afraid that from now on, I might predict what happens next, and I couldn't care less.

The future of the franchise.

So, until the end of the year, we are going to face many small, insignificant battles that lead to the one held on December 24th.

And then, here is my prediction.

Most of the characters will perish. My bet on the survivors: Maki, Yuuta, Yuuji, and some random people here and there. They will win, Kenjaku and Sukuna will be sealed or something like that, but after that, there won't be more jujutsu world. No more cursed energy. The survivors will have to deal with some curses-related issues around the globe, but they will be able to live a normal life that will, honestly, suck.

It's going to be hard to read and difficult to accept. After all the exhausting emotional stress that comes with being a fan of this franchise, I think it's time to move on and catch up with it in a few months.

In the meantime, I will enjoy the fandom.

Until the fandom is extinguished.

But that's also fine.

I am happy to have crossed paths with JJK anyway.

#jjk #gojo satoru #jjk spoilers #jjk 236 #jjk236 #jujutsu kaisen #satoru gojo #analysis #it's a pity #i wish the good yuuji and yuuta all the best #and for sure i will read the end of the story #but i am done with the weekly update #fair enough #more time for me

[promptful]

Hello ! I'm new here and I don't know if requests are open, please if they're not just ignore this and sorry <3

If they are open on the other hand, can you please write dialogue prompts for death/grief/loss of a lover ? Thanks again <3

Grief/Loss of a Lover Prompts

Hi there! Thank you for requesting, and no worries! I keep requests open all the time, I just don't answer them when I need a break aha! Thank you for the request!

WARNINGS: Self harm as in ignoring one's needs. Mentioned Death. Mentioned Loss. Mentioned Divorce.

DIALOGUE

1) “I don’t think I’ll love again.” 

2) “I miss them. More than you’d ever know.” 

3) “I know it’s been (x) since then, but I miss them, okay?” 

4) “Just leave me alone. I need time.” 

5)  “I’ll see you on the other side.” 

6) “Why couldn’t you take me with you?” 

7) “I never wanted to live without you.” 

8) “What am I going to do?” 

9) “I don’t… want to talk about it.” 

10) “I don’t want anyone else, can’t you see that?!” 

11) “It’s been years but I don’t know. Moving on just isn’t possible for me, I guess.” 

12) “It’s really crazy how fast life turns on you, huh?” 

13) “I’ll keep going, if only for you.” 

14) “They’re dead! And I—I don’t know what to do.” 

15) “Oh, are you divorced?” “Widowed, actually—and don’t apologize. Please.” 

16) “I miss you.” 

17) “I hope Heaven’s a lot cooler than down here.” 

18) “Tonight, I hope I see you in my dreams.” 

19) “I—I know I need to forget them. But I can’t. They’re gone and I’m just supposed to move on now? Pretend like we weren’t married, and everything’s all right? I refuse.” 

20) “Hey… I know it’s been a while. But, I’m here. It’s our anniversary.” 

21) “It’s been a year since your death, and don’t think for a single damned second that I don’t miss you like it was yesterday.” 

22) “Your father/mother/parent was one of the best people I’ve known.” 

23) “I just want to sleep. Leave me alone!” 

24) “I’m not hungry. Don’t give me that.” 

25) “We’re not having this conversation.” “We need to—” “We’re not having this conversation! End of discussion!” 

26) “I know it’s unhealthy. I know and I don’t care.” 

27) “I’m heartbroken, can’t you see?” 

28) “I won’t move on. And I’m fine with that.” 

29) “I still can’t believe they’re gone.” 

30) “Let me grieve!” 

#story prompt #otp prompts #prompt list #prompts #writing prompts #creative writing #dialogue prompt #dialogue prompts #fanfiction prompts #rp starters #writeblr #writing prompt #writing ideas #tw death #tw divorce #tw sh #tw sh implied #tw self harm #prompt #p.