#stop going onto positive posts to whine at fans that you still hate the character

[infernalurge]

The Astral Prism Isn't Grindr!- Why the Emperor didn't catfish you.🦑

Very long, rambling post I wrote while manic at 4 am. Enjoy!

I feel like the worst thing you can actually say about Emp in regards to his actions towards the player is that he lies by omission. But even then, to consider it lying you basically have to work from the perspective that you as a player, person, character or whatever, are entitled to know everything about someone you just met, who might have some very good reasons for not wanting to reveal certain things

He didn't "catfish" you the prism isn't grindr lmao?! And the game/companions/etc repeat to you over and over that the Dream Visitor is some kind of manufactured vision. You all have one and it's specific to your individual minds. He wasn't exactly doing some deepcover shit with a fake backstory to get your cryptowallet information or whatever real-life equivalence you keep trying to make. As if you run into alien squid monsters every day or something!

It's doubly bizarre because there is an extremely popular companion character whose entire arc is ACTUALLY lying to you about who they are, only admitting it when you catch them attacking you in your sleep, and then goes on to try to ACTUALLY manipulate you with sex and intimacy while at that point, not actually feeling it. This is the most popular character in the fandom btw- Astarion.

Emperor's morality is held up to a ridiculous standard. Not even the companions are held to that level- not even close!

A better equivalence to his situation than "catfishing" (a term completely exclusive to our world) would be if a sentient, alien creature was stranded on our planet and had to use a disguise to y'know....not be shot at and killed by confused humans? Why the heck would your brain first jump to catfishing? Girl if you approached your DG as a tindr date that's on you! Lliterally the only prompt the game gives you before creating them is "you need a guardian" (At least currently that's how it works, after official release.)

if you met a kind of weird guy and fell for him and he then revealed he's actually a sentient squid monster, I don't think your first response would be "OMG YOU CATFISHED ME?" I'm pretty sure it would be "HOLY FUCK A SQUID MONSTER!" because it would be very obvious and apparent (by virtue of them being a squid monster) that the intent was not to "catfish" you, but to survive a world that would be actively hostile towards him, on sight.

We accept this type of "ambiguous morality for the sake of survival" from characters like Astarion who are traditionally attractive, but we don't accept it from a being whose very appearance, forces them into that position of moral ambiguity. Emperor is not afforded the same privilege of even being able to consider full honesty, because just one look at him could make someone hysterical. Hiding himself from you is not an active choice he's able to make, anymore than a turtle can choose to break open it's shell- it will die.

Even if YOU wouldn't kill him, what about companions like Lae'zal, who are already suspicious of him and will definitely cut him down at that point? Even if you think that would be a good thing, you would then lose your protection from the tadpole/the Absolute. The game basically wouldn't exist without the Prism.

Let's also not use "well Astarion is traumatized" as an excuse here. Emperor is pretty obviously traumatized as well, in addition to being a brain-eating squid monster and having to manage that part of his nature, the way Astarion has to handle his. Yet he's still more up front than Astarion was. Astarion can accidentally kill you while drinking from you and he still doesn't reveal who he is to the others, AND pretends he doesn't know what happened to you lol.

Note my point here isn't "Astarion bad" but simply that if you have room in your heart to sympathize with characters like Astarion, then there's no reason you can't squeeze my man Emp in there too. He doesn't do anything significantly worse than any of the other main characters but is the most hated, and it's literally because of this ridiculous perception of him "catifshing" the player. The most media illiterate take I have ever seen in my life, honestly

Like first off, he's a squid, and secondly! ☝️ Read all that again.

tl;dr if you feel "cafished" by the Emperor you simply weren't paying attention for more than half the game. Fantasy might not be for you if you can't remove the plot from real life circumstances and turn complex fantasy monsters into human romance scammers, as if they're actually alike in any meaningful way.

Read more books maybe. That might help.

#the emperor #bg3 the emperor #emperor #bg3 emperor #bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #bg3 spoilers #THIRD WAY I'M SAYING THIS: #this is an emp-positive post #stop going onto positive posts to whine at fans that you still hate the character #we don't do that shit to you with gor/tash or rap/hael or anyone else

[what-the-fic-khr]

Hello I hope this ask finds you well! Happy to see the tea prompts again bc they’re so so so cute 🫖🥹

I have a fewww ideas.. bc I just love everything about your writing and I’m curious about your take on rooibos tea w/ Squalo orrr earl grey w/ Hibari (I absolutely adore the way you characterize himshdnshdjdh)

If neither of those suit your fancy, matcha tea with any character that comes to mind for ya? I’m excited to see your posts floating around again and know I’ll continue to love anything you pen for us🫧🤍

waaaaah thank you so much for your kind words, I appreciate it so greatly!!! I chose to do both because I’m in the mood to, and I’m so thankful for the support! I hope these are to your liking!

character/s: superbi squalo, hibari kyoya, reader-insert (gender-neutral)

word count: —

warnings: huh. nothing for once

prompt: tea prompts (rooibos tea, earl grey tea)

rooibos tea; what’s their favourite thing to do with their s/o?

Squalo’s either a huge fan of resting or hates it entirely. for the sake of this, it’s not resting per se, but… he likes to relax with you, very specifically. even if he’s working; being able to actually relax is rare, and nice. watch for if he removes his sword with you around; he likes to do maintenance on it with you around because it’s not stressful, not work, and with you. it’s a sign of comfort and vulnerability

You were complaining about something, rolling around on the floor beside him as you went on and on. He didn’t care much about all the movement; you maintained a good distance so you wouldn’t knock into him.

“Besides, it was stupid to begin with and if they’d listened to me in the first place it wouldn’t have happened at all!”

“Mhm.”

You glanced over at Squalo, stretching your arms out to rest your head on. He glanced up at your silence, and his shoulders slumped. This didn’t stop him from polishing his blade, the action repetitive, calming, like habit.

“What?”

He huffed when you smiled in that silly, dreamy way you did when you were enamoured with something. It still had to take some getting used to, seeing it directed at him.

“Nothin’. You look so nice and relaxed for once. Boss is gonna kick that out a window once you’re done.”

He grumbled something under his breath at this. It wouldn’t last very long, but still. He felt relaxed, for once. The soothing motions of sharpening and polishing his sword was a comfort to him. You rolling around on the floor like a kid was a comfort to him.

“I’m not goin’ anywhere for at least another half hour.” Your eyes started to light up at this, and he almost laughed at the way you started kicking your feet back and forth in the air. “You’re stuck with me until then.”

“Favourite thing to be stuck with.”

early grey tea; how did they court their s/o?

if he’s an adult, he’d be… a bit more normal lol. I think he’d be very careful while getting to know you, but he’d like to show you how strong and reliable he is. y’know, adult in the mafia kind of stuff. younger though, he’d be a lot more… of a loser about it. he’d want to make sure you can also look after yourself in the future with him! so he’d stick to you like glue at school, be suuuuper annoying and stuff. fight, probably.

“Can’t you go easy on me or something at least?!”

“Doing that won’t keep you alive in a real fight, will it?”

You made a loud noise of complaint, but you still got back onto your feet to return to your original position. Kyoya gripped his tonfa a little tighter, nodding to himself.

If you could not even get up and keep training, there would be no point in trying.

There was potential in you he knew was there, and he’d be damned if the one he’d grown attached to would get killed because you didn’t try to get stronger. It only made sense to him that the one who put you through this was him and no one else. No one else would take it seriously.

“Get ready, then.”

You whined, but steeled your shoulders. Your gaze on him sharpened, eyes narrowing, and he felt his lips twitch up into a smirk.

Exactly the spark he wanted to see.

#katekyo hitman reborn #khr #mine #superbi squalo #hibari kyoya #s #18 #requests #tea prompts #khr imagines #katekyo hitman reborn imagines #khr x reader #katekyo hitman reborn x reader #AHHHHH THANK YOU SO MUCH YOURE SO SWEET #felt very inspired to do both so!! #I think Squalo is so….. so wonderful #also chose present!kyoya bc that was the prompt I thought of #I think he’d love to teach you to fight bc you Also have to be strong. like him #and thus you form a stronger and closer bond while doing so #all according to keikaku #etc etc y’know?? lol #short but sweet #thank you!!! #ALSO YES IM CURRENTLY TAKING TEA PROMPTS PLS SEND SOME

[nillabeam]

KINKTOBER TWO: praise kink 

synopsis: reader with a degradation kink but an even bigger praise kink

warnings: smut! 18+!! degradation, praise kink, dirty talk, language, unprotected sex, squirting??? characters aged up, some fluff sprinkled in lmao

characters: tsukishima kei

a/n: basically i wanted to write some sort of soft tsukki and idk i’m just real into this jerk rn so i hope you enjoy it!! also this is my first time writing for haikyuu and im a little nervouse to post this!! but please ignore any grammar or spelling errors and thank you for reading!!! <3333

he wasn’t exactly sure what he’d been feeling lately. he loathed not being able to understand his own feelings. but lately every time he saw your adorable little smiling face looking up at him his chest would tighten and he would get the most uncomfortable fluttering feeling in his stomach. he fucking hated it. 

so naturally he took it out on you in the bedroom. 

tsukishima always had a pretty sharp tongue but it was nothing compared to what he said to you when he had your face pressed down into the pillows, a hand on your back, the other tangled in your hair. 

it never hurt your feelings though, and he discovered pretty early on that you liked it. hell he’d be lying if he said he didn’t like it. the way his harsh words had you dripping for him and cumming on his cock so easily, so willingly, it drove him fucking insane. not that he was ready to admit something like that to you so easily. 

on this particular night he was more pent up than usual, it didn’t take long for him to get you out of your clothes and into bed with him. he was kissing you with more energy than he usually did, every time you parted for air he was pressing his lips on yours. it was suffocating. it didn’t help that he had two of his long fingers pressed inside your cunt, expertly stroking your walls, just enough to get you teetering on the edge of your release only to deny it. 

“tsukki, please, you’re being so mean today,” you say between hushed moans, he replies by pulling his fingers away from your soaked core, he rolls his eyes when you whine. “don’t pout you stupid brat,” his reply sends a bolt of electricity through your body, and he watches as your cunt clenches desperately around nothing. “such a greedy little cunt,” he muses, dipping his fingers back into your wetness. “you’re making a fucking mess with this sloppy little pussy.” 

he can see it, the coil deep inside you winding up, ready to snap. he indulges you, his thumb moving to rub harsh circles on your swollen clit. your hips move independently as they buck against his slender fingers, desperately chasing your release. it doesn't take long before your cumming on his fingers, your dripping cunt drenching him down to his wrist. 

“greedy little slut, always thinking of herself,” he presses his thumb against your lips, prying them open, he slides his messy fingers into your mouth. “clean them for me, it’s the least you can do for making such a fucking mess.” 

you do as he asks, easily taking in his long digits and sucking them clean. his lips twist into a disapproving smirk, “you like licking your cum off my fingers? hm?” he presses his fingers further down your throat when you don’t answer, eliciting a gag, “so fucking disgusting,” his words and his actions contradict as he removes his soaked digits and replaces them with his mouth, he stiffles a moan at the taste of your cum on his tongue.

tsukishima didn’t use his size advantage very often but today was one of those rare occasions where he felt riled up enough to do so. he easily flipped you onto your stomach, positioning you just the way he liked, face down ass up. he lines himself up with your entrance, lazily dragging the head of his hard cock against your slick.

“kei just put it in already..” you groan and he shoves your face into the pillow to quiet you. he chuckles at your muffled whining. “such a needy little cumslut,” he fans out his fingers against the back of your skull, the sensation makes you shiver, he gathers a handful of your hair and yanks your head back enough so he can whisper into your ear.

“maybe if you ask nicely i’ll give you what you want.”

his words have you squirming beneath him. he had been torturing you for hours now, needless to say you were frustrated, overstimulated, and overwhelmed by the need to be filled by his cock.

“i want it kei, please give it to me,” he slides his thumb over his leaking tip, collecting the weeping precum to coat his throbing cock in it.

“i want to hear you say it,” his tone is still calm, condescending, but he’s unraveling quickly at the sight of you, bent over, cunt soaked and dripping for him.

“please kei, your cock, i want it, i’ve been good.” you beg quietly, almost shamefully. he takes a moment to admire how cute you are like this, pathetically begging for him. you really were so good to him. he’s suddenly determined to show you just how much he appreciates you. he releases his grip on your hair, his hands instead finding purchase on your hips.

finally, he slides into your sopping cunt, you can’t help the moans that slip past your lips. he begins to thrust into you, you’re so desperate for him that he barely has to move. you’re sinking back onto his cock, meeting each of his shallow thrusts, desperate to be full of him.

he tightens his grip on your hips, large hands leaving bruises against your tender skin, he can’t stop the feeling bubbling up in his chest, he’s so overwhelmed by how good you are, how well you treat him, how fucking amazing your tight little cunt feels. “you think you’ve been good?,” he snaps his hips into you, throwing off your rhythm in favor of his own. you yelp when he sets his own brutal pace.

“such a good little slut for me aren’t you?” he breathes between quiet moans. “so eager for me, so desperate,” he continues and he notes how hard you’re gripping the sheets now. “such a good girl.”

a low moan that falls from your lips is different than he’s used to, and they way your walls are clentching around him makes it hard to focus. did you like this? being praised? of course he was going to find out.

“you like when i call you that, hm?” his tone is low, but softer than you’ve ever heard it. “my good girl,” his words, to both of your surprise, are enough to have you cumming around his cock. your head tossed back, body trembling, eyes rolling into your head, whimpering incoherent nonsense. and the way you were clentching around him almost sent him over the edge.

he’d never made you cum like that before.

“fuck,” he steadies himself, and something in him ignites, a smirk finds his features. he was right.

he barely gives you a second to catch your breath before he has you on your back. he spreads your thighs apart, watching as your cunt spasms around nothing, your expression completely fucked out and dazed. you look absolutely perfect. the mere sight of you has him licking his lips.

“one more,” he groans, you try and string together a reply but you don’t get the chance to speak, all that comes out is a whine as he slides his cock back into you.

“you like it when i praise you? tell you how good you are to me?” the way your eyes roll back gives him all the confirmation he needs, and the way you were responding to his voice had him pistoning into you harder than normal. “you cum on my cock so well, you did so good,” he moves to grip your thighs, squeezing them as he ruts into you.

he can’t decide which view he likes more, his cock stuffing your tight little cunt or the slutty expression you were wearing. “i want you to cum like that again,” his fingers move to rub messy circles against your clit. you cringe at the overstimulation, another orgasm quickly building, “k-kei i can’t!” you yelp but he doesn’t bend, he’s too determined, dead set on making you cum again.

“you can, good girl,” he groans, “i’m so proud of you, fuck, you feel so good-“ he is lost in it now, he’s close, he’s so close. “you’re fucking perfect, god, i love you,” his confession is enough to push you over the edge, though he wasn’t expecting you to cum so hard. you were a mess, cum flowing freely from your cunt, drentching tsukki and the sheets, mouth open, a silent moan stuck on your tongue, body tense and shaking.

“s-shit-” his own orgasm hits him hard, harder than he was expecting it to, a slew of curses and moans pour out of him, his thick cum coats your insides. to be honest he’s a little embarrassed at his lack of subtlety but he’d never admit it.

he collapses in the space on the bed beside you. both taking a moment to catch your breath before you muster up the courage to speak. “did you mean it?” your voice is soft, small even, he barely hears you. “what?” he asks, back to his former self. “you said you loved me.” you turn your head to face him, he takes a moment to admire how sleepy and soft you look.

and that’s when it hits him. it hits him like a goddamn train. he loves you. he fucking loves you. he rolls his eyes, trying his best to seem unbothered. “i only said that so you’d cum,” he replies, his tone a little annoyed, but he’s hoping you won’t notice how his cheeks have warmed up at his realization. “you shouldn’t say things like that if you don’t mean them,” you reply, draping an arm lazily around his waist, a small smirk gracing your lips.

“you only get a few minutes, then we have to clean up the mess you made,” he says, hoping his deflection wasn’t too obvious. he shifts a bit so you can rest your head on his chest, which you do so happily. his slender fingers run softly through your hair, each stroke making it harder to stay awake.

he takes in the sight of you, you’re drifting off to sleep, perfectly serene, an angel unbothered by his unending teasing and mean spirited nature. god, he really did love you. and he had a feeling despite his earlier denial, you knew it too.

#hq smut #hq imagines #haikyuu smut #haikyuu imagines #tsukki smut #tsukki imagines #tsukishima imagine #tsukishima smut #nillabeamwrites #haikyu!! smut #haikyu!! imagine

[iamanartichoke]

I am literally about to cry here that people are wanting to blame Tom...that...I don't even have the words...I'm sad, angry, and disappointed...it feels like people who are so ready to blame him shouldn't be fans... I don't want to say that so strongly though because I know at some point they must have loved him and Loki too...but if they no longer like what Disney/Marvel, and MAYBE Tom (executive producer doesn't necessarily hold much weight) is doing with the character, then maybe they should simply faze out of the fandom, or that section of the fandom, or stick with the older stuff...or at least don't be hating on others who are happy about it....I don't know how to avoid the hate on my dash and it's making me very sad (understatement)

So - for one thing, I’m really sorry that you’re feeling upset; I know what it’s like to see posts on your dash that get to you and send you down a spiral. I really do get it and sympathize. I recommend filtering tags to the best of your ability and unfollowing/blocking people who are posting things that bring you down.

But I feel like this ask is a double-edged sword, smh. I don’t know how to answer it bc I get what you mean but I think there’s two different issues being addressed here - one being that people shouldn’t be blaming Tom personally for his creative role (which I absolutely agree with) and the second being that people shouldn’t be in this fandom space/call themselves fans of Tom/Loki if they’re not happy about the show (which I absolutely do not agree with). 

First of all, yes - I’ve been consistently saying this over the past couple of days: regardless of how you feel about the series, it’s not okay to cross the line into blaming Tom personally if that blame leaves the fandom space and progresses into harassment of actual people (esp. Tom). I am not saying I’ve seen anyone do that, nor do I think anyone I know/am friends with here would do that. I am just saying that when you start assigning personal blame, it has the potential to get sticky so better to just keep your feelings focused on the material itself (whether that be the writing, directing, or acting choices made).  

HOWEVER. I really don’t think it’s fair to say that if people don’t like the show, or what it may do to the character, or Tom’s contributions to it, that they don’t belong in this fandom space anymore and/or shouldn’t participate, or should just stick to “the old stuff.” It’s really not fair at all; that’s exactly the kind of rhetoric that should be avoided bc it implies that the only way to be a “real” fan or a “true” fan is to feel happy, excited, etc about new content and developments, as opposed to feeling disappointed, negative, or upset bc it seems that the canon is going in a direction that no longer aligns with what drew the person to the character in the first place. 

People need to realize that you can be critical of things and still enjoy them. You can also be critical of things bc you don’t enjoy how it’s progressed, but you still care deeply about the original material. You can connect to a character and feel protective of that character and want to engage with that character and still feel like the current canon of that character isn’t your cup of tea. And, yes, you can disagree with Tom’s interpretations and choices when it comes to how he’s portraying Loki (whether it be in his acting choices or his creative contributions or both). You're allowed to think for yourself.  

I really dislike the implication that being a fan = 100% loving everything about it, and being critical = 100% being a hating anti who shouldn’t even be here.

But I see it all the time. 98% of the “positive” posts regarding the show right now include some kind of shade thrown at the other side - ie, “omg stop whining,” or “how can you hate it without even seeing it? Trailers are misleading!” (interesting how that never works the opposite way, though - how can you love it without even seeing it? I digress.) to “Tom’s in control here, this is his Loki, and if you don’t like it then maybe you don’t actually understand the real Loki and should stick to fanfiction or better yet just leave.” 

^^ Obviously I’m paraphrasing, but my point is that the people who are unhappy are clearly and appropriately tagging their disappointment posts, and are not going around hating on anyone who’s excited, and the same cannot be said for the other side. I can only speak for my own experiences but I have seen ‘negativity’ consistently tagged, and kept to posts where the discussion is among like-minded people, and I have also seen the above vagueposting as well as unprompted posts like “lol guess what’s being complained about today” as well as the so-called positive people hopping onto negative posts in order to tell people to shut up and stop complaining before we’ve even seen the finished product. 

So. My point in all of this is - 1) I discourage people from personally blaming Tom bc fandom and social media have created this weird culture where hate campaigns against celebs are launched all the time, and it’s not okay, but 2) that doesn’t mean that the criticism, disappointment, and/or negativity shouldn’t exist at all, or shouldn’t be discussed, and 3) it is not anyone’s right to say who belongs in fandom and who doesn’t because the last time I checked, fandom was for everybody and if we could all just stop being assholes and play nicely with one another like the good lord intended, none of this would even be an issue. 

#i hope this makes sense and i hope i don't sound hostile #and if i do i apologize #but idk maybe it's just me? and how my brain works? but it seems like people can't even have conflicting opinions #like either you love it or you hate it #and if you hate it you hate tom #and if you love it you're mad that people hate it #and apparently 'criticism is fine' equals 'blame tom! what a traitor!' and saying #no actually let's not blame tom kthx then it's #omg can you believe? people shouldn't even be here #if they're gonna hate on tom #amirite #like #let's just share the fucking sandbox without worrying about who's building castles and who's digging moats #smh #a nonny mouse #tag rambles #loki series: just drink what's in the glass #tom hiddleston is my favorite unicorn #i am sorry that i ramble so much #dear lord. #Anonymous

[whumpbby]

whumpbby 😭 commiserate with meeee. Idk if you've seen this post that's kind of blowing up about how fandoms are racist in general because they always focus on white characters and ships over the POC ones and to be real, it's not that I disagree. I do agree, very much so, though I think the issue is way more nuanced. But I figure hey it's still a relevant post and I go to reblog and then I realise it's written by a goddamn anti 😭😭😭 now I have hIVES gdi the op is in the notes screeching at people for being kylo ren fans and telling them to die and I'm just So Over This, we can't have anything nice

The worst part is that this post got onto my dash from the blog writingwithcolour who gives really good and multi-cultural advice on writing POC and while I see why they'd reblog it, my automatic EWW UGH reaction to finding an anti's post unfiltered on my dash is now putting serious sus on that blog :((( I'm just here to whine at you dats all but yeah antis are ruining so many good things about Fandom I can't even feel good about a relevant post anymore

*commiserating*

I feel ya, the fandom that is supposed to be the place of fun and unwinding being overridden with self-congratulory bullshit is a pet peeve of mine too. 

It is hard to find a balance between ‘ yeah, these issues exist’ and a ‘no, I am not here for that’ and not end up on this or that pitchfork, because we seem to be living in the time and social sphere where daring not to be concerned about the current issue of the week for even one second of the day marks one as a degenerate/racist/sexist/take your pick. It’s the wart marking the witch. And you are expected to prove your creed constantly, to preform to someone’s satisfaction until they deem to absolve you. 

If she floats, she’s a witch. If she drowns, she’s not, but well, the point is moot.  

It’s tiring, god, it’s exhausting - when already so many things are exhausting in the real life we have outside of these fandom spaces. And it gets doubly exhausting once you realise that - it doesn’t matter. None of it matters. No graph showing how many poc characters are NOT being shipped, no list of authors who ship ‘problematic’ ships, not one anon message trying to shame someone into not doing something - NONE OF IT MATTERS. 

NONE. Not one grain of good has come out of it. 

People see a problem and get invested and sometimes the problem is real and needs solution - and very often we are so small and have no resources and we can’t help in any realistic way. So, brain comes up with ways of helping us feel less shitty about out own helplessness and we invest ourselves so deeply into them, because what else can we do? That post, that blog, that call to arms, that callout, that anon message - we are doping something! We are helping! 

We are doing something, right? Right??? 

It’s so hard to admit that not one child was saved by the witch hunt on Ao3, not one minor was saved form grooming by attacking fanfic writers on whatever platform, not one person was saved form abuse by attacking trans people, not one person was helped by the war on the “Q-word”, not one goddamn soul was helped by the anti-bullshit. All it results in is misery and pain and harassment, but hey, at least someone is reacting! - and, hey, these are ‘effects’, right? And we’re after ‘effects’ because at least we are doing something if it has effects, right??  

These movements, these tactics, these people - they are nothing else than kids stomping their feet in their respective kiddy pools and thinking the waves they create change the currents of the real ocean. They imagine they are stopping a tsunami hitting some foreign land when all they do is splash on the people who just want to wet their feet in the same pool. 

Listen. A story. 

In my town there's this guy who will randomly appear in the market square and shout about God and Salvation and how everyone sucks. This recent Christmas he positioned himself right opposite of the charity orchestra and was a nuisance to anyone who wanted to stop for a moment and listen to them playing Christmas carols - to have in this depressing and cold, and busy end of a crap year we have all survived, a moment of respite, of Christmas cheer, a crumb of relief. Usually the orchestra is surrounded by people and kids throwing coins into their box, by folk recording on their phones, etc. No, this this year no one could enjoy a moment of peace, because a nutcase behind tried to overshout the orchestra, so people kept walking, intimidated and annoyed. 

Out of frustration and, I admit, curiosity, I walked up to him and asked why won’t he move over to let the orchestra play - what I got was more shouting. Because listening to Christmas carols was hypocritical without the sprinkling of despair over the state of humanity and Our Sins. 

He wouldn’t engage, he wouldn't speak to me like a person - I was standing two feet form the guy and he was yelling at the top of his lungs so everyone heard him. I was raised Catholic in one of the most Catholic damn countries in Europe, I know what God is about. But, you see, it didn’t matter to the guy, what mattered was that he needed to be heard yelling. This was his attempt at converting people - by yelling in their faces. He was doing something and feeling better for it! 

This  guy was the anti-movement in a real, compact, one-dude pill. Any anti-movement you can think of that picks a flag and then starts to screech in its shadow, because it makes them feel better about themselves. 

As for Kylo...

The hilarious hate towards Kylo fucking Ren of all people? Towards people who ship him? All that misplaced anger at the crappy treatment of the poc actors by Disney and predominantly male ‘fans’ of Star Wars?? Let that sink in - white dudes with money made decisions, white dudes on the internet ganged up on an actress - but nah, dude, the women who write fanfic are the culprit!  We can’t gang up on Disney and we are too afraid of the dudes on Reddit and 4chan, but these girls writing Reylo porn are there and accessible and not scary and not male! We can take them on!  

How is it not hilarious? How?? This level of misdirection and confusion, being so intimidated by the insurmountable task of being angry at a corporation that makes their merch (that they are still buying, because hey, a fan is a fan, who doesn’t want a baby Yoda t-shirt?) that all they can do is to spin around and bite the ankles of the person standing behind them? How is this not hilariously morally bankrupt and so pitifully, tragically human? 

Let the block button become your shield, another good blog will come, don't regret blocking ones you are not sure about. You’re here to relax, you don’t deserve this kind of stress. They will keep screeching, but you keep walking, friend, the orchestra is still there playing your tune, enjoy it. 

#dicks horse #fantasticalmemories

[briek58454521]

Let’s rant about bigotry in media and fake allies.

.Look. I get it. You want to believe that your cartoons, media and celebs are completely perfect darlings that can do no wrong, but let me be frank. I don’t care how much you don’t want to talk about it. I care about the creators who keep inviting the discourse their way through their idiocy. Whenever a creator gets in trouble for doing shit like making jokes about slave hats on a live stream, or including a blackface caricature in an art book, or killing off their gays the very episode they come out or are introduced, there’s always a subset of people who say shit like, “it was a mistake, they didn’t mean it. It kinda gives us as a leftist community a bad name when we keep attacking each other like this”.

Let’s dismantle that. And let’s break this down in three basic points I’ll use throughout. 1. It is not your place to accept an apology that was not for you, especially when in regards to racism, sexism, anti-LGBTA+ bigotry, and anti-semitism. 2. We need to stop lumping in actual criticism with alt-right idiots being shitty about marginalized groups existing, because ultimately, infighting is not the end of the world, and disagreements are not inherently bad. They are a fact of life. 3.  Most importantly of all, just because these people claim to be allies, that does not mean that they are. Because make no mistake. CARTOONS ARE NOT ANY LESS EFFECTED BY THE BIASES OF THE ENVIRONMENTS WHICH PRODUCED THEM THAN ANY OTHER WORK OF ART.

Now. Let’s break down that shit completely.

1. I used those examples as a jumping-off point, but in general, this shit always happens. A creator fucks up, they get criticism which was unquestionably earned, they get rightfully dragged, and the creator uses the backlash to garner sympathy from their audiences and paint their critics in a bad light and whine about Cancel Culture. NOW, I already talked about that in another post, but basically, it doesn’t exist, and is used as a weaponized shield from criticism. 

Thing about all of that as well is when the creators keep bringing up how they didn’t mean it like that. Most people would answer this with, “doesn’t matter, what matters is what you did”, but there’s something else that people don’t talk about. This is usually a bunch of white people excusing this shit. Or otherwise, a bunch of people who weren’t actually affected by the latest controversy. And therein lies the rub. Allies, let me put it this way. WHEN THE SUBJECT OF THE CRITICISM IS ABOUT THE PORTRAYAL OF MINORITIES IN MEDIA, YOU ARE IN NO POSITION TO EXPECT SAID MINORITIES TO FORGIVE THOSE CREATORS WHEN YOU WERE NOT AFFECTED BY IT.

Remember the Lana Del Rey controversy, where her dumbass ended up getting shit for her statement filled with venom towards other artists? Could have been cleared up if she had just accepted that she messed up and didn’t word her statement correctly, but no. She lashed out at the people who told her it was kinda racist to lump a bunch of black female artists into a conglomerate of artists who just, “twerk, cheat, have sex, and get money”, and dismissing feminism as needing to accommodate women “like her, who were more delicate”, perpetuating inadvertently to the idea that black women are less delicate, white women are petite, demure, and need to have a place above the others. AND LOOK, it’s how she responded that sealed it. Accusing her critics of being the actual racists, who hate women, and conflating the criticism with.....ugh....a FUCKING RACE WAR. Do I EVEN need to explain the problem with that?

The point is that it was idiotic of her to assume that she didn’t deserve the criticism because she “technically didn’t mean it”, when ultimately, she wasn’t the victim, she wasn’t the one who ACTUALLY got hurt by all of this, and that most of the criticism WAS NOT ANYWHERE NEAR as vitriolic as Lana accused it of being. And people do this to minorities all the fucking time. Where the praise for the work is what matters, but then they’re just upset and looking to be upset about things when they....sorry, when WE have shit to say about the fuckups. Constantly, minorities are expected to praise bare minimum bullshit lest we have self proclaimed “””””allies””””” get pissy that we aren’t playing along. Well, sorry, but, I think it be time to stop with that shit. It doesn’t matter how pure you think that person is. If the people who are the actual part of the controversy have shit to say about it, MAYBE LISTEN TO THEM instead of trying to force people to accept the apology that wasn’t even yours to accept, nor was it for you to shove in our faces to shut us up. And if you dislike that I’m saying that, just know. That’s exactly what you’re doing when you pull that shit.

2. As simply as I can put it, complaining about how a trans person is portrayed badly is not the same as complaining ABOUT the presence of a trans person, and to lump that shit onto the other pile is dishonest and willfully ignorant. When we keep getting upset about the tone, or upset about, “WAAAH, they said a me-no-like”, and lump that in with the actual facists looking to erase us from the history books, we are doing half of their job for them, and normalizing shit like what I saw the other day, where on Twitter, some asshole complained, “Anime is supposed to be an escape from reality. Adding black people to it kinda ruins the point.”

I’m gonna talk about it in the next point, but for now, understand this. NO ONE says shit like that just out of the blue without having it come from somewhere, and that attitude is all too prevalent.

In cartoons especially, criticism of the NB lizard from She-Ra is not being bigoted towards non-binary people, because the use of a fucking lizard to portray them is the ACTUALLY bigoted thing. And to lump in criticism of that with the criticism of She-Ra not being conventionally attractive enough for men to masturbate to the fucking minor is only going to long-term HARM any discourse. Because having these conversations as well as discussing these issues and educating each other about them is how we AVOID THEM. Criticism is not just a vector for asshole conservatives to be pissy about your existence. It’s also a veritable TREASURE TROVE for how not to fuck your shit up. And when we all get it, we learn. I get it, you don’t want to do shit wrong, but when you do, as everyone will, the backlash will burn itself out, and once you’ve fixed it, people will be very forgiving. Because, and it’s gonna sound mean....THAT’S HOW AUDIENCES WORK. THEY WANT TO FORGIVE YOU FOR WHEN YOU DO SHIT WRONG. So just...fix it. And listen. Yeah, you’ll get called stupid, you’ll get called “moron”, but you will have saved yourself from getting that shit ten times worse later on down the line. BEAR IN MIND, THOUGH, any of you already typing about how that’s enabling cyberbullying under the guise of critique, IT’S NOT. There’s a wealth of difference between the two, and trying to distract from the point with that is just a red herring. So stop with that.

And now....for the biggest one of all.

3. See...here’s the thing. About that anime douche. That doesn’t happen in JUST anime. It’s been around for decades, and has been a thing to this day. The WoW community got upset about womz being in power for the past 15 years, and have gotten on their high horse about black people being in the game, stating that if they were around sooner, maybe it wouldn’t, “SEEM TOO POLITICAL”, with that Asmongold jackass trying to start a second wave of GamerGate because one of the people at Blizzard said, “Black Lives Matter”. Fantasy as a genre has been so rooted in racism, that the inclusion of goblins for the most part is synonymous with anti-semitism towards Jewish people. Captain Marvel was pilloried for the past two years because the mean lady said that shit needs to change and wasn’t too nice, and also, me don’t like her too much. Basically, tone policing over a personality that we still give Howard Stern a platform for. In cartoons, the inclusion of black people is seen as an inherently political opinion. The rumors of Gen 6 Apple Jack possibly having a black voice actress prompted comments such as:

“The thiing with AJ is clearly anti-white/conservatist as a response to Trump America. What is opposite of country redneck female? Of course, and urban black woman.”

“It’s the fact that she’s black that bothers me.”

“Killing a blonde freckled Southern character for some political agenda is the last thing I want to see.”

The news of Velma Dinkley being gay was immediately pounced upon with shit about a homosexual agenda, and constant bullshit about how it was so forced, or whatever. This shit always happens, and is gonna keep happening. You know why?

Because the entertainment industry is not ready to accept minorities. The games industry is not ready to accept minorities. Cartoons are still not ready to accept minorities. They accept them for a moment, until those minorities challenge someone’s ego. Fans embrace a character until they’re a woman, or a POC, or on the spectrum, or LGBTA+. The existence of us is denigrating to these idiots’ escape, not from reality, but from us. It’s bad enough that they have to put up with us in the real world, but even worse that they have to see us in fictional shows that aren’t real.’ Us merely BEING AROUND is a bad thing, and to ask for some improvements is met with bemoaning about agendas.

Supposed allies begin and end their support with how much money we put in their wallets and how much we stroke their egos about how woke they are, and actual allies are lumped in with actual offenders. If we get upset that a show they’ve posited as so enlightening is actually the utter pits and not in any way healthy, they get upset. Tell a Reylo they’re shipping something toxic and dangerous, they’ll get upset and yell racial slurs at John Boyega for sitting next to Daisy Ridley. Say, “Fuck Arthas”, people get upset jump down your throat about how you hate forgiveness. Tell people that the Grinch ought not to be forgiven, people get upset you’re strawmaned about how you hate forgiveness.

They just don’t understand, or care about the essential fact about all of this. As I said earlier. The environments which produce the worst of offenders in these fields, and the problems we hate seeing so much are in no way less affected by the biases that they were cultivated by. And media has never been any more ready to accept minorities as people and as worthy of being portrayed as people than literally anywhere else right now. And speaking up about that is what gets these fake allies mad, especially when they LIKE the media. What makes these people so mad is not the troubling portrayal of POC, or women, or minorities. Not that we are routinely ostracized for existing in cartoons, not that this shit happens at all. They don’t give a flying fuck about any of that. It’s the thing that they have to put up with as a result of that that makes them the most upset.

Criticism. And they don’t like that.

And no matter whether or not these cartoons are made by bootlickers, or this movie was made by a TERF,  or if this creator has a history of blackface, racism, or has made garbage statements about women, if you aren’t nice and considerate enough towards their feelings, you’ll make them, and us, the allies, feel uncomfortable. NO DWAMA, just not too divisive feedback that’s ultimately worthless as it was made purely to try to appease idiots and the people most affected by these issues at the same time, meaning it had to be watered down past the point of no return in order for us to factor it in with our jaded mindsets and worldviews that are the direct cause of the problems we complain about, yet keep exacerbating through our ignorance and unwillingness to change.

If you aren’t like that, and don’t believe you should be lumped in with that, don’t behave as if you are that sort of person. But, even then, if you aren’t...listen to the actual experts. Stop listening to some white guy’s idiotic hot takes about black rep, and actually listen to black people. Listen to trans people instead of some cis white chick with no understanding of trans issues. Stop platforming the worst of offenders within these communities as the bestest ever. And most importantly....

remember that horses don’t exist.

#media #racism #sexism #cartoons #world of warcraft #reylo shippers #fake allies #anti lgbt idiocy #horses don't exist

[thearvariblues]

The Bard And The Wolf - Chapter Seven

(AKA Geraskier in the Metal Band AU you didn’t know you needed)

AKA me desperately trying to catch up my Tumblr with what’s already been posted to AO3. ;)

The masterpost for this fic can be found HERE.

7 – You Stop This, Jaskier

All eyes turned to the door when Jaskier entered the rehearsal room, a big paper cup of coffee in one hand, a paper bag in the other.

“Fifteen minutes late with Starbucks,” Renfri smirked.

“I have two things to say to that, dear heart,” Jaskier said, taking a sip of his coffee. “First, I’m merely three minutes late. And second, I would never ever in my life set foot in a place as wretched as Starbucks, so don’t ever accuse me of something so horrible again!”

“Did you stop for a coffee or not, Jask?” Geralt chuckled.

“No. I stopped for something to eat. The coffee was an afterthought.”

He placed the cup on a little table next to the couch, sat down right next to Geralt and reached into the paper bag, pulling out a big sandwich which he immediately took a big bite of.

“Wow. Your night must have been really taxing,” Lambert laughed.

“Is Ciri around?” Jaskier mumbled.

“She’s walking Roach,” Geralt said.

“Good. In that case, my dears, I can tell you that my night was exquisite. I spent most of it in the middle of a very lovely, well… sandwich. Our fans really do get enthusiastic after a good show!” he grinned, but then he frowned. “Wait, who’s Roach?”

“What do you mean, who’s…” Renfri blinked. “Oh, of course, you haven’t met her yet. Roach is Geralt’s dog. Technically, she’s Roach number two.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said. “Right.”

“She’s a husky,” Eskel added.

“Of course she is. And… She’s coming here with Ciri?” he beamed.

“Yeah. In a few minutes,” Geralt nodded. “But don’t touch Roach. She doesn’t trust strangers. I adopted her a few months ago when Roach number one died. She wasn’t even one year old, but her life must have been really shitty before, so…”

“Poor little thing.”

“Yeah, she’s definitely not like Roach number one,” Renfri sighed. “That was such a sweet girl. This one is like a tornado.”

“But of course Geralt still adores her,” Eskel said.

“Yes. I seem to have a thing for totally unpredictable and crazy individuals,” Geralt smirked. “Jesus, Jask, are you seriously going to wolf down the whole thing? This must be the biggest sandwich mankind has ever seen. How does it even fit in your mouth?”

“Lots of practice.”

“Eating sandwiches?” Lambert said, cocking his eyebrow. “Or stuffing large things into your mouth?”

“The latter,” Jaskier grinned. “And stop giving me that look, Geralt. I’m hungry and I refuse to look like a starving bag of muscle like some of us do.”

“Some of us, Jaskier?” Geralt asked.

“Come on, I saw you getting dressed before the gig yesterday. I mean, yeah, big muscles, ripped body, it’s meant to be sexy, but it only means you should definitely eat more. A little layer of some nice, protective fat would do you good.”

“Don’t waste your breath,” Renfri muttered. “He keeps his body like that because Yennefer liked it.”

“I keep my body like that because I like it,” Geralt growled.

“Well, don’t mind me then,” Jaskier shrugged, getting another bite of his sandwich. “I just tend to like men who are strong and a little bit soft at the same time. Like Eskel here. But that’s just my problem. If you want to look like this, go on. Hey. Hey! That’s my sandwich!”

“You said I should eat more, didn’t you?” Geralt smirked, effortlessly wrestling Jaskier’s snack out of his hands.

“Yes, but I didn’t mean my sandwich, you ass!”

“Too bad,” Geralt said, biting into it. “Oh, this is delicious!”

“So glad you like it,” Jaskier muttered. “I’m hungry over here, you know?”

“Shut it. You already have that layer of nice, protective fat,” Geralt mumbled.

“Yeah, yeah. Didn’t use to, you know?” Jaskier sighed, grabbing his coffee. At least something to soothe his hunger. “I used to be really thin. Always hungry. Because Valdo always used to tell me Oh, Julian, look, those tight pants would look so nice on you, too bad you’re not a size smaller. Oh, Julian, sweetie, look a this guy’s thighs, they don’t even touch each other, isn’t that beautiful? Julian, is that a tiramisu? Yeah, it’s a fucking tiramisu, you ass, and I’ll have as much as I want. Ugh. Can’t believe I wasted two years of my life with that bitch.”

A complete silence fell in the rehearsal room and Jaskier suddenly saw everyone was staring at him with mouths agape.

“I’m sorry,” Lambert finally said, after a few long moments. “Did you say Valdo?”

“Mhmf,” Jaskier muttered, trying to hide his face behind his coffee cup.

“As in Valdo Marx?” Eskel specified.

“Might have,”Jaskier peeped.

“Are you telling us that you dated fucking Valdo Marx for two years?!” Renfri yelled. “And you starved yourself for him?!”

“We broke up three years ago!” Jaskier said, throwing his arms open and nearly knocking the sandwich out of Geralt’s hand. “I was an idiot, okay? I thought I was glad to have found him, thought no one would be ever able to love the real me, blah blah blah. Took me way too long to realize I was being a total idiot and break up with him. He’s hated me ever since and my mother’s yet to speak to me again.”

“Your mother?” Eskel frowned.

“She thought Valdo and I would get married, adopt a kid and I would become a perfect housewife for him,” Jaskier sighed.

“Wow. She doesn’t know you at all, does she?” Renfri chuckled.

“Not in the slightest, honey.”

Lambert shook his head.

“Honestly, I’m still trying to process that someone like you would spend two years fucking that insufferable prick. Valdo Marx. Fuck.”

“Could we maybe stop discussing Valdo fucking Marx?” Geralt grunted. “Has anyone read the reactions to the gig yet? Because I haven’t.”

“Yes. Thank you, my lovely white wolf. Absolutely. Let’s focus on the reviews, because I kind of haven’t had the time yet to...”

The door swung open and a large husky came barging in, heading straight for the couch.

“Roach! Stop!” Ciri yelled behind the dog.

Roach stopped in front of Geralt, sniffed at his sandwich, and then turned her head to Jaskier.

The bard, remembering that the dog didn’t like strangers, avoided her eyes and merely offered her his hand. The next thing he knew, he had a massive dog in his lap and a wet nose was enthusiastically sniffing at his face.

He yelped when a broad tongue licked his nose.

“What was it you said about her not liking strangers?”

“I’ve never seen her do anything like this before, I swear!” Geralt chuckled, taking a coffee cup from Jaskier’s hand so it wouldn’t spill. “Roach, get down. Bad girl.”

The dog gave a tiny, desperate whine.

“I said get down,” Geralt repeated.

Roach turned her body to Geralt, eyed his sandwich and whined again.

“What did we say about begging for food?”

She lowered her head and looked pleadingly at her owner.

“Oh, I love her already,” Jaskier laughed. “Will love her even more when she stops crushing my crotch. Hi, Ciri, by the way.”

“Hi, Jaskier,” the girl replied. “Sorry, dad. I didn’t think she would do that. Where did you get the sandwich?”

“Stole it. Shamelessly!” Jaskier huffed. “Geralt, your dog is heavy as hell, you know it?”

“Roach. Get. The fuck. Down.”

Another whine.

“Oh, dear,” Jaskier chuckled. “Well, can someone at least read me those reviews and make me happy before I die?”

“Don’t you have your own phone?” Geralt asked.

“I do. In my pocket. Underneath your dog.”

“Right. Ciri?”

The girl already had the phone in her hand.

“On it.”

“Good,” Jaskier muttered. “And give me back my coffee, Geralt, because if you decide to steal that too, my chances of survival will grow even lower than they are now!”

“You really are such a drama queen, Jask…

*

“The Bard and the Wolf? What the hell is that?” Geralt frowned after the third (very positive) fan review of their gig. He had already finished Jaskier’s sandwich, and even managed to get Roach down from Jaskier’s lap. That seemed to be a mistake, as the dog clearly decided to hate him for that – judging by the fact that she was currently sitting on the floor by Jaskier’s leg and tapping his hand with her paw every time he had the audacity to stop petting her. She was completely ignoring Geralt’s very existence.

“Oh, that’s a new hasthtag. My creation,” Renfri said. “I needed to tag a pic with you two, and I thought of this...”

“What, instead of The Witcher and the Witch?” Lambert asked.

“And what’s that?” Jaskier asked before he could think better of it.

He should have expected the answer, of course.

“The hashtag people used to use for Geralt and Yennefer,” Eskel explained. “It was her character. A witch.”

“Oh, good,” Jaskier muttered. “Shouldn’t it have been The Witcher and the Bard, then?”

“Doesn’t have the same ring to it,” Renfri shrugged. “Besides, Geralt’s more of a Wolf, really.”

“True,” Jaskier nodded. “But to be honest, I don’t think it’s gonna stick.”

“You’re probably right,” Renfri nodded. “I’ve seen it used like… four times. But everyone calls you The Bard.”

“Perfect,” Jaskier grinned. “What do you think, Roach, isn’t it perfect? No, no, no! Roach! My coffee!”

He shrieked as the dog suddenly turned and jumped back onto his lap, knocking the cup out of his hand.

“Oh, dear, even dogs adore him,” Lambert sighed. “How is that fair?”

“Geralt!” Jaskier yelled. “Geralt, would you help me instead of fucking laughing?!”

“So sorry, dear heart,” Geralt chuckled. “But I think Roach has found her new favorite human.”

“I’m really glad to hear that! Oh, Geralt, you’re so gonna pay for this shirt!”

*

A few hours later, Jaskier was sitting on the couch in his living room, sipping wine and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling through his social media.

He knew he shouldn’t. He knew that it was narcissistic and, well, stupid. But he had to see. Had to convince himself that it hadn’t only been his imagination that afternoon.

He had to convince himself that yes, Kaer Morhen’s fans really did like his mad, cheeky, queer self. There were even a few who claimed that he was an improvement on Yennefer. An improvement! It was a dream come true.

He forced himself to stop and he put his phone down. Took a sip. Picked his phone back up.

He couldn’t help himself.

He gulped when he saw that Ciri had posted a new photo from the rehearsal room. A photo of Jaskier and Geralt sitting on the couch, with Roach on Jaskier’s lap. It must have been shortly after Roach knocked the coffee out of Jaskier’s hand, because Geralt was clearly laughing and Jaskier was just starting to.

Roach meeting @jaskierthebard for the first time. In case you couldn’t tell, she really hates strangers... #thebardandthewolf #andawolf #loveatfirstsight #husky #dogsofinstagram

Jaskier smiled and liked the post, and then kept looking at the picture a little longer.

He really loved Geralt’s expression there. It was so open, so happy and so damn beautiful.

Jaskier sighed, forced himself to put the phone down and closed his eyes, but he couldn’t stop himself from seeing the white haired man’s face.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no,” he whispered to himself. “You stop this, Jaskier. You stop this right now, because if you don’t, you’ll only get in trouble.”

He could stop his thoughts, yes. But he couldn’t stop his heart from beating a little faster.

*

Geralt knocked on his daughter’s door.

“Ciri, it’s eleven already. Lights out.”

He waited, but she didn’t answer, so he opened the door carefully.

The girl was asleep on her bed, dressed in her pajamas, with her laptop next to her.

Geralt took the laptop and the screen lit up. He stopped and blinked. Ciri had a new wallpaper – of Geralt, Jaskier and Roach in the rehearsal room.

He looked at the picture and smiled. He really had never seen Roach fall for someone so fast, but here she was, sitting on the bard’s lap, happy as ever.

And Jaskier…

Geralt shut the laptop and shook his head to clear it.

No. He wasn’t going to go there. No way.

He placed the laptop on a table, covered Ciri with a blanket and kissed her forehead.

“Good night, honey,” he whispered to her. “Sweet dreams.”

He turned off the light and closed the door behind himself.

Continue witch Chapter Eight

#geraskier #jaskier x geralt #geralt x jaskier #the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #witcher fanfiction #the bard and the wolf #my fics

[ultimate-angst]

Can you please do a scenario where Shuichi is dying and Kaede does everything in her power to save him, but ultimately fails he spends his final moments in a lot of pain? Bonus if Kaede indirectly lead to Shuichi’s death. Not really killed him herself, but she’s the main reason he’s in his position.

First request!! I’m still just getting back into writing, so there may be some mistakes. The setting is up to you, but it’s either post-game or in a non-game AU. I hope this is to your liking, anon. :)

It’s quite long, so I put it under a cut!

I’m Sorry I Couldn’t Save You (Saimatsu)

TW: character death, lots of pain (emotional and physical), probably inaccurate medical stuff (what, do I look like a human doctor to you?)

Shuichi had never really been a fan of hiking. It was always too hot, or there were too many bugs, or he got tired too fast, or some imagined predator would scare him back to civilization. His mind was always able to find some excuse to turn back, to return to the cool air and safety of their shared apartment.

Kaede, however, was stubborn as a mule and a master at talking him into situations he’d rather have no part in. It’s my birthday, she’d begged, doe-eyed and pouting, I’ve always wanted to go hiking. I don’t have anyone else to go with. That last bit was a lie, but he’d caved in to her demands anyways. He never could resist her.

That was how he’d ended up at a nearby trail, hat settled firmly on his head and a rucksack full of supplies on his back. Kaede sported a triumphant grin, squeezing his (admittedly sweaty) hand as they prepared to start their trek. 

“Come on, Shuichi, this’ll be fun,” she insists, starting to tug him along. Although embarrassed at the contact, he doesn’t fight it, plodding alongside her with all the enthusiasm of a wet dish rag. 

“I’m sure it will be,” he replies. He’s not sure if it’s to appease her or to reassure himself, but it sounds like the right thing to say either way. She seems satisfied with the response, and they fall into a steady pace as they make their way up the trail.

The atmosphere around them is calm, peaceful, quiet aside from the chirping of birds and Kaede’s gentle humming. She looks so content, and suddenly Shuichi doesn’t care that it’s too bright outside, that it’s too hot under his hat, that the pack is getting heavy on his back, that they’re slowly getting farther from the nearest town. Kaede is joyful and practically bouncing on her feet and still holding his hand, and that’s all he can bring himself to care about.

He listens as she points out the birds and squirrels that cross their path, the flowers she thinks are pretty, the trees she wishes she could climb. Occasionally, she pulls him to the side to examine a butterfly or a pretty beetle, and though he doesn’t want to be out longer than they have to, he doesn’t mind the little pauses, the moments where she grips his hand just a little tighter as she pulls him to her side.

They reach the marked halfway point, and Kaede pauses to awe at the beautiful valley below them. She releases his hand, and Shuichi doesn’t tell her that he misses the warmth as he watches her pull out her phone. She snaps a few photos of the view, then turns to him with a bright grin. 

“Here, let me take your picture.”

The words throw him off guard, and he’s left stammering for a response. She giggles, reddening his cheeks further.

“Come on, please? I promise I won’t post it, I just want a picture of you,” she pleads, batting her lashes in a way she knows he’ll give in to. And he does, sighing in resignation as he averts his gaze.

“Alright, fine.” His voice wavers against his wishes, but Kaede doesn’t seem to care, perking up immediately with a little squeal of joy. 

“Yay, thank you! Okay, I guess you should stand here?” She guides him closer to the edge of the path, squeezing his arm reassuringly when she notices his apprehensive gaze.

“Don’t worry, you’re fine, just don’t move too far back.” She takes a step back towards the path, studying him. Lifting her phone, she instructs him to smile. He obliges, tipping his hat back and flashing a shy grin. He feels a bit awkward, and he hates having his picture taken, but maybe he doesn’t mind as long as she’s the one behind the camera. 

“Okay,” she says when she’s finished, lowering the device and skipping towards him, “now one of us!” She slides into place beside him, casually throwing an arm around his shoulder and pulling him against her side. His mind freezes momentarily, and he can feel his face heating up at the sudden close proximity. He forces his thoughts back to the present moment just as she raises her phone, trying to find a good angle. She grins, and she doesn’t even need to remind him this time as he flashes the camera a sheepish smile. She snaps a few pictures and then lowers the phone. Quickly, she presses a chaste kiss to his cheek before pulling away.

He feels his entire chest heat up, breath catching in his throat. The sudden release of his shoulders causes him to stumble, and he tries to find footing behind him. 

He doesn’t have time to react. His heart drops to his stomach as his foot finds nothing but air. He blindly reaches out for something, anything, to hold on to, but he’s left flailing wildly as he falls backwards.

The first impact as he falls forces a strangled yelp from his throat, tears burning his eyes as pain shoots through his back to his extremities. The next impact hurts even more, and so it continues, each one stinging more than the last until he finally blacks out.

The first thing he registers when he wakes up is pain. His whole body burns with it, and the sudden force of it all causes him to gasp. The motion sends a stabbing pain through his chest, and he lets out a low whine, his breathing shallow.

He doesn’t even attempt to open his eyes until he hears a frantic voice crying his name, accompanied by footsteps and the skidding of rocks. The sound is unfocused, fuzzy, and he tries to push back the pounding of his skull as he attempts to open his eyes. The sunlight stings, and he squints at his surroundings as he tries to take them in.

He’s laying mostly on his side, facing a wall of rock and dirt. If he shifts his gaze a bit, he can see bushes and other small plants. Something on his head is warm. He starts to move his head, and his vision darkens as the pain returns tenfold. He whines, immediately squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to make it stop.

The whine is quickly followed by the same voice repeating his name, more urgently this time. He can’t seem to remember who it is, but it’s so familiar. He responds immediately to the voice, letting out a high whimper. The footsteps speed up, and through the haze of pain he can hear them growing closer.

“Shuichi? Oh my god, Shuichi!” The footsteps skid to a halt behind him, and he can hear how heavy her breathing is. He winces as a gentle hand is placed on his shoulder, a soft noise rising from him.

“Shuichi, can you hear me?” He groans in response, his mouth unable to form a proper response. He hears what is either a sigh or a sob, but his fuzzy mind can’t figure out which. “Oh thank god, you’re awake, you’re alive, you’re-” The words turn into a choked sob.

“I’m gonna take off the bag and turn you over, okay?” The voice is shaky but kind, and he lets out a small sound in acknowledgement. He feels the pressure on his shoulders being relieved, the weight against his back disappearing. The hand that had been on him slips to his upper back, just below the base of his neck, and the other moves to the front of his shoulder, applying a gentle pressure as she rolls him onto his back. 

The movement sends a sharp pain through his chest, and the strangled gasp that escapes his throat quickly turns into a sob. He can hear the voice apologizing repeatedly, smoothing their hand over his shoulder in an attempt to soothe him. One hand reaches up, tenderly brushing the hair from his face. It feels sticky, and he can’t think well enough to wonder why.

“Oh, Shuichi, I’m sorry, I’m so so sorry,” the voice sobs. The hand presses against his cheek - gently, as if terrified to hurt him further. He forces himself to breathe shakily through the pain, wishing it would subside quicker. As soon as it’s back at a manageable level, he cracks one eye open, squinting at the light before adding another.

It takes a moment for his brain to realize who the girl above him is, and he doesn’t even register the whimper slipping past his lips.

“Kaede-” His voice is pitiful, pleading. Pleading for what? For her to help him? For her to take his pain away? Her thumb rubs his cheek, wiping away the tears that are starting to build.

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” The hands pull away as she sits back, turning her attention to their bag. “I’m gonna call for help, okay? Just hang in there. You’ll be okay, okay?”

He closes his eyes, listening to her search for her phone. He breathes shallowly through the pain, his chest burning with each inhale and exhale. 

After a few moments, he hears a groan. Another moment passes, followed by a frustrated cry. He can hear Kaede’s breathing quicken, her voice shaking as she holds back tears.

“No, no, no, no, no, no, this can’t be happening......” Shuichi pries his eyes open, glancing over at his companion. She’s frantic, pulling at her hair with one hand as the other holds her phone. She’s biting her lip, tears sliding down her cheeks, her face flushed with panic and frustration. The cycle of quiet and panic continues until she’s at her breaking point, letting out a sharp cry as she throws her phone in the bag. She hangs her head, her hands grasping tightly at her hair, allowing herself to fall apart for a moment.

It hurts him to watch, especially knowing that he can’t move to comfort her. His voice is low and strained as he speaks her name, but it makes her jolt noticeably, her head shooting up to look at him. Guilt washes over her features, and she quickly moves over to his side to soothe him.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, there’s no signal down here,” she sobs. Her hand rubs his shoulder in a feeble attempt to calm him, but that doesn’t stop the panic that shoots through him.

No signal. No help. He’s going to die here, scared and hurting and-

He’s jolted from his thoughts as she slips her hand behind his shoulder. She’s wiped the tears from her face, and she looks like she’s trying hard to stay strong.

“Shuichi, you’re going to have to move. I’m going to get us back to the trail and out of here, okay? This is going to hurt, but I can’t call for help and I’m not leaving you here alone.” She pauses, allowing him to take in her words. Her hand smooths over his shoulder, hoping to keep him calm. “I’m going to start sitting you up, okay?” She waits for him to give her a pained nod, then starts to move. She shifts towards his head, both of her hands moving to his shoulders. Slowly, trying to be as gentle as possible, she starts to lift his torso, moving him to a seated position.

If he was hurting before, he can’t even fathom what threshold of pain he just crossed. His chest burns, the pain shooting through his body as he gasps for breath. Kaede doesn’t move her hands from his shoulders even after he’s sitting, rubbing her thumbs over the cloth of his shirt and muttering reassurances. Once his breathing becomes less ragged, she shifts.

“We’re gonna try to stand, okay?” Shuichi feels panic run through him, knowing how much this will hurt. He knows he doesn’t have another choice, though. He doesn’t want to die here. He feels himself nod.

Kaede is quiet for a moment, and one hand disappears from his shoulder. He hears the rustling of their bag, and he figures Kaede has put it on herself. After a moment, the hand returns to his shoulders, gently pressing against him.

“Ready?” He forces himself to nod, and he feels her arms slip under his armpits, starting to lift him up. It strains the ache in his ribs, and he instinctively cries out, tears burning in his eyes. 

“I know,” she says, trying to soothe him. “I know, I know, I’m sorry.” She remains steady and strong behind him, lifting him to his feet. As soon as he’s mostly upright, she wraps one arm around him, the other hand guiding his arm around her shoulders. He’s gasping for breath, sobbing through the pain in his ribs. It’s getting harder and harder to breathe, and the realization of this causes panic to shoot down his spine. His shallow breathing grows rapid, and the tears begin to fall, dampening his shirt and the dirt below him. Kaede’s free hand finds his shirt, pressing against him to try and soothe his panic.

“Kae- I can’t- I can-” He hardly manages to push out the words before a cough bubbles up his throat. The force of it burns his chest and his throat, and he sobs as he inhales. Another one tears at his throat, and they continue to come until he can hardly catch a breath between them. He vaguely registers Kaede starting to panic, and he feels himself being lowered back to the ground. The pain shoots back through him as he sits, his back propped up against the wall of rock. Once he’s settled, Kaede removes her bag, digging around before pulling out a bottle of water.

“Hey, okay, breathe, Shuichi, can you do that? Just breathe for me.” He feels a hand on him, rubbing his shoulder gently. He tries to do as instructed, forcing back the rising coughs and drawing in a shaky breath. Light coughing pushes its way through as he exhales, but it starts to calm down enough that breathing doesn’t feel like a fight. He’s exhausted now, though, the exertion taking whatever energy he might’ve had. He becomes acutely aware of the taste of iron on his tongue.

“Here, drink some of this, okay?” He feels the rim of the bottle pressing against his lips, and he parts them, swallowing the water that pours out as Kaede tips the bottle back. The cool liquid helps soothe his throat some, but it’s not long before he coughs again, spilling some on his shirt. Kaede is quick to pull the bottle away, screwing the lid back on and putting it back in the bag. Shuichi gazes at her through teary eyes, his vision becoming fuzzy. Kaede is watching him, looking worried and scared and thoughtful, and he accepts the moment of silence as she thinks.

“I’m gonna go back up the trail,” she says slowly, sounding for the first time uncertain with her decision, “and see if I can catch a signal up there. You stay here and rest, okay?” He feels himself nodding slowly, though the movement hardly registers. His eyelids flutter.

“I’ll be right back, okay? I won’t be long. Just hang in there for me.” Her hand presses gently against his shoulder, soothing and warm. He wishes she didn’t have to go.

“I’m going to leave this here. Just in case you need anything from it.” He vaguely registers a weight against his side, and he figures it’s their bag. 

A hand brushes his hair from his face, and soft lips press against his forehead. He’d be embarrassed if he weren’t about to pass out. 

“I love you, Shuichi. You’ll be okay. Just hang in there.” Her voice is distant, foggy, and he exhales slowly as his eyes fall shut. His ribs still ache, pain hitting him with every shallow breath, but her words bring enough warmth to soothe him momentarily.

And just like that, her warmth is gone, her footsteps retreating as she runs back towards the trail. He feels himself falling, darkness clouding his thoughts, until he falls unconscious once more.

When Kaede finally returns, paramedics in tow, she’s quick to rush to his side, her eyes scanning over him to make sure he’s okay. She glances over the blood dried on his head, the red staining his right side, the scrapes and bruises decorating his arms and legs.

The last thing she notices is how still his chest is. Her heart drops, and her whole body goes cold. Without thinking, her hands find his shoulders, squeezing them worriedly, before sliding up to his cheeks. She cups his face, tears blurring her vision as she sobs, pleading with him to wake up, to open his eyes, to do anything at all.

Choked sobs turn into hysterical crying as an EMT pulls her away, giving the other paramedics room to examine the bloodied boy. Her chest feels so tight that she thinks she’s going to burst, and she screams as if that’s going to relieve the pressure. She can’t bear to think that Shuichi, her Shuichi, is gone, dead, that she’d left him to suffer his painful fate alone.

That final thought is what breaks her. He died alone. No one there to comfort him, to hold his hand, to wipe his tears and hold him close as he passed. 

She was supposed to be there for him through thick and thin, through sickness and in health. And she’d failed him.

#for anyone curious: his cause of death was a punctured lung caused by broken ribs #shuichi saihara #saihara shuichi #kaede akamatsu #akamatsu kaede #saimatsu #writing #danganronpa #danganronpa imagines #danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 killing harmony #ndrv3 #death #death tw #i did cry writing this #imagine #mod hajime

[is-this-a-skam-account]

Shelter Chapter 1 by shawnie1718 (me) on ao3

Drummer!Lucas/Model!Eliott

Omega!Lucas/Alpha!Eliott

It’s that fateful Instagram story which helps connect a certain Omega and a certain Alpha.

(Someone asked me if I posted it on my tumblr because they couldn’t see the photos so here we are!)

———

It was that fateful Instagram story that Lucas’s friend Yann had posted which would later change Lucas’s life. It was only fifteen seconds long. The video itself was jerky and fuzzy, so it didn’t do much in the viewing department. But there in the center of the frame was Lucas, jamming out in the street with bins scattered around him. The jamming session had been totally unprompted. Lucas and Yann had walked up to a street performer as he was playing on his “set of drums.” Lucas had commented something which prompted the performer to ask “would you like to play?” Lucas hesitated and it was Yann who actually pushed him to perform. So Lucas got up there and began to play a simple beat, pretty soon mixing it up and playing more advanced rhythms. Lucas thinks he looks stupid in the video, with his backpack slung around his back and hair flopping around as he jumped. But Yann argues that “that’s what gives it character!” And of course his friend claims that he brought on Lucas’s rise to fame.

Lucas’s following on Instagram blew up when the video went viral. Everyone began wondering who the sexy drummer was that could create awesome rhythms totally unprompted. So, Lucas decided to feed a growing fan base a video of him playing the drums upside down. What else was a man to do? The internet went wild. Lucas didn’t really understand why, but he took it. Lucas then did a follow up video as a thank you, and decided to share with his fans his love for playing guitar and singing.

Thus, he earned the title of the “French Cutie Who Can Do Anything.”

Then came the night Lucas and Yann had been chilling in Lucas’s apartment (which he shares with two other people. Yann always gets upset at him for not getting an apartment of his own “since you have enough money!” But Lucas likes sharing a space. Plus, living with another Alpha and Omega is comforting.) He had been on multiple press tours by this point, and had just finished with his USA tour which hit the main cities such as LA and New York. But it felt nice to be back in Paris, in his apartment, nursing a crappy beer with a French TV show on in the background.

He was mindlessly scrolling through Instagram, Yann doing the same but on the other side of the couch, when he suddenly got a notification. Lucas frowned, he thought he had his push notifications for Instagram turned off. He slid over to his messages and read the profile name. Srodulv? How do you even pronounce that? Sro-deulv? Shrodulvsjdn? Like what?

Lucas shoved his phone into his friends face, “do you recognize that name?”

Yann narrowed his eyes at the screen, “the ‘srodulv’ one?” Lucas gaped at him, how did he pronounce that so well? Yann continued, “nah, but you can click on the profile.”

Lucas was about to protest but Yann beat him to it, already tapping on the phone screen to pull up the account. Yann shoved Lucas’s phone back into his face before going back to continue mindlessly scrolling through Instagram. Lucas went immediately to the profile picture and ho- holy shit this guy was hot. His eyes trailed down to the bio where it read “elite model/actor 🇮🇹” Ah well that explains the hotness level.

Lucas continued scrolling to look through the photos. It was obvious the guy was an Alpha, from his air of confidence to his rather dominant features, like how tall he was or his sharp jawline. I bet that jawline could cut glass... Lucas shook himself out of his thoughts and decided to start from the bottom. It started off with some odd posts that didn’t seem to really fit together, some drawing and some videos of old animations. But slowly it turned into more headshots and posts of that sort, probably as he became more into his modeling career. Lucas clicked on one post which caught his eye. Lucas wasn’t sure if he was drooling as he looked into the steely gray eyes. Jesus, is he even real?

Lucas meant to click on the exit button, once, twice. You liked the picture! Lucas felt his heart stop. Nooooo. He looked down to see the date. Lucas wanted to chuck his phone at the wall. Three years ago. Fuck. No getting out of this one.

Lucas began panicking and hitting Yann on the shoulder “bro, mec, ow abuse!” Yann yelled. Lucas ignored his friends remark and shoved his phone back into his friends hands. Yann took a few moments to catch up through evaluating the phone. There was no way Lucas could voice what he had just done. He was too busy trying to fold in on himself. He heard Yann laugh and mumble a “duuude...”

“No, no!” Lucas said frantically and grabbed the phone from his friend, “don’t ‘duuude’ me! HELP me!”

Yann shrugged, “I mean, he’s a model right? He probably gets thousands of likes a day. He probably didn’t even notice.”

That helped calm Lucas a little. Yeah, maybe he didn’t notice. His hopes were crushed, however, when we got another notification. @srodulv sent you a message!

Lucas hovered over the message for a few minutes, really it felt like centuries, before deciding to open it. He first saw the photo @srodulv had sent him. It was a drawing of a small hedgehog sitting at a set of drums, spikes going everywhere. And another small sketch of the same hedgehog with a guitar in hand. Lucas smiled at the photo despite his efforts to repress his smile. He then looked down to see the next message

@srodulv: like what you see?

Lucas wanted to go run...somewhere. No, what he really wanted to do was to just crater in on himself until he was nonexistent.

“Shit, he just messaged me again.” Lucas finally mentioned to his friend.

Yann huffed and sat up from his position on the couch to look over at the phone.

“So? Message him back?”

“Are you crazy?” Lucas squeaked.

Yann laughed, “uh, no. I mean, he’s a model right? Maybe being his friend could help boost your career!” Lucas eyes his friend, “also not that I’d date him, but man those eyes...”

“Okay, okay, get off me.” Lucas said grumpily and shoved his friend off his shoulders.

Lucas hadn’t really been into anyone ever since his crush on Yann. He still wasn’t out to his friends, or the internet. (Though he will say the internet is onto him. They are much smarter than his friends. The internet has speculated that he’s actually an omega despite the fact that he uses suppressants. They help him appear more beta like, especially in person.) He’s come to terms with his sexuality and secondary gender himself, but taking the step into the public eye is a large step. Well, more like a large jump. Especially with how much his life is on display to the world.

When he first presented as an Omega at 15, he was scared. He saw what happened to his mom, who was also an Omega. He loves his mom, he really really does. But he just doesn’t want to end up like her. So, he started taking suppressants. Luckily, his dad wasn’t against getting the prescription, because he was ashamed of having a male Omega as a son. So they agreed to keep that secret between them. That is, until Lucas moved in with Mika. He had to tell him about his secondary gender mainly because of his heats. That would have been a rude awakening for Mika if he were to walk in on Lucas. Lucas usually forces himself into heat, which means he stops taking his suppressants every couple months and sets aside a week for it to happen. He hates his heats. He hates how he becomes so needy, but at the same time he wishes he had an Alpha who could actually satisfy that neediness. Braving heats alone is not an easy task. Every time, it feels like his inner Omega is trying to rip itself from his skin, clawing at it, whining constantly. But it’s better than having an Alpha to control his every move.

Lucas pulls himself out of his thoughts and glances at his friend who is back on his phone, watching...is that a compilation video of dogs catching frisbees?

Lucas takes a deep breath, opening up Instagram.

@lucallemant: well I like the drawing. I suppose the artist isn’t bad to look at either.

He sets his phone to the side, heart pounding. Suddenly, his phone bings. He wasn’t expecting a response so quickly.

@srodulv: I would hope not.

Lucas felt like punching himself in the face he was so anxious.

@lucallemant: so...why a hedgehog?

@srodulv: maybe because someone always has such unruly hair. And maybe because someones nose just looks so boop-able.

Lucas is glad @srodulv let’s the change of subject slip by. But did he just say his nose was...boop-able?

@lucallemant: excuse me, what did you just say?

@srodulv: I think you heard what I said.

@lucallemant: heard? I didn’t hear anything?

@srodulv: you know what I meant! You’re mean... :(

@lucallemant: haha I’m sorry I’m sorry.

@srodulv: so do you accept my compliment on your nose?

Lucas smiled to himself, pretending to rub at his lips to make it seem discreet.

@lucallemant: I suppose I have to. And may I have the honor of knowing the name of the person who gave me such a nice compliment?

@srodulv: where are my manners?! I’m Eliott

@lucallemant: Lucas. Though I suppose you already knew that.

@srodulv: at least I know now for sure that your name is really Lucas. Not just “French Cutie Who Can Do Anything.”

@lucallemant: oh god that is going to haunt me forever, isn’t it?

@srodulv: haha I’m afraid so.

Lucas pauses before saying: so you’re a model then? What’s a model doing drawing ME of all people in fan art.

@srodulv: cmon if anyone deserves fan art it’s you!

Lucas blushes and tries to swipe it away before Yann sees.

@srodulv: I suppose I draw because it’s an outlet of some kind.

@lucallemant: that’s awesome. Well, since my fursona is apparently a hedgehog, do I get to know yours?

@srodulv: haha you know I would like to think of them more as soul animals, but thanks for that thought. My “fursona” is a raccoon.

@lucallemant: a raccoon?

@srodulv: yeah! They wear masks. 🦝

“Dude, quit smiling at your phone like that. You’re freaking me out.” Yann mumbles from beside Lucas, pulling him out of his little Eliott and Instagram bubble.

“Sorry...” Lucas said before letting his gaze trail back on his phone. He saw Yann roll his eyes, but Lucas just brushed it off.

@lucallemant: so how did a model such as yourself stumble upon me?

@srodulv: I couldn’t let a pretty face like yours slip away, could I?

@lucallemant: try again, this time without flirting.

@srodulv: ouch getting called out lol. But I suppose I was in a rough patch and your video sort of helped pull me out.

@lucallemant: which video?

@srodulv: that’s a surprise ;)

Lucas lets a smile take up his lips. His eyes drifted up to the time. Holy- it’s already 1:30 am? He’s gotta go to bed. Classes tomorrow. Thanks college.

@lucallemant: I have to go :( classes early tomorrow.

@srodulv: aw man, you’re still in high school?

@lucallemant: college actually

@srodulv: oh! What are you studying? (Last question for the night and then I’ll have to come to terms with our conversation ending D: )

Lucas snorted a laugh: I’m a bio major. (And I’m sorryyy! I wish I could keep talking too)

@srodulv: then show me how sorry you are. Meet me in Paris when I get back from Japan?

Lucas chewed at his bottom lip. Should he trust this guy? He is an Alpha...

But what’s the worst that could happen...right? Eliott seems like a nice enough guy. Lucas lets his inner Omega instincts take over on deciding what to do.

@lucallemant: sounds like a plan. When do you get back?

@srodulv: it’s a date! I get back in a month!

@lucallemant: looking forward to it. Goodnight, E.

@srodulv: goodnight, Lulu.

Lucas hugs his phone to his chest.

It’s a date!

#skam france #if someone could tell me how to do the read more feature that would be 10/10 #skam #skamfr #eliott demaury #elu

[maddmuses]

Responding to the Conan thing, there seems to be a lot of "OH MY GOSH YOU'RE SO EXHAUSTING STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT SHOWS/MOVIES/COMICS/ETC" backlash. Which I think is dumb to be honest. Why do you care if I rant? If you like the show, movie, comic, game, whatever then that's fine it shouldn't bother you if I don't because people are different. Just ignore the complainers or maybe have a conversation stating your opinions to them. If they try and be an obnoxious troll then that's on them.

lol so here’s some real tea here, so let me use a mutou icon for it

That’s this anon’s message @ who I’m about to talk about because not only is it very valid, it’s very true.

Incoming lengthy rant about fandom, art, creators, creative works, and fan culture as a whole, under the cut.

So a prevailing group of issues in fandom, artistic communities, fan communities, and the like is interpretation of critical analysis, difference in taste,  simple dislike of a work, and malicious mudslinging. Once upon a time, people were very good at drawing distinctions between these, and being able to call differences between them out.

However, with trolling, changes in the times, and the general social landscape shifting, it’s become more difficult for some people to be able to tell these things apart. 

A big issue is first seen in some communities when a creator, or group of them, decides that they do not want any sort of criticism to exist in their community. Barbara Dunkelman had a misstep in April regarding this, and did a very poor job defending her position through the exchange:

Here Barbara initially posts a tweet that is a more diplomatic variant of “don’t like, don’t watch” which as we all know in fanfiction communities indicates that the creator is simply not ready to take any sort of criticism, constructive or otherwise, on their work.

Whether this was fully what she wished to communicate or not is hard to tell, since Twitter is such a bad platform for conveying long, complex, thoughts or opinions in a single post. But she does later go on to contradict herself, by indicating the she thinks criticism is valid, despite already saying that negative opinions ruin a product’s quality for others. Other comments in this same thread point out this fallacy, and it’s an indication of the problem in some cases. People like Barbara can’t tell the difference, although in her case the team on RWBY is often flooded with fan reception, so it can certainly feel overwhelming.

I don’t speak to the validity of artists who accept and don’t accept different kinds of criticism because it’s complicated, and certain people have different reasons for producing a creative work. I certainly don’t publish my writings on this blog for anyone’s approval, but for my own sanity and creative honing. But ultimately, the point of me even bringing this up is that Barbara DOES group together dislike, negative critical analysis, difference in taste, and mudslinging all into one, and says we shouldn’t do any of it. Is this valid? No, but it does indicate the root of the bigger topic.

Fans who see this type of dialogue often then assume, or make the connection (especially in younger fans who are still developing at a much faster rate and might hold onto these opinions even subconsciously for much longer than an adult might) that creators don’t like criticism. If criticism is something a creator doesn’t like, then criticism itself must be bad. Why would criticism be bad?

Recently I was removed from a youtuber’s discord server by a moderator for criticizing boku no hero academia’s anime adaptation, specifically the modification of the character’s body types to be fairly uniform, particularly in the pool episode, but it’s an issue that people on the internet draw all the time. A particularly glaring example is Ochaco in the cheerleading scenes of the anime, vs. the same scenes in the manga. Her body type is modified extremely, for little apparent reason other than to pander to the male gaze. That doesn’t save time, work, or money, and in fact was probably more costly in the long-run to do.

Animation is an expensive and complex process, this is true, and even poor quality animations could have had a lot of work put into them, but limitations of the team, timeframe, and budget, and in many cases this is the fault of the industry, and not the animators themselves. But at the end of the day, if a product is still of a poor quality, or makes glaringly bad creative decisions for reasons that you can’t really discern, it’s bad, in my opinion.

Apparently this is not the case, and any criticism of an artist is bad and garbage because it invalidates whatever hard work DID go into the product. I don’t feel this way, I feel like if others still enjoy the work then there’s validity to what was done, and it it did anything for anyone, then art does what it’s supposed to do.

If art can touch one person, then it’s done its job.

However, fan opinion is not this, and that in fact speaking poorly of a work or a decision is a malicious attempt to ruin it for others. And I think that’s where Conan’s skit is coming from, ironic as it may be, the perspective of those who feel that the complaints and criticisms of the Game of Thrones season/series finale is somehow malicious and/or whining. It’s misguided, because a lot of the critique is valid, and comes from a place of disappointment. And it’s okay to be disappointed by things if they don’t meet your expectations, it’s human to not like when things don’t go the way we anticipate them going.

However, on the other end, there are remarks like Game of Thrones had been a waste of time thanks to the last season, and that there should be a remake of the last season lead by GRRM and etc.

These types of criticisms aren’t really criticisms as much as it’s mudslinging. Are the feelings from similar places? Yes, but the latter is decidedly more needlessly hurtful, and often have the qualities of something more entitled, almost as if the person writing that post is somehow an owner of the media that they enjoy. Unfortunately enjoying art doesn’t make you an owner of that art, and the creator’s decisions aren’t ever recourse for you to attack them, or anyone who worked on that art.

And ultimately you don’t have to be a super-fan to not like GoT’s last seasons. Regular fans who have taste can hate it too ;)

#Conan #Game of Thrones #Rooster teeth #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #The Supermun (OOC) #ranting under the cut #How I see things (discourse)

[solastia]

Beneath The Surface | 5

Chapters: [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Pairing: Jung Hoseok x Reader

Word Count: 5,746

Genre & Warnings: Angst, very sad Hobi Hobi ( I feel like that should be an actual warning lol), some fluff, Jisoo is an annoying bitch and calls everyone Oppa and Unnie, obviously cussing because it’s me. This is mostly an MC character growth chapter, where Sunflower’s past gets resolved so she can move on and be more open to possibilities in her future. 

Notes: I really hate making my Hobi sad, so I hope you guys realize how much work went into this chapter. I literally made myself cry. 

“Hold up, she said what?”

Hoseok gawked in disbelief at Bang PD. He really hoped this was a fucking nightmare because he was ready to wake up. 

“Hoseok, she already told me everything, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t act dumb. I just wish you would have come to me with this sooner so we would have a more concrete game plan. For now, we just have to post a couple of pictures and maybe have Jisoo show up at a concert or something. We’ve already made the official announcement on Twitter.” Bang PD sighed and rubbed his temples like he was forming a migraine. Hoseok felt like he might be developing one as well. 

Bang PD looked at Hoseok with such a disappointed gaze as he waved a paper in the air that he felt like a worm, even if he was innocent of this. 

Bang PD cleared his throat and read the paper. 

“As the leader of Hypnotic, I feel like it is my duty to come clean with any personal matters that may affect my group. So I am happy to announce that I am officially dating Jung Hoseok of BTS and that I will be making it public knowledge.”

“But none of it is true!” Hoseok yelled, slapping his open palm against the desk. He was just so frustrated. Why wouldn’t anyone listen? “I’ve never even said anything to her beyond hello and goodbye. I’ve never been alone with her, I’ve never touched her, and I am certainly not dating her.” 

“Hoseok, can you really blame me for believing this? You’re literally still on lockdown because you got caught sneaking out to see a girl. I hate having to treat you guys like kids, but it is for the good of the entire group. Now we have to deal with this. Hopefully, the fans won’t freak out too much and just accept it. Give it at least a few months, and we’ll announce a split if you’re still set on it.” 

“Of course I’m still set on it. I don’t know or like her. Please, don’t make me do this! Just say it was a mixup or a misunderstanding! I never ask you for anything! The girl that I’m on lockdown for, she cant see this! I’m with her, not Lee Jisoo.” Hoseok pleaded, unable to control the tears anymore. 

Bang PD quietly sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, Hoseok. It’s already been announced. As far as the world is concerned, you’re dating Lee Jisoo.”

Hoseok crumbled into the desk chair, shoving his face into his hands as he sobbed. He was so close to being done with everything. So sick of feeling like he wasn’t good enough, sick of not being able to live like a fucking human. And now...now they were taking away his hope. His Sunflower. 

“Don’t be afraid to stand a little closer, you two. This is a couple photo after all.” The photographer chuckled as he pushed Hoseok and Jisoo closer together. 

Hoseok was so uncomfortable, and he’d never been so close to punching a woman in his life. He’d been practically choking on his rage since the moment she’d step foot in the office. Her smug strut and overconfident smirk had him seeing red. He didn’t understand. Why him? She could have pulled this stunt with any of them. Why the hell did she pick him? He’d never done anything to encourage her or piss her off that he knew of. He didn’t know when they’d get a chance to talk alone, but when they did, she’d learn he wasn’t all sunshine and smiles. 

“Achoo!”Jisoo sneezed delicately. Followed by a sniffle, then two more mouse-like sneezes. Hoseok glared down at her only to see her gaze narrowed in on the sunflower pinned to his shirt. 

“I’m terribly sorry, Hoseok Oppa, but that flower has to go. I’m allergic.” Jisoo batted her eyelashes up at him, and his scowl deepened. No way in hell. 

He ignored her and focused on the photographer. He saw her fake smile start to slip a little from the corner of his eye and gained a little bit of satisfaction from that. He tried to zone out enough to where he couldn't hear the annoying sniffling. She could deal with being uncomfortable for a few damn minutes considering she’s fucking with his life. 

“Jisoo, why does it look like you’re crying?” The photographer asked, walking up to them with a slight frown. “I can’t shoot with you looking like that.” 

“It’s just that I’m allergic and can’t be around flowers. Hoseok Oppa has a sunflower on his shirt.” She responded quietly, almost sounding apologetic. 

“Ah, I see. Hoseok, as charming as you look with your flower, we'll have to get rid of it to get through this,” the photographer sighed. 

Hoseok was about to fight to keep it when he saw Manager Sejin shake his head from behind the photographer. Hoseok dropped his head in defeat. Sejin was under orders to add another day to his lockdown everytime he acted out during this whole debacle. With a trembling hand and a weary heart, Hoseok unpinned his sunflower and gave it to Sejin to hold onto for the duration of the shoot. He couldn’t help feeling like it was almost symbolic. 

Seeing Jisoo’s satisfied expression as he got back into position pissed him off, so he let his mask drop. He let every hateful thought, his disgust with this situation and her, and general unhappiness shine through in all its glory. Her eyes widened, and he swore he heard a little gulp. Good.

“Let’s get this over with, yeah? And quit fucking calling me Oppa.” He slipped back into his Jhope persona, smile as wide as the sun, and prayed his Sunflower would see through it. 

“Stop looking so good.” You groaned at the television in frustration. 

After the news with Jisoo, the media had been going crazy, and now every channel you tried to watch had something BTS related. They’d even mentioned it on a cooking show! The news was always paired with yet another stunning picture of Hoseok, and it was driving you mad. You couldn’t get away from him. Even Momo missed him. Anytime something played that had Hoseok’s voice, Momo’s ears would perk up, and he’d give the saddest little whine. You were both pathetically whipped for the man.

Just as you’re about to throw something at your TV in frustration, your friend Nari lets herself into your apartment. She shakes bottles of raspberry soju knowing you’ll let her stay thanks to her offering. You sigh and scoot over, patting the spot next to you on the couch.

“Not that I’m not happy to see you and those lovely bottles, but whatcha doing here?” You ask as you crack open one of the bottles and take a sip. She follows suit and sinks into her seat. 

“You’ve been either moping here at home or working your ass off in the studio, so no one’s seen you in forever. We’re all worried. What’s going on? Can you finally tell me?” Nari asked softly, looking at you with her big brown eyes filled with worry. 

You sigh and decide it’s finally time to clue someone in on all the madness. You’d never told your friends you’d seen Hoseok again after that time at the bar when you’d first met. You’d wanted to respect his privacy, and while you trusted your friends, you’d just wanted him to be safe. God, that seemed like a lifetime ago. And even though you were hurting right now, you still couldn’t find it in you to be regretful about bringing him home that night.

You cuddle up next to Nari and pour it all out. You told her of your date, the time apart, the week you’d worked together. You’d told her that you were head over heels in love with Jung Hoseok. And that it didn’t matter because somehow he was now dating one of the girls you choreographed for. You observed in amusement as her eyes widened with each twist or reddened when she was angry, or you’d perhaps shared a little too much. 

“Y/N. This whole time. I knew you were upset about something, but I assumed it was because of your ex. Holy shit though, JHope and you! I didn’t know you were going through so much. I feel like a horrible friend.” Nari’s face fell, and she threw her legs over your lap and cuddled up to you. You chuckle and pat her head fondly. 

“I’ll be fine.” You reassure her, but she looks at you like she knows that’s a lie.

“I know you say that, but your eyes tell me a different story. The way you talk about him...you never sounded like that with your ex. Like, never. I was never even sure you liked him, let alone loved him. When you talk about Hoseok though? I’m almost envious because he sounds like your soulmate. You really loved him, didn’t you?” 

You should tell her no, keep repeating the lie over and over until it sticks. Instead, you just tell her the truth. “Yes, I did. I still do. I can’t make it stop, and I don’t know if it ever will.” You pat her shins draped across you with a heavy sigh and give her a bittersweet smile. 

“What we need to do is get this Jisoo chick out of the picture,” she declared, causing you to raise an eyebrow in amusement. 

“You sound like you’re in the mafia now.” You laugh. “Besides, she’s an idol. Even if I do work with her, there’s nothing I can do.” 

“I will gladly join the fight.” Nari declares, fist to the sky.

“There’s nothing to fight against. Get your shoes off the couch and stop quoting Hamilton.” You giggle as you push her legs off you and get up. You weren’t as drunk as you wanted to be and the two of you had run out of soju. You were sure you had some wine somewhere around here. 

You were distracted from hunting through your cabinets when you heard a gasp. You quickly turn around to see if Nari was okay. She was staring at her phone in shock. 

“What is it? What’s wrong?” You ask, trying to peek. Nari quickly slammed the phone against her chest, blocking it from your view. She looked up at you with alarmed eyes. Clearing her throat, she murmured, “Nothing.” 

“Nari...” You spoke in a flat warning tone. Somehow you knew what you were about to see. “Just show me.” 

With a great show of reluctance, Nari handed you the phone. Right there on the official BTS twitter was a picture. A couple picture. Of Jung Hoseok and Lee Jisoo. 

Your hand was shaking so much that you couldn’t keep the phone still, but you could still make out every detail. Jisoo looked so proud and beautiful as she stood next to him, her tight pale green dress complementing Hoseok’s grey and green suit. He was smiling widely, and you didn’t know if it was just a vain hope that you thought his eyes looks unhappy. Your eyes scanned the picture, feeling like something was missing. You stared, wondering what you were looking for when it suddenly hit you. 

The sunflower. There was no sunflower. 

You scanned the entire picture, thinking maybe they’d told him he couldn’t wear it with that outfit. Perhaps he’d had to hide it somewhere. So you looked at every corner and crevice the picture showed, zooming in on everything. Not only was there no sunflower, there wasn’t even a single flower of any kind in the picture. 

It was over. Hoseok didn’t want you anymore. 

You inhaled shakily and handed Nari back her phone, not meeting her eyes. You push yourself up off the couch and make your way to the kitchen to renew your search for the wine. You needed it now more than ever. 

“Y/N...Do you want to talk about it?” Nari asks tentatively as she walked behind you. 

“No. What’s there to talk about? He’s moved on to someone in his own world, someone his company obviously approves of. He looks happy. That’s all that matters, right?” You answer, voice shakey as you try to keep your emotions in check.

“Stop pretending you’re okay, cause I know you’re not,” Nari whispers as she hugs you from behind and the contact makes you break down. You crumble to the floor and Nari follows you down, gathering you up and rocking you gently as you sob. 

Tomorrow, you promise yourself. Tomorrow you’ll go back to being fine. You’ll go to work and pretend that seeing Jisoo doesn’t kill you inside. You’ll go back to trying to live your life without Jung Hoseok in it. 

But tonight you needed to be miserable. Tonight you needed to cry and mourn what was probably the love of your life. So you let Nari play with your hair as you wept all over her until you finally fell into an exhausted sleep and hoped he’d be in your dreams.

You stare at yourself in the dance studio mirror as you wipe the sweat from your face. You’d had the girls working for three hours now, and you were tempted to add another hour in hopes it would wipe the smirk off Jisoo’s face. 

This whole time you’d been wondering how Hoseok and Jisoo had happened. You didn’t even remember them ever talking, but they apparently had because she was looking at you with such venom that there was no way this was about dance practice. 

She knew. 

Jisoo was looking at you with pride and disdain. The look of a woman who’d won. The look of a woman who probably pitied you. If she knew, that meant Hoseok had told her, because you were sure the two of you had been careful enough. Why would he tell her? Did they sit around and laugh behind your back? Were you really so desperate for love that you’d become an easy target? 

“Y/N Unnie, you look distressed. Is everything alright?” Jisoo asked sweetly, her eyes wide and a worried look on her face. The overall effect was ruined by her smirk. 

“Oh, I’m just super Jisoo. Just worried about the choreography. If you were a better dancer, it wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m wondering if I should dumb it down a little. Don’t be afraid to ask for help, sweetie.” You mock in a dulcet tone.

The rage that filled Jisoo’s face made you childishly happy. You turn away and prepare to leave when Jisoo grabs your wrist and digs her overly long nails in. 

“I’m so sorry, Unnie. Maybe now that I have Hoseok Oppa, I’ll get better. It’s amazing what those hips of his can do. But you already know that, don’t you?” She coos, and you have to clench your fist behind you to keep from smacking her. You tear your wrist away, momentarily allowing your irritation to be seen. 

“You are far from the innocent you portray yourself to be," you answer in a monotone. You clench your teeth and hope you can keep your emotions in check. Your job was more important than Jisoo’s enjoyment of your pain. 

“Oh, Unnie. Are you upset that I took your man? Don’t be. I’m doing you a favor after all. Eventually, he would have gotten bored with a nobody like you. He needs someone who understands life as an idol, someone who looks beautiful next to him. Sadly, that’s not you. Don’t worry, I’ll treat him well.” Jisoo smiles evilly. 

“You know, the truth about what a bitch you are is going to come to light, and we’ll see how much of an “Idol” you are then. If I find out this is all fake and you’re hurting my Hobi, I will fucking end you.” You growl, your patience finally nearing its limit. 

Jisoo’s throws her head back and laughs. “You think you can threaten me? You? You’re nothing. Hoseok already told me all about your little camping trip fuck. Said it was the easiest lay of his life.” Jisoo narrowed her eyes at you, searching for signs of weakness. You gave her nothing and quickly turned to storm out of the room. 

“Get back here. I’m not done talking to you, wench!” Jisoo shrieked.

“Sorry. I don’t speak skank.” You taunt as you slam the door behind you. 

You quickly make your way to your car and throw your duffle bag into the seat next to you. You lean back and finally let your tears fall, angrily hitting the steering wheel. You couldn’t remember ever crying this much over anything. You didn’t even cry when your fiance had cheated on you. You didn’t want to cry anymore. 

You wanted to get drunk. 

You start your car and call Nari, ordering her to get the girls together. It was time for a night out. 

It felt bizarre sitting in this club again. The last time you were here was when you were drinking away the fact that it was supposed to be your wedding day and you’d met Hoseok. A night that seemed so long ago when it really wasn’t. Now you were back, mourning your shitty love life yet again. In the same seat at the same table with the same girls. Nari had already told you she’d tried to invite the boys again, but their lockdown was no joke. She hadn’t been able to get a hold of anyone but had left messages letting them know they were here.

You zone out as the girls chat around, your gaze narrowed on the booth that Hoseok had dragged you to that first night. You want to laugh and cry at the same time as you think about all of the stupid “get to know you” questions Hoseok had asked you. Beyond the usual “What’s your favorite color,” he’d also asked ridiculous things like “What cartoon character turns you on the most?” and “What kind of dance style should our firstborn specialize in?” You smirk to yourself when you remember his judgemental look when you’d told him clog dancing was probably going to be pretty popular by then. God, you missed him.

You are brought back to the present when your friend Tiffany pokes your side. “You might want to look over at the bar.” She says, and your eyes follow her pointing finger. 

At first, you don’t see anything out of the ordinary. The usual assortment of greasy men and sad women. A little flicker of hope wants you to believe it’s Hoseok she’s pointing out, but you hadn’t told her anything about him yet so it couldn’t be that. Your eyes flutter across the bodies assembled in front of the bar, and you finally spot who your friend is pointing out. Even from behind you can tell who it is. With a heavy sigh, you observe the man with irritation as he turns around and meets your eyes. 

Your ex-fiance Seon smiles like he’s genuinely happy to see you. When you notice he’s walking towards your table, you nod towards another open booth, not wanting to subject your friends to whatever drama he was about to start. 

“I’ll be right back.” You murmur to your friends, smiling reassuringly at Nari who was looking at you with concern. 

You slide into the booth and stare at Seon. He’d obviously come here straight from work, as he was still in his suit pants and white shirt. You thought he’d maybe lost a little bit of weight and wondered if he was forgetting to eat again. He did that sometimes when they were working on something big at his company. You shook your head and reminded yourself it wasn’t your problem anymore, although five years of worrying about the man in front of you was a hard habit to break. 

You were a little surprised with yourself. You’d imagined various situations where you’d run into him again and you’d always pictured you’d be an emotional wreck. Instead, all you felt was mild irritation and trepidation over whatever he wanted to talk to you about. 

“What are you doing here?” You ask, trying to force yourself to keep a civil tone.

“Work. We’re celebrating closing a huge deal. You remember that one with the CEO from Japan that we’ve been talking about for almost a year? It went through. Probably going to get a promotion after this.”

“Congratulations, Seon. I’m happy for you. I know you’ve been working hard for that one.” You were amazed by much you really meant it. 

“You look good, Angel.” He says softly, smiling as he fidgets with his drink. 

You snort at the use of the nickname. “Did you pull that overused line straight from the post-breakup manual?” 

“Does that exist? I could use that. How to survive breakups for absolute morons.” He joked, and you genuinely laughed. His smile softened as he watched you. You return his stare and just sit in silence for a minute. Seon keeps searching your face like he’s looking for something or memorizing your features.

“Why did you come over here?” You blurt, growing uncomfortable. 

“I wanted to apologize.”

You cock an eyebrow and prepare to say something snarky, but his expression makes you pause. He looked like he was sincere. Of course, you’d thought he was nothing but honest and sincere throughout your entire relationship and look where that got you. Still, you nod for him to continue. 

“I’ve wanted to call you since then to talk to you, but I either chicken out or decide it’s better to just let it be and let you move on with your life. However, I just can’t pass up the chance to tell you how sorry I am. I know that nothing I can say will erase what I did, or how unbelievably stupid I was to do it, but the least I could do is tell you that I regret it so much and that it was never your fault.” 

You bite your lip and soak in his apology. You’d always wondered if you’d done more, if you’d been more, would he have cheated. You’d felt like used trash for months, so this was nice to hear. 

“Thank you.” You whisper, looking down at the remnants of your drink. 

“I just...kinda want to tell you why? I mean, I didn’t go out and choose to do that with a reason clear in my mind, but I’ve been moping around the apartment alone for six months now. Plenty of time for introspection.” 

You look up surprised that he’s willing to give you more. He’d never been the most emotionally open person. You nod and observe as he takes a deep breath before locking eyes with you. 

“I think...it was mostly because I was scared? You know how my parents are. Poster children for a marriage gone wrong. The rumors are that once upon a time they were madly in love. Now they have screaming matches three times a day and make jokes about waiting for each other to die. I just...didnt want that to happen for us. I didn’t want you to wake up one morning and realize you were just waiting to die to get away from me. I didn’t want to see the love in your eyes dim year after year as you realize I’m not worth it. I wanted you to be free to find someone who deserves you more than me, someone who’s not so fucked up. So I kinda subconsciously did that in the hopes of being caught so you’d end it without regrets. I realize that I went about it in a shitty way, but that just proves my point of how I don’t deserve someone as great as you. I should have manned up and told you my fears. Then you could have just hated me for being a coward instead of a cheating coward.” 

To say you’re surprised by everything he’s telling you would be an understatement. This was probably the most you’d ever heard him speak about his feelings. You sigh deeply and grab his hand. 

“I don’t hate you. I was angry, though. So god damn angry. At myself, at you, at the world. I was disappointed. Afraid. I worried that with any future relationship I had I would be waking up every morning and wondering if that was the day they’d grow bored with me too. But I never hated you. It’s hard to really hate someone that you’d spent five years loving.” You tell him as you pat his hand. 

“Never bored. Five years and I was never once bored. Sex with you was always amazing so you can take that off your list right now.” Seon jokes and you giggle and slap his arm away. 

“I just want you to know that I’m not telling you all this because I want you to take me back. In fact, I would be incredibly upset if you did take me back after going through all that to let you find someone better than me. I just...wanted to give us both some closure and I wanted to make sure that you knew that it was absolutely not you. You took such good care of me that six months later I’m still trying to learn how to cook and do laundry. You supported me in everything, and I always appreciated how much you were there for me. I will always, always love you. You were the first person to love me and even if the both of us end up married to someone else in the future, I will always regret never marrying you. I just never thought I deserved your love. The blame is all on me and my issues. Speaking of which, I actually started counseling last month, with the therapist that you told me to look into about my parents. I decided that I probably needed it so that I don’t try to sabotage my relationships again in the future.” 

“That’s great! I’m glad you’re doing that.” You smile at Seon warmly. You were starting to feel a little lighter inside. At least one of your issues was getting resolved. 

Seon chuckles before clearing his throat. “Also, I know it’s a lot to ask, and I totally don’t expect you to take me up on it right away, but I was hoping we could still see each other? I don’t mean see each other, but like, hang out? It’s just...for five years you were not just my girlfriend, but you were also my best friend and my one constant in life. I wake up, and I forget that you’re gone. I start your coffee and toast, put on pants and grab a leash to take Momo out for a walk, and it’s not until I wonder why I can’t find him that I remember you’re not there. I just really miss talking to you. I miss you. And I miss our son. How is Momo?”

“Your son Momo is fine.” You grin. You’d forgotten how he always called Momo his son. “He missed you for awhile. Refused to sleep in his crate unless I put a shirt of yours in there. Look, I can’t promise to be able to easily become your friend again, but I’ll try. And in the meantime, you can have visitations with Momo if you wanted. I’ll admit that beneath the anger, I did miss you too. We did have five years of good memories before that day.” 

“Thank you. You didn’t even have to talk to me, so thank you for listening, and I hope you’ll want to see me again sometime. Thank you, Angel. Goodbye.” Seon’s eyes were suspiciously watery as he grabbed your hand and placed a soft kiss on the back of it. You smile and pat his cheek. 

“Thank you. I was worried I’d be bitter forever. Call me in a couple weeks, and we’ll set a day for you to take Momo to the park or something.” You say as you stand up. You spot bright red out of the corner of your eye as you step away from the booth. Out of curiosity, you glance towards the bright color only to be met with Hoseok’s shocked eyes. He frantically looks between you and Seon, confusion and hurt in his eyes, before hardening his gaze and stomping away. 

“No, HOSEOK. Come back! Shit...” You yell after him, trying to make your way through the sweaty crowd. You spot Nari at the bar and corner her. 

“What are they doing here? I just saw Hoseok?” You shriek, grabbing her by the arm as you keep walking towards the door he exited out of. 

“I guess Sejin saw my texts on their phones since he’s the one holding onto them and decided to give them a free night for good behavior. Most of them are at the booth already. I guess they can’t stay that long tonight though since they have some meeting tomorrow. Come sit, I’m sure he just went to get a drink.” Nari tries to reassure you, no doubt seeing your panicked eyes. 

“No. He saw me talking to Seon. He probably thinks I moved on because of the stupid dating announcement. God, the way he looked at me, Nari. There’s no way that dating thing is real. He looked genuinely hurt. I have to find him. I’ll talk to you later.” 

You storm out of the club, frantically searching for Hoseok. You walk up and down the streets and dark, scary alleys. Your feet were still in your stilettos, and they were in so much pain. There were even bloody blisters on the back of your heels that would make dancing considerably painful for a while. Finally, after an hour and a half of searching, you decide to give up, mostly because you could barely walk anymore. Either he’d found a taxi, or he just didn’t want to be found. 

You head back to the club and search for your friend's table. You wanted to at least try to get one of the boys to relay the message to Hoseok that what he thought he saw wasn’t right. As you finally get close enough to the booth, you see it’s once again a girls-only table. You ask Nari, and she tells you that they’ve all gone home already. Your last option is her, so you tell her to text them all that you needed to talk to Hoseok. You text him yourself as well, although you know the chances of Manager Sejin relaying your messages are slim. 

It’s time to give up and go home, you decide. You say goodbye to your friends, receive a hug and an order from Nari to call her later, and order a taxi. You have him stop at a convince store and buy four bottles of Soju. You were going to need them. You stumble into your apartment in an unhappy daze, stopping to peel your high heels off your blood crusted feet, before plopping onto the couch. You scratch Momo behind his ear and crack open your first bottle, forgoing glasses altogether. Soon enough, your mind starts to blank of everything but Hoseok, and you fall asleep thinking of his dismayed expression.

You couldn’t remember ever feeling this hungover in your life. 

Since the moment you’d woken up and rolled off of the couch to crawl to the bathroom, you’d been throwing up. You’d only made it through two of the Soju bottles before you’d passed out and you usually made your way through six at a time with no problem. You wracked your brain trying to think of what else it could be. Maybe something you ate? It couldn’t be anything else because you just had your...

You weakly grab your phone and find your tracking app. Your last period was two months ago. Right before you’d met Hoseok. 

“Shit...shit...fuck...” You call Nari in a panic, saying two words you’d never said before. It was a code you’d all established back in college when scares were the norm. It meant I need you and bring the stick.

“Code Stork.” 

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[elizabethrobertajones]

S2g I can't belive antis are so butthurt over Destiel fans being right that they'll slide into Destiel posts and write hateful shit. Like I'm not even that big of an account and I've been gettiny anti-hate.

Tbh I never get hate on my posts or in my inbox, except for in extremely rare scenarios. I’ve been in fandom for years and never got more than like one anon per year, and one or two posts that went right out of my sphere of influence. 

If you’re actually interested in stopping them bothering you I’d take the immediate steps of blocking every single one of them currently reblogging your posts. Scroll their blogs and block everyone commenting on things in reblogs on their blogs for the first couple of pages. Anyone who piles onto one of those posts? Blocked. It’s not giving in or losing the argument even if they then make posts on their blogs saying they won. All they won was an Annoying Person Award and you were just getting some peace of mind, which doesn’t say anything whatsoever about how wrong or right your posts are, especially when they’re the aggressors.

Next step is to invest in either a neutral tagging system (I use “deeean” etc specifically to keep out of the dean winchester tag unless I’m signal boosting a fairly neutral gifset or post. Or like, nougat winchester, mary f winchester, for the characters I know I shouldn’t post about in open waters who I had a little extra time to decide how I should tag them) or if that’s too much hassle, to always do tag padding. If you’re making a Destiel post, you can use Destiel as one of the first 5 tags, but if that’s the only relevant thing to a wider audience (also the only tag I use which IS one of the wider fandom tags because I ONLY want Destiel-positive peeps to see my stuff so I don’t care about throwing that tag around), but you KNOW Sam or Dean fans might not all ship Destiel, so the only people who would 100% care to see it as a group are the Destiel fans, put some filler tags in between that you know are just junk, like #destiel #1 #2 #3 #4 #dean winchester #sam winchester #castiel, etc. 

I mean obviously if you’re posting just about Dean without any leading Destiel commentary you can tag him in full in one of the first 5 tags, but I am pretty sure your problem on that post at the top of your blog is because you didn’t tag it Destiel at all, commented on the Destiel parallel in the episode back to John, and then whacked a whole bunch of generic Supernatural tags on it in the first 5 tags.

I know the more hateful people whine a LOT about tagging but they get a really garbled bad impression of the fandom because they are shitty about curating their experience and leaving people alone when they see something they hate. But if you go out of your way to keep off their radar you won’t come across as “one of those fans” to them who is always posting Destiel in the main tags without anything for them to blacklist. Because while I deeply suspect they don’t ACTUALLY use blacklists since they still bitch about seeing stuff they COULD have blacklisted in the tags, if you can say “uh excuse me I tagged this Destiel, you should have been blacklisting it,” BOOM moral high ground

Like… I understand personal freedom and not wanting to give in to the haters or whatever sort of mentality is a thing, but it’s also no hassle, no sense whatsoever that there are hateful people in the fandom unless someone brings it to my attention, because I can post as much nonsense as I like and I get left alone because I’m not in the main tags except the ones I want to be in, and I am always making sure I’d have the moral high ground in an argument with snivelling internet people :P

The last time I got some weirdass hate it was because my post about Sam and the plastic reindeer having a staring competition got reblogged by canonspngifs, and they *even tagged it as ships for ts* which we all know is code for “need to tag this for the destiel haters because no one else gives a fuck what I reblog or gives me shit about it because they know this blog is just a library of neutral canon gifs” and so the hate blog went PAST that warning (hello, both me and Gifs being on the moral high ground to start with :P) and THEN reblogged it to bitch about how Destiel fans are the scum of the earth and shipping plastic reindeer bestiality now or something. But I mean my response to that could then be HOLY SHIT IT’S NOT THAT DEEP IT WAS A JOKE and block them, because I didn’t want to go any more rounds with someone who was making that strawman, but it was too funny to not show people what had just happened. And in every respect I’d done nothing wrong including that they didn’t even find the post through my blog.

(I really hope that “thinks the plastic reindeer is destiel proof” is something they strawman Destiel shippers with though. Please tell me if anyone ever sees them use that in an argument because I’d be delighted to know :P)

Anyway, I don’t see making some concessions to have a quiet life as letting them gain any ground, but I also don’t really measure how canon Destiel is or not based on how angry the people who hate it are :P I KNOW we’re right, so they’re infinitely uninteresting people to me.

#Asks #fandom problems

[thedarkenedkeeper]

Glitched: Part 10 - Always Watching

Author’s Note: Holy hell, was this insane to write X_X

A few things. Firstly, I apologize for how long it took for this to come out. I was incredibly anxious about school, plus I was just overly struggling with writing this chapter. I had a general idea of what I wanted to happen, but I didn’t really know how to get it down into words.

Secondly, this came out as about 18 pages long in Word so I apologize for how ridiculously long this is! I didn’t think it was going to come out so damn long!

And thirdly, this chapter is heavy on the angst. There’s a little bit of horror – of course – but this chapter is mainly angst-ridden so prepare for a LOT of feels! For Christ’s sake, I CRIED while writing this, so that should be saying something.

WARNING: This chapter is very heavy and is incredibly dark. There are mentions of suicide, abuse (both physical and mental), bullying (mainly cyberbullying), existential crisis, self-mutilation, and incredibly low self-esteem. There are mentions of a character getting lobotomized. There is a scene with a detailed description of the inside of a character’s back, which contains abnormal anatomy.

I will say this and I will say this one: This is NOT a happy fun time chapter! (I know, the story as a whole isn’t happy, but this chapter is VERY heavy on the angst as opposed to the other chapters) There ARE feels.

You have been warned.

Enjoy!

(I am SO sorry. I feel so bad for writing this! ;^;)

Listen to this playlist while reading.

 Wheezing breaths of agony echoed throughout the room as he operated. Warm sticky crimson spurted onto his naked lanky fingers – the very fingers of which were maneuvering the stainless steel instrument through his patient’s skull. A pained gasp expelled from the man upon the bloodied table.

“Oh be quiet.” The glitching entity hissed with agitation. “Stop your whining.” He scoffed. “You act as though you’ve never felt pain before.” A delighted giggle came ringing out of the creature’s slit throat. “Almost like you’re afraid of dying.”

A quivering whimper could faintly be heard coming from his patient as he fiddled with the orbitoclast. The green-haired demon smirked from behind his surgical mask.

“I must say, Herr Doktor,” He said in a horrible German accent, mocking the man, “you should be proud of me. I’m no doctor, but I seem to be doing an impeccable job here, if I do say so myself.” He bragged, his smirk stretching into a twisted smile.

The ice pick sank in further, a trail of blood running out onto the demon’s fingertips. A sharp intake of air, followed by a shaky sob left the patient; the entire mass of flesh jolting and tensing up against his restraints. The overhead light flickered as the sinister being growled through his teeth out of annoyance.

“For fuck sake, stop it! This is delicate work – you of all people should know that!” He snapped sharply, though he ironically gave the pick a violent tap; jabbing the inside of the man’s skull.

It only made the tortured man release a loud moan of unbearable agony, a trembling hand pulling weakly at its bond and trying to reach out for the figure leering over him. After a brief moment, the struggling died down and a faint shaky whine slipped out. The demon chuckled, continuing with his ministrations.

“You see? That wasn’t so hard, now was it? I told you that you could handle the pain.” The creature’s head gave a sudden twitch to the left, then the right, before returning his cold eyes to his patient. He grinned. “If I can bear with it, so can you. Anesthesia is fOr ThE wEaK!” In seconds flat, the entity’s form glitched out spastically; the grin gone and replaced with a grimace of anger, trying to make a point. Almost as quick as it had happened, the toothy smile returned, accompanied with a horrifying cackle of glee.

Another weak whine left the pained patient.

“Trust me, my friend, zhis is for your own good.” The manifestation grinned mockingly, using the exact same words the doctor had said to him when he had been operated on back on October 29th.  “Don’t worry, I’m going to fix you right up.” He expelled a useless breath, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. He chuckled lightly before his being glitched out; his facial expression almost immediately falling flat. “I’m going to fix you all.” He hissed softly under his breath.

The poor man upon the table suddenly jerked, a strained gasp of pain getting ripped out of his vocal cords. Anti growled, put off with how uncooperative his patient was being.

“Oh come on, give it a rest already! Get ahold of yourself! You’re not dying!” He mumbled the next few words with promise. “Not yet anyway, but I don’t get to choose the outcome. You should be so lucky.” He wedged the pick in further, showing no remorse towards the man when he writhed and released a choked breath.

As the twisted imposter of a doctor carried on with the operation, getting blood smeared all along his pale digits, he began to yet again find himself slowly but surely sinking into the hatred he held towards the community. No one knew how he felt, not truly anyway. Everyone automatically assumed the unstable creature was just a monster, and as such, he behaved like one. But he was only like that thanks to his creators – they were the ones who gave him life and made him what he was. If they hadn’t wanted a monster, then why hadn’t they done anything to “fix” him? Why hadn’t they taken action when they had had the chance? Anti stared down at his handy work, dark eyes unblinking as the anger started to weave throughout his veins.

“They’re making me do this. They would say otherwise, I know they would. They’re all deceivers – monsters like me, although much worse.” An insidious giggle rang throughout the operating room, sending cold chills down his patient’s spine. “They don’t give a shit about any of us. They can’t seem to make up their damn minds on anything.” He chuckled, although given what he was talking about, it was an incredibly unnerving chuckle. There was nothing but fury and hate behind it. “And they have the audacity to go and point fingers at me and call ME the monster, the true villain in all of this? HA!” He jabbed the orbitoclast rather unexpectedly, instantly getting a horrific reaction out of his tortured patient. He glowered down at the man, his abyssal orbs growing darker and colder than what was already possible.

“They have no idea what they’ve done to me.”

                                                           * * * * *

  It was not long after Halloween when the demon had begun to notice the changes in his audience. After Anti had “killed” Jack in front of the still recording camera and finally took possession of the Irishman’s body, the glitching entity just had to go and upload the footage to YouTube two days later. After all, Jack himself had wanted to make a Halloween video for the fans; he had even teased them about it with the brief recording he had posted on Instagram. As Anti saw it, he was doing the man a favour. And of course, just as he had expected, after that video was released, the entire community went up in flames. Everyone freaked out – both out of equal amounts of delight and fear. Many actually believed Jack had in fact died and that Anti had taken over, and the insidious manifestation could only laugh out of amusement, applauding those few who knew the truth. He had been so gleeful to see his creators’ reactions, taking in just how shell-shocked they each became and how they all screamed his name. It was almost a surreal experience; the demon couldn’t quite contain his happiness.

However, though he was now the one in control, he knew his fans were going to suspect that he was the one inhabiting Jack’s body. And though that was true, he figured he’d have a bit of fun with them all. He would instead put on a deceitful act and pretend to be everyone’s favorite green-haired Irishman. It was time for him to put all of the training he had done over the past couple of months to good use. He would wear a mask and act like nothing had happened, and that’s exactly what he did.

A delayed video was posted hours later of him explaining what had happened during October leading up to Halloween. The glitch definitely put on a seamless act. The way he spoke, the way he acted, the joy and optimism and excitement gleaming in his blue eyes, the positivity radiating off of the man – it was all far too perfect. There wasn’t any way anyone would conclude it wasn’t Jack speaking in front of the camera. The unhinged trickster came up with a convincing lie off the top of his head, telling his audience how everything had just been one big act for Halloween. Anti wasn’t real, it was just Jack pretending to be an evil demented version of himself out to kill him. It was all just a scary idea he had had for the Halloween season – he wasn’t dead.

And the fandom believed him. They fell for his two-faced lies, each individual word sliding off of his wicked tongue and twisting his creators’ beliefs. They had all bought into his seemingly innocent fable. Some were confused, some didn’t know what to believe anymore, but all of them knew deep down that Jack was perfectly fine and he was only embracing the character of Anti…right?

For a time, the glitching entity had been very pleased with his ways of deception, how he managed to warp every single member of the community into believing he was in fact everyone’s good ol’ Jackaboy…that was until he began to take notice of how little attention he himself was receiving.

Sure, after his appearance on Halloween, a ton of fan art, fanfiction, and posts about him had been produced. There was no denying the fact how all of it had given him immense strength and power. However, given how he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t – someone the entire fandom had adored – he realized with a horrendous hybrid of surprise and perplexity that the community was once again returning there attention onto Jack. They all seemed to be relieved at the fact that he was alright and unharmed, that he hadn’t actually died. They were grateful he was alive, and Anti didn’t understand why. Hadn’t they wanted him to cut the man out of the picture? Hadn’t they wanted him to replace the pathetic Irishman and give them a far more superior being to look up to?

As the months passed away and autumn faded into winter, the demented creature began to truly notice the difference in the community’s behavior. He was slowly but surely becoming forgotten by his own creators. Granted, there were still pieces of fan art and fanfiction floating about here and there on social media, but other than that, their main focus was no longer on him; it had been shifted back onto Jack and it appeared to be staying that way. And though he tried to convince himself otherwise, Anti firmly believed that his fans only thought of him as a one-time thing – that he had had his one chance to steal the limelight and now that it had passed, it was time to move on. And the demon was not at all pleased with this.

The minute he had noticed the change in the fandom, Anti had stormed off into the darkened hell where he kept his host caged up and went off on a long-winded rant about just how confused and enraged he was for suddenly being ignored and accused of being a “one-time thing”.

“What? A ‘one-time thing’?” The green-haired Irishman had questioned from behind the searing-hot bars of the cell. He shook his head slowly, not entirely understanding. His alter ego was speaking so quickly, he could barely keep up. “I don’t understand.”

“What’s there to not understand? They see me as a one-time thing! A side-show act!” The manifestation snapped with a glitch of his head.

“Well what did you expect? You’ve been pretending to be me all this time.” Jack stated simply. “They think I’m perfectly fine and that it was all just an act. They don’t really think you exist, and you’ve made them believe that.”

“Shut up! They know I exist, I know they do!” His body spasmed for a fleeting moment as he paced the room. “And yet…” He chuckled lightly in disbelief, “And yet, they’re acting like nothing had happened. Like everything that had led up to Halloween – all of my sudden appearances – meant nothing.” He whirled around and locked his eyes onto the man in the cage. “It’s almost like they’ve forgotten about me completely.” He scoffed, a petite smile flashing across his face in the blink of an eye. “They haven’t forgotten about me completely, thank fuck for that. But…But they’re my creators, damn it!” He flared, his entire form twitching and jerking, struggling to remain stable. “They created me, they brought me to life, and I gave them a show! So why aren’t they giving me attention?”

With no warning, one moment he was a few feet away from the cell and the next, he was suddenly standing right in front of the bars, slamming his hands against them with a violent bang. Jack’s heart nearly jumped out of his chest at the action, stumbling backward and nearly catching himself off balance. Anti’s glacial cold orbs bored deep into the Irishman’s soul, hissing harshly through his teeth.

 “Why do they like you more than me?!” He demanded, fingers tightening around the bars.

Collecting himself and swallowing down any fear he held towards the creature, Jack straightened up and broadened his shoulders. He refused to show any fear or let Anti have the upper hand in this. He glared at the entity from the other side of the bars, his hands balling up into fists at his sides.

“Maybe it’s because I’m not a monster.” The Irishman seethed. “Maybe it’s because I’m not so desperate for attention that I’ve resorted to hurting or killing anyone. Maybe it’s because I actually have a heart and give a damn about the community as a whole as opposed to being a selfish asshole who only cares about their self.” He spat. “Whether they created you or not, it doesn’t matter. You have control over your actions – you can change your ways – and yet you decide not to. You instead choose to be a wretched monster that’s out to cause carnage and misfortunate for others.”

Jack took a few slow steps forward, his eyes never leaving the insidious being staring back at him. He shook his head, scowling at the demon with a look of disgust.

“You haven’t changed…and you never will.”

Anti felt a pang in his chest at hearing what his counterpart said. He growled in anger, his head twitching violently from left to right as a projection of himself flickered, one of him yanking viciously on his hair with his face scrunched up in frustration as opposed to agony. He cocked his head to the side in an unnatural way, reminiscent of the movement of a small bird’s own head. A layered inhuman giggle came bubbling out of his forever blood-gushing throat.

“You think I can change my ways? You honestly think I can change?” A terribly awful laugh erupted from him, succeeding in striking a descent amount of fear into his prisoner. He shook his head vigorously, a grin plastered on his face, even though it was plainly obvious he wasn’t happy. Admittedly, it unnerved the Irishman to a degree.

“Your ‘precious’ community holds the power over me. They are the ones who made me the way I am. I didn’t get a say in the matter! Hell, I didn’t ask to be made. I DiDn’T aSk tO Be GiVEn LiFe!” He unexpectedly lashed out, the grin vanishing from his face in an instant and an animalistic-looking grimace taking its place. His body seemed to stutter and lag for a moment before resuming its movement, twitching and glitching out every few seconds. It was evident the creature was having a hard time controlling his anger.

Jack jumped back in alarm, having not expected the sudden outburst. However, though it had momentarily startled him, the YouTuber still stood his ground. Before he could even think over the situation and come up with a calm and collected solution like he would normally do, he found himself consumed by an overwhelming wave of rage, and the next few words came flooding out of his mouth – words he would later regret ever saying.

“Well if you don’t want to be alive, then why don’t you kill yourself?!” He snapped, glaring daggers at the entity.

Another pang came from within the glitch’s chest, and this one hurt far more than the previous one.

“You keep complaining about how you were created and how everyone is ignoring you and not giving you attention. You’re like a child – a whiny brat who can’t get what they want when they want it, and it’s just sad.” The Irishman continued, not holding back. “You say that the community is responsible for you – that they’re the ones who created you and brought you into this world. And even though they’re essentially like your parents, they don’t seem to care about you.” He leaned forward. “Did it ever cross your mind that maybe the reason they don’t care about you is because of the way you came out?”

Yet again, another painful pang.

“Maybe you were meant to only be an idea, NOT an actual existing creature.” He hissed. “You’re like Frankenstein’s monster – you were pieced together from scratch. Maybe you were meant to come out differently, but instead, came out as this…this thing.” He said with such distaste, the entity visibly winced. Jack kept his eyes fixed on his alter ego, nothing but anger in his eyes, and yet...there was something else there also. Unfortunately, Anti was unable to see it.

“An abomination…That’s what you are.” The man shook his head slowly. “You’re an abomination…and nobody wants you.” His nostrils flared as he took in a sharp breath, trying to keep his hatred at bay. He scoffed. “You know…I’m known for being a reasonable guy. I like to think that I am caring, I can see the good in people, and that I can and will accept anyone for who they are, no matter what their race, gender, sexual orientation – I don’t give a fuck.” He spat. “And over the last two months, I had really thought that maybe – just maybe – that all of this would come to an end.” He was saying it with such sincerity, like he had genuinely hoped things would’ve changed. “That maybe there was some good in you, and you would let me go, and everything could go back to normal. I was willing to accept you for who you are, but now…”

He trailed off, bowing his head and glancing down at the concrete ground, shaking his head. “I was a fool for ever thinking that way…There is no good in you, I finally see that...” He lifted his head and locked eyes with Anti, tugging on his chains as he took a step forward. “You were never meant to exist, Anti. You’re a mistake, and THAT is why they don’t care about you. You weren’t planned. Get that through your head.”

A raw, dead silence came without welcome. The unhinged creature stood there, unblinking eyes staring directly at his host, but the anger he had been feeling – the countless questions that had been tormenting him – all of it seemed to dissipate at hearing what the green-haired man had to say. Never had the demon heard such cold, harsh words leave the man’s lips. Jack had always been known as a pure caring soul, one who rarely ever looked down on anyone unless there was an honest-to-God good enough reason. And for the last two months, the Irishman had tried to see past the glitch’s monstrous exterior. With each day, he had hoped and prayed for the day the demon would come into the room and release him, claiming it to be one big misunderstanding. But that day never came. Time and time again, Anti had been merciless and took great joy in taunting the YouTuber, not at all caring for his feelings. He thoroughly enjoyed seeing his prisoner in a helpless state. And as much as he wanted to believe otherwise, Jack finally opened his eyes to the truth: Anti was a monster and that’s all he’d ever be – there wasn’t an ounce of good in him.

Anti stood there unmoving, the glitchiness of his body faltering and ever so slightly managing to calm down a bit. It may have been hard to tell, but through Jack’s eyes, it almost appeared like the entity’s facial expression had dropped. His body may have been tense and he may have been gripping the bars tightly, but his eyes…there wasn’t a sliver of anger anymore, nor was there perplexity. Those feelings were gone, and in their place, something else took over – something much more haunting. His eyes seemed much darker, but not from the ugly emotions he’d been consumed by a moment ago.

No…this was something else entirely…

If the Irishman didn’t know better, he could’ve sworn he was staring into the eyes of a damaged creature. The body language may have made Anti give off the appearance of a deadly predator ready to go in for the kill, but his eyes were a different story. Jack felt like he was staring into the soul of a wounded animal, and for a brief moment, he almost pitied him.

Nevertheless, within seconds flat, the hurt he’d seen fogging up the demon’s onyx orbs cleared away and the fury he’d had before returned with a cruel vengeance; a feral growl crawling out of the creature’s throat. Anti shook his head, his form beginning to twitch and jerk violently once again. Versions of him flickered every few seconds, one or two of him grinning sadistically and cackling wildly.

“No…You’re wrong. They do care about me deep down – they must!” He unexpectedly giggled with an unnerving amount of glee. He shrugged, extending his arms out to either side. “Why else would they have created me?” He pointed an accusing finger out at the Irishman. “I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to test me – see if I have any ‘feelings’.” The abomination said it as though it was a repulsing concept. “Nice try there, Jackie but it ain’t going to work.” His body spasmed momentarily before he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the bars of the cell. A horrible toothy grin spread from ear to ear across his face.

 “Mark my words, Jackaboy, I’m going to prove you wrong about your ‘loving’ community.” He giggled darkly, lines of pixels scattering across his face at a blurring speed to reveal an expression of pure unadulterated hatred and loathing. His voice dropped an octave or two as he glared at his host.

 “I’m going to give them a reminder of who’s really been around all this time. Then, and only then, will they open their eyes and see.” And without another word, he pushed himself away from the bars, whirled on his heel, and exited the room.

That had been back in early January.

Throughout January and February, the community’s creation continued to play the part of everyone’s favorite green bean; seamlessly pretending to be someone he wasn’t just to please his fans. However, it wasn’t until he began to play a horror game titled “Detention” when things began to take an unexpected turn of events. Unknowingly to the glitch, every couple of minutes into each video, the facecam would suddenly act out of sorts and someone would appear on screen for a second or two, most often looking directly at the camera with confusion, distress, or sometimes even fear. Unfortunately, Anti hadn’t found out about any of this until the videos had been uploaded and he was furious when he discovered what was going on. Without him knowing, Jack had been making energy-consuming attempts at trying to reach out to his audience and show them that he wasn’t the one in control. He was desperately trying to get the community’s attention, and though he succeeded, it only managed to raise a lot of questions amongst the fans. Glitches were associated with Anti, and thus, a majority of the fandom were convinced that Anti was coming back – even though, in truth, he had never left. No one could decipher whether the man shown in the glitches was Anti or Jack, and it was only frustrating both of the green-haired men.

Shortly after he had brought “Detention” to a close, Anti had gone and subjected his pathetic host to a relentless amount of pain. He had strangled him and beaten him into submission, all while venting out his unbridled rage until the man was a quivering mess at his feet, begging to be let go. It was at this point when Anti knew he had to take action, he had to do something to get the community’s attention back onto him – the REAL him. But how? What could he possibly do? It’d have to be bigger than what had happened on Halloween. Something that everyone could see, something that would never be forgotten, something –

And then it hit him like an oncoming truck: PAX. He knew that Jack attended the convention every year; taking the time to meet his fans in person and giving them all a time to remember. The next one was supposed to be coming up in three weeks, and it only made a grin come to the demon’s face. That was it – that’s how he’d get everyone’s attention once again. What better a way to give his makers a reminder than while at a live event?

Leading up to the weekend of PAX, the entity had gone through the trouble of putting together an introductory video for his panel. For the first minute or so of the video, he pretended to be Jack; welcoming everyone to the panel, only to then announce how he had an idea – a game – that he wanted to try out with the audience. He then proceeded to explain himself, stating how they were all going to record a message of sorts using a phone, a camera, or an iPad. The entire thing seemed innocent enough; there was no need to be suspicious of his behavior. Jack was the one speaking after all, and who wouldn’t trust the precious bean? Surely he had something exciting planned. Everything was going well until it wasn’t. The screen would start to glitch out, some of the audio would cut out or become laced with static – clear signs that something was very wrong and that “Jack” wasn’t so alone. And suddenly, the screen cut to black. A series of clips from Jack’s videos flew by one after another at blurring speed before falling back into darkness. And then there was a chuckle…an eerie, childish chuckle that could easily give anyone and everyone a reason to be scared.

The screen glitched out and there he was in all his glory, finally showing his true self and giving everyone a shock. No one would expect him to show up at the panel, and as such, his message would be heard loud and clear. Throughout the remainder of the video, the unstable demon seemed to be a bipolar mess; it was hard to determine what his exact feelings were. One second he’d have a cheeky toothy grin stretched across his sickly pale face, giggling like a lunatic, and the next his expression would be contorted into a godawful grimace of pure annoyance and rage, seething through his teeth and acting a tad threatening towards his audience. His behavior was…off.

He wasn’t like he had been back in October. In October, Anti had been happy and delighted with what he had done. Granted, he had let some of his caged up anger seep out, agitated with how long he had had to wait to be released, but nonetheless, the creature had been overjoyed. He was proud of himself for having done what his creators had wanted…or at least, that’s what he’d thought they had wanted. And now…it was almost like his happiness was being forced, that the smiles upon his face were completely fake and he was struggling to keep any anger from showing. But Anti, being the unhinged entity he was, failed.

“Look at you all – just sitting there! You all thought I was gone!” He scolded, his head undergoing a horrible spasm attack; glitching from left to right. He pointed his knife at the camera angrily before leaning forward, a toothy grin coming to his face as he ran his delicate fingertips over the edge of the knife. “Not worrying about anything.”

He appeared to both look and sound rather pleased, even the cackle of delight that bubbled out of him was unsettlingly cheery. And yet, with a quick glitch of the screen, he was lifting the knife up to his neck in a menacing way, baring his teeth. His neck twitched and jerked out as he smiled.

“You all thought I was gone.” His voice unexpectedly dropped an octave at the last word, an indication that he wasn’t as pleased as everyone was led to believe at first. “But I’ve been here this entire time,” There was the cheeky expression once again; outstretching his arms and acting much like a young child who had just shown their parents a drawing they had worked hard on, “keeping an eye on things.” His eyes flickered blacker than black for half a second, his voice once more dropping an octave. The way he had said those words, accompanied with his inky orbs staring coldly at his audience, was rather disconcerting. Especially given how that face kept alternating with a much different one – one of twisted satisfaction, the signature Cheshire smile etched onto his face.

“You stopped paying attention!” He seethed through his teeth, a sliver of his built up rage hanging off of each word. He was smiling, yet he was evidently very put off with the community’s decisions. “Well I hope you’re happy.” He said it almost sincerely, like he was genuinely hoping everyone was in fact happy with what they had done. “You found someone new! Threw me aside!” Immediately, the smile had vanished in the blink of an eye, a scowl now in its place. He even jabbed an accusing finger at the camera, making his point.

“You found someone to replace me!” And just as quick as it had appeared, the entity was yet again smiling brightly; his head giving a fierce jerk before he locked his eyes onto the camera. It was up for debate on who exactly the creature was talking about, but Anti definitely knew, and that someone was slowly but surely becoming a weakened broken man behind a set of warm steel bars. Someone he absolutely loathed with every fiber of his being.

“I’m not going anywhere!” The abomination chirped, his voice reaching a higher pitch, nearly sounding like a giggle. His form glitched out to show him constantly moving back and forth in an unnatural way, like the creature was stuck in a state of limbo. “I’m always there – always watching.” He said it in both a teasing and threatening manner, his eyes cloaked in darkness as he raised his knife. He was going to make sure that every single one of them would remember he was there and how he was never going to leave – never.

It was around this point that if anyone listened closely, a very faint muffled “help me” could be heard, reminiscent of the one in the “Say Goodbye” video. However, unlike that one – which had been gushing with panic and horror – this one was the exact opposite. It sounded devoid of energy and hope, like the man who was calling out for help had been tortured relentlessly and was losing the battle. It almost sounded like the poor man was sobbing, desperate for someone to notice he was there. A sinister cackle followed his plea; the insidious monster sounding far too pleased with how helpless his prisoner was.

“You can’t get rid of me.” Anti growled menacingly, directing his knife towards the camera threateningly. His form began to spastically glitch out, shaking from the struggle he was having containing his anger. And with that, the screen blacked out. “Enjoy the show.”

When PAX came around – March 10th, to be exact – and the entity got to show the video, he watched from afar, hearing everyone’s alarmed reactions towards his unannounced appearance. He covered his mouth, having a hard time holding back his laughter. Good, they were finally coming to their senses and remembering he was still around. For the remainder of the event, however, Anti refused to let everyone know he was the one wearing Jack’s meatsuit. Because as much as he wanted to reveal the truth, he could hear Jack’s haunting words swirling in the back of his head, reminding him how everyone only thought he was an idea, not an actual existing creature. If he were to show his true self, there was no telling what would happen, so he decided to keep a low profile and slip back into the character of Jacksepticeye.

Everything seemed to be going well for some time in the community. For the rest of the month leading into April, all they could talk about was PAX and of how the glitching demon had unexpectedly shown up to the event, giving them a reminder he was always there, watching them. And of course, through this, Anti grew happy at receiving more attention. He was so thrilled, he was overcome with the temptation to go up to his host and rub in his face about just how wrong he had been. But unfortunately for the entity, the contentment was short-lived.

Just like what had happened back when he had shown himself on Halloween, Anti only received a vast amount of attention for a month or two before everything died down and he was pushed aside as a “one-time thing”. This time around was much different. While many were trying to decipher his message and who had been in control all this time, others were growing tired of the glitch. They seemed a tad bit annoyed, like he was a nuisance, which made Anti confused more than anything. Why were they all suddenly turning their backs on him? Any one of the other egos could show their faces and everyone would be smiling and laughing, pleased to see them. But if he showed his face, he got the opposite greeting. Everyone would either quiver in fear, snap at him to “fuck off and leave Jack alone”, or roll their eyes and huff an exasperated breath, not impressed. Admittedly, there were quite a lot of people who did in fact love the glitch and were always happy to see him, but Anti failed to see that; a crimson haze casted over his vision, only allowing him to notice the people who resented him.

The twitchy manifestation was at a loss for words. He couldn’t come up with a logical reason as to why so many people spited him. What could he have possibly been doing wrong? All he wanted was to be included into the circle, all he wanted was to be seen as an equal and loved and adored like all of the other egos who stood in his way. How come they got more attention than him? They didn’t get any more videos than he did, and yet, somehow, someway, they all received an insane amount of adoration. But with him – one glitch of the screen and the entire fandom would explode with every emotion except for one he longed for: love. And the demon wouldn’t admit it but it hurt him more than anything; more than any physical harm he could do to himself.

Sometime during May, Anti had isolated himself in a far off room in the void. He locked himself in the pitch-black room, pacing back and forth; tormenting himself relentlessly with what Jack had spat at him and whether any of his words had been true or not. He questioned himself over and over again about what he was doing wrong and why the community couldn’t accept him the way he was. He clutched his head, scrunching up his hair in his fingers and tugging harshly as he growled lowly out of frustration. His body was in a constant state of manifesting itself in and out of existence; jerking and pixelating, distorting all of his features.

“What am I doing wrong? What’s so special about all of those other fuckers? What do they have that I don’t?” He snarled venomously, his form lagging mid-step before resuming movement. “I thought they wanted me to be a real thing, I thought they wanted me to come into existence. Isn’t that what they wanted? But if that’s what they wanted, then why are they all dismissing me with ease, like I don’t exist? Why are they ignoring me?!” He huffed, his unnecessary breathing increasing in rate. He was beginning to sound rather exasperated, and if anyone could believe it, like he was a bit emotionally hurt.

“They’re my parents, for fuck sake! They made me who I am – why would they make me like this if they knew it would displease them?! What kind of sick joke is this?!” He flared, his figure glitching out to briefly show a projection of him strangling himself, the next of him cutting his already bleeding throat. He threw his arms out to either side. “I’m doing everything I can! Am I trying too hard? Am I not trying hard enough? There’s no pleasing those people!” A stuttering breath left his lips, his head giving a harsh jerk to the left; a loud audible crack coming from his neck. He was beginning to shake all over now, and it wasn’t from how unstable his form was.

“They’re…They’re supposed to love me…” He muttered under his breath, bringing his pacing to a halt in the middle of the black room. He stared down at the ground, shaking his head only to release a small giggle of disbelief. “But they don’t love me…They don’t love me at all.”

For three whole hours, the glitchy entity remained in that room, putting himself through a horrendous amount of mental agony. Pacing back and forth and glitching out from one part of the room to the next, the demon wallowed in his pain. He ended up collapsing to his knees, hanging his head in shame and burying his face in his hands. Icy cool droplets filled his dark eyes and ran down his cheeks, dripping down into his hands and leaking out through his fingers. No one would ever see this side of the creature – sadness and emotional pain such as this weren’t normal for the demon. He saw it as weakness, and as such, he would never show it. He would never admit to the heart-devouring pain he’d endure every single day caused by the community. He always stood up straight, put on a devious smile, laughed like a psychopath, and demonstrated the behavior of one too. He always came off as a merciless, deranged, inhuman abomination that felt no remorse or guilt. He was essentially heartless; he didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself. As far as anyone was concerned, he took great joy in seeing others suffer. Love wasn’t a concept he could understand – it was something he could NEVER learn.

But they were all wrong. Every single one of them was wrong about him. He DID have a heart, he DID care about what others thought of him. He DID want to be loved by not just the community but Jack and the egos as well. And yet, here he was, coming to terms with just how much he was hated by his so-called “family”.

Anti sat down in the furthest corner of the room, knees brought in close to his chest as he tugged at his hair; endless tears of hurt cascading down his face. Jack’s assumption had been right before – he had been looking at a wounded animal. The poor creature couldn’t pull himself together. He had been made to be unstable, and as such, any emotion he would feel, would become impossibly heightened to the tenth degree. There was no easy way out of this hell he was putting himself through, there was no way for him to calm down. He just sat there, letting the darkness consume him and allowing the sorrow to rip away at his heart horrifically.

 As though he were a broken record, Anti scolded himself, repeatedly asking himself what was wrong with him as opposed to what was wrong with the community. Maybe Jack had been right, maybe he was a mistake. Maybe he shouldn’t have existed to begin with. Maybe the community did only like him as an idea versus as an actual existing entity. No one loved him, no one cared about him. He was just there as a joke for everyone to do with as they pleased. He was like a puppet having his strings tugged at, playing a part in their deceiving game. And the poor damaged manifestation was getting pulled apart at the seams at the thought.

This is what they had done to him.

They had cut out his heart and forced it down his throat.

He was dead inside.

                                                        * * * * *

 There he stood, hovering over his patient, lost in a state of memory. His hellish eyes, which had been clouded over with rage and hatred a second ago, now held pain and suffering. Those eyes were the eyes of a creature that had been beaten and abused horribly countless times over – the eyes of someone who had been through hell and back. And for a fleeting moment, it almost seemed like those eyes were beginning to water.

“Those fuckers…They ruined me.” He hissed softly under his breath, his fingers tightening around the orbitoclast currently wedged into his patient’s skull. He shook his head slightly, eyes unblinking. He was looking down at the man like he was expecting him to be sympathetic towards him. “All I ever wanted was to be loved…Was that so much to ask for? Was it that hard of a concept to grasp?” His voice was wavering, sounding like he was on the very verge of crying.

However, at hearing his patient let out a pained moan, Anti blinked and removed himself from his dreary reverie; the unhinged monster within returning to the surface. He smirked behind his mask.

“Nevertheless, who needs love? It’s overrated. Ain’t that right, Doctor?” He giggled as he twisted the steel instrument around, getting the man to produce yet another moan of unwanted agony. “You of all people should know that, what with how your pathetic family left you.” He scoffed. “Who needs them? They abandoned you! If they truly loved you, they wouldn’t have left, now would they?” He gave the orbitoclast a violent tab, a spurt of blood flying up into his face. His patient arched and let out a choked yelp at the searing pain. The demon’s smirk developed into a smile. “You should never hurt the ones you love…Never.”

 His patient went placid against the table, no longer moving or making useless attempts at escape. Anti noticed and chuckled, lightly slapping the bloodied man’s face to try and get a reaction out of him. All he received was a drawn out wheezing breath. Chuckling lightly, the sadistic creature tore his mask away from his face and tore the orbitoclast out of the man’s skull carelessly, not at all concerned whether or not he managed to damage something else. His patient jolted and groaned loudly, but didn’t struggle against his bonds or scream from the striking pain. Anti threw the ice pick off to the side somewhere before strolling away from the table, ridding himself of his surgical attire as he headed for the exit.

“Don’t get up, Doc. I’ll be back in a minute.” He said as he stormed out of the operating room. As soon as he left, his smile faltered. “I need to visit your creator.”

                                                           * * * * *

Back within the freezing cold hell, the green-haired Irishman was a shivering mess. He was on his knees where he had been standing not too long ago when he had yelled at Anti. His face was buried in his shredded up, blood-caked hands, crying out of fear for not just himself but of what Anti had done. Why had he left the room? He had said he was going to visit the doctor, and immediately, possible scenarios of gut-wrenching horror flooded the YouTuber’s head. What was Anti doing to Henrik? Was he torturing him? Was he getting him to do something completely obscene and wrong? Was he killing him? Jack choked on a sob at that last one.

The man nearly jumped out of his skin when he heard the front door burst open; lifting his head hesitantly to see his alter ego storm into the room. Before he knew what he was doing, Jack got to his feet and grasped the icy bars of the cell.

“What did you do?!” He wailed, loose tears running down his face. “What did you do?!” He repeated, both demanding and dreading an answer.

Anti frowned from where he stood, eyes fixed onto his prisoner. His arms flung out to either side of him. “I did what was necessary!” He snapped sharply, a bit put off with the Irishman’s whining.

He took a few steps forward, boring his dark soulless orbs into the crippled YouTuber. His body glitched out, his head jerking violently to the right; the slit across his throat seeming to stretch further at the motion.

“I did what I had to do!”

 He materialized, suddenly now having his back facing Jack. He pulled up his shirt, and while biting deeply into his bottom lip and letting loose a pained hiss, the skin of his back pixelated and was pulled back, revealing his spine to his host. There was crimson blood everywhere accompanied with some sort of sticky black sludge. There were veins and bits and pieces of his insides here and there that appeared as though they had had something severed from them; evident due to the holes scattered about and how some veins hadn’t been sealed off properly. All along his spine there were dark splotches and some kind of green residue there, almost as if something had once been attached to the creature’s spine.

Jack flung away from the bars and nearly screamed, a wave of nausea crashing over him and knocking the wind out of him. He stumbled backward and instantly collapsed to his knees, keeling over as bile rose in his throat. He couldn’t hold back. He heaved violently and vomited, the sight of Anti’s insides far too revolting for him to stomach.

“Your ‘precious’ community made me do this, Jack.” The demented entity hissed with distaste. “They were always pulling the strings, ALWAYS the ones to twist and shape me however they pleased.” He scoffed, a giggle ringing out of his vocal cords as though this was all some fucked up joke to him. “They made me a joke. They dragged me along in their game, and I HAD ENOUGH!” He growled momentarily before the abnormally delighted smile returned to the creature’s paled face. “So…I got the ‘good doctah’ to sever the strings once and for all.” He cackled, shaking his head as his back closed back up and he lowered his shirt.

The Irishman raised his head, breathing heavily and having difficulty getting air into his lungs. His eyes were blown wide with horror, staring at his counterpart with disbelief like he couldn’t believe what the creature was saying.

“Oh my God, Anti, why?! Why?! Why would you - ?!” He got cut off, nearly choking on the left over bile in his throat. He groaned and hacked harshly, spitting it up. He sobbed softly and shook his head vigorously, fixing his lifeless eyes onto the demon. “You didn’t have to do that! Why the hell would you do that to yourself?!” He cried, like he wasn’t just horrified of what he’d discovered but also like he genuinely cared about the demonic entity’s wellbeing. “Why the FUCK would you mutilate your body – why would you go through something like that?!”

Anti slowly turned around to face him, no evidence of there having been a smile on his face a moment ago. He no longer looked amused or happy; there was nothing but anger and hate written in his eyes. His form was struggling to remain stable now, lines of static racing across his body here and there; jerking from left to right as he took a step towards the cage. He cocked his head and scoffed, like he couldn’t believe he had just heard the green-haired man ask him such a stupid question.

“You think I wanted this?” He asked in such a soft static-laced voice, it managed to send chills up Jack’s spine. “You think I really wanted to do this – that I wanted to have the one thing that made me who I am, the one crucial part of my being, torn out of my body without care like it didn’t matter?” He inquired, although the way he was phrasing the question didn’t sound like a question. It sounded as though he expected Jack to already know the answer. He shook his head slowly, staring at the Irishman with slight shock.

 “I did what had to be done and I don’t regret it.” He spat, even though his words came out a bit off, like he wasn’t telling the truth. “They can’t control me anymore.” He jolted forward, pressing his face into the bars of the cell. “I’m not their bitch, they’re mine. They are all my puppets now…and we’ll see how much they like to be strung about in a twisted game of pain and suffering.” His face glitched out, very briefly showing a different version of him, except this one was unlike any of the others Jack had seen before. Every time Anti’s form would become distorted, Jack would always see projections of him either displaying violent behavior or he’d be a terrifying laughing lunatic. But this time…there was none of that.

There was no uncontrollable anger, no frustration, no unsettling glee accompanied with chilling giggles.

There was only sadness, a look of hurt on his face as though he had been horribly beaten and was now a cowering mess. And though it had happened at a blurring speed, Jack could’ve sworn he had seen tears well up in the creature’s eyes.

Jack’s eyes widened ever so slightly, remembering how earlier he had seen Anti in a similar vulnerable state – something he had never once seen come from the glitch before. Licking his cracked lips and letting out a raspy wheezing breath, the Irishman tried to talk some sense into the entity.

“Anti…D-Don’t…” He coughed harshly, a few drops of blood spluttering forth. He shook his head. “Y-You don’t want to do this…You…You’re wrong…about them.” He inhaled sharply, groaning as he felt a stinging pain in his chest. He hunched over and shifted around, attempting to get into a comfortable position. “Y-You…You don’t know them like I do.”

Anti kept his abyssal orbs locked on the Irishman, never once leaving his face. There was no telling what was going through the manifestation’s head; his expression was unreadable. One moment it looked like he was pissed off, the next it seemed flat like he didn’t care at all. He scoffed, the corner of his lips tugging up into a slight smirk that only lasted for half a second.

“No, you’re right. You’re right, I don’t know them like you do.” His head gave a violent jerk to the right, a loud crack emitting from his slashed neck. He bored his eyes into his prisoner, anger becoming the more dominant emotion now. “Because you’ve been strung along in their deceiving game. All this time, you’ve been led into believing that they care about you – that they care about any of us, for that matter – and because of it, you’ve been holding onto false hope for the day they save your ass.” He seethed, his words striking deep into the man’s heart.

“You need to wake up and realize they’re never going to save you, they are NEVER going to help you. They are the true monster in all of this. They all put on an innocent act and like they’re not at fault. But they are the ones to blame! They caused ALL of this to happen!” He unexpectedly slammed his hands against the bars, making Jack flinch and shuffle backward. The demon’s eyes became drenched in black, heavy shaky breaths of anger puffing out through his lips. “They don’t give a FUCK about any one of us, and it’s not until now that I’ve come to realize this.”

Jack shook his head in disagreement. “No…N-No, y-you’re wrong…Y-You’re mistaken, A-Anti…” He insisted, shivering from the cold. The room had gotten so cold, he could now see his own breath. Funnily enough, even though Anti was breathing, his breath wasn’t visible. The Irishman found it to be a rather odd observation. “Th-They do care. A-About me, about th-the others, and…a-and about you too.”

At hearing this, the glitch couldn’t contain his mirth and threw his head back, letting out a horrific laugh of delight. He locked his eyes back onto his host, a toothy grin on his cruel face, clearly not believing the man.

“Is that so?” He chuckled lightly. “Do you remember what you had said to me long ago, back in January?...Do you remember?” His grin was slowly but surely slipping away, fading down to a smile, then into what almost looked like a pained scowl. “Do you remember?” He softly whispered through the bars. “Do you remember what you said to me?” His voice, it sounded…strained, like he was struggling to breathe properly or something.

Jack’s brows weaved out of confusion, trying to recall what the demon was talking about. This damned room, he could barely think clearly. For Christ’s sake, he had had so much difficulty remembering what had happened in October. How was he supposed to remember what – ?

And then it all came at him full-force with no warning. Suddenly, the Irishman was able to notice the pain behind the creature’s fury, and his facial expression softened as he felt an overwhelming amount of guilt coil around his fist-sized organ of innocence and constrict it tightly. He began to feel tears returning to the surface, welling up in his eyes as he tore his gaze away from his alter ego. Anti groaned and pulled away from the bars.

“Oh for fuck sake, enough with the crying already! It’s getting to be annoying.” He bemoaned. “Come on, I haven’t even hurt you yet! What could you be possibly crying about now?!”

 Jack kept his head low in shame, shaking it as the tears threatened to tip over the edge.

“I…I-I…I’m sorry…” He whispered so softly, it could barely be heard. He swallowed the lump in his throat and sobbed, shaking his head as he closed his eyes, a look of pain coming upon his face. “I-I’m so sorry…I…O-Oh God…” He lifted his hands, covering his face as he cried.

Anti frowned. Normally he’d be amused at seeing his prisoner so broken up like this, but not today. He was in absolutely no mood for waterworks.

“Sorry? What the fuck are you babbling on about?” He banged against the bars. “Come on, speak up!” He snapped with annoyance.

The green-haired man gulped in what little air he could as he pulled his soaked hands away from his face, reopening his eyes.

“I…I-I’m so s-sorry, I…” He sniffled. “I-I had no…i-idea that you…” He stopped himself, taking a breather to try and calm his nerves. It didn’t work out as well as he had hoped. He shook his head in disbelief as the memories tormented him. “Th-Those words…Th-Those things I had said, Jesus Christ…” He shut his eyes tightly, pinching the bridge of his nose and cringing at the reminder. He bit his lip, trying so very hard to stop himself from crying. His bottom lip trembled as he struggled to speak. “I…I thought…I thought you were heartless…I-I th-thought that…that there was n-no good in you at all…I…I figured y-you were a…a…”

“A monster?” Anti answered so harshly, his body rippled violently.

Jack tensed up at the word and he immediately lifted his head to lock eyes with the demon. Wet lines of sorrow stained his cheeks and his eyes were red, sore from the countless times he had cried. He shook his head slowly, still shell-shocked by the haunting memory.

“I-I’m s-so sorry…I-I don’t know w-why I said th-those things…” He sniffled and nervously chuckled out of disbelief, like this had to be some sick joke of sorts. “I-I didn’t mean any of it…I…I-I didn’t know, I swear to God, I d-didn’t…” He sobbed, a few lone tears running down his face. “I w-was wrong about you, Anti…I-I was so wrong…I…” He swallowed his tears. “I-I was so blind to see that…that the one who truly n-needed help…th-the one who n-needed love…” He looked up at the creature with pleading eyes, hoping like hell that he believed his words, because none of them were lies. He was telling the honest-to-God truth, and it was ripping him apart. “w-was you…Th-That’s all y-you’ve ever wanted…Y-You’ve w-wanted t-to be a part of s-something…a-and w-we have f-failed you…” He cried, shaking all over not from just the cold but from the force of his crying. “I…I-I’m so sorry, Anti.” He whispered softly.

The unhinged abomination glitched out for a moment, standing there with his gaze fixed onto the quivering mess of a man named Jack. Like before, his face was unreadable. Jack couldn’t tell if he was enraged, annoyed, amused, happy, or something else entirely. For a split second, when the entity went to stand up straight, the Irishman had winced and whimpered, raising his arms to brace himself for any sort of act of violence. But nothing came. Instead, he heard the creature let out a shaken breath.

“I knew it…I knew this would happen.”

Blinking with confusion, the YouTuber lowered his arms just enough to glance up at the demon.

“You’re just as bad as them.” He hissed, his entire body glitching out to show a projection of himself crying out in anguish. “You don’t care – you didn’t before, and you still don’t. All of this,” He motioned at the man crying his eyes out in the cold dank cell, “is just an act, just an excuse – an attempt to try and win me over so I can release you from this hell. Well guess what? It’s not going to work, so drop the act. I’ve had enough of the lies from everyone.” He growled with such hatred, his head stuttered and twitched from left to right, struggling to keep his anger at bay.

Jack blinked, frowning with perplexity. “W-What? No…N-No, no, no. Y-You…” He coughed violently, “y-you think - ?” He shook his head, pushing himself up into a standing position and nearly falling over. He quickly steadied himself against the prison bars, his eyelids slipping shut tiredly before reopening them to look at the entity. “Th-This…This isn’t an a-act…” He coughed again, hacking harshly into one of his bloodied palms. “I-I am t-truly sorry, An-Anti…a-and…a-and the c-community…i-if they are th-the ones who…who c-created you…th-then they do care.”

Anti growled. “Lies.”

 “N-No…No, I-I know them…I-I know w-what they’re like…a-and…” He sucked in a breath, choking on it and heaving into his hand dryly. “u-ugh….mmgh…” He winced before standing up as straight as he could. “t-they do care…Th-Those jokes th-they make a-about you…” He shook his head, “th-they’re just jokes, th-that’s all…I-It’s what th-they do. H-Hell,” He scoffed, “th-they’ve m-made jokes about m-me and…and the others b-before…” He shrugged, licking at the tears that ran over his lips. “I-It’s j-just their w-way of showing th-their appreciation – th-their l-love.”

He coughed violently, nearly collapsing to the ground at the force of his coughing. He groaned in pain, his legs wobbling as he struggled to remain standing. He looked at Anti with exhaustion.

“P-Please…B-Believe me…Th-They d-don’t h-hate you, Anti…” He insisted in a pleading tone of voice, a lone tear running down his cheek. He shook his head. “N-No…No one has to get hurt…Y-You c-can…can be happy and l-loved…l-like you were m-meant to be.” He said weakly before sliding down to the ground with a thud, letting out a weak moan.

Through the dark, though his eyes had fallen shut for a brief moment, the Irishman made out a very faint sob. His eyelids were heavy with the longing to stay shut, but he forced them open to see the glitch’s face contorted into one of frustration. There was anger, hatred, and…and sorrow. There was pain – heart-aching pain, tears welling up in the hurt creature’s darkened eyes. His grip on the bars of the cell was so tight, Jack was almost afraid he was going to break them and charge into the cage to slaughter him. Lucky for him, that didn’t happen. His entire body was visibly shaking and not just from how he was glitching out constantly every few seconds. It almost seemed like the poor creature was fighting himself, like he was holding back on something. His bottom lip was trembling as he struggled to keep himself from showing weakness.

“R-Really?...Is that so?” The demon stuttered in a static-laced voice. And though he sounded beyond furious, he couldn’t hide the truth from the Irishman. He was hurting, and it was showing as clear as day. “Y-You think they all care?” A small sad smirk tugged at his lips as he outstretched a hand behind him. “Th-Then how do you explain these?” And with a snap of his fingers, a patch of darkness dissolved to show endless posts on Tumblr, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.

Jack squinted, dragging himself forward in a poor attempt to see well. His eyes widened a tad bit when he realized what each one was about. Every one of the posts was hateful and overly mean towards the glitch, and none of them were in a joking manner, even Jack himself could tell.

“Fuck off, Anti! Leave Jack and the egos alone!”

“Go away! We don’t want you here!”

“Look at him – he’s having a temper tantrum. He’s not scary, he’s just complaining about what he can’t have.”

“You people do realize this is all just an act, right? Anti’s not real, get over it.”

“Anti, why the hell are you here?”

“We need to get rid of Anti, guys! It’s the only way we’ll get Jack back! Who’s with me?!”

“Anti, it’s not Halloween yet! Go back to sleep!”

“Glitch Bitch!”

Every single comment or post was either making fun of the glitching entity or just straight up being hurtful in the worst way imaginable, such as telling him to go away and that he wasn’t wanted – that no one wanted to see him. No one knew it, but every one of the posts hurt the creature to a horrible extent, and Jack couldn’t blame him. He stared at the screen with appalment. These couldn’t be from his community, there was no way. He knew his fans and they were most certainly not this cruel – not towards him or the other egos, at least. And if Anti was their creation, then why the hell would they treat him worse than dirt?

Jack didn’t know what to say, and Anti could tell. He scoffed, the sad smirk still upon his face.

“Y-You see? You c-can’t even defend th-them.” He lowered his arm as the screen materialized, gone forever. “Th-They don’t care about me…I-I’ve always been j-just a nuisance to them – a-an object for th-them to toy with.” His form spastically glitched out all of sudden, a projection of him lurching forth; tugging at his head and bawling his eyes out, screaming out in pain. Jack gasped softly, pressing back into the bars behind him. Anti jerked his head. “I-I…I will n-never be loved…b-because th-that’s not the reason w-why I-I was m-made.”

The Irishman’s eyes widened with surprise as he watched Anti blink, a lone tear finally falling loose and running down the demon’s cheek. His bottom lip trembled more, having little to no control over his emotions anymore. Another tear fell from his eye.

“Th-They d-didn’t make me…b-because they w-wanted a s-son…T-They made me b-because…th-they wanted a m-monster…” He sobbed softly, his entire form vibrating and giving a violent glitch. And though his body was unstable, the creature’s voice remained rather quiet, like a murmur. He almost sounded human.

“Th-They w-want…a v-villain...th-that they can h-hate and f-fear…Th-That’s all they’ve ever w-wanted…f-from the start.” He shook fiercely, anger starting to come back with a vengeance; his voice becoming much harsher and more distorted. “S-So…if th-that’s what they w-want…i-if that’s w-what’ll please them…” He chuckled lightly, another cool tear racing down his face. His sad smirk morphed into a twisted ugly smile. “Th-Then that’s w-what I’ll give them.” He shook his head vigorously, licking at the salty tears over his lips. “N-No more…L-Love is t-truly dead…” He cackled. “F-Fear…” He hummed with bemusement, “is w-what’ll get th-there attention…p-permanently.”

 He pushed himself away from the bars and growled at himself, roughly wiping his eyes free of any more tears before turning on his heel to storm for the exit. Jack almost immediately scrambled to his feet, gripping onto the bars for dear life so he wouldn’t collapse again.

“W-Wait, wait, wait!” He croaked hoarsely, barely having any voice left in him. He reached his arm out through the cell, hoping Anti wouldn’t leave. There was no telling what the demon would do once he left. Hell, Jack still didn’t even know what Henrik’s fate had been!

“An-Anti, please!” He coughed dryly, his shoulders shaking. He was beginning to fall incredibly weak again, his eyes feeling heavy with exhaustion and the temperature of the room was only making it worse. “D-Don’t…” He gave one last attempt, one last plea before his knees gave out; collapsing to the ground and passing out cold.

Anti didn’t bother to look over his shoulder at the Irishman. He didn’t even retort back with a snarky taunting remark of sorts, the closest thing being, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some unfinished business to attend to.”

He wasn’t his usual self, and Jack had seen it with his own two eyes. It had been a long while since the entity had had a chance to vent out these painful emotions, but he had no time to lock himself away.

No…He couldn’t lock himself away…

But he could take his hurt out on someone else…

Part 9 - No Strings Attached

Part 11 - In Your Head

 @gridhorizon @jse-fandom-protection-squad @septic-obsessed @darkcurious @butterlover328 @steffid101 @sketchy-scribs-n-doods @n-o-ra-xi @haveaverynicetime @golden-eyed-guardians @fear-is-nameless @nightmarewolf133 @maybekatie @jack-a-yote @lil-gib @aeoix @lemonofweirdness @randomcrystals @yourestillnotmytype-58

#this came out ridiculously long x_x #so sorry #but fuuuuuck #the angst in this killed me horribly #I actually cried both when I wrote it and when I proofread it #it's that painful #now if you'll excuse me #I'm going to go cry in a corner and question what I've just done #sorry not sorry #you shall all suffer with me #mwuhahahaha! #glitched #antisepticeye #anti #jacksepticeye #antisepticeye fanfiction #anti fanfiction #jacksepticeye fanfiction #antisepticeye fanfic #anti fanfic #jacksepticeye fanfic #angst #so much angst

[mooseintheocean]

Season Thirteen, Time For a Nap

Rating: Gen

Fandom: Supernatural RPF

Relationship: Jensen Ackles/Jared Padalecki

Additional Tags: fluff; lot’s of fluff; non-Au

Words: 1737

Summary: They’re only three days into filming season 13 and Jensen is already dead tired.

A/N: I started writing this piece to celebrate the start of filming s13. But real life happened, and now the filming is four episodes in, and I finally menaged to post it. This is basically nearly 2k words of pure schoomp. I have no excuse, just a lot of cuddles...

Also available on AO3

They step into their trailer together. Jared sits down on the couch and throws his head back on the headrest, his eyes closed. Jensen trails after him, putting his knees in his favorite spot - on either side of Jared’s hips (he also really likes having them around his boy’s head, it definitely is not the position for the set, but it sure is fun). This is their eighth hour on the third day of filming season 13, and Jensen can't believe it has only been three days. He is exhausted and his mood is sour because he couldn't get into the character the way he wanted which led to many retakes. And he hates being the reason behind the delays, especially when they are caused by his acting. Jared didn’t moved or even opened his eyes, but there is a smile on his face, big enough to bring out his dimples and Jensen has to bend down and kiss them. Those dimples are out of this world and he is only human after all. He never stood a chance. Jared's arms wrap around older man’s waist to bring him closer. Jensen hides his face in Jared’s neck. He is soft, he loves cuddling, and he loves being held by Jared. Especially when he is as tired as he is right now. Sue him. Jensen’s public persona is far from this, he poses for more Dean-like image, although he did see some fans pick up on it. He loves having his arms full of his boy too. He is mighty possessive and jealous sometimes, he can’t help it. He knows there is nothing to worry about, he knows. Jared is only his and he is only Jared’s and they are on the same page about this. Jared likes to appreciate other men, Jensen gets it, he totally does, just sometimes... Well, sometimes his inner alpha can’t stand listening to or seeing Jared fanboying over other men, especially when he gushes about their physique. Sometimes Jared does that just to tease Jensen. He sees that wicked gleam in Jared's eyes, but even when he just appreciates their friends he always, always confirms that Jensen is so much better than all of them and how he always will choose him over anyone else. That he is the only one, the one that Jared loves. And God, he loves Jared so much too. He is the love of his life and he has it bad. Jensen can’t imagine his life without his boy in it. Just thinking about it nearly makes him cry. He buries himself closer to Jared on instinct. And Jared laughs a little, probably picking up on Jensen getting all emo. Jensen blames this on being dead tired.

“You wanna take a nap? We’ve got like two hours to waste?”, Jared asks but he is already moving them into position. The fact that he is still able to manhandle him like this, does things to Jensen. They make out like a couple of teenagers for a minute or two or five, but possibly closer to ten, and then Jensen is out like a light, plastered as close to Jared as he can get, both because he wants to and because the couch doesn't grant a lot of space for two grown-ass big Texan guys.

He wakes up some time later to the smell of fresh food and coffee. Jared isn't lying next to him anymore but instead he is sitting on the floor with his head propped up on the side of Jensen's stomach, eating sweet potato fries using only his long and very skilled fingers (Jensen still can feel just how skilled exactly these fingers are, when he tries to sit down). His own fingers move right into that beautiful mop of a hair tickling at his exposed belly where the shirt rode up. He can see Jared's face break into a soft smile at that.

"Brought you some diner, it still should be warm enough to eat. Didn't want to wake you up, you looked like you needed it", his pretty boy tells him and hands him a white styrofoam box with his food and a cup of coffee.

"You. Are. A. Lifesaver. What would I do without you, hm?", Jensen accepts the gifts gratefully and slides down the couch to sit next to Jared on the floor. He steals couple of fries from Jared's plate and takes a big gulp of his still hot coffee. It tastes exactly how he likes it and he knows Jared himself made it for him. He gives his boy a quick peck on the cheek, "Thank you for the coffee, it's perfect".

Jared smiles softly at him, but his voice is fake mocking, "Yeah well, if I didn't bring you your perfect coffee, you'd be all cranky baby for the rest of the day. It really was just self-preservation and trying to get through this hell in one piece. It had nothing to do with me taking care of you. Nothing", Jensen laughs out loud at this, holding up one of his steak strips for Jared to eat as a silent thank you.

After everything is eaten, and with over 40 minutes still to spare, they move back up onto the couch to read some lines before they will be needed on set again. Jared throws one of his mile long legs over Jensen's lap and focuses on his script for all of 3 minutes before he starts placing little kisses all over Jensen's neck and available naked shoulder where the shirt has ridden sideways (let's be honest here, it was Jared who tugged the shirt down, never can't get enough of that warm skin). Jensen lets out the tiniest sigh and for some reason it makes Jared grin stupidly. The older man can feel that big beautiful smile press into his skin where his neck meets his shoulder. God, he loves his boy's smile so much, even if he can't actually see it. Smiling Jared is so beautiful. Now, don't get him wrong, Jared is always stunning, but smiling Jared means happy Jared, and happy Jared is the best thing ever. This wonderful man was hurt so many times already, mostly by his own complicated mind and he so does not deserve any of that. Jared moves again, nipping and worrying the skin under his mouth with his teeth softly. Jensen loves the feeling and probably could spend hours just like that, but-

"Jared, I'm trying to work here".

"Work then. I'm not stopping you", Jared takes the delicate earlobe between his teeth gently and bites it ever so slightly.

"Do you mind?", Jensen pretends to be annoyed, because he has to. That's the game. He can't give in so quickly, no matter how much he wants to.

"Not at all", Jared says with a playful nip to his earlobe.

"Jared..."

"What?", wide, ever-changing color eyes blinked up at him from behind the eyelashes. The picture of pure innocence. Damn, he's good. Jensen will give him that. Jared is back to sucking on his neck again, it is one of his most sensitive areas, which Jared very well knows about and isn't shy to use it.

"Just stop it", despite his words Jensen's head falls to the side, the traitor, giving that talented mouth a better access. Jared laughs, a little breathy laugh, and nips playfully right under his ear.

"But I don't wanna", Jared whines, letting go of his skin just for long enough to say that.

"Me neither, to be honest, but we can't. I can't have any visible hickies right now or any hickies at all really".

"Mhm, is that one on your butt completely gone? Should I redo it?"

"Oh god, I've got a hickey on my butt? What the fuck, Jared?", he looks down at Jared's devilish grin. All the innocence from just seconds ago completely gone.

"Yes, Sir! Isn't the first time and you know it".

"Well, I know that, but you never said anything this time. I was wondering what you did to me. It stings a bit every time I try to sit on the hard surfaces".

Jared's grin grows impossibly larger right in front of Jensen eyes, "Good! Job well done then. Just a little reminder I love you all the time".

"You're one sappy sap, you know that?", Jensen's heart skips a bit. It does that every time Jared says he loves him, no matter how many times he hears it. He is the real sap here, he acknowledges that. Just in his head, of course, he has a certain image to uphold after all.

"I believe you said that before, yes. And beside marking you up is more manly and alpha like, and not sappy at all. In fact, you're the sap, you sap".

"Is that so?"

"Yes, it is. Just yesterday you sung me one of Adele's songs. You serenaded me, Jensen. That's like, so romantic", Jared teases, clutching Dean's shirt in his hand, shaking Jensen a little, being all dramatic and over the top.

"A, you asked for it, and B, I didn't sing it to you".

"Oh really? So that part when you bend down on one knee at my feet and gestured at me was just an accident?"

"Basically yeah. It was just a part of the performance. I'd do that for anyone who was in the room. It just happened you were the only one".

"Mhm, I know you wouldn't. You totally serenaded me..."

"Oh, shut up", mumbled Jensen, interrupting Jared.

"And I loved it, and I think you should do it more often... Yes, definitely more often," Jared continues, like he didn't even hear older man speak up. Jensen is about to throw back a totally witty comeback, but there is a knock on the door and a PA calling them back to set. Jensen must admit he is in much better mood then he was when he started his break. He kisses Jared thoroughly one more time, thanking him silently for all of this and moves to stand up and face another couple hours of work.

He can't wait to take Jared home and crash in their amazing big king size bed. Sleep it all off and then start their weekend together making out and maybe, possibly, quite certainly asking Jared to redo that hickey on his butt after all.

#j2 #j2 non-au #schoomp #fluff #celebrating s13 #idk guys #i just feel like they like to cuddle a lot #hey look! #i put my writing on tumblr #word count: 1737

[sickdaysofficial]

July 23: Not The Norm

Title: Victory Series: Yuri on Ice Characters: Otabek x Yurio

____________________________________________________________________________

The room was starting to tilt unnervingly and he braced himself against the pillar he was leaning against more in a fruitless attempt at standing straight.Yuri wasn’t sure whether he was actually managing it or not as most of the feeling in his limbs had devolved into a numb tingling racing along his body. His eyelids felt heavy and the room was slowly blinking in and out of darkness and he knew he’d had too much to drink. Unlike the idiot Pig across the room coaxed onto the dance floor after a few well calculated drinks (pushed on him by an over eager Victor and Chris), Yuri knew he tended to be a sleepy drunk. He’d never been much of a fan of drinking and he knew his limits, but it was hard to turn down celebratory glass after celebratory glass plied into his hands from his fellow skaters. The congratulations at his senior debut gold medal was actually embarrassing him to no end, despite his attempts at scowling and waving off the praise. It was easier to just except the drinks and drown away his uneasiness in the golden bubbling beverage. And then someone had brought over some dangerous looking shoots of something Yuri couldn’t identify that had burned all the way down and shot straight to his head. It was about then that he’d forced himself away from the drunk crowd to as secluded of a corner as he could find to suffer in silence. “Yura, how are you holding up?” Yuri jerked awake at the low voice vibrating next to his ear. He flushed and looked up at his friend. Otabek’s face blurred briefly and Yuri shuddered at the effect, forced to close his eyes and look away again with a shrug. Surprisingly gentle fingers combed through his hair and he dared open his eyes again. “Try to eat a little something. You’ve had nothing but drinks all night, it isn’t helping,” he reasoned. “I don’t want anything right now,” he slurred and waved away the plate filled with tiny quiche and vegetables. Otabek persisted silently, staring him down until Yuri finally caved and nibbled at one of the quiche in defeat. He tried not to focus on the way his face was far too warm or the carbonation from the champaign swirling in his stomach. He shifted to stand up straighter but found himself losing all footing and toppling against Otabek instead. The taller skater caught him easily in one arm, plate of snacks still balance in the other. Yuri groaned and pressed his face into the others chest. The sudden movement had jarred his head and the room swirled sickeningly around him. He dropped the barely eaten snack to cling onto Otabek in a desperate attempt to keep the room from tilting anymore. He felt those gentle fingers back in his hair and sighed in content. “I’ll take you back to your room.” Otabek carefully pried the small and uncharacteristically docile blonde from his chest to guide him out of the banquet hall. If he hadn’t been there to guide Yuri towards the doors Otabek wasn’t so sure he would have made it on his own without face planting. His cheeks and nose were flushed bright pink, a heavy glaze clouding over his vibrant green eyes. Otabek had a steady arm looped around Yuri’s shoulders but that didn’t stop the almost childish grip the blonde had on his jacket. Or the way Yuri winced and tried to hide his face again once they stepped out of the banquet hall and into the brighter lights of the hallway. “I hate drinking,” Yuri mumbled and pressed his face into his friends side again to hide away from the cruel chandeliers of the expensive hotel exploding like stars in his vision. Otabek smirked and waited patiently for the other to peer out of his chest and begin their trek back to the hotel room again. “Then you shouldn’t have accepted so much.” “Shut up!” Yuri grumbled on the end of a hiccough, the usual bite lost in a slurring mumble. It was a slow walk to the elevators and he could only be thankful that the party was in the same hotel as their rooms that year. Yuri wasn’t sure he remembered much of it. The world kept floating in and out of focus and all he could think about was the throbbing growing at the base of his skull and the acidic churning of the alcohol in his belly. He swallowed and rubbed at his tired, burning eyes, almost ready to eat his pride and ask Otabek to carry him the rest of the way to his room. Before he was able to there was a sudden dimness and he was sitting on the edge of a nice soft bed. He sighed and looked up as a cold glass was pressed into his hand and he drank it greedily without hesitation. He didn’t care what it was so long as it would quench the sudden thirst burning his throat. “Get some rest, Yura. Lay down,” Otabek ordered and pressed the angry but compliant skater down to the pillows before removing his shoes for him and then helping him out of the jacket. Yuri looked up at the doubled vision of his friend hovering over him, cooing at the fingers back in his hair. He’d never admitted it but he actually loved when people played with his hair like that. “Thanks, Beka,” he hummed, finally caving to the blissful darkness of sleep. When he woke up again the room was pitch black and silent. He wasn’t entirely sure what had happened but his head was throbbing, his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, and his stomach was absolutely burning. He felt the heat creep up the back of his throat and gasped at the sudden flip it gave, trying desperately to roll off the bed or get to a bathroom but his alcohol heavy limbs still wouldn’t move and the most he could manage was rolling to the side of the bed and heaving to the floor. “Yuri!” someone called and pulled his hair back just in time to save it from the gush of watery sick gurgling from the pits of his stomach to the carpeted floor. The blonde panted desperately before his body stiffened with another gag and added a new surge of bile to decorate the carpet. He swallowed and held his breath, holding back a third gag and clutching to the edge of the bed. The hand stroking his back stopped and Yuri dared open his mouth again. “B-bathroom,” he choked out and this time Otabek scooped the petite from up without asking to swiftly settle him on the bathroom floor. No sooner had he opened the toilet lid Yuri was launching forward and heaving up whatever was left in his stomach. He barely noticed Otabek pulling his hair back again or the strong hand settling between his shoulder blades to stroke up his spine. Otabek wasn’t a man of many words so the only sounds echoing in the bathroom for a long while were the sick gags and splatters of vomit hitting the toilet water. Eventually Yuri came up for air again, wiping the back of his hand across his chin and wincing at the disgusting slim spreading across it. Otabek had a tissue quickly handy to give him instead. “Gross,” Yuri panted, tossing the tissue in the bowl and flushing away his shame. His stomach still ached and his head was pulsing along with his heartbeat but for the moment he was safe. He settled back against his friend, silently ordering him not to move and enjoying the solid warmth supporting him. “Feel any better?” He finally asked after a few moments of silence. Yuri nodded, closing his eyes and curling up against Otabek. If he’d been coherent enough to look up he would have never let Otabek live down the bright flush staining his cheeks as the ill-tempered Russian Tiger settled under his chin much like a cat. He let himself enjoy the position for a while before it was clear Yuri’s stomach was going to at least stay where it was and his sense of duty won over. Yuri whined when he lost his pillar of warmth but was grateful for the water and pain killers plied into his hand. The fact that the blonde didn’t complain when Otabek picked him back up to carry over to the bed again was proof enough that he still felt like crap. With a wide berth to avoid the vomit on Yuri’s half of the bed Otabek settled him on the second bed in the room, pulling the trashcan close to the bed. “I am never drinking again,” Yuri sulked and closed his eyes again. He felt the bed dip and didn’t complain when Otabek began stroking his hair again. Yuri practically melted into the mattress, a content hum slipping passed his lips all the encouragement his friend needed to continue the petting. The soft tingling down his spine was more soothing to his headache than any pain killer he could have taken. “You’re more of a kitten than a tiger,” Otabek teased, carefully working out a knot of hair and gently scratching along the blonde’s scalp as he dragged his fingers through the silken tresses. He grinned at the moan he earned from the action and kept it up. “I’ll forgive that comment this once,” he muttered, cracking a sleepy eye open at his friend. “Only because you’re taking care of me,” he warned and closed his eyes. He’d have to think of a way to thank his friend for taking care of him like this. He had no obligation to hang around while Yuri puked his guts out like that. No one but his grandpa had ever really taken care of him so much. “I’ll count myself lucky not to invoke your wrath,” Otabek chuckled as he settled down to lay down next to his friend. It was nearly 2am and he was exhausted himself. He’d been settled on the opposite bed before Yuri had woken up sick, and truthfully he had no intentions of sleeping next to the puddle next to Yuri’s former bed. “You’d better,” Yuri smiled, wiggling back into his friend and stealing the warmth from him greedily. Otabek Pulled the covers up over them, before leaning over, pressing a light kiss to Yuri’s temple. “By the way, congratulations on winning gold,” he spoke quietly and laid back down, fingers going back to their soothing ministrations in Yuri’s hair. Yuri was thankful the room was too dark for his friend to see the blush staining his cheeks from the gentle act. He smiled, his heart warm and head spinning in a much more pleasant way than before. “Thanks, Beka,” he breathed, quickly lulled back to sleep by his friends gentle fingers. Maybe getting drunk hadn’t been such a bad thing after all.

#alcohol tw #vomit tw #july 23 2017 #sickdays3 #submission

[no-white-knights-blog]

Have You Seen This Cat? - Drabble for TheShatteredRose

Words: 2078

Notes: The characters in this one-shot are members of the Guardian’s Guild, and belong to @theshatteredrose. I wrote this forever ago as a gift for Rose, and decided to post it here as well. I take no credit for any of the characters, they all belong to Rose, I just wanted to write her something so this happened~

---------

The snow had piled up in the few days the winter blizzard had raged through town. For once it had let up, and people could peer outside to see the white fluff reaching the bottom of the lowest window sills. It took more than one volunteer to shovel the snow enough so the door of the inn could be opened at all, and that took so much energy everyone gave up on the walkways and roads.

If you peered out at the right moment you’d see brave citizens trudging through the waist deep snow trying to go about their normal routines, but most of Lagaard was happily tucked inside where the fires were burning bright and warm, without the white crap anywhere near them.

Currently, Lynus was sitting in an armchair near the fire, blanket around his shoulders and book in hand, Chi-Hung curled up near his feet with the tip of his tail giving short, jerky twitches, like something was irritating him but he was too lazy and comfortable to bother with it. Lynus reached down to pet behind his ear to somehow calm him, his head lifting when the sound of soft footsteps lead into the room.

Their guild's blond alchemist looked uneasy, surprising considering he’d been acting so calm and upbeat, literally the only one from their guild who didn’t seem to be too bothered by all the snow. All that relaxation seemed to have seeped out of him, his hair was a mess and one hand was lifted towards his mouth as he looked around the tea room.

“Magnus?” Lynus called out, closing the book as the timid man looked in his direction, “Is something wrong?”

“Ah,” Magnus immediately tugged at the red scarf around his neck, looking down, “Um, no, I just can’t seem to find Zanna.”

“Oh,” Lynus set his book aside and shrugged the blanket off at the mention of the newest member of their guild, the little kitten Magnus had brought home on a rainy day.

She’d grown quite a bit since then, and she was usually with Magnus if she wasn’t lazing around sleeping in random places in his room, most notably on Shen’s bed, which she’d taken a liking to, much to the Ronin’s confusion (it was funny for everyone else because he didn’t have the heart to move her). She was still a little thing though, and the inn was quite large, there were a number of problems she could get herself into.

“Want me to help you look for her?” Lynus asked, and Magnus nodded slowly, wandering over to the window and pushing the curtains aside to look behind them, “I’m sure she’s okay.”

“Mhm,” Magnus didn’t sound too certain, getting to his knees to look under the couch as Lynus pulled the cushions off.

“What’s going on here?” Axel was the one to ask from the doorway, his eyebrows lifted towards his hairline as he watched Lynus lift a couch cushion over his head, looking honestly ridiculous, “Are we redecorating?”

“Zanna has wandered off,” Lynus explained, setting the cushions aside before turning and looking towards the other side of the room, “You haven’t seen her, have you?”

“The little guy? Nah,” Axel wandered into the room, hands in his pockets and a small smile on his face as Magnus scrambled to his feet.

“What if she’s hurt?”

“She’s alright, I’m sure. Cats are really self-reliant and smart.”

“Maybe she’s in your room?” Axel suggested, and Magnus nodded slowly.

“Shen is there,” he said, shuffling his feet as he started for the door, Axel and Lynus following and peering into random corners as they passed, just in case the tiny furball was there.

They found Shen sitting in the lotus position on his bed, eyes closed, but he peeled one open when Magnus called to him, both opening when he seemed to notice the anxiety on the blond’s face.

“Is Zanna in here?” Magnus asked, “I can’t find her. She wandered off and I’m worried.”

Shen tensed and looked around, shaking his head, “I don’t think so.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Lynus suggested, reaching out to take Magnus by the arm and smiling brightly at him, “She couldn’t have gotten far. Just retrace your steps, where were you when she wandered off?”

“Um,” Magnus’ hand was in front of his mouth now, his sleeve covering most of his hand as he stared at the ceiling, “I was… talking to Macerio… upstairs.”

“Let’s start there, then,” Lynus suggested, tugging Magnus towards the door, “Would you like to help, Shen?”

The Ronin grunted a little, seemingly uninterested, but in the end, he stood up and followed his three guildmates, staying close to Magnus as they made their way up the stairs to the second floor where Rahas and Lirit’s room was. The door was open already, and Macerio was sitting on Lirit’s bed with his legs sprawled over the Troubadour’s lap, while Lirit sat with his back against the wall, holding a notebook and a pencil.

Rahas was lying on his bed on his back, holding a pillow over his face like he was trying to block out the noise around him. That noise mainly consisted of Lirit and Macerio talking, and the tap of Lirit’s pencil against his notebook.

“What do you think, Rahas?” Lirit asked, and Rahas pulled the pillow away from his face.

“I think I hate both of you, please go flirt somewhere else.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Macerio demanded as Lirit sighed and Rahas pulled the pillow back over his face.

“Hello Lirit, Macerio, Rahas,” Lynus smiled when two of the three looked at him.

“Hey Lynus,” Lirit gave a wave, “What’s going on?”

“Magnus was here a moment ago, right?”

“Yea.”

“I-I can’t find Zanna,” Magnus blurted before tugging the scarf back over his face, cheeks red like he was embarrassed that he was troubling everyone so much.

“Oh, the kitty,” Lirit leaned forward, “She followed you out when you left, it was cute. How did she wander off?”

Magnus shook his head furiously and Macerio stood up from the bed, “Want us to help look for her? There’s nothing else to do.”

“Yea,” Lirit set his little book down and walked over to Rahas’ bed, pulling the pillow from his face, “Come on, let’s go find Zanna.”

“Ugh, why me?”

“That should be your catchphrase,” Macerio said, skittering behind Lirit when Rahas sat up and glared at him.

“I’m sure we can find her in no time with this many people,” Lynus said, setting a reassuring hand on Magnus’ shoulder and smiling softly.

Magnus nodded slowly, still playing with his scarf, “I’m s-sorry for the trouble.”

“It’s cool,” Axel waved a hand nonchalantly, “We gotta be vigilant if a guildmate is missing, right?”

Magnus smiled at that and nodded, jumping a little when more people still showed up, Tobyn and Jhon, with Binah hanging on Jhon’s arm and dragging her heels on the floor, “Come on, you gotta help!”

“Absolutely not,” Tobyn muttered, practically bristling from whatever it was Binah was trying to coax the pair into.

“What are you doing, Binah?” Lynus asked, placing his hands onto his hips as the three stopped and Binah bumped into Jhon’s back, pouting around his arm.

“I’m tryna get them to help Lirit!”

Lirit pointed at himself, looking baffled as Tobyn grumbled in irritation and Jhon hummed, “What’s up here? Are we having a meeting?”

“Zanna is missing,” Lynus explained for what felt like the tenth time, and Magnus hunched his shoulders, nodding.

“Oh, I saw her downstairs,” Jhon said, pointing, “She was going in the tea room. I figured Magnus was in there but I guess she was playing hide and seek, huh?”

Magnus had brightened at the potential whereabouts of the kitten, spinning around with everyone following, Lynus feeling increasingly confused.

“We were just there,” he said, “I’ve been there for a while, and I didn’t see her come in.”

“Well she’s really tiny,” Axel argued, “Easy to miss.”

“Like Macerio,” Rahas said, earning a fist in the arm from the Gunner in question.

“Maybe we should get Simmons to help!” he snapped, and Rahas snarled.

“Fuck that!”

“He’s still in denial,” Binah piped, and Rahas growled lowly as Macerio snickered and elbowed him.

The tea room was as vacant as when Lynus had left, the couch cushions still on the floor, Chi-Hung still curled up in front of the fireplace, and Macerio pointed at him as the rest of the group fanned out around the room to look under tables and chairs.

“Hey how come Chi-Hung isn’t helping! That’s so not fair!”

“Quit whining, are you a child?” Rahas muttered, and Macerio spun to face him.

“You’re one to talk!”

“Alright you two, no fighting,” Lynus said from where he was putting the cushions back in place, and Macerio held his hands up in defense.

“Yes, mom.”

The response earned him a narrow-eyed look from Lynus, which prompted him into stepping back over to Lirit to hide behind him again. Axel chuckled a little and Lynus turned, throwing the couch cushion at him.

“Oh, shut up!” he said, blushing, and Axel snickered, easily catching the assault.

The room had been turned upside down by the time their trusty leader walked in, stopping in the doorway and letting his eyes pan around the room where his young guild was sitting slumped against overturned chairs and couches, looking put out and upset.

“Was there a brawl?” Hamza asked, clicking his tongue, “I can’t leave you alone for a day, can I?”

“Ah, Hamza,” Lynus sat straighter where he had been leaning against Axel’s shoulder, “Zanna is missing and we were looking for her, but we can’t find her,” he looked over at where Magnus was sitting with his knees to his chest and his eyes glassy.

“Hm? The kitten?” Hamza asked, stepping further into the room and stopping, hands on his hips and looking around again before his eyes stopped on the saber tooth tiger who hadn’t moved an inch since earlier, “Chi-Hung, you wouldn’t happen to know where the little kitten is?”

The bright eyes flicked to Hamza, tail twitching as a sudden, muffled meow echoed in the otherwise quiet room. Macerio gasped.

“Chi-Hung ate her!”

Magnus looked horrified, but Tobyn smacked the back of Macerio’s head, “Don’t be stupid!”

“He can’t help it, it’s habit,” Rahas said.

“Chi-Hung?” Lynus called to the tiger, who peered over at him, “Do you know where Zanna is?”

The noble beast lifted his head, stretching out his big paws as the tiny orange and white kitten stood up from where she’d been settled right at Chi-Hung’s chest, walking in a circle before cuddling back up in the tiger’s thick fur, purring, and kneading her little claws against his chest.

The room was eerily quiet for a long time before Macerio started to laugh, pointing, “He didn’t eat her!”

“That’s so sweet,” Lynus smiled, and Magnus scrambled to his feet, hurrying over and dropping down beside Chi-Hung so he could pluck Zanna up and cradle her against his chest.

Zanna didn’t seem too bothered by the change, knocking her head against Magnus’ chin and purring as the guild slowly stood up.

“So, Chi-Hung knew the whole time where she was,” Jhon stated, folding his arms, “Figures.”

“It’s good they’re getting along though,” Lynus decided, smiling as Chi-Hung laid his chin on Magnus’ lap, looking up at Zanna, “Good job, Chi-Hung.”

Magnus smiled as he lifted Zanna and let her climb up onto his head, settling down in his fluffy hair so her tail was waving in front of his face, “Th-thank you everyone for helping me find her,” he said softly, and Hamza hummed.

“You know you can always ask us for help.”

“Help?” Macerio gaped at Hamza, “You weren’t even here!”

“Ah, but I helped more than anyone, didn’t I?” Hamza said, holding his chin looking thoughtful, “I left you all to bond just enough before coming back and pointing out that Zanna’s tail was sticking out from under Chi-Hung’s paw. You need to be more observant.”

“I call bull! I didn’t see her tail!”

Rahas hummed, “Yea I hate agreeing with him but I didn’t either.”

“You must be seeing things in your old age,” Jhon decided, pointing at Rahas when Hamza narrowed his eyes at him, “He said it.”

“What?!”

Lynus laughed softly and leaned back against Axel’s shoulder, “Glad that’s over.”

“Yea, but it’s not,” Axel mumbled, and Lynus turned to look at him.

“What do you mean?”

Axel hummed before raising his voice, “Hate to break this to you, but if we don’t fix the tea room, Matron’s gonna kill us.”

Everyone in the room froze before immediately scrambling around like chickens with their heads cut off, and Lynus laughed as he stood to help.

“Ah, but it was fun,” he decided, smiling a little bigger when Axel placed a quick kiss to his cheek.

“It always is with this guild.”

#EO #etrian odyssey #cease the suffering #theshatteredrose #not my characters #one shot for Rose #alchemist #Magnus #Zanna #the kitty is missing call the damn navy #macerio is smol child I love him #did I get their character personalities right? #i'm obsessed please forgive me #guardian's guild #my middle name is trash