Av, she/they, 18+ Blog. Bonafide reblogger of many things, and reader of just so much fanfiction. I'm horrendous at tagging in general, proceed at your own risk. Currently obsessed with: Hades 2. Art Blog: @IsleOfAvalonArt
Tags: Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Physical Abuse, Past Suicidal Ideation, Player has PTSD, Mental Health Issues, Grief/Mourning, Dysfunctional Family, Found Family, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Slow Burn, Trauma Recovery, Demetrius Critical, Robin Critical
Summary: Satsuma fled from ZuZu City with one goal: staying alive. Once she got to Pelican Town, her plan was to stay out of sight and out of mind of the people that lived there. In some ways that plan would've worked, most people were hellbent on involving her in the ways they saw fit and when she was incapable of meeting those expectations they often lost interest.
But Sebastian is unlike most of the others in ZuZu City. He is much too observant for his own good and more than willing to deconstruct Satsuma's carefully maintained walls with the seemingly endless patience he has for her and her alone. Maybe that's because Sebastian has been stuck in place for so long that he yearns for a change that his mind won't allow him to reach for on his own. Maybe it's just that Satsuma meets him halfway. Regardless, his heart has other plans and he won't remain isolated for much longer.
Satsuma brings with her the possibility of change for many in Pelican Town. The question is, how willing is she to bring that change for herself despite the risks?
When I was training to be a battered women’s advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:
“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”
Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isn’t that great today, but I have days where my best isn’t that great either.
Op I’d like to thank you for sharing this. Ever since the first time I’ve read it I’ve held it in my mind and it really has helped me to be kinder to others and to myself.
first post for context / see the tag 'open relationship au' for more or the masterlist so kindly put together by @tafkarfanfic.
and with this snippet the story is officially over! i might add to this AU later (if you want to know when i do, you can follow either the masterlist or my pinned post) but for now i'm gonna take a little break from it. HUGE thank you to everyone who read along and left me such lovely and encouraging replies and asks. you guys are the best <333 and a special thank you to @quillquiver for talking through some ideas with me and to @tafkarfanfic for managing the masterlist <3
July 2015
Shane is quiet on the ride home. He doesn't ask for the keys to the car back so Ilya drives, relieved at having something useful to do.
The silence is a little concerning. Ilya is starting to think maybe knocking on the door before the twenty minutes were up was a mistake. Shane did explicitly ask him to wait.
He'd just been so worried, stomach twisting into knots as he pictured all the ways Brian could be trying to win Shane back, or all the things he might be saying to hurt him. It hadn't sat right with Ilya in the first place, letting Shane go up there alone, even though rationally Ilya had no business going with him.
At least Shane is letting him stick around now. Ilya keeps waiting to be sent away, for Shane to ask for some privacy, but he says nothing as Ilya follows him up to his apartment.
Once they're alone and the door is locked behind them, Shane turns around and collapses against Ilya.
Ilya wraps his arms around him instinctively, heart jumping when Shane burrows his face in the crook of his neck.
"It's done," Ilya says, because he isn't sure if he can tell Shane it's okay yet. He strokes his back, feels the tension slowly draining out of Shane's body. "You did it. You were perfect."
Shane laughs shakily, breath warm and damp against Ilya's skin. "Was I? I felt kind of pathetic."
"No," Ilya protests immediately. "You were brave."
"Shut up."
"You were."
Shane pulls back, just enough to look Ilya in the eye. He looks away quickly, a habit Ilya has tried and failed not to find endearing.
"What now?"
Ilya hesitates. He wants to stay, to hold Shane until today (until every single moment he spent with Brian) is a distant memory, no longer capable of hurting him. He also wants to fall into bed together, because there is at all time at least a little part of him that wants to be fucking Shane Hollander.
But maybe that isn't what Shane needs. Maybe he needs this time alone, to think and to figure out for himself what he wants.
"Is up to you," Ilya says, unable to hold back a smile at the way Shane's lips twist in distaste at the idea of being in charge.
"I don't know." Shane sighs. "It's probably a bad idea, but I kind of just want you to fuck me until I stop thinking so much."
It's definitely a bad idea. But what about them isn't?
"I can do that."
They fuck twice.
After the first round, Shane cries.
It starts with tears slipping silently down his cheeks. Ilya reaches to brush them away and Shane makes a wounded noise, flinching back. Still, he doesn't protest when Ilya wraps an arm around his shoulder, tucking him in close to his chest. Doesn't say anything except a shaky "Sorry", in between shuddering breaths.
Ilya has no idea what he's doing, if he's helping Shane or hurting him. He just knows that thinking about Shane breaking apart like this alone, crying into a cold pillow instead of wetting Ilya's collarbone with his tears, feels like dying.
After a while Shane's breathing steadies.
"Sorry," he says again, voice hoarse.
And before Ilya can tell him not to worry about it, Shane grabs his face and pulls him in for a kiss. It's wet with tears, shallow and messy and perfect.
The second round is slow. Shane wraps his legs around Ilya's waist, keeps them locked like he's afraid Ilya will disappear if he lets go. Ilya thrusts into him in short, deep movements, grinding more than fucking, hand tucked in the tight space between them and wrapped around Shane's weeping cock.
Shane comes first, nails digging into Ilya's back and hole clenching around him, moaning Ilya's name. Ilya follows helplessly, biting down on his tongue to keep from blurting out any ill-advised confessions.
As he moves to pull out Shane locks his legs around him tighter, keeping him still. Ilya takes the permission to collapse on top of him, head tucked against Shane's shoulder.
For a while, they just breathe together.
Then Shane sighs. "Rose would be disappointed in me."
"Hm?"
"The girl I talked to the other day," Shane says. "The one who helped me figure out my shit with Brian."
Ilya's hand twitches, grip tightening around Shane's waist possessively. He definitely doesn't like hearing that name while he's still buried deep in Shane's ass.
"She told me I should stay single for a while," Shane continues. "Which was probably good advice."
"Probably, yes," Ilya admits. He raises his head, catching Shane's eyes. "Is that what you want?"
"No, not really."
Ilya's heart soars. "No?"
"I want to be with you," Shane says, clear and to the point. Fearless, despite everything. "I like you. Probably more than I should."
"I like you, too." Then, much as it kills him, because one of them has to say it, "It will be complicated."
Shane swallows. "I know."
Ilya cups his cheek, thumb brushing across a dried tear track. His chest feels full, heart straining against his rib cage like it could burst it open. He doesn't understand how Shane could have gone through all that he did and still look at him like this, so open and trusting.
Ilya loves him. His Shane, his brave, beautiful boy.
"We will figure it out."
Shane kisses him, feather soft. There's something coy in his expression when he pulls back, a glimpse of uncertainty. "We could - I have this cottage. We could got there, be alone there to figure things out together. If you want."
Ilya's heart jumps. "I want. Today?"
"If you don't have someplace else to be."
Ilya doesn't, not after clearing his schedule to make it to Montreal. Even if he hadn't, he'd move heaven and earth to do it now. He tells Shane this and Shane smiles, bright like the sun.
"We could have a week," Shane says. "Maybe two, if you won't be sick of me yet."
"Never," Ilya says with absolute certainty. "I could never be sick of you."
Shane's smile dims. It's clear he doesn't really believe him.
That's fine. Ilya will keep showing him until he does.
What if we were two sides of the same coin. What if i lived in your shadow all my life but found comfort in the darkness and dont know what to do once youre gone. What if youre the only person who understands. What if you have have no idea what i went through. What if we went through the same traumas but ended up with oposite conclusions about our suffering. What if i dont recognize you anymore. What if i see the ghost of my former self reflected through your eyes. What if it never had to go this way. What if this was the only way things were ever going to go
Listen I get it but you CANNOT use "sensory nightmare" as an excuse to avoid essential things. You HAVE to find a way to make it work, such as finding effective alternatives. But you can't just avoid it.
You need to eat some vegetables in your diet or you will become a lich.
You have to wear a life jacket or you will literally drown and die.
You need to be able to exist in public spaces with children.
good LORD the piss is flying all over the place in that comment section! If you're poor do NOT leave your house you're definitely gonna get caught in the crossfire.
ao3′s orphaning option is cool and a good idea but mostly very fucking funny. i posted this work for fun when i was younger and i still want people to be able to come back to it if they liked it, but now im an adult professional and i dont want it attached to my name. whats the word for that? umm, anonymously posting? no. i want something that indicates i murdered this story’s parents
I think it's a... Sign, I suppose, of the comfort of antiblackness, that it's easier to continue to beg Black people for patience, to expect it, feel entitled to it even, than it is to go to your peers and tell them to knock it off. Personally. There's a quote, I wish I could remember it, about the finite-ness of Black Patience. Mm.
Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."
This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find
Some people get existential dread from this
Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating
@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally
Source (non Aboriginal)
And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history
Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)
This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.
My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.
The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.
It's not r*pe, it's rape. It's not su*cide, it's suicide. Not unalive, dead. The backbone needs to be reintroduced en masse because softening the blow of these concepts with advertising language does absolutely nothing but allow people unaffected by them to feel not even a sting of what they can do, prompting inaction.
And it's been proven that on certain websites, you don't even face a repercussion for using the words as they are. People just started censoring themselves because they feared the potential lack of views and likes and followers which is so nasty itself.
I attended an anti-suicide seminar in college. One of the big takeaways from it was that stigmatizing suicide increases the rate of suicide, because people who are feeling suicidal feel like they can't ask for help. Every time I see babytalk garbage like 'unalive', I think of that.
