the taste of rain . . . why kneel?

FOR A MOMENT, HE REMAINS SILENT, but a smile blooms upon haggard features thereafter he regards John’s last attempt at a joke – something genuine, amid all the chaos that has transpired the past few days…all because he thought killing his ‘friend’ off was the better idea. Stupid, stupid, Santino, you do not kill Babayka. The Star Wars reference isn’t something he would have expected from the man, but he has to remember – John is human, after all. Human, bleeding red, just like him. He hisses as he removes the cloth from his shoulder where he’s stopped the bloodflow, looking over to Winston and receiving a nod. Receiving a pair of tweezers, he grits his teeth and manages to pluck the bullet out, gasping as he finally lets it fall with a ‘clink’ into the nearby half-empty tumbler of Whisky.

He tears the sleeve of his suit jacket off and wraps it tightly around the wound, leaning back in his seat once more and eyeing John thoughtfully. ❛ I will not allow anyone to take my seat – New York is best in my hands over someone else’s. I do not intend to reign over it as a tyrant. ❜ No, there will be ample discussion and negotiation, proper trade established and territories handed over to underbosses he can trust. Perhaps, he will even allot John one of them. ❛ If you’ve a favourite area in the city, I am willing to hand you control over it. A gift in return for sparing my life. ❜

It’s easy to forget friendships forged in this life--things are rarely personal, and when they are, it’s a safe bet to assume John Wick is behind it. What happened with Ioseph, what happened with Santino--it all stemmed from the blood that rested on his hands, a life long forgotten. He’ll never be back, the Boogeyman has long since been dispersed. Now there is only a broken man and that . . . that is always more dangerous than a legend. 

“Gianna seemed to think you would.” his voice drops as he leans in. “It was among her last thoughts--that her brother would be New York’s ruin.” he pauses, and waits for a few moments. He shouldn’t tell Santino any of this, not when the wound is still fresh, when her body is still warm. “I didn’t kill her.” he leans back, fingers a steeple. “She took it upon herself to go out her way. As she lived.” 

I’m sorry is a notable absence. He knows Santino doesn’t deserve his pity, his sympathy--friend or not. But it’s there, underneath it all, underneath the disassembling of his gun, the signaling for removal of it from the table by Winston. Jonathan, his gaze says, you’ve grown. A cursory glance from John says something different: no, i’ve rotted. 

“Give me my home back.” it’s curt, measured by the grinding of his teeth. “And, while you’re at it.” he digs into his pocket, retrieves his busted phone, drops it on the table where the gun was. A purposeful act. “Get this repaired, too. I don’t want control.” 

@burnshort; JOHN WICK.

WHEN SANTINO WAS YOUNG, HE WAS told he would rise to greatness only by manipulation and bloodshed, just as he and Gianna’s father and mother before them did. His father died by his mother’s blade before he was old enough to speak, just so she could take his place at the high table and represent Camorra. He supposes what he did to his sister was only what ran in the family, but his betrayal of John is something he acutely regrets after he pushed the man out of retirement once more. 

❛ I’m…surprised, that you would consider saving me from the brink of death. ❜ He murmurs, and it’s a ghost of one as he painfully manages to sit up, the bullet that hit him in the shoulder instead of the head smarting – it’s still inside of his body. ❛ I now owe you a life debt. Is this what you wanted, John? ❜

“Life debt, huh?”

He takes his place across from Santino, sighing--an action pregnant with exasperation. The offending gun rests on the table between them, next to the plate, still smoking, and John grabs the fork, stabbing a piece of the duck fat. Observing it for a few moments, he gingerly places it in his mouth and makes a small noise of surprised approval. The fork clangs against the metal of the gun, breaking the silence of the Continental. Winston watches on in something like anticipation, finding it in the bottom of a glass of bourbon--John’s favorite. 

“Consider it ... payback. That wound won’t heal anytime soon.” he places his elbows on the table, pressing against the gun. “You’ll have your seat at the table, Santino. You’ll also have a festering wound. A reminder of what you did--to me. To the business.” 

Behind them, Winston offers the conversation a minute smirk. John knows what he’s doing, he always does. He doesn’t give a damn about the business, it’s meant to get under Santino’s skin. And, knowing John, he’ll be more than successful at doing just that. A far cry from the instrument of revenge that had walked into this room only moments ago. 

@burnshort; JOHN WICK. 

THERE’S A COMMOTION ON THE RAINY side-street late past midnight that has him bring his car to a screeching halt. A wounded man, bleeding from the leg, being chased by a bunch of thugs with guns – bullets fly and he curses as they barely skirt the glass. It isn’t in his nature to assist random passersby, but he’s feeling altruistic tonight, lucky enough for the dark haired male who’s in terrible shape. 

❛ If you don’t desire to be filled with bullets and end up like swiss cheese – get in. ❜ He shoves the door of his Lamborghini open, waits for the other man to drag himself inside before his car peels away from the scene, the disheveled man’s pursuers hot on their tracks. His hands are adept with the wheel, swerving the car through every sharp turn and alley he can to put as much distance as possible between them and the enemy. 

Life sometimes treats John Wick with a casual indifference--a sort of half-lidded gaze and the attention a drunk father might give his child when they tell him they’re leaving for the night. It allows him to go about his daily business, never once giving him a second thought . . . but sometimes, like tonight, this night, it brings the hammer down as quickly as he does in a not-so-silent response to the hired thugs seeking his head on a silver platter. So, he’s wounded, but that’s par for the course for him. 

but the one thing that i have never done, is attack those via saying ‘choke’ or ‘go die’ who didn’t deserve it--for example, the large wave of people who defended those who wrote incest, or those who sexualized characters who were minors (specifically those in the anime rpc), or those who were consistently exhibiting racist behavior. if i’ve pushed those people off this site, then good, because they don’t have a place in this community or any community where their actions can harm survivors or those who suffer from the things they write. 

i am not aware of anyone that i have pushed off of this site with my actions that didn’t deserve it with the exception of recent events, which i’ve taken full responsibility for. i understand there are people who are disappointed and hurt and angry at my actions--and rightfully so, but don’t come into my inbox on anon trying to piggyback on something that isn’t yours and say it’s karma for how i’ve acted towards disgusting people in the past. it serves no purpose. 

i only said that about disgusting people on this site, i.e. people who excuse writing incest or pedophilia or the like, or excessively racist people. what people have i, personally, pushed off this website? do people like that really deserve to not be told to die or to choke? i’ve never told anyone to choke or go die unless they deserved it. 

hello all. i don’t want to reblog the pertinent post out of respect for evelyn so she doesn’t have to see me in her notifications, but i wanted to address it otherwise so it doesn’t seem as if i am trying to avoid it. 

to start with, i am completely and wholly embarrassed by the way i acted both the day in question (our breakup) and how i have acted recently–as well as how i acted in moments during me and evelyn’s relationship. there’s no excuse for any of it. though it’s no excuse, i was that the way i was acting (i should have realized on my own, and for this, i am sorry that it had to come to this for me to really acknowledge my own actions) was painting her out to be the villain. that is on me, 100%. i am sorry, from the bottom of my heart, but i’m not going to spend this entire post apologizing–only because i don’t want to keep circling back to an apology and filling up space when i could just be acknowledging my behavior instead. 

regarding my blog hopping, it was not an attempt to run from anything or to try and weasel my way back into some people’s good graces (not that evelyn was saying i was doing that)–i go through periods where i do make multiple blogs within a short period of time, and i always have in times of duress. my remaking a blog for hannah came from a place of genuine comfort because while my internet was out recently, i started watching pretty little liars again, and felt as if being on her blog again would do well to ease my mind and for a while, it did work. when i made a blog for aloy, and changed my alias, it was for my own comfort and to ease my own paranoia which had / has a hand in the way that i acted. 

regarding that, i misunderstood (constantly) evelyn’s act of putting me in her rules and the subsequent loss of followers made my separation anxiety flare up which, in turn, fed into my paranoia. it’s not an excuse, but an explanation as to why i changed my alias and made a new blog. i wanted some measure of comfort to try and quell the bad thoughts i was facing, and i apologize to anyone if it seemed as if i were trying to circumvent her rules or run from anything. 

regarding suga’s points, that is something i completely take responsibility for and have no excuse for. it has happened on a consistent basis and i apologize for my behavior regarding the appropriation of AAVE and for any dodging i may have done when it has been brought to my attention via an anon. which it should not have had to come to in the first place, i shouldn’t rely on others to check me, i need to start doing it myself. 

and that’s the crux of this post, really. i am going to make a conscious effort to take what was said to heart and change my behavior for the better. i am truly sorry for my actions and to anyone that i’ve hurt / made uncomfortable because of them, but more specifically, i am sorry to evelyn, i am sorry to suga, and i am sorry to sol. i am sorry that it had to come to this for me to really have a kick in the ass and realize the way i have been behaving recently was / is completely uncalled for. there was no excuse for my actions then, and there is no excuse now. thank you for reading, and please like if you have read this. (i will reblog this on other pertinent blogs (i.e. the ones in her rules) so any who follow me on one blog but not the other can see this, too). 

ADDENDUM:

Here is the original post.

I touched on it in my initial response very briefly, which was stupid and disrespectful of me. I should have better acknowledged that my actions and behavior caused Evelyn to feel the way she did, to revert to self-harm and to feel suicidal. It was beyond reproach of me and no amount of apologizing or change that I might or will do will make up for that. 

The way I acted on twitter, specifically, after we broke up was extremely toxic of me. There are no other words to describe it beyond what it is and beyond what I’ve done and said. Which is me saying that I couldn’t enjoy certain things or do certain things because they remind me of her or the separation. That was stupid of me to say, and stupid of me to behave that way. It’s not her fault, as she has told me, I need to snap the fuck out of that behavior. I need to move past that and change, I do. 

I overstepped her boundaries, as addressed in the post, more than once and for that, too, I truly apologize. There is no excuse, I wasn’t thinking, that was shitty of me. It was shitty of me to try and make her stay in the relationship when she didn’t want to, and it was shitty of me to talk to people close to her about what had happened, trying to twist the story around. I simply shouldn’t have talked to anyone about it in the manner that i did. 

Here is Sol’s response.

Sol was one of the first people I approached privately about what had happened, and at the time, I felt as if I were merely relaying what happened between me and Evelyn. Looking back on it now, with the information in the original post and in Sol’s response, I know that wasn’t the case. I feel absolutely horrendous for doing so, for approaching people and talking about it and twisting the story around to be in my favor. Like I said in the last point, I shouldn’t have done it period, regardless of how I felt on the matter. 

My idea that Evelyn was talking to people in private and saying negative things about me was the result of my paranoia acting up and my actions afterward stemmed from that--it’s not an excuse or a justification. I acted on impulse, on feelings and ideas that weren’t there, and that led to the things I’ve said to people or the tweets that I posted. It was another instance of me letting my emotions influence how I act and I am completely and utterly regretful of it. 

It’s what led to her feeling the way she did (along with my previous actions), it’s what led to her and other people’s discomfort, and like I said above, nothing I can say or do will change what I have done. 

Here is Suga’s response.

First off, my own usage of AAVE is something not mentioned in Suga’s response, but she approached me about it on Discord earlier today and it’s relevant to the post overall. I have been approached on anon about my usage of it multiple times, have apologized and edited the post when approached about it but made no conscious effort to not do it again, as she said. 

And that is the case for how I acted towards Evelyn, as well. What she told me in private (in the first set of screencaps she linked to) is something I should have taken to heart from the get go and, like she did, let it be and keep my mouth shut. But I didn’t, and that was extremely disrespectful of me. I broke her trust, I caused her to feel as if she was the villain in all this, and I caused her to self-harm. There’s no excuse for it, there’s no other word for it beyond me being toxic. 

I don’t know what else to say, because I don’t want to circle back around to another apology or to repeat myself and pad out what should have been an apology from the very beginning and not the utter foolery and downplaying of my own actions that the initial post was. 

to start with, i am completely and wholly embarrassed by the way i acted both the day in question (our breakup) and how i have acted recently--as well as how i acted in moments during me and evelyn’s relationship. there’s no excuse for any of it. though it’s no excuse, i was that the way i was acting (i should have realized on my own, and for this, i am sorry that it had to come to this for me to really acknowledge my own actions) was painting her out to be the villain. that is on me, 100%. i am sorry, from the bottom of my heart, but i’m not going to spend this entire post apologizing--only because i don’t want to keep circling back to an apology and filling up space when i could just be acknowledging my behavior instead. 

regarding my blog hopping, it was not an attempt to run from anything or to try and weasel my way back into some people’s good graces (not that evelyn was saying i was doing that)--i go through periods where i do make multiple blogs within a short period of time, and i always have in times of duress. my remaking a blog for hannah came from a place of genuine comfort because while my internet was out recently, i started watching pretty little liars again, and felt as if being on her blog again would do well to ease my mind and for a while, it did work. when i made a blog for aloy, and changed my alias, it was for my own comfort and to ease my own paranoia which had / has a hand in the way that i acted. 

regarding that, i misunderstood (constantly) evelyn’s act of putting me in her rules and the subsequent loss of followers made my separation anxiety flare up which, in turn, fed into my paranoia. it’s not an excuse, but an explanation as to why i changed my alias and made a new blog. i wanted some measure of comfort to try and quell the bad thoughts i was facing, and i apologize to anyone if it seemed as if i were trying to circumvent her rules or run from anything. 

regarding suga’s points, that is something i completely take responsibility for and have no excuse for. it has happened on a consistent basis and i apologize for my behavior regarding the appropriation of AAVE and for any dodging i may have done when it has been brought to my attention via an anon. which it should not have had to come to in the first place, i shouldn’t rely on others to check me, i need to start doing it myself.