#Chronic illness and the pressure to get well

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

Mad Season 4

Warnings: non/dubcon, social anxiety, chronic illness, and other dark elements. My username actually says you never asked for any of this.

My warnings are not exhaustive but be aware this is a dark fic and may include potentially triggering topics. Please use your common sense when consuming content. I am not responsible for your decisions.

Character: Bucky Barnes, Peter Parker

Summary: a class project gets messy. (short!reader)

Note: happy weekend.

As usual, I would appreciate any and all feedback. I’m happy to once more go on this adventure with all of you! Thank you in advance for your comments and for reblogging ❤️

Thursdays are your least favourite. You have two classes and a large chunk of nothing followed by a late lab. In the time in-between, you don’t bother making the venture back to your dorm, instead opting for the library after a quick stop at the cafe. After sitting around and trying to focus on the dense texts, you’re almost too exhausted for your lab. 

Still, you get through it without a complete disaster and another dose of homework to add to your pile. As you follow the tide of students down the halls, spread out in pairs, trios, and larger groups, you yawn. You peek out the windows in dread. It’s already dark. With the autumn well in-effect, the nights aren’t only earlier, but blacker. 

You’re the last out, hanging back as you’re too nervous to get caught underfoot. You come down the front steps of the century-old building as your classmates disperse in fading ripples of chatter. As they fade into the evening, you’re left alone. 

You keep your hand around your phone, tucked just inside your jacket pocket, and head down the path. There’s a shortcut behind the English hall but you only take that in the daytime. So, you’re left with the long-winding route. 

As you pass by one of those poles with the siren at the top and a button labeled, press for assistance, you’re reminded of those cautionary talks during orientation. Try not to walk alone after dark, it’s always best to practice the buddy system. Well, your only buddy isn’t answering your texts. Besides, it’s not Peter’s responsibility and he has a morning lab. 

Your soles scuff and echo, sending a child up your spine that has nothing to do with the temperature. It’s almost as if there’s another set of steps. You slow and peer over your shoulder. It’s only your shadow limned by the lamp post that lights the benches and hedges that trim the walkway. 

You turn back and gurgle around a yipe. You stagger away from the figure as they catch you by your upper arm. You pull out your phone and flick on the flashlight, shining it in your accoster’s face. 

“Please--” you begin as the man lets you go and shies away, shielding himself with his hand. His fingers gleam in the glow and the leather glove cut above his knuckles darkens his palm. “Huh?” 

Bucky taps the frame of your phone and you lower it. You gape at him in shock, casting the light at the pavement instead. He blinks as he clears his vision. 

“Great to see your reflexes are on point,” he rubs his eyes.  

“What---” you look around as you bounce on your toes. 

“Stalking around a college isn’t exactly my idea of a good night either,” he says as your question hangs unfinished. “On a call. Details are confidential.” 

“Uh, oh? Around here?” You peer around, heart thumping against your ribs as your throat tightens. 

“Ha, I know, right? I should ask you why you’re out so late. Wandering around in the dark?” 

You blanch and rest your hand on your messenger bag, itching to take out your puffer as the pressure builds in your chest. 

“I... just walking home, sir. I swear--” 

“Relax,” his eyes catch the movement of your hand. “You’re no villain, I know. I only meant...” he pauses and glances around deliberately, “not very safe to be out.” 

You gulp and pull up the flap of your bag. You cough and bury your hand into the small pocket sewn into the lining. You take out your puffer and bring it to your mouth. You suck in the air as his posture softens. 

“Hey, woah, I’m not tryna scare ya. You okay?” He asks. 

You nod and swallow, lowering the inhaler. “Sorry, I... I’m tired and the air is cold,” you explain. “I’m just going back to my dorm. My lab was late.” 

“Right,” he accepts easily. “Why don’t you let me walk you?” 

“I... I’m alright. What about... whoever you’re looking for?” 

“Am I looking for someone?” He challenges. “Just a walk through, doll.” 

“Oh, erm, but uh, I don’t wanna... distract you,” you clutch your puffer so tight you accidentally push down the canister. “Oh, uh, sorry.” 

“Not distracting me. I wouldn’t be very good at my job if I let a young lady walk home alone in the dark, would I?” 

“Maybe, but... you don’t have to,” you squeak. 

He takes a breath and lets it out slow. He clicks his tongue, “you don’t like me.” 

“N-no,” you sputter. “No, it’s not, erm, sorry. Sorry.” 

“Don’t listen to the kid, he’s full of it,” he says. 

“Peter? He didn’t--” 

“Sweetheart, I’m kidding with ya,” he pats your arm, “really, I’m just looking out for you. Young girl like you, so quiet. Sweet. I saw the way that guy almost walked right through ya. And what did you do? You apologised to him. That ain’t right. Not how you treat a lady where I’m from.” 

You fidget and peek around. You can’t see much more than shadows beyond the wooden slats of benches and barren bushes. “But... I was in his way.” 

“Now, doll, how could you be in anyone’s way? Hope it’s not Pete putting that in your head,” he intones. 

“Peter? No, he’s nice. He’s a good friend. He’s... he helps me,” you say. 

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Bucky says, “point me in the right direction, doll? You stay out here any longer and you’re gonna chatter your teeth out of your head.” 

You hesitate before you get what he means. You don’t think he’s going to let you go alone and you really just want to go home. It is really cold out. You point behind him, “just down there and around.” 

“Right,” he turns and waves you along with him. You fall into step, too afraid to protest any further. You do feel a bit better not being alone. “Strange, you don’t strike me as Peter’s type.” 

“What? His type? Oh no, we’re friends,” you chirp. 

He hums. “Sure, just like all the others he brings to the Tower.” 

You frown and put your chin down, hiding your confusion, “others?” 

“Sure, bubbly ones. They talk a lot. Not like you though.” 

“Oh... well, we’re just doing a project,” you shrug. 

“I’m sure. Just a project,” he says. “Sorry, I misunderstood.” 

The air grows even more frigid as you walk on in silence. As you think of his implication, you feel your throat locking up again. You take another puff and cough. You turn and he follows you around the bend. 

“He isn’t worth your time anyway,” his deep timbre rolls through the tension. “I mean, if he was, he’d be the one walking you home right now, wouldn’t he?” 

[chiisana-sukima]

Hey so this post just came up on my dash and its an interesting perspective for sure. I was wondering if youd feel inclined to share your thoughts on it but no pressure ofc feel free to ignore.

https://www.tumblr.com/zudilio/648738136098275328/the-thing-is-that-i-miss-the-early-seasons?source=share

Yeah, I saw it on my dash too and considered reblogging with comments, but it's three years old and the OP has said in other posts that they're a "Sam ignorer", so I figured they wouldn't be appreciative. Also, to a certain extent, "they should've given the plot points I don't like to the character I don't care about" is just a matter of taste, so there's not a ton to say about that part anyways.

As far as the "Sam is like John because at the start of the show he's driven by anger and his need for revenge" part, my thoughts on it are here, and @ardentpoop and @aliusfrater have excellent meta here as well.

Leaving aside the piece where I think the OP is wrong about Sam though, I do agree with them that Dean's character arc was mismanaged, and I sympathize with them and all the other Dean girls (gn) who got stuck with *waves vaguely at spn in general*. I agree with OP that Dean isn't an inherently angry person. I don't believe inherently angry people exist, but even beyond that, I don't think the intended reading of spn is that Dean's story is about anger. Gamble said at some point very early on that on the inside Dean is a frightened little boy who never had the chance to grow up, and I do think spn carries that thread through the seasons pretty well all the way to s15, where it attempts (with not-great success imo) to resolve it.

Unfortunately, I also think that spn's failure to resolve Dean's character arc satisfactorily was inevitable, and that the things that attract many fans like OP, who identify with Dean, are the same things that made resolving his issues impossible given the set-up. Just as Sam has a realistic case of poorly-controlled, chronic dissociative/classic PTSD (with psychosis during s7 and some CPTSD-like features) and doesn't have the resources to manage it beyond bare-bones survival, Dean has pretty realistic untreated, chronic CPTSD/BPD without the resources to even begin to manage it in a way that doesn't destroy his own life and the lives of the people around him. Dean's violence stems ultimately from his childhood environment, sure, but the person he is by the time we meet him in s1 has severe attachment issues, difficulty regulating his emotions, poor distress tolerance, black and white thinking in a job where black and white thinking results in victimizing people based on factors they have no control over, and most of all, no real concept of boundaries whatsoever. The cause was for sure his childhood, but the present of spn is just a very symptomatic adult. His mental health issues--and Sam's too--are the kinds of chronic illnesses that never go away and that people struggle with over their entire lifespans.

I don't want to be overly negative; many people with mental illnesses this severe do learn to manage them well and live full and happy lives (I am, within reasonable limits, one of them). But it's hard. And longstanding, deeply-rooted patterns of thoughts, beliefs, and behavior don't change without community resources, considerable effort, and for most people, years of trial and error. Spn's main premise is, for some wild reason, that the problems Sam and Dean encounter are metaphorically equivalent to real life problems normal people encounter all the time, but that in the spn world, all of the resources real world people have available to help them are impossible to access, except guns and torture. It's s13 before spn manages to get Sam and Dean into ONE SESSION of therapy with someone they can tell the truth to, and by then, we get this:

Dean is being a lot less unrealistic here than one might think, and yes, this picture will end badly in real life too.

Since the finale, a lot of fans have said things like "Dean deserved to go to therapy and get better" or "spn thinks if you have trauma, you should kill yourself about it", but deserving is fake. We in the real world live in a The Good Place universe. There's no fair calculus for who "deserves" anything. Everyone both deserves health and happiness and love and a comfortable life and also deserves nothing because there are other people who have nothing.

And unlike ours, the spn universe is not a The Good Place universe. It's worse. The writers of spn are and always have been profoundly ungenerous. The whole universe is built on victim-blaming and bullshit calculi of what crimes deserve what punishments and who should or shouldn't mete them out. In the spn universe, Dean is lucky. He had not one, but two BPD favorite persons, and he treated them both like shit, and they still both loved him and wanted to be with him and will be with him in the afterlife, presumably continuing to have the same intense, volatile relationships they've always semi-tolerated.

I like to pretend that maybe Sam, Dean and Cas can all read The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook on Heaven's version of archive.org and take it to heart, or that maybe Sam grew some boundaries in the years he lived without Dean that he can insist on hard enough and long enough for Dean to get a reparative relationship out of, and they can all after-live happily ever after. But the Dean that was alive during the 15 years of spn hadn't done that work yet, and the outcome he got was--if one subscribes to "deserving" as a concept--better than what he "deserved". If you hit your partner, you deserve to be left. If you hold a gun on them, you deserve for it to go off and kill them by mistake and you never see them again (although of course they don't deserve to die). It doesn't matter who the "angry" partner in the relationship is. Any sane person in this universe or the spn one should be angry a lot of the time, because both universes suck. Not to beat a dead horse with a flowchart but:

image source

The violence is the bastard. The emotions are not.

[luxe-pauvre]

When I was lost in the mire of illness, I pencilled “success is survival” on the end of my wooden bedframe, a quote attributed to Leonard Cohen. Recovery was something I strived for, but it felt completely out of my grasp. I was desperate for that narrative turn, the breakthrough: a straightforward journeying from sickness to health. I couldn’t really conceive of an alternative. But not everyone can get well in the way endorsed by recovery narratives. By its very nature, chronic illness resists having a beginning, middle and end. To imagine that surviving was an accomplishment in itself was a great comfort. […] By individualising our personal stories – our illness narratives – we fail to grapple with the contextual aspects of health and wellbeing. It is the world as it is that also contributes to our sickness. In Recovery in the Bin’s words, recovery is “impossible for many of us because of the intolerable social and economic conditions, such as poor housing, poverty, stigma, racism, sexism, unreasonable work expectations, and countless other barriers”.

Naomi Morris, Chronic illness and the pressure to get well

[lewisvinga]

my strong girl | lewis hamilton x fem! chronically ill! reader

summary; after an incident during a race, y/n is sent to the hospital and is upset about missing his race after not attending races for months. fortunately for her, lewis is always understanding

fc; various girls on pinterest

word count; 1k

warnings; hospitals, needles, fainting

taglist; @namgification @louvrepool @locelscs @thehufflepuffavenger1 @minseok-smaus @goldenmclaren @ollieshifts @lavisenri @graciewrote @xoscar03 @c-losur3 @fall-bambi

note; requested ! lewis was so close to a podium i actually was so upset🙁🙁🙁 anyways, i tried to combine a few of the ideas into this without it being superrrr hectic

masterlist !

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“Are you sure you want to come? You don’t need to feel pressured to do so.” Lewis asked in the soft tone that always brought Y/n comfort.

She sighed as he helped her put on her blue Ralph Lauren cardigan. “I’m sure, Lew. I don’t want to miss your home race.” She huffed, watching him grab her white golden gooses.

“Just be careful today. I hate that I can’t be around you the whole time.” Lewis quietly said. He helps her out on her shoes, securely tying the white laces.

“I know, I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Y/n really tried her best to be careful. She only walked a few minutes to grab stuff around Lewis’ driver's room. If she went longer distances, she used her wheelchair and one of the girlfriends of the drivers would happily walk by her side to accompany her.

While Lewis was doing media duties before the race, she hung out with Carmen and Lily. The two girls had lunch but Y/n wasn’t hungry so she decided to not eat. A big mistake for her.

She could only chat with Lewis for a few minutes before he had to get into his car. A couple of good luck kisses later, and his car was being driven out of the garage for the warm-up lap.

Silverstone was always special. It was Lewis’s home race and most importantly, his last home race with Mercedes. He was starting in pole after a fantastic qualifying session. The rainy weather allowed him to push the car to its limits.

Y/n started to feel a bit strange, like something was up but she ignored it for anxiety as the race began. Lewis had a fantastic start to the race and maintained being in first.

Around halfway through the race, Y/n felt well enough to get up from her wheelchair in the usual spot in the back of the garage. Although she usually refrained from walking due to getting tired so easily as a result of her illness, she decided that she felt well enough to at least a couple of steps in.

It was the final five laps and Lewis was still in first with a large gap between him and Charles, his future teammate, who was in second. However, instead of feeling joy about the British driver leading the race and being close to his 104th win, she started to feel like something was off.

Y/n needed to sit back down but her wheelchair was in the farthest corner of the Mercedes garage. Carmen had called out her name in concern but it sounded muffled as she struggled to stand upright. Before she knew it, everything went dark.

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The sound of beeping and the feeling of a familiar pair of fingers rubbing over her hand was what Y/n first noticed as she gained consciousness. The bedsheets crinkled as she slowly moved around, hearing a soft shush as she whined.

“Easy there, my love.”

Her eyes fluttered open and she’s met with Lewis’s deep brown eyes. She immediately noticed he was in a pair of sweats with a trophy sitting by his side.

“Did I miss it?” She asked with a raspy voice. She knew the answer of course. A wave of guilt washed over her. Lewis immediately noticed her furrowed-up eyebrows as she glanced at the iv sticking out of her hand.

“I care more about whether or not you’re okay, my love.” He sighed, gently cupping her cheek to make her look at him. “This win was for you, my strong girl.”

“Not strong enough to last 5 minutes standing up.” Her angry mumble made him let out a chuckle. He leaned over and softly kissed her cheek.

“Doctors said you had low blood sugar. You hit your head, no concussion but they want to keep you here overnight just in case something happens due to your illness.”

Y/n huffed at the mention of staying overnight at the hospital. Sure, she was used to it due to her illness, but she just wanted to be in the comfort of her home in the arms of Lewis. Her furrowed-up eyebrows made him laugh again.

She hadn’t noticed an overnight back resting next to the first-place trophy on the ground. He reached for it and pulled out a sketchbook, a few tubes of paint, and a couple of paintbrushes. Her previous furrowed-up eyebrows immediately relaxed. She relaxed back into the pillows as he opened up the sketchbook to an empty page.

Painting was once a passion of Y/n. She has grown quite a large platform for her work. She adored being able to translate everything in her mind onto a canvas with the stroke of her paintbrush.

Unfortunately due to her illness causing pain in her hand joints, she had to give up the intricate paintings. On occasions when she found herself stuck in the hospital, Lewis would always bring her sketchbook. Although she couldn’t do the once complex strokes and liked, she could do a simplified version.

“Lew,” Her voice was soft and frail. Her hand reached out to grasp his. “You didn’t have to do this. You should be celebrating your win.” She mumbled, slowly reaching over to tuck a braid that had fallen out of his ponytail behind his ear.

“Nonsense,” Lewis looked up at her, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “I much rather be relaxed and painting here with you than be out with drunk people who only want to be around me for the pictures.”

Y/n sighed as the corner of her lips curled into a smile. He handed her a paintbrush before squeezing a couple of colors on the small plastic palette he had brought. He leaned over, cupping her cheek in pulled her in close. He gently kissed her plump lips and couldn’t help but smile.

“I love you, my strong girl.”

“And I love you, my 104x race winner.”

[bogleech]

With most insects and things I can understand that they have a place in the ecosystem, but I have trouble understanding the same thing with bed bugs. Are they just like. Kind of domesticated ticks? How did they end up almost solely indoors (to my understanding)? I had them in my apartment a while back and it was a pretty traumatizing experience. I know they don’t carry diseases like mosquitos and are really more mentally/emotionally harmful than physically harmful.

I saw your post about how we should be thankful the world isn’t so sterile that there’s no living thing left to harm or inconvenience us. And I do agree! But I think bedbugs are the one thing that I have trouble fully grasping that concept with. It’s harder to see the bigger picture with something that occurs in such a small and personal space, I suppose.

I can't find the post where I launched into this before but tiny bloodsucking animals ("micropredator" is growing as the preferred term over lumping them in with "parasites" per se!) exert a lot of important pressures on their host animals; everyone knows predators change how animals eat, sleep, mate, nest together and migrate, but so do the things that just "annoy" them, like having fleas! Additionally "micropredators" work together with predators and diseases in regulating population balance, and by taking nutrients non-lethally from their hosts, they help redistribute energy back into circulation! A little flea or tick or bed bug collects a little blood protein from a bear, it gets eaten by a spider or it dies and rots, and now that bear's protein energy is back in the food web well before the bear has passed on! All throughout that bear's life, its blood is "becoming" all these little pesky bugs that then become food for other things! When it comes to bed bugs, which are closely related to stinkbugs, assassin bugs, aphids and other "true bugs," they adapted to live in bird's nests, bat caves, rodent dents, anywhere juice-filled vertebrates come home to and rest, and the ones that feed on us are so closely related to a bat-specialized species you can only barely tell them apart:

The "bat bug," however, can't utilize human blood well enough to maintain an infestation on human hosts alone! They fully require bats!

We aren't sure when some bat bugs branched off and started traveling with humans, but we do know that they used to be MUCH MUCH EASIER to deal with. Perfectly ordinary pesticides used to clear up a bed bug problem just fine. That changed when we invented DDT and tried to use it to wipe them out altogether. It's one of the harshest synthetic poisons ever developed, and it kills through just an ion channel in the animal's nervous system. By drenching North America in DDT for years on end, we "seemingly" wiped out bed bugs and a few other things, but really all we did was give a few generations of human beings a bunch of new chronic illnesses and give a few generations of insects a mutation that makes them resistant to not just DDT but lots and lots of other poisons.

Bed bugs basically destroy people's lives but never naturally evolved to be that good at it; it's just another result of capitalism ignoring the warnings of the scientific community. People died rich off DDT before they ever had to care about its after effects.

[i-will-cry-you-a-river]

Yandere Bingyuan in this house? It's more likely than you think!

Luo Binghe would like to say that he was perfectly normal, thank you very much. He was sooo normal about everything; he breathed the polluted air in Beijing just like everybody else. He worked tirelessly, like the good, normal nurse he was, just like any other good healthcare workers did. He cooked for himself, and ate whenever he had time, just like other workaholics did. His heart beat, pumping his blood everywhere in his body, his muscles carried him to places, his brain focused on the important things. He was just like anybody else.

No matter what Mobei-jun thought, or how he judged him with those icy eyes.

He, Luo Binghe, was just a normal person, with normal hobbies and normal feelings.

Feelings that bloomed so unexpectedly, so gradually that he wasn't prepared for them, but… well. Nobody could ever be prepared for Shen Yuan. He was just so bright and kind, so full of life and opinions! It started as nothing but a subtle curiosity towards the patient the other nurses just called “The Regular”. It was nothing serious - until it was, within the first two minutes of their meeting.

He was immediately charmed by the kind, cute little chronically ill patient, seven years his senior. He was just so- there was something about him that attracted Luo Binghe like a moth to a flame. His movements, his gestures were always so graceful, his smiles so kind, and his headpats addictive. Luo Binghe had been immediately hooked.

It was quite easy to befriend with his ‘Yuan-ge’, as Shen Yuan agreed to be called. He spend as much time as he could while he was in hospital, and when he was discharged, they kept up their friendship. It was nice to help out. It was nice to be needed. A freshly baked breakfast here, a careful hand to take care of a new injury there…

It was nice.

It was nowhere near enough.

Luo Binghe didn't just want to be needed. He wanted to be the only person Shen Yuan had; the only person who could care for him, who could see him, who could speak to him. It was even easier to become Shen Yuan’s personal nurse. First, at the hospital, then, when he insisted it would be better for Shen Yuan's mental health to stay home with a live-in nurse, at home.

He never really had a place to call home. Shen Yuan's place quickly became that.

Within a day, they fell into an easy routine, as if they were an old married couple.

Every morning, Luo Binghe would wake up an hour early than Shen Yuan to make him a healthy breakfast and make sure that everything was spotless and perfect for his little patient. Then, after waking up, he would check his vitals, measure the blood pressure, examine if everything worked just like they should, if everything reacted perfectly to each stimulus. (They always did. Those perfect little cherry blossom colored nipples were always so hard within seconds. The skin under his hands also became a lovely red color after a little bit of pressure. Luo Binghe adored how reactive his patient's body was.)

Then, breakfast together, some work next to each other on the couch, lunch and a movie or just reading next to each other. Everything was so domestic.

Especially bath time.

Shen Yuan couldn't bathe alone because of his dizzy spells, so Luo Binghe spent each one of his nights barely holding himself together while carefully washing Shen Yuan's back with his Legend of Zelda sponge. It was maddening!

How lovely Shen Yuan was. How trusting and perfect… It made Luo Binghe want to consume him. To own him. To have him at his utter mercy.

And soon, it was time to get him completely.

Except.

Huh.

Luo Binghe stared blankly at the wall of the wardrobe he never really had to touch before. It seemed it had a reason why Shen Yuan never used it when Luo Binghe was in his room. The wardrobe…

“Surprised?” Came the amused voice behind him. He didn't turn around. His eyes were locked on the wardrobe that was basically a shrine dedicated to him.

Walls adorned with pictures of him (was that his graduation ceremony?), soft sketches detailed every inch of his body, similarly thick journals as he had at his apartment about Yuan-ge filled with notes about his preferences, friends, likes and dislikes, and his movements.

Luo Binghe stared in disbelief-

-and relief.

“You were so cute when you tried so hard to become my private nurse. As if I didn't already plan that even before you received the job offer from the director,” Yuan-ge said with a knowing smile on his lips. His presence was intoxicating.

“The job offer? Wait, so… it was you? You planned this? You… knew?” Luo Binghe stammered, staring at Shen Yuan with stars in his eyes.

His Yuan-ge stepped closer, his gaze never leaving Luo Binghe's eyes. “I planned everything,” he admitted, his smile widening. It should have been chilling.

It was fucking addictive.

“You weren't the only one watching. Or manipulating. People tend to overlook me because of my illness, so it makes everything so much easier. Like making sure you could graduate even if you almost went on a blind date who was unfortunately the brother of the vice dean, who hated your guts and was looking for the tiniest reason to get you out of the program.”

Luo Binghe was speechless. The thought of Shen Jiu always made his blood boil, and he tried so hard to forget that pathetic man's existence, but.

Oh, wow.

To think that all this time they could have been together…

He wondered if Shen Yuan would mourn his brother if he would be notified of his unfortunate passing.

“No murder in my family. It was enough to make all the clues disappear after your cousin's death. You are quite a messy puppy, aren't you?”

Luo Binghe felt the world tilt, his carefully constructed reality fracturing. “You… Yuan-ge…” His eyes stung by the withheld tears. “Why?”

“Because,” Shen Yuan said, reaching out to pat Luo Binghe's bouncy curls on the top of his head. “We are the same, the two sides of the same coin. Because your obsession matches mine, your mental illness fits mine perfectly. Because you are cute, because I want to ravish you and own you and be ravished by you and be owned by you. Because we belong together.”

It felt true. It felt right.

It felt exhilarating that the one person he'd ever wanted was just like him. They were one soul stuck in two bodies.

He thought it was enough to just own Shen Yuan, to have him at his mercy. But this? This was so much better!

Taking Shen Yuan's hand, he laced their fingers together. “You are so perfect, Yuan-ge,” he said, his voice a mix of awe and reverence.

“We are perfect, for each other,” Shen Yuan corrected, his eyes gleaming with the same maniacal intensity that mirrored Luo Binghe's. The smaller man grinned wolfishly, and pulled Luo Binghe closer, their bodies flushing together as they both wanted for so long.

“Now kiss me, puppy!” Yuan-ge ordered, and Luo Binghe had never been more eager to comply.

[sunflowersandsapphires]

Frank Castle caring for a chronically ill partner

a/n: So whatever undiagnosed disability I have has been steadily progressing and is also aggravated by the extreme summer heat where I live. Today, I had my weekly volunteering slot with our local shelter and almost passed out because I overheated so here are some self-indulgent HCs about how Frank would handle a partner with blood pressure or temperature regulation issues. (Warnings: non-graphic mentions of nausea, dealing with chronic illness, almost fainting descriptions)

HCs below the cut!!

Frank is who I immediately thought of when dealing with this because I think he’d be so comforting in a kind of alarming situation. (Until I was an adult, I’ve never passed out or even come close so it always takes me by surprise.)

Frank is so calm in every emergency situation because of his experiences and military training, and he’d be ready to go.

If this is something you don’t deal with often and Frank isn’t constantly looking for signs that you aren’t well, I think he’d freak out the first time it happens with him. Like IMMEDIATE trip to the ER, demanding the doctors run all the tests, desperate for some answer for why his girl isn’t feeling her best.

But after the first time? He’s a PRO. He knows as much as possible about whatever condition you may or may not have been diagnosed with. Like this man was taking notes, ok? He knows what foods you should be eating, how much you need to drink, medications he should have on hand, what things can cause a flare up, and how to help when one happens.

If you find yourself on the brink of passing out, sort of blinking slowly and trying to decide if your nauseous or overwhelmed, one look at Frank and he’d know something was up. He’d be at your side in a second, gently cupping the back of your head with one hand while supporting your torso with the other.

“Feelin’ off, doll? Let’s get ya sittin’ down. Take a breather.”

Gently leading you to the couch (or picking you up if you stumbled), he’d make sure you were lying down on the softest pillow, feet elevated of course, before grabbing any supplies.

He’d dampen a cloth with cool water, grab a sports drink or something with electrolytes, maybe even a snack if he thought it could help.

“Here, sweetheart, sit up for me? Attagirl. Let’s get you cooled down.”

Draping the cloth over your neck, he’d kneel in front of you, holding a drink to your lips (complete with neon bendy straw) and softly praising you as the blood comes back to your head.

You’d be off your feet for the rest of the day, no point in trying to argue. If you tried to do something as simple as the dishes, you’d be scooped into a bridal carry and carefully dropped back on the couch.

“Don’t start with me, doll. Ain’t nothin’ you need to do but rest. Lemme handle it.”

You might not feel your best, but you’d be damned if Frank didn’t make it better.

[darkficsyouneveraskedfor]

the girl next door 26

Warnings: this fic will include elements, some dark, such as age gap, manipulation, chronic illness, noncon/dubcon, coercion, and other untagged triggers. Please take this into account before proceeding. It is up to curate your online consumption safely.

Summary: A new neighbour moves in and upends your already disarrayed life.

Author’s Note: Please feel free to leave some feedback, reblog, and jump into my asks. I’m always happy to discuss with you and riff on idea. As always, you are cherished and adored! Stay safe, be kind, and treat yourself.

This lewk but silverfox

You fall asleep somewhere between the Humphrey Bogart classic and the Tom Hanks-Meg Ryan romcom. It all blends together inside your eyelids as the world glazes over behind the wall of your subconscious. The black-and-white and vibrant technicolor merge and storm around the images of reality; a courthouse, the smell of grass, and a constricting pressure around your middle. 

A rippling sensation spreads down your thigh as you slowly rouse from sleep. The worn couch cushions have you stiff as you lay on your side, one leg extended as warmth rests just above your knee. Your eyes slit as the TV continues to play, an early morning news show localised to another district. You yawn and scratch your ear as the world comes into focus. 

You don’t remember laying down. You only know one moment you were nestled into the corner and the next, you’re waking up like this. You fell another tickle on your leg and look down at the weight there. Steve’s hand lays on your thigh carelessly as his head hangs back over the back of the couch, his knees wide as his body is slack. He snores up at the ceiling, his other hand on your ankle. 

You turn slowly, careful not to disturb him as you pull your leg away from him. He wakes anyway, his head jerking up as he latches onto your calf, squeezing before he lets you go, and grumbles as he rubs his cheeks. He shakes his head. 

“Mm, oh, morning already,” he mutters as he leans forward, reaching back to touch his lower back, “umph,” he leans against the armrest, “good new, at least, my couch is a lot comfier.” 

He chortles and slides to the edge of the cushion. His jaw tenses before he stands, stretching his legs straight under him as he shifts from one foot to the other. He angles so you can only see his back as he rolls his shoulders. He tugs at the front of his pajamas then glances back at you. 

“Sweetie, you okay?” He asks. 

You nod as you hug your knees and stare down at the couch. The old floral pattern is worn out and you can feel the springs poking up. Still, the idea of getting rid of it is unsettling. 

“This was my grandma’s couch,” you murmur. 

“Aw, I know, sweetie, sorry, I didn’t mean--” he nears and sits back down, dragging his knuckle up your pant leg, toying with the fabric as he watches you, “you must’ve loved her, huh?” 

“I... yeah,” you shrug. 

“If you wanna keep it, how about we put it in your room?” 

“What?” you tilt your head, “my room?” 

“Well, yeah, you can take the guest room. Makes sense, right? Lots more room there. We’ll have to toss a few things but we’ll make it work. And you can put your art stuff in the studio, I don’t mind sharing.” 

“Mm, okay, I guess, I...” you look down at the couch then at him. “You can get rid of it.” 

“Hm?” 

“The couch,” you turn, slipping away from him. “It’s old.” 

“If it means something to you.” 

“Not really,” you stand and shuffle away from him. “I’m going to get dressed.” 

“Right, uh, yeah,” the coach groans beneath him as he stands again, “I’ll check on mom.” 

There’s stolid silence lingering between you, as if he expects a response. You just continue on to the doorway and he clears his throat.  

“Got some running around to do today, calls to make,” he says, “gotta get at em.” 

You nod and hum but offer him nothing else. You’re tired and disoriented by the disjointed night. Your head is brittle from the lack of sleep and the uncomfortably thin couch cushions. 

“Make sure you come and have breakfast with us, huh? I’ll be going into town soon to sort out the bill with hospital and ask about nursing options.” 

“Okay,” you utter and turn down the hallway. 

It’s a lot. You don’t think you could deal with it alone. It almost makes you thankful for all of it, yet it all still feels very strange. 

🏠

You offer to clean up after breakfast as Steve gets ready to leave and your mom reclines on the sectional in the front room. She looks out of it, more than you’ve ever seen her. She was quiet as you ate and looked sickened by each bite. She almost begged Steve to let her lay down. 

As Steve grabs his keys, he seems reluctant to leave. It’s as if he wants you to say something, to do something, but you can’t figure out his expectations. That will be a new worry. No longer do you have to keep your mother happy, but her husband will be just another task. 

The front door closes as you scrub and rinse. You forego the dishwasher and make sure to handwash each dish, taking your time if only to keep busy. You dry up and stack the plates away, put the glasses in neat rows, and sort out the utensils. 

You go to check on your mom. Her eyes are closed and her hand is on her chest. She looks so still you can’t even see her breathing. You cross the room and hover just on the other side of the arm rest, staring at her. Your heart patters nervously as you stare at her chest. 

“What do you want?” She growls and opens a single eyelid. 

“N-nothing, just... checking on you. You... want a coffee?” You offer, hoping to appease her with a dose of caffeine. 

“Should,” she yawns and frames her forehead with her thumb and fingers, leaning against the side of the couch, “goddamn, I’m so tired.” 

You briskly return to the kitchen. You use what grounds are left over in the fancy grinder. You’ve never used one before and it kind of scares you. You measure them out and put the water on, waiting before the machine as you bob on your feet. 

When at last you have enough for a mug, you pour the coffee and add the cream as your mother likes it. As you come out, you hear her snoring. Her arm is slung over her face as her mouth hangs open and her breath catches in her throat. You know better than to wake her so you leave the cup on the coffee table and retreat. 

You’re too restless to stay inside. This isn’t your home. No matter how Steve tries to convince you, you just can’t get used to the idea. He might be nice but it just doesn’t feel right. It’s all so fast. Too fast. 

You sit on the top step and stare out at the street. You cup your chin and watch the sky. The clouds are wispy and curl into each other as the sun blazes down. Your vision blurs as the intense lights causes your eyes to water and you stare into the endless above. 

You glance over at your mom’s house. You want to run over and hide away in your room. You can’t. You have to be there for mom at least until Steve comes back. 

As figure strolls up along the walk and your eyes flick up. You brace yourself for the disproving glare of an HOA minion but instead, find a friendly face. Peter smiles as he stops in front of your mom’s gate and puts his hand on the door. He sees you and waves. 

“Hey, what’re you doing over there?” He asks as he jiggles the gate then strides towards Steve’s house. 

“Um...” you drone and shrug, standing as he nears the edge of Steve’s lawn. You meet him at the low gate and stop across from him, “I sort of... I think I live here now.” 

“You think? Sort of?” He muses. 

“Yeah, uh, my mom... got married?” 

“You don’t sound so sure about that,” he chuckles. “Everything okay?” 

You turn your lips downward and turn out your hands, “sure.” 

“Wow, I’m convinced,” he says dryly. 

“Sorry, I--” 

The toot of a car horn interrupts you and Peter turns to watch as Steve pulls into the drive. Your chest thumps wildly. You’re not doing anything wrong but you feel like you are. 

He gets out and puts a hand up. He comes around the corner of the fence and approaches Peter, “hey, kiddo, you making friends?” 

Steve’s eyes are focused on Peter even as he speaks to you. The shorter, younger man faces him and offers a hand, “hello, sir, I’m Peter. Old friend.” 

“Oh?” Steve’s eyes scale up and down Peter’s figure, “she never mentioned.” 

“Well, just moved back to the neighbourhood, you know?” Peter grins, his eyes twinkling as if something’s funny. Steve peers between the two of you.  

“Mm, that’s nice,” Steve shakes his hand and you see his knuckles pale as he shakes it firmly, “Steve.” 

“New dad, got it,” Peter chirps and the older man’s cheek ticks. 

“Mm,” he squints as his square jaw clenches, “well, Pete,” he nearly spits, “her mom’s not doing too well so she’s a bit busy. Aren’t you, kiddo?” 

He looks at you and you look at Peter. You nod and look away guiltily, “yeah.” 

“Well then, Pete,” Steve releases Peter’s hand and claps his shoulder, “think you should be on your way.” 

“Right,” Peter nods and turns to you, “sorry to hear about your mom. Hope she feels better. See ya round.” He puts up three fingers in a half-wave, “see ya, Steve.” 

He steps past Steve, brushing close as he does, and marches off with a spring in his step. The older man turns to glare after him. You don’t know why he’s so bothered, Peter’s nice enough. Well, maybe Peter isn’t the issue. 

“Sorry, mom’s sleeping so I came out here--” 

“Come on,” he interjects as he lets himself through the gate, “did you give her her meds?” 

You frown as you scurry ahead of him. You didn’t. You thought he had. Oh no. 

[lovelessrage]

Loveless Characters: A Starter Guide and FAQ

[PT: Loveless Characters: A Starter Guide and FAQ]

Sometimes I feel like those Youtubers that only upload twice a year. Anyway, onto some disclaimers.

I am one person. Please assure you are gathering from multiple sources when writing ANY character from a perspective you’re not familiar with. Even if you’re confident, everybody has blind spots, and that’s okay, it’s just a fact. Second, I am not a proofreader by trade or by hobby; I can answer questions, I can go over scenarios, but I cannot go through your manuscript or Google Doc. I live with chronic fatigue and pain, so it’s just not feasible; I’ll do my best but you have to give me some leniency here. Seek out other loveless folks for that, and make sure you pay them. Third, I can’t cover everything; there will be stuff I miss that other people will point out, hence why you shouldn’t ever look to exactly one source.

With that out of the way, let’s get the ball rolling. We’ll start with definitions, plural, and explain these various experiences briefly.

Loveless has been commonly defined, although not limited to, one of four major definitions; we can label these with these shorthands.

Unloving (entirely or partially)

Disconnected

Rejection

Politically/Socially

There’s nuances between all four and beyond them, but I feel these categories are easiest for our explanation - we’ll get into some of those nuances below.

The Unloving (entirely or partial)

[PT: The Unloving (entirely or partial)]

This person uses the label because they, wholly or partially, do not feel love. While identifying as loveless because you don’t feel love seems straightforward, why do so if it’s partial? There’s a few primary reasons I tend to see. Sometimes, the attractions someone does not feel love in are more significant to their identity or experiences than the ones they do feel love in. This can be because of societal pressures, such as not feeling romantic love alienating someone due to its prevalence, or someone who does not feel familial love seeking to reclaim and find pride in the absence of that feeling. Regardless of how little love someone feels, from only one spectrum to all of them, anyone using it because of a literal lack of love falls in this category. Individuals who are riding the partiality line may also use the label loveless-spec, or use spec- labels alongside the loveless umbrella.

Disconnected

[PT: Disconnected]

This person uses the label because they either feel disconnected from love due to societal pressure, indifference to the emotion, or because of a mental disorder/illness or other disability. Disconnection that is societally caused can, for example, be a loveless asexual disconnected from the idea of love due to having it be so heavily associated with sex that they no longer feel attached to it. Indifference is self-explanatory, but also has its own nuances; someone can be indifferent because it has never mattered to them, or because experience has shaped their opinion in the present, such as not finding much enjoyment in being loving, or having mixed feelings after a toxic relationship.

Mental illness and disability is its own can of worms, due to how many there are, as well as the limitations that come with not being able to discuss every comorbidity. I can only speak from certain angles, but overall, if you do not have the disorders you are trying to represent and/or aren’t loveless yourself, if you plan to go this route, proofreading is not a luxury, it is a must. Get that second opinion before moving further.

Rejection

[PT: Rejection]

This person uses the label because they are rejecting love, or feel rejected by love. There are plenty of reasons that someone may reject love as a concept, many of which overlap with reasons for disconnect. The expectation can be too heavy, the societal implications can be unsavoury, or someone is radically indifferent and wants nothing to do with it. Rejection by love is immensely common, especially within various marginalised communities. Several groups, such as the disabled, people of colour, trans and GNC individuals, and aspec individuals have their unique love experiences devalued, othered, or otherwise made out to be less than and evil for not fitting into eurocentric, white, ablebodied, cis, etc. ideals of what love is. Because of this, rejecting the complex of love, especially one used specifically to villainise things you cannot change or communities you are a part of, can lead someone to use this label.

Politically/Socially

[PT: Politically/Socially]

What is being politically loveless? What’s that mean? It’s much more simple than it can seem, and many people will agree with these principles, even if they don’t choose to use the label to identify those are their stances. The people that use this label do see identifying with this label as a declaration of their political opinions and goals. These goals include love neutrality, which refers to making love as an emotion completely neutral and not necessarily a force of good, and decentering of love in society, meaning removing it as a necessity for all and dismantling the idea that it is what makes us human.

While I’m on this topic, I should say that if you are representing characters coming from this perspective, you should do actual readings on the kind of discussions around these topics and various loveless perspectives on these ideas. If you’re going to write about a political movement, read about those politics; ask people their opinions if they’re willing to give them.

Now that we’ve defined lovelessness in a basic sense, there’s even more variation in between all of these because of the fact that people often identify as loveless (something). This does not only have to be loveless aro, and can extend to loveless aces, apls, afams, asensuals, aqps, loveless allos (this one gets passed over a lot, unfortunately), and many, many more. Of course, there are also people that identify solely as loveless in the same way someone who is non-SAM would. All of these are important experiences and deserve their time in your writing or artwork.

Common Questions and Hypotheticals

[PT: Common Questions and Hypotheticals]

Q: How do I write a loveless character without making a manifesto’s worth of explanations?

[PT: Q: How do I write a loveless character without making a manifesto’s worth of explanations?]

You should write a person first is the simple answer! Your character has opinions, experiences, and a way of speaking I can’t predict for the purposes of this post. How they interact with the world and their unique perspective will influence how they describe their own identity, or how little they talk about it in general. Although, I can throw a bit of a bone, and bring up two of my own loveless characters for examples of what this can look like:

X Goldfinch is a teenager, someone who is relatively online, and due to their angel status has the language to describe their experiences.They are a person who identifies as loveless because they do not feel any love whatsoever. They would directly call themself a loveless aroace, and describe this as an emotion they’re just never experienced or felt. It is very direct, succinct, and uses modern language to do this.

O’Leary is an alien that is entirely emotionless, with no attachments whatsoever and no concept of human standards of emotions or their identity labels. Due to this, he would describe himself simply as detached, as this is what most species would view him as. He would not give further information, nor would he use the labels a person would recognise, but the experience is identifiable through similarity.

These are two different experiences within the same realm (not feeling any love at all), with two different ways of describing or identifying with those feelings. These are some of the considerations to keep in mind. As for how to describe it in a narrative sense, simple!

Trust your audience gets it. You can explain, simply, why this character is loveless if you like, or simply mention they are loveless as part of a character introduction. Cut the justification, just let it be and explain as much as is narratively cohesive. Sometimes, that is just saying the word and reinforcing it later. Other times, it’s a first person exploration that can go on for a few paragraphs. It’s situational, but I promise, cutting the fat of needing to assure your audience understands this doesn’t make them a hideous monster (if it isn’t plot relevant) will make for much less to chew on.

Q: What about social connections for my characters? What can I use?

[PT: Q: What about social connections for my characters? What can I use?]

Anything. Everything. Social tolerance and relationship tolerance varies immensely. However, do want to note this is not an excuse to see this question as ignorable. Think about what your character would prefer, and remember a solitary lifestyle is not necessarily a tragic one. We don’t tolerate discrediting any loveless experience as “too loving to count”, but we also don’t tolerate using this as an excuse to avoid writing social repulsion. Nuance, nuance.

Q: Writing a loveless person in a relationship is okay, sure, but how do I actually do that respectfully? What about a loveless parent?

[PT: Q: Writing a loveless person in a relationship is okay, sure, but how do I actually do that respectfully? What about a loveless parent?]

I include this because I have been asked in the past about what a loveless parent would do for a child, and the simple answer is to kill the idea in your head that lack of love necessitates a worse relationship. There are plenty of reasons someone may enter or exit a relationship, loving that person or otherwise. Overall, keep in mind that love is not the only emotion a person can feel, and neither is care. You may feel positively toward someone or simply want to keep them around because you enjoy them. You may have just always wanted a partner, and have found one that is accepting of your love being one sided, or potentially have a loveless partner that is interested in a loveless relationship of some kind (we need more of these, honestly). While most people can get behind this concept from other aspec dynamics, there is still the question of the major sticking point: parenthood.

While not easy to answer, I see it as this: love is taught. It, as a concept, is not innate. The emotion is, the feeling is, but not love as a word, as an expectation. If you teach a child love is their value solely to deprive them of it, that is abject cruelty. However, assuming a loveless parent would introduce love simply to take it away from their child is anti-loveless rhetoric. It’s assuming an immediate abuse situation where there does not need to be one. The simple fact is, if you want a healthy child as a loveless person, you simply raise them that they have more value outside of being loved, that you are invested in their wellbeing, hobbies, and feelings, and that you will be there for them regardless. Love discussions can come when the child is older, but there is no harm in being a no love household if that child is aware they are safe, supported, and able to rely on you as any child should be able to.

Simple answer, you can work around love pretty easily, it’s just that most people have no interest in teaching this to you, especially for innate loves. There’s pathways through all of this that are, again, just fine. However, this isn’t to say you can only write a character that has it all figured out. A loveless parent struggling at first with their plan of action for a new baby or adopted family member, or a loveless partner trying to express their feelings without setting off their love repulsion, are all interesting facets to explore. The solution is not sanitization, but thoughtfulness and sincerity, as well as not demonising this confusion or testing period.

Q: What about nonhuman characters, I hear a lot of people are tired of those?

[PT: Q: What about nonhuman characters, I hear a lot of people are tired of those?]

Some, yes! I, personally, relate most to nonhuman characters, mostly because someone is always trying to force love normativity onto them and if that isn’t my day to day life, I don’t know what is. Is it okay to do, as in, is it morally right to only make human loveless characters? Personally, as long as you are conscious, getting second opinions along the way, and watching your bias (as well as not making all your loveless characters nonhumans), I don’t see an issue with the concept itself. It is often the execution, with the undercurrent that these other species are backwards, limited, or never measuring up to humans due to their lovelessness (see: every tragic robot character ever) that will create controversy at your door. If you are solely focused on the nonhuman part, and not the messaging, you’re missing the point by a mile.

Q: What should I not do? What should be avoided?

[PT: Q: What should I not do? What should be avoided?]

The least easy to answer question, which is why I have dedicated an entire section to tired tropes, salvageable stereotypes, and the impact of a limited scope. Of course, all of this is subject to debate, and you are unlikely to get the same answer twice when asking opinions on some of these things. Personally, I think you should ask anyway. Not to get the answer you like best, but to understand why opinion varies so much. If you understand the roots, you can form a consensus much easier than tallying your responses for yes and no.

Let’s get into the divisive section!

The Stereotype Shuffle: Reoccuring Cast Members and Their Issues

[PT: The Stereotype Shuffle: Reoccuring Cast Members and Their Issues]

#1: The Mean Hermit

The hermit is so pissed off by society and all their snuggling, cuddling, loving, and singing, he has decided to isolate himself from the world at large, and retreat to his barren cave, wooden cabin, or otherwise sullen hovel to bask in his hate and misery for all eternity. The love grinch, as one could call him, is a staple of the friendship is magic or love triumph all storyline, where he either must be remedied and healed from what has broken him so he may love again, or be defeated and driven away further. He may serve to steer the protagonist wrong, or make him question his beliefs and their foundations.

Do I have a soft spot for this blatant stereotype? Perhaps. It does not diffuse the harm it is capable of, however. While I think the idea of a loveless character living alone in a swamp is conceptually awesome, what follows is a discussion of the politics surrounding the lonely hermit. He is often billed as broken, or a figure that should not be listened to; he is a corruptor, an agent of doubt and tragedy. If you plan on making your loveless character as detached as he is, there’s a few ways to go about tackling this.

Is he angry because he is annoyed, or because of some innate jealousy and hatred of joy? It’s not necessarily bad to indulge in the hater lifestyle, but as a loving writer, you should question why your thoughts lead you to a loveless person existing to create misery and discord for others. Why must he be an agitator, or one that needs to be so heavily silenced? What critiques could he actually be making beyond hating ponies and cupcakes and birthday hats? If you plan to write a plain, hateful guy, he better not be the only representation in your story, and the other representation better not be looking to the camera to say “hey, at least I’m not like this guy!”. Using the mean hermit to push how your other characters are more normal or acceptable because they are more accepting of the status quo is lazy at best and anti-loveless at worst. Let a guy hate, or make him into an actual important character beyond the test of faith; after all, if he’s testing faith, does that faith happen to be love normative?

There is also the Occam’s Razor of simply having a character be happy to be alone, or exploring the nuance between jealousy and what a person can and cannot have. Personally, I would never recommend the latter for your first outing. Loving people too often ride the line and fall on the side of a trope I will get into later. There’s a difference between a loveless person writing from experience of their shame journey, and a loving person doing so because it is the only way they can think of making a character sympathetic.

#2: The Villain, or Big Bad

She’s evil, she’s a terror, and she’s a loveless aplatonic! Shock and terror course over the crowd as they slowly realise she is childless, partnerless, and prefers a nonfriending lifestyle! But, what’s this on the horizon? It is the writer, coming with an editorial note, specifying her lovelessness is separate from her awesome, evil abilities! All good then, right?

Well, maybe! It depends on your narrative and your placement of loveless characters overall. Even if it has nothing to do with her villainy at hand, perhaps she is seeking to destroy all apples or something because she cannot stand them, for example, is her villainy still rooted in loveless antagonism? Is her heart of coal listed as a reason she cannot be redeemed, her separation from the world a sign of her wickedness? Or, does this make up a regular facet of her life that the heroes don’t really have an interest in? Perhaps the main characters are loveless as well, or part of their adventuring crew is. Perhaps, she is a commentary on how society drives the loveless to anger and then recoils when they lash out, representing a loveless person embracing the monster they are made into. Perhaps, she is as redeemable as any other villain, with her lovelessness not impeding this process. Perhaps you are writing a comedy, and her loveless life comes up in a side gag about her continuing to live while she waits for the arrival of the hero at her castle.

Overall, the loveless villain is overplayed, yes, but I don’t think it’s doomed to be a dud when put in the right hands. With this particular situation, I would recommend asking plenty of questions, assuring you understand your narratives and themes, and watching for undercurrents that can shape your intentions. Take any advice or criticism you get in stride; while some may be perfectly fine with this setup, many other loveless people are bracing for the worst, or may not trust you to execute. Go forward with this in mind.

#3: The Sympathy Vehicle, aka the Loveless Pain Parade

God, this one. I hate this one. There’s your bias disclaimer; there is nothing I hate more, no trope I detest seeing more in the manuscript of a loveless person, than the disaster that is the sopping pile of wet loveless antagonism within the Sympathy Vehicle.

This character is sad. This character is really, really sad. They hate being loveless, they hate themself, and they want you to know this every time the topic is brought up. They exist to be a repentant figure, something for loving characters to feel good about saving, or inspiration porn for the loving consumer about how even the loveless can beat the odds.

This is, unfortunately, one of the most common, unintentionally bigoted takes I see all the time from well-meaning loving creators who think they are doing us a favour with this being their only representation. To clarify, this experience of heartbreak is real, it should be represented, but it should also be done respectfully, delicately, and with a loveless person on board. None of this is present in the Sympathy Vehicle. They exist to be saved from themself, to cry to the audience about how horrid being loveless is, and to act as an unrelenting expression of loveless pain only solvable by a doting, loving character. The Sympathy Vehicle does not find community, go on a journey of self acceptance, or even truly get through their crisis. All of it relies on a loving society counting them as an exception, as fitting within the loving mould, and all so a loving audience can feel better at the end. None of this is done in the service of catharsis for a loveless audience, or truly exploring what causes these experiences in the first place. In fact, the Sympathy vehicle often exists in settings, dynamics, or societies where other nuances of love are completely acceptable or normalised, even encouraged to explore. So, here is my question.

Why does your fictional society hate loveless people? Why does your fictional small circle, your fictional small neighbourhood, your fictional forum or internet community? Who is teaching the Sympathy Vehicle they are wrong or monstrous, and why is nobody challenging this in your accepting circle? Why does nobody discuss it? Why are they left to wallow alone and forgotten? Why, in your utopic scenarios, must the loveless still suffer? Why was your first thought writing a loveless character to put them in a world that has taught them only hatred, rejection, and malice, when all your other characters can find peace?

There’s a reason I solely trust loveless people to write about this, or to draw from their own experiences. Sorry if you don’t like this take, but it’s where I lie on it after seeing dozens after dozens of loveless headcanons, original characters, and narratives solely centred on selling lovelessness to be gawked at and never comforted.

#4: The Apathetic/The Snarker

Ah, the gay best friend of the aspec community, it’s good to see you again. Hopefully I do not need to explain why making your loveless character a sidekick to subject the main romance or friendship to while solely making quippy remarks or giving relationship advice is a bad idea. Ultimately, having a snarky, sassy loveless character is not the issue, but reducing them to essentially be a windup doll for the loving cast is. We’re more than a punchline or cutaway gag to do your “get a load of them!” bits with.

#5: The ‘Stereotype Defier’

Annoying, but brief, this character solely exists to be the counterbalance. They have no character outside of being perfect, acceptable, and enjoyable. Palatable is the Defier’s middle name, albeit one of many, the others being “don’t cancel me, I made a good one”. If you see the advice to not limit your loveless characters to stereotypes, and your first response is to make this guy, scrap the whole thing/ You’ve severely misunderstood. The problem is not the presence, but the standard. Making a character solely so you won’t get a callout post does not make you accepting, it just shows you took away the wrong message and did not understand what you were taking in. Please, please write a character to be a character, not “another one” to stand around do-gooding.

#6: The Under-researched Cultural Experience

This one will upset certain people, but I’m here to tell you this with no frills: why are all your loveless characters so American, specifically white American? This character has only ever looked at it from a USAmerican perspective, all of their experiences line up with those norms, but the written character is from a country or culture where these norms are entirely different or just nonexistent. What gives?

Well, in my opinion anyway, at least coming from a Canadian, you tend to notice that aspecs from regions such as SWANA, Latin America, South Asia, and even from certain communities in the US, such as diaspora and African American communities, entirely have their necks stepped on. There is plenty you can find on experiences with romance, family and friendship normativity, how the expectations change, and how culture will impact those experiences online. I, personally, can't speak on them; it’s not my story to tell. It’s my task for you to seek out alternative voices so you actually write accurate characters. Do your research before you slap on broad strokes.

Loveless POC and loveless people from around the globe deserve good representation that actually takes cultural considerations in mind.

#7: The Serial Abuser

I’m not entertaining this one. Not happening.

If you make this, do not expect people to take your word or hear you out. If your story is actually a tragic tale of the cycle of abuse, I honestly do not care. This should never be your first outing, and even past this, loving people, do not use this trope. Not for headcanons, not for OCs; there is a level of trust going on, and an expectation of good faith that comes with allowing certain stereotypes to be used. This, however, no matter how smothered in nuance, disclaimers, and loveless pride hashtags, will end poorly. I am not going anti-nuance, or anti-loveless villain, but I am anti-”blatantly bad idea”. Avoid. Do not attempt.

Whuff. Over the controversy hill, onto bigger and better, right? Well, we’re at least into the part that is more discussion-oriented, going over concepts to keep in mind, the main debates around loveless character creation, and why it causes such hesitation.

A Loveless Life: Reality into Fiction

[PT: A Loveless Life: Reality into Fiction]

So, past all the other discussion, really… What IS it like to be loveless? This is not easy to answer succinctly, let alone entirely. While I can lend my own experiences and observations, I cannot speak on behalf of others. There will always be someone who agrees, someone who disagrees, and someone in the middle. However, for the benefit of this post, I will share some personal thoughts, as much as I am comfortable with, anyway.

Lovelessness is often, although not always, living a double life, online and offline. You do not always know who you can trust, who will or who will not judge, and what they will do if they discover this about you. I have known people who have lost friends, had relationships dissolve, or otherwise seen the negative impacts of an unaccepting society meeting a non-conforming individual. However, I have also seen endless grace, patience, and willingness to learn. I have seen people come together as a community to support each other, protect and uplift our own, and speak up for each other. I have seen allies hold the line and refuse to leave us behind in their conversations. For every antagonistic anon, every anti-loveless post, every argument over the status of your identity, and every lost relationship, there is opportunity for growth, betterment, and change.

Loveless life is complicated. In current society, no matter where you go or who you talk to, it will not be easy. There are expectations everywhere, and the world wide web makes people especially vulnerable to attacks they cannot defend or insulate from. Many loveless people from a young age are learning to be defensive first and foremost, or to stay in the closet from their peers. At the same time, many more people are finding the label and their peace with it. Many are willing to fight for that acceptance.

With all this in mind, do I necessarily want this to be emulated in media? Not really. Handling it accurately would be a treat for sure, but at the same time, it is upsetting how in settings for escapist fantasies, the loveless cannot escape these standards. I would like a mix of both, with both accepting situations and the realities of loveless life. This necessitates creating more loveless stories overall, which I am all for. I hope someday I will be able to point every loveless person to a book or TV show with their experience or label in it, proud and happy, even if circumstances are not.

Changing The Narrative: Who’s the Real Inflexible One?

[PT: Changing the Narrative: Who's the Real Inflexible One?]

I think to myself, or talk about it with others pretty often, why are loveless characters so hard to write for loving people? However, it’s my recent thought that this question is flawed, because of one principle component carried with it: the onus is put on the loveless identity for its difficulty. Realising this, I proposed to myself a new question: why do loving people have such a hard time adapting? Why do loving writers and artists struggle to understand so often?

Again, Occam's razor: loveless antagonism, anti-loveless rhetoric, and all other names it goes by, is everywhere. Including, and almost especially, in the aspec community, as well as the loveless community itself. These principle beliefs of what it is to be human, what is normal, what is just and moral, are so ingrained and tied to love, they aren’t even questioned or thought of as ideology. It’s almost as innate as breathing. So, the question of how not to be loveless antagonistic is proposed, seemingly simple and straightforward, but oftentimes never shared in detail. People will reblog posts about spreading kindness, not hate, or appreciating loveless voices, but rarely will they actually take the steps towards not being anti-loveless. So, how do you become flexible? How do you become the solution? I can give you my answer, based on what I would like to see, but there is endless possibility in this question. Recognition of the issue is only step one.

What I would like to see is further reading of loveless perspectives, ideas, theories, and broader acceptance and discussion of these principles. If you want to sit at the adult table, you need to leave your cutlery at the kid’s table. You can’t pick and choose what parts of loveless antagonism still suit you just fine, such as platonormativity, and then agree the rest of it should go. You need to fully let go and embrace that you can be wrong, and you can change. You are not beholden to old opinions, even if they are “community consensus”. This includes, even if it is important to you, recognising love is not necessary, love is not inherently moral, loveless people are all around you, and loveless people are complete as is. And, for all that is holy, stop remixing the question of “what makes us human?” unless it’s for your anthropology final; it’s a silly question, no, it is not love, and trying to find this grand singular answer will lead you in circles. If I hear it one more time the next instance is getting met with a punch.

As well, accept loveless people as peers, not zoo animals. We are not your research project or knowledge dispensary. We are people with lives, and people who get tired. While answering questions isn’t bad, and neither is asking them, respect you are not owed an answer or the time of strangers. We do not need to explain ourselves to you, and if we do, it is a favour. Do not force yourself on people, do not request personal details, do not become one of those people who tags vent posts as “writing reference”.

Overall, show respect, open your ears and eyes, prepare to be wrong. Prepare to screw up and get corrected. Prepare to try again anyways. Prepare for research and put yourself out there. Prepare to let go of the anti-loveless safety blankets.

A Final Disclaimer: “Care” and the Acceptability Crisis

[PT: A Final Disclaimer: "Care" and the Acceptability Crisis]

Care does not equal love.

You’ve likely heard this line a million times, and while it is true, it’s important to remember care isn’t an inherent human trait either, and it should not be treated as a redeeming catalyst for your feel-good twist. Care, just like anything else, is simply an emotion, a way of relating to people. You do not have to care to do good, to be good, or make a positive impact. You do not need anything in you but the want to do a good thing, for whatever reason, to do a good thing.

Breaking the barriers of what makes people inherently worthy, human, and moral, includes removing all emotions as an inherent human qualifier or moral superiority mound, and recognising them as impulses and reactions like anything else. Care is not necessary. Don’t come into my notes with it, last time I’ll talk on it, putting it on the table. Up to you to internalise.

Loveless people need no disclaimers, no frills, no appeasement compromises for loving comfort.

So, What Next?

[PT: So, What's Next?]

I���d recommend reading a few things before you go. It’s a short list, I promise. First off is the principle writing on lovelessness, I Am Not Voldemort by K.A. Cook. You’ll see this essay cited 6 times over for good reason; it's the blueprint of loveless writing. As well, you can check out this post by @loveless-arobee on the same topic as this post for a second opinion discussing a few things I did not cover here/did not go in depth on. As well, check out blogs like his for loveless discussions and thoughts. There's always learning opportunities and ongoing discussions to be found when you look to loveless bloggers.

With all that said, write. Draw. create. Find a passion and use it, and recognise care and love do not make or break an individual. What makes an individual is them being on this Earth, or on your fictional little planet, making their impacts as they go along in life.

What makes humans human? I don’t care.

Thanks for reading!

[luxe-pauvre]

There is no doubt that Haig’s story, and others, have started conversations that otherwise might not have happened. The fact they’ve become bestsellers shows the appetite for stories that reflect the realities of illness and explore how hard it can be to stay alive. But these accounts remain within the bounds of acceptability. Through the pursuit of recovery, of self-adaptation, these books implicitly suggest ill health should be something we can ultimately escape, fuelled by self-motivation, hope and resilience. Illness should not be chronic. They fit the genre of ‘The Recovery Narrative’ — a term used by Angela Woods, Akiko Hart and Helen Spandler to describe the increasing reliance on recovery as a “dominant approach to the management of mental distress and illness”. Linear recovery narratives are not only endorsed through popular culture but, as Woods, Hart and Spandler write, a policy context in which patients are encouraged to “speak out” in accordance with preconceived “generic conventions”, such as a reaching “rock bottom” and getting better from there.

Naomi Morris, Chronic illness and the pressure to get well

[puckpocketed]

i just hate when players do this and people call them “warriors” i know you wanna play in the playoffs to help your team but YOUR FINGERS ARE LITERALLY BROKEN MY GUY THEY COULD NEVER GROW BACK TOGETHER THE RIGHT WAY im crying

my poor cringefail wifes i love them all so much i hope they all take the rest they need

GOD I hope they get rest too :((

breaking soooo much character right now to give my fullest take, and it’s that we can hold multiple ideas in our minds and i don’t think they conflict

playing through injuries is terrible.

They are whole adult human beings and professional athletes who have resources to keep them informed about long term consequences, and they still get to make those choices even if we hate the choices they make. Even if those choices drastically reduce the length of their career. Even if those choices end with long term heath complications.

i might lose some people on this one but i don’t care!! it’s what I believe: being disabled or chronically ill/injured/in pain is not a death sentence. it is not the worst thing in the world. people live full and happy lives whilst also being disabled. can it suck for the person living through it? yes. absolutely. but to me, people are not and never will be defined by how able-bodied they are!!!

All of this is true (to me) and also we can still condemn the circumstances that cause them to make these choices. (culture of not wanting to be seen as soft, the normalisation/valorisation of playing through injury, all the other [gestures wildly] forces at play that set athletes up to make these decisions) Like i’m sorry to get political but choices do not exist in vacuums. sports does not exist separated from hegemonic models of masculinity or capitalism. there are so so so many reasons a player might choose to harm themselves by playing through injury and not all of them are noble or valid, some of them are stupid and informed by bullshit!!! and we should be mad at that bullshit!! because it’s awful!!!!

these are their jobs, and i’m talking in the sense that they are performing labour and i think labour laws and workplace health and safety must apply here too. I think we have to start talking about these things in terms of workers rights, in amongst all of the compassion we have for them as players. there’s the pressure to perform due to contract status and salary bonus milestones; there’s team doctors having direct conflicts of interest, a monetary and cultural incentive to look the other way when clearing people to play; there’s the plain fact of the best possible safety equipment (cages/bowls, neck guards, cut resistant protective gear) not being mandatory; the blatant denial of CTE coming from the league itself. there’s a lot. and it’s a workers rights issue, not just a moral one. someone will play through xyz because of the culture, because of the pressure, and they will die from it.

EVEN STILL. there is beauty and narrative resonance and something compelling about it all, and I don’t want to deny that. as someone looking from the outside in, sports captures people’s hearts because of these narratives. sacrifice and teamwork and triumph — we have an appetite for these things. I am never going to sit here and deny that I feel compelled by it (which is simultaneous to the anger, the fear, the deep deep well of “i’m sorry you have feel you have to do this”) This appetite I/we as a society have for pain — unpacking it and addressing it is a whole other conversation and I am not qualified to have it. I’m just going to acknowledge it exists because I think pretending it doesn’t would be dishonest of me.

we are allowed to feel fucked up about all of this. call it parasocial, call it entitled, call it inappropriate, i don’t know!! we are people and knowing other people are in pain tends to fuck us up — and as much as I try to keep a healthy distance from these celebrities, as much as I remind myself they’re strangers, I care when they’re hurt because I’m human.

anyway. YES OUR POOR CRINGEFAIL WIVES 😭🤲

[ur-boyfiend]

panic attacks and cuddles

corvid? posting?? unheard of. anyways self-indulgent comfort fic bc i can. prolly gonna do a chronic illness / disability one soonish, if anyone has something they'd like to see more content for feel free to send an ask and i'll write it if i'm comfortable !! if you have any specifics you wanna see feel free to add those as well, it really does help me ^^;

cw/tw; panic attack (no shit but y'know), spiraling, depression, negative self-talk, depressive episode

seasonal depression is nothing new, in fact it's something you're far more used to than you'd like to be. while some loved winter, for you it was the time of year where any regular depression was compounded by the gloom of late dawns and early sunsets and the inability to enjoy going outside.

the difference this time is that you have a boyfriend, and you wish that you could be happy, wish that you could be grateful, but wrapped tightly in a blanket as you watch the grey sky outside the window across your room, you can feel the creeping sensation of a panic attack starting to crawl across your skin. in some part of your brain you can hear your phone buzzing, but the buzzing melds into the feelings of panic, and you curl further into yourself.

the sun is setting, almost set, blanketing your room in darkness. you know that turning on your lights would help, would make this whole thing less suffocating, but it's so much easier to just resign yourself. getting up to turn on the light takes effort, but simply spiraling further takes nothing at all.

your phone is buzzing again, another thing you know you should pay attention to, but you just can't drag yourself out of your own head long enough to do anything about it. it feels like the world is collapsing onto you, and for a moment you wish it would.

you lift your head slightly, the world is in black and white, and it feels like all your senses are muffled by cotton wool. you drop your forehead back onto your knees, the energy it takes to keep it raised somehow more than you have in you.

you're not sure how long it's been, after the sun has set there's nothing left to indicate the time. you're trying to find the strength to get out of bed, to do anything, even just to look up.

from your blanket cocoon, you can see something light beyond your eyelids. for a second you think you're seeing things, maybe you pressed on your eyes by accident, but you don't actually feel any pressure on your eyes.

not sure what's happening, you lift your head slightly, almost immediately being met with the sight of your boyfriend standing near the door to your room. he's not looking at you, he's looking at your room, and you realize that he hasn't actually seen it before. you're suddenly very aware of the piles of stuffed toys scattered around, the posters on the walls, the makeup and jewelry strewn across the top of your dresser, the mess on your desk, the clothes piled in the corner. it feels as if every flaw in your personality is somehow scrawled across the room in glaring red letters.

and yet, when he notices you looking at him, changbin turns and smiles at you. in that moment, you feel like you might cry. as you feel yourself choking up, his eyes soften with concern. placing the bag he's holding on the floor, he carefully sits down next to you on your bed.

"hey, what's wrong?" you feel him pull you into his side, "talk to me bubs."

instead of talking, you feel tears start running down your face, changbin wiping them away as fast as they fall. he leaves feather-light kisses across your nose and cheeks.

you say it without thinking, "i love you," and once you've said it once it's like a floodgate has opened, you're repeating it so quickly that it becomes an incoherent babble, changbin peppering kisses across your face the whole time.

it takes time for you to calm down, more than you'd like, not keen on being seen in this state. but changbin sits and rubs your back as you try to pull yourself back into some kind of human form, a silent support.

it's only when you've stopped crying, are a more solid person than you'd been, he says it back.

"i love you too, now let's eat, yeah?"

you hum slightly, leaning further into his side, "nap with me?"

changbin sighs and flops onto his side, pulling you down with him, pulling up the blankets to cover you both. you quickly snuggle into him, grateful for the extra warmth.

"get some rest," you feel him place a kiss on your forehead, "i love you."

"i love you too," you mumble, already half-asleep.

[a-shade-of-blue]

New Gaza fundraiser asks I've received (16 September)

Ahmed Matar (@ahmedmatatsblog): Ahmed has 5 children (ages between 15 and 2), and he is also responsible for caring for his sick elderly parents and his married brother with his 2 children. Ahmed decided to migrate and apply for asylum in another country a week before the current war with hopes to improve the living conditions of his family. But now he cannot work while his asylum application is getting processed, and his family is trapped in Gaza. He is trying to raise funds to cover his famly’s daily expenses and to evacuate them out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/04873d58) (vetted by @/gazavetters and is #33 on their Gaza vetted fundraisers list. For more info on @/gazavetters click here) (€705 raised of €64,000 target)

Yusra (@mariam2013y): Yusra has a 11-year-old daughter named Maryam. Their house has been destroyed. They have been displaced no fewer than 4 times and they are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/959e2902) (vetted by association! Yusra is a friend of @/dodooomar (shared by 90-ghost)) ($1,206 USD raised of $30,000 target)

Ahmed Mohammed (@helpzzmeplz): Ahmed has 2 children: Majdi (6) and Ayah (7). They are trying to migrate to Canada. (https://gofund.me/e22e9331) (vetted by association. Ahmed is a friend of Sahar (@/a-ss-123). (Sahar is also vetted by association. She is a relative of @/burningnightgiver (@/burningnightgiver's campaign has been shared by 90-ghost, also see post here)))

Yazan and Yamen (@yazanabed, @yamenbakera): Yazan and Yamen are brothers who live with their parents and their younger brothers. They have a younger brother who has contacted hepatitis C, and another who has contacted cancer due to the horrible conditions they are in. Their parents both need medication for their chronic illnesses. They also have a sister who is pregnant and her husband has been killed. (https://gofund.me/a1f08107) (vetted by association! They are the brother of @/bshaeromars-blog (#231 in verified fundraiser spreadsheet vetted by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi. Also promoted by nabulsi)) ($438 USD raised of $40,000 goal)

Mahmuod Anwar (@mahmoudanwar): Mahmoud is from a family of 10. Mahmoud has proposed to a girl and they intended to get married but this war had disrupted their plans. His house and his workplace have been destroyed. His younger brother dreamed of studying law at uni. His older sister Suha was a uni accounting student. His mother suffers from high blood pressure and chronic diseases but there is no treatment. They are trying to evacuate out of Gaza. (https://gofund.me/ffd50356) (vetted by @/gazavetters and is #38 on their vetted fundraiser list. For more info on @/gazavetters click here) (€110 raised of €15,000 goal)

Ahmad Zindah (@ahmednser): Ahmed’s house, vehicle, and the factory ran by him, his brothers and his father have all been destroyed. Some of his family members were injured by the bombings. (https://gofund.me/beb55c95) (vetted by @/gazavetters and is #37 on their vetted fundraiser list.  For more info on @/gazavetters click here) (€167 raised of €100,000 target)

Iyad Alanqar (@eyad-alanqar255): Iyad is trying to evacuate himself and his his family. Their house has been destroyed. They tried seeking shelter at a hospital but it was bombed, and he had to pull his niences and nephews (Nasser, Jana, Mohammed, and Hind) out from under the rubble. He also needs funds to treat his respiratory issues, as well as to continue his education. (https://gofund.me/9e599706) (vetted by @/gazavetters and is #24 on their vetted list. For more info on @/gazavetters click here)

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 13 - 25 July.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 26 -29 July.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 30 July - 1 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 2 - 5 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 6 - 10 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 11 - 14 August.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 15 - 18 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundrasiers from 19 - 21 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundrasiers from 22 - 24 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 25 - 28 August

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 29 August - 1 September

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 2 - 5 September.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 6-10 September.

Click here for my Masterlist for fundraisers from 11-14 September.

How does vetting and verification work? See post here. (also read comments regarding 90-ghost and why we trust the campaigns he has shared)

Click here for my Google Doc with my complete masterlist of all the Palestinian gfm asks I've received, updated daily (along with other verified ways to send aid to Gaza).

See post here for other verified ways to send aid to Gaza.

Don't forget your Daily Clicks on Arab.org, it's free!!! and Every click made is registered in their system and generates donation from sponsors/advertisers.

[nina-ya]

Imagine Law with a partner with a chronical illness like migraine. I think he would be soo protective and caring 😍

anon are you in my walls i get chronic ocular migraines and think of this way too often

I feel like Law would present you the option of healing your chronic illness if that's something he could do. If he is able to cure his own white lead disease, cure children of a drug addiction, give others the ability to walk again, etc. etc. then healing your chronic illness may not be out of the question.

However, he would never pressure you into a decision. Law does respect your autonomy and would always make sure you feel comfortable with any choices regarding your help. If you declined the offer, even if he is not the most fond of your decision, he would support you in any way because well, he does love you.

Law would be very attentive in your day-to-day lives. He would do extra research on your illness in question, noting any triggers, the symptoms, any remedies, and would do everything he can to make sure that you have as little flare ups as possible.

When you had a bad day, Law would be there, making sure that you had everything you needed- medication, a favorite blanket, or a quiet space to rest. He would do everything to ensure your comfort despite the pain. Law would notice when you are overexerting yourself and would encourage you to take breaks if you're up for it.

Law would make sure to educate the other crew members so they would know what to happen if you were struggling with your condition in their presence. Everyone around you would be there for you, yet they wouldn't coddle you, which is something you truly appreciate. Chronic illnesses can be tough to deal with, but having others around you treat you like you are a fragile piece of glass waiting to break at a moments notice is not the most fun, and both Law and the crew understand that and would never let you feel that way around them.

Idk i think Law would be perfect if his partner has a chronic illness. I mean he's just perfect in general but that's not the point sdfkj

[skyloftian-nutcase]

Oookay, you wished for prompts, here’s mine 😉

In Breath of the Sky, Sun hints at Sky having had Pneumonia before ( or even a chronic respiratory illness). I’d like to read something about Sky being ill and her (and probably the people of Skyloft) caring for him. ( I’m asthmatic and hc Sky as having respiratory issues 🙈🙈. He grew up with severely lower atmospheric pressure and less oxygen, him having problems with breathing on the surface would be understandable.)

Other suggestions: something with your Hero of Shadow and ToTK Link ( preferably something fluffy, them kicking Ganondorfs a** or Shadow telling Link what happened would also be very much appreciated) yeah, I know the fluffy stuff isn’t really your thing ( I seriously doubt that, sick Sky child and Breath of the Sky where so good with that) so I totally understand if you don’t choose my prompt.

I congratulate you for your success and I really appreciate you wanting to write something for us ❤️❤️

To be honest, Link felt a little worn out. He hardly ever talked this much in general, certainly to the same person. But the multiple thoughts of how he would annihilate Ganondorf were certainly a good way to replenish his energy as he felt the kid beside him start to nod off.

He was still trying to wrap his head around everything. He'd seen this kid before, but he'd never really put the pieces together about who he was or anything of the sort. The first time he'd seen him he'd nearly had a heart attack - the kid had caught his attention because he'd been crying, Link had heard crying and had gone to investigate, and Ganondorf himself was right there.

Link had nearly choked on his spit, had hid behind a rock, had looked through his gear to see he was woefully unprepared for such a confrontation, he hadn't even found the last sage, but the boy had made eye contact with him. Link had grabbed his resolve, had prepared for the worst, was steeling himself for the fight of his life, when... when the boy had told Ganondorf he wanted to leave.

Link hadn't understood it, in the moment. But he'd realized later, that kid had probably saved his life.

And he'd wondered. And worried. Because why did Ganondorf have a teenager with him? Why was the kid crying? The demon king was holding him like he was his child.

Link had been curious, to be sure. He'd made as much gloom resistant food as he could and set for the Depths the next day, but he'd had little luck in his search. It hadn't been until almost a month later, when he'd encountered gloom spawn close to the castle's underbelly. He'd already passed multiple enemies, including a gloom infected lynel. He'd known he was getting close to Ganondorf, and he'd known he was pushing his luck.

It wasn't until the gloom spawn, though. Once he'd defeated the hands themselves, a new surprise had emerged from the malice. Instead of a phantom version of the demon king, he'd seen the kid.

He'd had to fight a kid. And goddess if it hadn't made him felt like he was looking in a mirror, if the red eyes and grotesque glowing gloom eye on his forehead hadn't been there he might as well have been fighting his past self. This boy was fierce, and he looked close to the age Link had been when the Calamity had struck, if not a little younger.

The duel had ended in a stalemate. Link hadn't wanted to hurt him, and he knew he didn't have the tools to find an alternative to defeating him. Not to mention the kid had landed several good blows, malice sapping Link's strength. But it had also left him with far too many emotions to sift through.

Yet here he was now, terrified and starving and freezing, forehead bleeding where that eye had been. Link had to wonder...

He didn't know. He just didn't know.

What he did know was something terrible had happened to this kid, and he could guess who was the cause of it.

The teenager jostled a little, having started to nod off before startling himself awake. He jerked away from Link, petrified and disoriented, before the hero gently placed his hands on his shoulders. "It's okay. You're okay."

The words were simple. He'd used them a fair amount when helping people, especially those who were set upon by monsters. But for whatever reason, instead of a "thank you" or "oh right," he got an overwhelmingly relieved and emotional expression gazing at him before the teenager promptly burst into tears.

Link... didn't know what to do. But he felt the need to do something, so he pulled the boy into a hug. The haggard teenager clung to him in response, limbs shaking but desperate in their feeble capability. It made Link's heart hurt all the more.

"It's okay," he repeated, far more gently. "You're safe."

When the boy continued to cry, Link tried hushing him softly, holding him a little tighter. It was the contact that seemed to do the most good, as the tighter he held the boy, the more seemed to relax.

"What's your name?" he asked.

The mysterious teenager shivered in his arms before quietly croaking out, "Link."

Link stiffened. His anxiety rose once more, wondering if this really was some sort of trick of the demon king's making. He'd already tried to fool him with a puppet version of Zelda, after all.

But... this boy had saved his life. But then he'd tried to kill him. But there had clearly been malice controlling him then, and there wasn't now. He was openly bleeding from where that eye had been--

Oh, right. He should probably address that.

"Well, Link," he huffed a little, reaching for his pouch, "Why don't we clean your head up, okay?"

He'd learned from experience to always clean injuries before he healed them, especially if they'd been around for a while. The phantom hero didn't protest as he pulled away slightly to look at the wound. It was a fairly deep cut, frostbitten at the edges, slowing what should have been major bleeding to a near crystalline standstill.

That... wasn't exactly ideal either. But at least the kid wasn't bleeding to death.

Link grabbed water and boiled it with a cloth, attempting to hold pressure on the injury, but as soon as his hand reached for the teenager's forehead, the strange kid balked, gasping and leaping to his feet. He immediately had a sword in hand, and Link reached for his own in retaliation.

Both warriors hissed in pain as their weapons fought against their masters. Link stared at the Master Sword in horror and confusion - it had never actively tried to hurt him before! The worst had been when he'd first drawn it once more to fight years ago - it had tested his strength and ability to wield it, but it had never refuted his touch.

What was happening?

Wait. Wait.

Link looked sharply at the other Link's sword, recognizing the blue luster, the sacred hum, the way it looked like shattered stained glass reconstructed by a purple thread.

That was pieces of the Master Sword.

How...? He wondered, staring up at the phantom warrior.

The boy, in turn, was staring at the weapon as well, eyes wide with shock, but he recovered first, trying to reach for another weapon.

Link hastily threw his hands in the air. "Relax! I'm not trying to hurt you!"

The teenager looked wary, but he didn't pursue any aggression. Instead, he hugged himself, shuddering and falling to his knees, curling inward until his forehead touched the cave floor. Link carefully walked towards him, kneeling in front of him and hesitantly laying a hand on his back. "I just want to help you, Link."

When he got no reply, he grew unsure. He tried easing the teenager's worries with a distraction. "You know... my name's Link too."

The boy curled in even further. "I know."

He... he did? Link blinked, caught off guard. It was strange how so few people in Hyrule knew him when he bumped into them, but his enemies always did.

Well. Maybe it wasn't strange. At least he had friends now who knew him as well. At least on this quest, he wasn't alone.

That made him wonder even more, though. "So... Ganondorf and... and you..."

The teenage warrior let out a shaky breath, tightening his hold on himself before slowly rising. His eyes were dull and dark, gazing blankly towards the ground. "He was... he was family to me. But that was before he became a monster. He's been controlling me since then, and I... I promise I'm not trying to cause you problems. I... I wanted to help you defeat him."

Link stared, trying to process everything he'd just heard. Ganondorf had family? That would explain why he'd held the kid the way he had. But that... goddess, Link hated this. That made him far too human for all the terrible things he'd done. Calamity Ganon had been much easier a foe to deal with.

But it made him even more monstrous as well. Because the other part of the kid's explanation settled in his mind, and he... he'd suspected it was the case, but...

What kind of demon would do that to his own child?!

The monster's title was certainly appropriate. Link felt his blood boil anew, as if he had just seen the last memory Zelda had left behind in precious, blessed waters.

He wasn't going to just kill this man, he was going to enjoy it.

"Link... protect them all!"

Zelda's words echoed in his mind and heart, and goddess if it didn't break thinking about her sacrifice all over again. But looking at this boy, he knew, he knew she'd meant him as well, without ever realizing what his fate was.

He reached out carefully this time, pausing and making eye contact, waiting for permission. This shadowy, broken, freshly purified warrior was so terrified, and he wanted nothing more than to help him. The teenager tensed a little, but didn't outright attack this time, and Link finally managed to reach a handkerchief to the oozing blood on his forehead.

"We will defeat him," he said quietly, resolutely, as he wiped the blood away. "I promise."

[aquaquadrant]

I was wondering if you had an estimated date of when you will post the next HTP chapter?

Like, leaving us on such a cliffhanger must be a crime! It cant be legal!

Anyways, while I wait for it, Ive decided to copy paste every chapter into a doc and mark it up color code style for all my over analyzing needs. It took me an hour but it was worth it.

Have a good week and take care :)

(This is meant to be genuine, not mean or passive aggressive, just so you know. While I indeed am anxiously awaiting Chapter 10 by highlighting the chapters on a doc like that one photo of a bible page that’s highlighted with different colors. This isn’t meant to be mean or pressuring, take your time and take care of yourself)

⬆️(Ah poo, Im an over thinker

hey there, no worries y’all- i love seeing my reader’s enthusiasm and it’s reassuring to see continued interest in the series. i’d been hoping to have BOTH of the final ‘from eden’ chapters done before summer. but i have to admit, progress on the next chapter hasn’t been as forthcoming as i’d expected, for a couple reasons.

the first is health-related. not to be too TMI, but i recently got diagnosed with crohn’s disease. my symptoms started ages ago but have really ramped up in the last couple months, and the diagnosis was a lengthy and involved process (started the hunt back in november, presumptively diagnosed after a colonoscopy in feb, definitively diagnosed when biopsies came back over spring break) and even when i was simply waiting for results, it occupied a lot of my mental capacity. and ofc it happened to line up with me turning 26 and needing new insurance, which has caused lots of delays. anyone dealing with the american health care system while chronically ill will tell you it’s a frustrating, exhausting process. as of right now, i’m still waiting to start treatment 🫠

but honestly, even more than that, the biggest thing stopping me from writing is… me? 😂 so there’s this thing that happens after i post a chapter that’s like… decision paralysis? except it’s just that sometimes, i literally can’t bring myself to start the next chapter. it’s like, i have this unfounded fear that all my writing up until this point has been some magical fluke out of my control, and i’m not capable of ‘pulling it off’ again. i guess you could call it a form of imposter syndrome (which i already encounter enough in my vet school life). it gets worse after posting something that was a particularly massive undertaking or was insanely well-received bc i’m scared i won’t be able to top it- even though the impact of storytelling is supposed to be cohesive, and it’s unrealistic for every chapter to be ‘bigger and better’ (what does that even mean?) than the last one because they serve different purposes at different points in the story. i know this, rationally, but that doesn’t stop the irrational fear of failure from making me avoid writing.

i’m not sharing this to make excuses or garner sympathy, or fish for compliments, and certainly not to make anyone feel guilty for asking about updates. i just feel like maybe this will resonate with anyone who has the same experience. and also to share hope, because despite how often this feeling rears its ugly head, i’ve still been able to push through and get back to writing- and i’m always very happy with the result. sometimes it just takes longer than i’d like (pro tip: writing on ur phone is less intimidating, tho it’s more of a pain). but in any case, the next chapter of ‘from eden’ is well underway and i still hope to have the series done before summer’s end^^