#I need to find more people who are as deranged about them as I am

[musical-chick-13]

Which do you ship more: River and 11 or River and 12? (And if you feel like it, why?)

Oh, man. This is. Legitimately an impossible question, lmao. (Cop-out answer, I know.)

I tried looking at this from. Every angle. Which particular brand of derangement resonates more with me (can't decide). Which do I like writing more (can't decide). Is it more fulfilling for me to have highly messy angst or a degree of relative peace (again: can't decide). The only metric that might mean anything is that I like 12 more than I like 11 because he's The Only Man Ever, but...even that feels disingenuous, because...yeah, these two dynamics are different and these two guys are different, but. It's clearly still the same ship. He's really into how dangerous she is. She's really into how strange he is. They work together exceptionally well even if, by all accounts, they shouldn't (<-it's because of the intellectual compatibility, which they are both really into). They banter and occasionally drive each other up the wall, but they care so much and get so jealous for no reason, and he grieves intensely over her when she's gone (or when he thinks she's gone), he feels bad about her thinking she's less-than (hello Christmas special Reveal Scene and TATM wrist-healing scene), she is the most shameless person to ever live, and the feelings they bring out of each other are intense in a way they aren't with anyone else. He's absolutely desperate to impress her, and she pretends she's fine when she isn't, and they both give each other so much leeway that they just. Do not make a habit of giving to people. All of these things are true with both 11River and 12River.

I think I'd say some of my favorite moments are with 11River ("[I'd suffer] more than every living thing in the universe [if I had to kill you]." The entirety of Berlin Episode Series 6, episode of all time. "You're forgiven--always and completely forgiven." "This is my normal face/Yes it is." "YOU ARE ALWAYS HERE TO ME.") But that very easily could have been eclipsed if we'd simply seen more of 12River. (Show me the 24 years, Steven. SHOW THEM TO ME.)

I guess, marginally, I'll give the edge to 12River (my GOD that hurt me to say). Solely because if I want to write the two of them actually communicating, it's easier to do with that particular version of them, and I DO love writing the catharsis that comes from Genuine Communication. (I was able to write the Christmas Grief Fic in like two or three days for a reason, lmao. If I'd tried to do that with 11River it would have taken probably about another couple weeks and at least 5,000 more words.)

(Then again, back when I was starting out writing fic at like. Age 18. And everything I wrote was very stupid. I DID write a fair amount with them, that DID actually involve them communicating. So. Maybe my previous statement isn't accurate, either. a;sdfklja;slfaskl)

[oatmilk-vampire]

Steve Harrington needed hearing aids.

He wasn't born needing them. In fact, he was just about as healthy as a young man in his social class could be. But numerous head injuries eventually led to gradually worsening hearing loss, leading him to needing mostly useless hearing aids.

His damage was so severe he actually needed cochlear implants but his parents kicked him out of their house and off of their insurance plan when he got caught kissing his teammate back in high school. With his minimum wage job and splitting rent with his roommate Robin, he currently did not make enough money for such a luxury.

So he did the next best thing: he learned ASL.

It was free, other than his time invested, and Robin was the one to suggest it. After all, she was already fluent in five languages and had been in band for twelve years. If anyone could teach herself and a hard of hearing person to sign, it was Robin Buckley.

The only bad part was, they were the only two who seemed to know the damn language, leaving Steve to strain to hear or read lips lest he get (mostly) silently yelled at by some deranged customer.

So when he spotted a guy around his age with long, dark curly hair and perfectly round black glasses with side shields, he knew he had to act.

He knew what it was like to have people gloss over the fact that you exist, or even berate you for it; so he took a page out of Robin's book.

He learned braille.

Sure, technically Steve could still speak to the boy, but wouldn't it be more special if he could read what Steve wanted to say?

So he practiced and practiced until he was happy, bringing the card to work where his crush appeared to be a regular.

As Steve sees him walk in, he knows today's the day.

⠓⠊ ⠊ ⠁⠍ ⠎⠞⠑⠧⠑ ⠎⠕⠗⠗⠽ ⠊⠋ ⠞⠓⠊⠎ ⠊⠎ ⠺⠑⠊⠗⠙ ⠃⠥⠞ ⠊ ⠚⠥⠎⠞ ⠺⠁⠝⠞⠑⠙ ⠞⠕ ⠎⠁⠽ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠁⠗⠑ ⠗⠑⠁⠇⠇⠽ ⠉⠥⠞⠑ ⠁⠝⠙ ⠊ ⠺⠕⠥⠇⠙ ⠇⠊⠅⠑ ⠞⠕ ⠁⠎⠅ ⠽⠕⠥ ⠕⠥⠞ ⠕⠝ ⠁ ⠙⠁⠞⠑

Hi I am Steve sorry if this is weird but I just wanted to say you are really cute and I would like to ask you out on a date

Steve is giddy when he wanders over to the boy in dark clothes. He had on black jeans that are ripped at the knees, a Metallica band tee, a leather jacket, and a denim battle vest. He's perfect. He's hot.

Steve's footsteps must be louder than he expects because the object of his affection immediately turns in his direction.

"Hi," Steve greets as he presses the thick stock paper into his hands.

The boy angles his head down with a frown as he traces an index finger over the raised dots, before looking right at Steve behind those dark frames.

He takes them off, and Steve learns after so long that his eyes are brown.

"I'm sorry," his crush says, Steve recognizing those syllables easy enough, "But I can't read this. What is it you're trying to say?"

But now that response is too much, Steve can't keep up. All he knows is the card he worked so carefully punching little holes in with a special tool he had to buy was now being pushed back into his hands.

Steve doesn't try to answer, he just wants to get the hell away before his tears spill over, but a hand on his shoulder stops him in his tracks.

He tenses, squeezes his eyes shut and braces for impact, but when a familiar hit doesn't land on his face, he cautiously opens his teary eyes to find him staring right at Steve.

"Are you okay?" He asks, but Steve can't be quite sure if he's checking on him or asking if he's gay.

Steve's own frown appears on his face as he points to his ears.

"Can't hear too good."

His mouth drops open, rushing to spiel something Steve doesn't catch. He must realize this because he's taking Steve's card back from him now as he mimics writing something with raised eyebrows.

Steve nods his head, more confused that the guy he thought was blind seemed to be understanding him perfectly.

He fishes out the little pad of paper and pen he keeps with him for moments not quite like this, passing the two items over.

He scribbles for a moment before letting Steve read what he's written in big loopy letters.

Hi, I'm Eddie. Sorry, I can't read braille. What did you say?

Steve furrows his brows.

I thought you might know it. Aren't you blind?

Eddie shakes his head with a little smile.

The glasses? I have killer migraines. Never go anywhere without them.

Steve smacks himself in the face. He's been such a fool!

Eddie taps him to gain his attention once more before handing him the notepad and pen.

What did you say? I'd like to know :)

Steve worries his bottom lip.

Hi I'm Steve. Sorry if this is weird but I just wanted to say you're really cute and I would like to ask you out on a date

He's nervous as he hands it back, but Eddie's wide grin and eager nod does wonders to knock back those worries.

I thought you'd never ask, Steve.

[empress-simps]

Line That Leads To You

Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem! Reader AU: Soulmate AU CW: Language, Genre: Angst with a happy ending (don't worry guys) Summary: You make Sirius realize that having a soulmate isn’t all that bad— that he too, will have his happily ever after.

Note: One of my favorite tropes to write, soulmate AUs! Sirius just needs love and affirmation. I love writing for this! Enjoy! Picture is from pinterest, credits to the owner!

You know, Sirius never really believed in those pesky soulmates stuff. It irks him to no end, and makes his head hurt.

The topic makes him snappy, bitter, and it leaves him feeling angry. To whom? The world— the one who’s responsible for everything that has to do with soulmates. He thinks it is a bunch of bollocks. It’s a pathetic little concept that everyone seems to be too invested in.

Sirius would be very much happy to tell you it doesn’t really end with a happily-ever-after.

“I’m telling you, Prongs. It’s just a bunch of crap.” Sirius tells James one time at the drawing room in the Potter Manor. James shakes his head, disagreeing with his best mate.

“It isn’t always like Walburga and Orion, Pads.” James gently tells him, eyes swimming with empathy for Sirius. “Just look at me, Lily and I are together, finally.” Sirius can’t help but scoff, shaking his head in a disagreeing manner.

“That’s because you were already pathetically in love with her before you even knew she was the one, Prongs. Same thing for Lily, but she was quite stubborn trying to deny what she felt about you. You guys are actually made for each other.” James lets out a laugh, the memories resurfacing making a love-struck smile appear on his face (Sirius gave him a disgusted look)

“That’s what soulmates are, Pads. You’re supposed to complete each other, balance the other person out” He pursed his lips and sighed, there’s no way Prongs could understand his opinion on the matter.

Complete each other, huh?

Then can someone give him a reasonable excuse on why his parents broke each other? One descended into madness; the other doesn’t really seem to care as long as the noble house of Black lineage will continue.

Sirius bites his bottom lip, deep in thought as he stares at his pinky, willing the connection to be seen; a red string that was tied into a bow that leads to Merlin-knows-where. It serves as a connection; the string that he and only his soulmate can see whenever they want. He tugs on it curiously, awaiting any reaction with bated breath. He almost scrambled away when he felt the other end also tug it. Sirius was utterly terrified, a shiver crawled up to his system, it’s foreign feeling for the Black’s eldest son. It made everything feel too real. A fact that he desperately tries to deny.

That night, before they returned to Hogwarts as sixth year students was the last time he ever willed to see the annoying little string in his pinky, not caring if his supposed other half was finding him or already found him.

Maybe it had to do with his twisted upbringing. He saw how his father cut the string tying him to their mother, the purple string that bound them together turning gray and withering away.

He saw how Regulus flinched, no one should’ve seen a scene like that, but they did. Someone severing their connection to someone who should’ve been with them through better or for worse, the one that fate intended for them. Their life got worse just after that, forcing him to flee and leave his younger brother behind at the deranged hands of Walburga Black.

“You should eat more, Reggie.” You turned towards the quiet and reserved Slytherin, pushing his plate closer to him, which made him wince. “I am quite full.” You raised a brow “None sense, all you did was sip pumpkin juice so you better do as I say or I’ll tell Evan and Junior.”

“Do you know that you boss people around quite well?” He grumbles, shoving a few spoonsful of dinner in his mouth as you hummed in approval, cracking a small smile. “I was told.” Your eyes flickered to the Gryffindor table, it seemed to gravitate you, pulling you in.

Looking down at your pinky, you willed the string to be visible to you. Seeing the red string attached to Sirius Black made your stomach churn; was it butterflies? Unease? You don’t particularly know, having mixed reactions to the string that leads to your other half.

You’ve known for over a year now, keeping it to yourself as you quickly figured out that he wants nothing to do with his soulmate.

“Reggie! Reggie!”

You exclaimed, slapping the poor boy’s arm as he was currently staying in the L/n Manor. He looked in your direction, quite annoyed, he was interrupted reading his book. “I’m reading, Y/n. You know, you should too. It’ll do you some good.” He sassed, trying to find which part he stopped reading. “My soulmate! They tugged the string!” You gushed, “They must be looking for me too, right?” You asked no one in particular, you can still feel the tingles you felt, how your heartbeat picked up, and how you felt like you were in could nine.

Quite the opposite from what Sirius felt, huh?

You never told him, never planned to. It was quite clear what his views are on the concept of soulmates when you saw him snogging different girls every week. It wrecked you; you swore you felt your heart stop beating every time you see him loving a girl other than you even just for a week. It sounds stupid and all, but you would give up everything just to know what it feels like; how he will look at you with love and adoration in his eyes, how his touch and kisses would linger on your body, and how his voice would sound like as his breath fans in your ear, whispering promises of love.

You looked at him from the Slytherin table; so close yet so far.

Regulus noticed, the all too familiar broken look in your face. His heart hurts for you, even if you do not tell him, he already knows. Seeing his brother’s indifference, Regulus’s gaze hardened. How could he have the guts to do this to his soulmate?

The memory of their mother's despair, the way she withered away after their father severed the bond, was etched into his mind. Regulus does not wish for anyone to feel that way, he does not wish upon it even in his worst enemies.

It was a pain no one should endure, a lesson that should have been learned.

Yet there sat his brother, laughing with his friends and willfully ignoring the pulls of his heart. The person who held the other end of this unseen tether, was beside Regulus. Your soul ached as you watched your soulmate. It was a betrayal of the heart's deepest connection, and it stirred a tempest of fury within Regulus that he struggled to contain.

“My brother is foolish. Eat.” He states, pushing your food and placing the cornbread on his plate to yours. She cracks a smile, chuckling. “Alright, Reggie. You’re lucky I love you.” You pat his curls, proceeding to eat the bread, smiling a little. Reggie never really shares his food with anyone, except for you. You’re the only exception.

“Padfoot.” Remus starts, looking out of the window as Sirius lays down lazily in his bed, looking at nothing.

“What, Moons?”

“If I say that I have an inkling on who your soulmate is, would you… look for them?” Remus asked cautiously. Peter and James perked up, eyes wide with shock. How could Remus possibly guess who his soulmate is? Unless… They’re also in Hogwarts?

“Don’t start with that crap, Moony.” Sirius sat up; a scowl displayed in his features as his grey eyes turned stormy.

“Don’t you even feel the slightest amount of guilt in your system as you snog other girls?” Remus frowned.

Sirius’s scowl deepened, his hands clenching into fists. “Guilt? For what, Moony? For not wanting to be chained down by some ancient magic?” His voice was a low growl, barely containing the emotions that surged within him. “I won’t be dictated by fate. I make my own choices, and I refuse to be bound by a bond I never asked for.”

Remus’s expression softened, the lines of concern etching deeper into his face. “It’s not about being chained, Pads. It’s about finding someone who complements you, who understands you in ways no one else can.” He paused, his gaze steady and piercing. “You’ve seen what happens when that bond is severed. You’ve seen the pain it causes. Is that what you want for yourself? For your soulmate who’s probably hurting somewhere?”

Sirius looks down, biting his lip and playing with the rings on his fingers. “I don’t plan on severing our bond, Moons- “

“Then what the fuck are you doing?” Remus spat, Sirius flinched, looking at anything but them. He knew deep down that Remus was right. He can’t deny he also wants to look for his soulmate. The only thing that was holding him back is that he’s scared. What if your story would end similarly like how Walburga and Orion’s did? Dread fills his system as he reflects on how he slowly realized he’s becoming like his father. Peter and James exchanged a glance, the weight of the conversation settling heavily upon them.

“I’m scared,” he admitted, his voice barely above a whisper. “Scared of finding her… Scared of repeating the same mistakes.” He paused, his gaze lifting to meet Remus’s. “But you’re right. I can’t keep running from this. It’s not fair to them, and it’s not fair to me.”

James offered a supportive smile, feeling happy for his friend. Sirius stood up, his posture straightening as if shedding the weight of his fears. “I’ll do it. I’ll find her,” he declared, his voice steady. “I owe it to both of us to at least try.”

“That’s our Padfoot.” Remus breathes a sigh of relief as Peter nods encouragingly at Sirius.

The next daylight soon came. Sirius gulps, looking around the great hall, feeling quite overwhelmed at the number of students entering for breakfast, eating, or chatting amongst themselves. For the first time in a long time, he willed the red string of fate to reappear within his vision.

Ah, there it was. The red string connected to someone from the Slytherin table. Sirius felt his heart drop, seeing the end of the string connected to your pinky. “Y/n?” The name left his lips in a hushed awe, his heart skipping a beat as he saw the string connected to your pinky. You, who laughed with such ease beside Regulus, were the missing piece.

Whether it was some brotherly instinct, Regulus looked at him, shooting him a warning stare as if to say: ‘If you hurt her, you’ll never see the light of day ever again.’

Remus raised his eyebrows in surprise, knowing eyes set on his friend. “Found her, Pads?”

“Yeah. Found her, Moony.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” James chimed in, a grin spreading across his face as Peter silently cheers him on. “Go on, before you lose your nerve.”

Sirius took a deep breath, trying to shake off the weight of Regulus’s protective stare. It was a silent challenge, a vow to keep your heart safe from his brother. With a nod of acknowledgment, Sirius stepped forward, crossing the small distance between the Gryffindor table and Slytherin.

“Y/n,” he said, standing before you, the red string pulsing with a life of its own.

You stilled, slowly looking in his direction. Eyes wide with surprise, searched his for a moment before softening. “I was wondering when you’d come around,” you teared up, making Sirius’ heart ache.

Sirius extended his hand, the red string wrapping around both your destinies. “Let’s talk, yeah?”

And in that moment, as your fingers intertwined, Sirius knew that whatever the future held, he had made the right choice. For in finding you, he had found a new path that began to unravel, one filled with hope and courage. The buzz of Great Hall continued, but both of them felt time still, feeling the bond weave into their souls deeper.

Sirius’s and Y/n’s story had its flaws, but it was theirs, uniquely woven by the red strings of fate.

[jadeazora]

Quite a long read below, but I have to admire the dedication to the meme 😂

Feeling blue? It’s because there’s too much water. Your mood can turn gray on rainy days. From a broader perspective, water is the cause of all the world’s woes. All life exists on land. It is where Pokémon hatch from their Eggs. Where they train, battle, and evolve. It’s the source of the Berries that heal and sustain them. Even the mighty Mudkip, Hoenn’s beloved Water-type first partner Pokémon, sees a limited future for itself in water. Why else would it evolve into the Water- AND Ground-type Marshtomp?

Deep down, we all recognize the dangers of water. Land rhymes with grand. Boom! Roasted. Speaking of which, you can’t roast anything in water, and roasting is one of the five best cooking methods—but back to water’s imminent dangers. Even a puddle can ruin someone’s day, so the only safe amount of water is none. While humans fall victim to technology, turning away from nature’s sanctity, Pokémon remain deeply connected to nature. And Pokémon know that water is dangerous; why else would Dragonite dedicate its precious time to flying over immense stretches of sea to rescue people from drowning? How far have we sunk morally that this noble Pokémon must exhaust itself rescuing humans from this dire threat when there is an alternative solution at hand?

If we’re being honest—which the anti-water faction can afford to be with the advantage of facts and Groudon on our side—water tastes terrible. There’s an entire line of products specifically designed to enhance its flavor. It’s worth noting that there are no products to enhance the flavor of earth, because it tastes fine exactly the way it is. If you were thirsty in the middle of the ocean, what would you do with all that water? Clearly, the deranged water apologists bent on marinating us all in this deadly liquid have failed to accurately assess the threat that it poses to humans and Pokémon alike.

It’s no accident that many sports and leisure activities are devoted to avoiding the water. Boats are the most common method of traversing the stuff, and yet their entire purpose is to help you stay dry. Surfboards, jet skis, wetsuits, and even ridable Pokémon like Lapras, Mantine, and Basculegion are all indicative of humanity’s natural and entirely logical aversion to water. In reality, you can enjoy all these activities on land. Sandboarding is every bit as thrilling as surfing. And from a purely fashionable perspective, life vests and flippers ruin any ensemble. Of course, to each his own. Who am I to judge if someone likes the frayed shorts and bandana look? As a person whose style is impeccable, though, I’m much more aware of how important it is to look your best.

Like any person of reasonable logic, I could pontificate on the many dangers, drawbacks, and downsides of water for longer than Groudon’s subterranean slumber, but I have responsibilities elsewhere. I hope I have managed to plant the seeds of doubt concerning this insidious substance. Should you decide to take up our cause, you know where to find me.

Seeing red? You probably need more water. Irritability is a proven side effect of dehydration. There’s no problem that can’t be solved by water. Water is life. Without it, there would be no Magikarp struggling heroically to overcome the limitations of its biology, inspiring us all with its courage. No surfing Pikachu lifting spirits with its gnarly moves. No Squirtle, and certainly no Squirtle Squad. Eager young Pokémon Trainers would visit Professor Birch, excited to meet the Mudkip that would become their first partner on their Pokémon journey, only to find an empty Poké Ball.

What’s so great about land, anyway? There’s a reason land rhymes with bland. You know what isn’t bland? Soup. Everyone knows soup is the epitome of culinary ambition and delight, and what is soup if not seasoned water? If only being bland were the land’s only crime. Land is dangerous—volcanoes, quicksand, drought, and so forth. You know what extinguishes volcanoes, liquefies quicksand, and ends drought? Water. In fact, Kyogre, that magnificent master of aquatic realms, is known to save people suffering the effects of droughts. Without the parched, overrated land, the world and its many beautiful Pokémon would never know the horrors of another drought.

If the land is so safe, explain shoes. While swimming or otherwise interacting with water, we shed our footwear, instinctively wanting to maximize our physical contact with water. When walking on land, though, we wear shoes, acknowledging the inherent danger and uncleanliness of the earth. It’s not unreasonable to theorize that any pro-land faction is secretly funded and driven by Big Footwear.

If land is so wonderful, explain the existence of swimming pools. What are these giant, land-bound containers if not an expression of humankind’s yearning for the soothing, invigorating embrace of that life-giving liquid? Similarly, we embark on cruises because we long for the sea. Without water, we would forever lose the majesty of jet skis, gliding as effortlessly as Lapras. Snorkeling, kayaking, diving, windsurfing, wakeboarding, and water polo would all cease to exist without water. Water aerobics, which we can all agree embodies the nobility of the human spirit and incredible capability of the human body, relies entirely on the presence of water. Without it, we would be left with just aerobics—a pale and paltry imitation.

Finally—our bodies are roughly 60% water. Without it, we would be dried, unrecognizable husks, which is an accurate description of anyone unfeeling enough to dismiss the beauty and wonder of soup, the sea, jet skis, Squirtle, and our existence. Long live the water. I hope these arguments have sufficiently piqued your interest and whet your appetite for knowledge about the benefits and necessity of water.

Article here.

[earl-grey-teacake]

so how are we feeling after that news.

I am not sure how I feel about everything since I just keep finding out more stuff and it makes me feel worse and worse. I’m sad, and upset, and it feels like a tinge of grief. Not for my own dreams or aspirations but for Logan’s. That being said, I will continues writing my Baby!Loscar AU and I will continue/ start my other Loscar fics. I feel like it is a tough time and I hope to make it a little bit lighter.

I think my biggest feeling is overall disdain and disgust for how Williams went about this. My biggest issue is the whole situation being portrayed as “Williams is a business, this was a business decision. No emotion here” Businesses are not faceless entities, they are teams of people. It’s why teams put a lot of effort in PR and companies invest so much in HR. They are comprised of people and we as spectators and fans also play a role in the business that is Williams. Fandoms are profitable, fan content keeps people engaged, and those who are engaged spend money. This decision has shot William’s PR and whatever goodwill they managed to achieve last year. Logan is a martyr in the eyes of fans and James Vowles has come off as a deranged man. For the past month, any comments to the media are either of him passive-aggressively calling Logan a failure or thirsting after Carlos in a way that makes me want to call HR.

This decision isn’t even a money decision either. They talk about the upgrades, and need for points but are putting their faith in a driver that is clearly being brought up from F2 too early. They are taking risks that genuinely make no sense to me and I am afraid it may damage this new rookie’s confidence on top of it.

I cannot tell if James Vowles is doing this because he wants to live a bit wild before Carlos comes, has a vendetta against Logan, or he is just off his rockers.

I am happy Logan is out of there though and wherever he goes, I go. I hope he goes to Indycar. This is not me seeing Indycar as so lesser sport where unsuccessful F1 drivers should go it. I have great admiration for Indycar and genuinely enjoy watching it more than F1. My wish for Logan to go to Indycar is for the general vibe and how friendly everyone is and for the fact that I live 3 hours away from a track and will absolutely take PTO to see Logan race.

Personal feelings are below if anyone wants to read them.

I got into F1 last year around September but really dove into it around the beginning of November. Logan was someone who never really stood out to me in the beginning but I began to notice him more and more around October and November and I couldn’t help but sympathize for him. I remember how anxious I was waiting for him to be re-signed and the relief I felt when it happened.

I wanted him to do well and succeed so desperately and as it became more and more apparent that James and Williams, were doing, I became a bigger and bigger fan of him. I know I’ve mentioned it briefly on here before but near the end of last year and the first half of this year, I was dealing with a toxic workplace and an abusive supervisor. As the months went on, the treatment towards me got worse and worse and so did Williams’s treatment of Logan. Our workplace started to mirror each other.

The remarks, the veiled threats, the passive-aggressive comments that points to the same message “you’re under-performing, you’re not good enough”. Most of all, the expectation to practically perform miracles with tools and equipment that was vastly behind the rest of the field. I know very well how heavy and oppressive the work environment must have been. I can’t imagine how awful it must have been to have to be doing it everyday, to have to perform for the public like everything is fine, and take the abuse from James, from journalists and commentators, and social media. I was already breaking under my supervisors treatment of me, I definitely would have snapped in Logan’s shoes. However, while my supervisor got kicked out of their position, Logan was the one who got kicked off the team. I do hope he takes the summer to enjoy himself and heal.

I feel so bad for him and I’m so upset at how I didn’t know this was his last race. I had Abu Dhabi planned out thinking that was going to be Logan’s last and now I’m just a bit crushed.

[zan0tix]

I yap so much about the comic and the importance i find in its contents but i hope when i write dirk or jake or rlly any of them it doesnt come off as me dumbing them down😭

I know the core internal mechanisms at which they all operate from otherwise i wouldnt understand why they even do what they do and why they speak how they do since that is so crucial to analysis of their behaviour and Why they were written.

But i mostly write silly scenarios so the deeper messier parts dont get to show much😭 working on deeper things tho rest assured i am locking in🫡🫡🫡

I try to match the tones of how i believe the characters would act continuing off the ending of homestuck. With dirk and jake specifically i try to write them to where they still both kinda dont say everything they need to but they dont have the weight of narrative destiny on their shoulders anymore so they can admit they like spending time together and have actually confessed like normal people and got out those apologies they kept yammering on about in the last half of act 6

I try to reinvoke the ridiculous nature of the one time we really see the real dirk and jake talk (which was actually a dreambubble memory. jake is so gay.) but i try to make it feel how that did, they really do love spending time together and just being weird and cringe and bantering about stupid shit ❤️(the most we see dirk type laugh in the comic)

(Always Highly recommend reading this log if you havent in a while. Its just such good writing theyre so funny) https://www.homestuck.com/story/4844

I feel like the Best Bros part of dirkjake kinda gets lost alot of the time considering THEY NEVER SPEAK DIRECTLY (which is insane that hussie could craft this universe bending gender norm shattering yaoi with no fucking interactions wtf anyway) but there is alot you can gleam from jakes interactions with hal and this one log to tell us how they usually speak

Dirk always veers into making homoerotic comments because.. i dunno he might have feelings for jake or something whos to say. and when jake presses him dirk immediately diverts. I think from being around dave and everything daves realised thats bullshit about masculine standards and heroism that let him have a healthier relationship to masculinity, hearing abt that would loosen dirk up about Actually being affectionate to jake

But hes still somehow trying to no homo his way out of things that are incredibly homo just in a subtler way, not immediately going “Haha, what? I never said that. Anyway.” (Its both out of his fear for what his true identity means about him as a man but also because he doesnt think he deserves to get such affections cough thinks himself an evil)

And jake was always going with the flow. If his friends socially decreed something as okay to talk about then the fucking damn burst open and he couldnt keep it in anymore but they had to Very Clearly Clarify with him about it. So i think dirk going down a more positive road would lead jake there too seeing that if its okay for dirk to be less restrictive with his feelings jake can be too.

The Epilogues has a highly specific premise and was being manned by caliborn and calliope 2.0 cranked to the max in the deranged fanfic behaviour so. Of course it would not be a healthy environment for characters to grow💀 anyone who takes it as full confirmation about how theyd act or become as adults and ignores the fact of its premise Being “Homestuck but Sick and Twisted; The Fanfiction” is kind of stupid its like saying homosuck was in character. Ofc everybodys lives goes to shit because the two running the show dont know how the hell to be good puppeteers 😭

Said it on twitter but you can tell how much a dirk hates himself based on his relationship to a jake. Because tho ult dirk wouldnt ever admit it jake is dirks anchor of self worth just as dirk is jakes. When they show compassion and kindness to one another its a step closer to self acceptance because Jake is quite frankly a living embodiment of EVERYTHING that is “wrong” (queer, cringe, sincere, feminine) about Dirk to himself in his saviour complex surrounding manhood. (See Everything caliborn says about jake) jakes always waiting for dirk. If dirk were to step down and admit his own humanity itd mean hed have to accept he is capable of growing and isnt inherently evil, and jake would be ready to embrace that about himself too

Anyway all that to say. Even in my simple silly writing i at least do try to retain dirk and jakes strange emotional dodging olympics but also its just on a smaller level since theyve inching their way to fully internalising that Its Okay to be Cringe and Gay Together❤️ because the World isnt Ending anymore. Its in the little things they dont say because haha im the one who makes them say words.

Dirk and jake hate themselves because theyre not men in the right way but their love is because of them not being men in the right way so.. nerm.. Whos flying the plane?

[velvet-vox]

My Top 10 Favourite Male Villains of all time.

"How arrogant of you to think that any of us are anything but irrelevant". -John Greer, Person of Interest (2011-2016).

There comes a moment in a blog's life where some things are just long overdue, and while the argument could be made that this happened way too early, I'd say that as long as this helps me to find my groove, I am free to experiment as much as I want.

So..... Villains.

Gotta love them. As long as I do not meet them in real life. This post is in particular about male villains since I have one dedicated to their female counterparts in the pipeline so expect that to come soon enough and for this part to be rewritten. By the way, "villain" is a generalisation, I can totally put antivillains, antagonists or more general antiheroes in this list; your definition of "Bad Guy" can vary greatly and so can mine, someone like Walter White from Breaking Bad could have made it in here. My taste is very unusual, so prepare yourself for some unexpected picks.

Also, since these are meant to be some big celebratory posts, for the occasion I'll reveal my Italian heritage and translate every line of dialogue in Italian and publish it separately with a link, so that English readers who are learning Italian can exercise.

Here's also a follow up to this post, the first part of my top 30 favourite female antagonists of all time. Check it out, if you are curious to see more.

The bad girls

But first, some honourable mentions:

Oropo (Wakfu): Once you see the number 2 spot for both this list and the female villains list you might notice that I tend to gravitate towards characters with wasted potential more often than not, but while we're just talking about this guy, I cannot stress enough the amount of unceremonious mishandling that lies within his concepts and execution. Really needed two seasons of 25 episodes each to explore it to their maximum.

Tai Lung (Kung Fu Panda): I love him, but not as much as others, it's a matter of personal preference. He's an amazing antagonist, so even if he is just an honourable mention, I wouldn't call him a lesser villain by any stretch of the imagination; I once felt like he was too sympathetic for his movie's sake, but looking back at it again, he's actually moderately evil for a lot of reasons, even if Shifu is the main one.

Bill Chyper (Gravity Falls): It's been way too long since I watched Gravity Falls, I really can't give you an accurate opinion on this guy anymore.

Flintheart Glomgold (DuckTales 2017): That season 2 episode. If you know what I'm talking about, you KNOW. Also the music for that whole sequence was a banger, really driving home the deranged nature of that twist reveal.

Big Jack Horner (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): I feel like when people praise Jack for being a breath of fresh air in a stale environment, they often forget just how good of a villain he was in his own right without the larger industry wide void of truly devious antagonists that act out of pure malice.

The Wolf (Puss in Boots The Last Wish): Two villain entries from one movie? Of course it was gonna be The Last Wish, what else could it be? Honestly I don't even wanna talk about this guy, you need to experience the movie for yourself.

Rob (The Amazing World of Gumball): Everything I have to say about this guy gets talked about much better by the number 6 Spot on this list, but as it stands Rob was my first villain OTP and the guy who opened the box of Pandora for me on what an antagonist could and should be, since then my perception of villainy only widened and now I enjoy their role in a story in much different way.

And now, with that out of the way, let's finally start with the ranking of my personal favourite male villains of all time.

Major spoilers down below:

Number 10: Silco (Arcane)

This guy is the reason that brought me to specify who or what counted for this list as trying to simplify Silco into one specific group of characters is a challenge that can only end in a misunderstanding of what makes Silco such a complex and fascinating character with an amazing character arc, that ends with him not being redeemed, mind you, but allows the audience to grieve in such a way that would make a side character death jealous.

When writing an antagonistic character, Silco is my goal and high standard, and just for that he deserves all of my respect and endless praise.

Now, admittedly, Silco's arc takes a while to kick in, but it works out to his advantage by the end of it since you don't realise just how much you've grown to care for him until he's dead and you're left with the surprise.

10 out 10, the nation of Zaun would have been much better (worse) with him than with Vander.

Number 9: The Riddler (DC)

The Riddler is literally my ride or die villain, when I'm in the mood for him, he's literally my favourite antagonist ever; when I am not in the mood for him, I completely forget about his existence.

When compared to many other entries on this list, Riddler is definitely more on the pop culture side of antagonism, and when you've been around for almost a century, you tend to have many different versions of the same character written by different writers, so I wanted to highlight here my favourite versions of him:

Arkham Games: He's hilarious. He's not my ideal Riddler, but whenever he comes on screen, his whiny rat's ass voice stimulates my pheromones.

Batman The Animated Series: I've heard somewhere that this version of him is disappointing, and to that I'll say... yeah, but only when he wasn't on screen, because otherwise, he kind of slayed.

Matt Reeves The Batman: This is the version that rekindled my love for him after so long. Out of every interpretation of The Riddler throughout the years, this is the one version that treated Edward more as a character rather than an obstacle for Batman to overcome, and for that I'll be eternally grateful.

LEGO Batman The Videogame: My very first introduction to The Riddler and the Batman universe as a whole, this version has a permanent place in my heart , I love how much information and emotion you can get out of him by just looking at his mannerisms and quirks alone; unironically, being silent helps him reach that quote on quote idealised version of Riddler that I was talking about earlier.

Number 8: The Snatcher (A Hat In Time)

There are many things that can carry on a villain in a story, their evolution, stage presence, complexity, thematic contrast to their counterpart, and so on and so forth. While an antagonist can check off many of these boxes simultaneously (like the one pictured), there's one box that is almost impossible to truly nail perfectly: comedy.

You see, comedy is subjective, and when your main antagonist is also the funniest part of a given story, it becomes hard to also match a sense of gravity and menace that allows them to also be an imposing threat, even harder is to give said antagonist depth and a tragic backstory.

But somehow, out of nowhere, The Snatcher from A Hat In Time manages to simultaneously be the funniest character in his section of the game, carrie said energy throughout the whole experience even down to the DLC, simultaneously strikes the balance between being scary, wholesome, sympathetic and tragic, exude an insane amount of charisma, all while having a deeply disturbing backstory that touches on some heavy themes and re contextualises his actions into something more complicated and out of a broken man, everything I just said + he's the biggest bastard in his videogame and never repents nor does he have his actions called out.

Snatcher really has all the right cards that make a stationary character work and uses them to his maximum potential, and it works because his character arc throughout the game is more about becoming affectionate to Hat Kid than it is about redeeming himself.

Lastly, his voice actor, Luke Sizemore, aka Yungtown, really sells the performance of this devious soul eating worm and burns his catchphrases into your brain for the rest of eternity, much like his boss theme,

Your Contract Has Expired

A song that switches around being scary, epic, energetic and desperate in a short, yet perfectly paced amount of time. You need to listen to it regardless of if you've played the game or not.

Fool.

Number 7: Judge Claude Frollo (Hunchback of Notre Dame)

You can never say no to a classic.

There's nothing that I could say that hasn't already been said by thousands of videos on YouTube, but I'll try anyway: you see, Frollo is the reason why we need a new term to identify certain villains that aren't "sympathetic" but still make you feel some sort of human emotion and a form of "I wish someone could give you the care you need to fix your life", I guess the term empathetic exists, but when do you really see it used?

Now, don't get me wrong, Frollo is absolutely not sympathetic in the slightest, he wants to r##e a Romani woman that's way younger than him, but you can still feel that he's very troubled about it in the Hellfire scene and has definitely a lot of unidentified issues and internalised bigotry that could be worked through, even if it's too late to work through them right now.

In general, I feel like people forget that the main reason why past Disney villains worked had to do more with their human traits juxtaposed to their malice rather than just their plain wickedness, otherwise the Horned King from the Black Cauldron would be top of the Disney villains league and that couldn't be further from the truth.

We should really strive towards writing more villains like Frollo, less omnipotent beings that end up falling flat because they don't have much thematic relevance aside from being a threat (Bill Chyper works because he represents Ego and he's used sparingly) and more average vicious individuals who use their power and influence to get what they want.

All in all, if you've seen The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you know why this guy is here, but just to cite a couple of repeated points, the Hellfire scene is perfect. It's immaculate. It's unreproducible; there will never be another scene like this coming out of the House of Mouse or animation ever again, the excessive amount of stars and elements that came together to create this gothic classic is so vast that it's literally a miracle.

Frollo is truly the personification of the dark, twisted side of humanity peaking through the door and into your mind, from which he shall never escape as his performance still remains perfect to this very day.

Number 6: The Spot (Spider-man across the Spiderverse)

"You've hit me with a bagel!" It's still the greatest villain origin story of all time. There's truly something maniacal about this reveal, like the entire universe was shattered and reality was shocked at the mere realization that while Miles was having his coming of age moment back in the first film, this guy was having his normal life completely and utterly shattered by a combination of both our heroes stepping up to do the right thing and our doofus lack of foresight and self reflection; all of this stuff is hilarious and completely made up for the film but good god they did such an amazing job tying all the elements together in an unexpected way that makes sense and parallels the journey that our protagonist faced in the first movie.

Like with Rob from The Amazing World of Gumball, and a little bit like number 2 on this list, I just really enjoy the concept of turning background characters who had no relevance whatsoever into the big bad of the story who's been there all along and the heroes (and the audience) just couldn't notice.

With The Spot in particular, there's that sense of satisfaction of turning the wasted potential of a villain who has been underestimated for literal decades and treated as a "villain of the week" (God do I love the meta narrative of this movie) into an actual competent, well written antagonist that is aware of his reputation and strives towards bettering himself and his powers.

He's also the funniest character of his movie too and the voice acting of Jason Schwartzman only accentuates his mannerisms and pettyness.

He also has the coolest usage of portals I have ever seen and his whole "There's a hole inside all of us" metaphor is simultaneously hilarious and very deep personal information that can only be understood if you put yourself into his shoes.

I can't wait for Beyond the Spiderverse to come out and see how his arc resolves, more importantly, I wonder if he's going to rank higher in the future.

Number 5: Lord Shen (Kung Fu Panda)

"Happiness must be taken. And I'll take mine"

.....

What a character.

What a movie.

You cause so much pain and suffering, because you don't understand the people around you, and then those people banish you, and you can't understand why, so you start to believe that they hated you.

They never loved you, so you keep causing pain and suffering but it's not that easy anymore; the guilt starts to resurface, all those bodies keep piling up, but you can't stop because then it would have all been for nothing; so you keep chasing those dreams of grandeur because that's all you have left; the emptiness in your heart can no longer be filled by love, so you try to fill it with something else.

You try to fill it with power. You try to fill it with glory. You try to take everything else for yourself so that you can fill that cup, but it doesn't work, because that cup has no bottom.

And so you're left... with yourself.

And the damage you've done. But now it's different; you've failed. You are left with nothing. Nothing.

And so you outrage, for the last time... And then it all ends. Forever. And you've finally come to accept this, after all....... Who could ever love you?

Number 4: Spamton G Spamton (Deltarune)

You know, in retrospect, it's kind of insane what Toby Fox managed to achieve when creating Spamton.

Not only because Spamton feels like the most insane combination of ideas ever conceived, but also because Toby Fox created such a complex character with such a complicated language and personality and then not only shafted it all aside for the players to go out of their way to interact, but also made all of this in what are officially 2 or 3 cutscenes at most (4 if you consider his shop encounter as one) and only one of them being truly mandatory.

You spend so little time with Spamton, and most of that time is spent fighting him, and yet by the end of it you've become enlightened by the knowledge of him, that after a while... you forget how scary it all was.

All the memes comparing Spamton with Turbo are 100% correct and justified, Spamton truly is Turbo but better; you go through an insane rollercoaster of emotions with this character that you are left absolutely dumbfounded when it all comes to a stop and you go back to play the rest of chapter 2 normally.

His insane mannerisms and mood swings are pretty funny at first, but once you peel back the layers a bit they reveal a pretty realistic and sad portrayal of mental illness, mania and hysteria coupled with an unhealthy amount of social distancing, loneliness, and abandonment issues, that reinforce into your brain the idea of someone lacking proper healthcare and needing to be locked away from society for their (society) own good, simulating the vicious cycle that Spamton lives by: nobody wants to help him but he's still expected to act like a regular individual despite the amount of hardships he's facing and the lack of a support system keeping him from falling back into his bad habits.

I'll admit, I've considered putting Spamton in place of the Number 3 spot on this list; but then I've realised that on an objective level, the next entry totally deserves to be ranked above Spamton; plus, with at least 5 more chapters of Deltarune on our way, whose to say that one of the next gremlins won't be able to dethrone even the number 1 spot?

Drumroll for our top 3:

Nox, the Watchmaker (Wakfu)

There will never be another experience in my life as cathartic as watching the first season of Wakfu for the first time ever again.

On a later rewatch, the initial problems that you've noticed throughout the first half of the season and a little bit in the second half become too apparent to ignore, but the first time everything that goes from the ball tournament to the finale is one of the best paced arcs of television, and everything that happens when the team reaches the Sadida kingdom is just peak Wakfu.

And the king, the culprit, the crown jewel of properly paced stories and arcs is no other than the sad clockwork dilf himself: Noximilliem Coxen the Watchmaker.

Arguably, the greatest sympathetic villain of all time. There has never been another case of a character who has committed such vile, unspeakable crimes, and yet still managed to make me root for them while simultaneously not putting down the heroes.

And let's not be mistaken here, Nox is pretty evil:

Aside from the generic murder, Nox also defiled and stitched together the corpses of multiple victims and turned them into his obedient puppets in order to commit even more murder and genocide in order to achieve his goals.

Also, this is one of the funniest crimes Nox has committed: he abused his dog. It's really not that hilarious nor is it that important in the context of the show, but if you look back at it from an outside perspective then it's really like: Oh yeah. That happened too. Lol.

One of the best parts of his entire arc is his defeat. The "20 minutes" scene deserves a "One Villainous Scene" coverage video to forever immortalise it amongst the greatest. Everything from the music, the subversiveness, the cinematography, the voice acting and just the general art direction of it is worthy of an Eminem award at the Oscars, there's genuinely nothing wrong with this scene, it's truly immaculate.

Words alone cannot do justice to the treacherous, gut wrenching emotional rollercoaster that is experiencing his story for the first time. An hour long video essay would only serve to cover the basics and fundamentals, while for the real deal you need to watch the first season of Wakfu for yourself.

Number 2:

Bradford Buzzard (DuckTales 2017)

And now it's the perfect time to pull out my final wild card, the hole of the sink of my autism, the masterpiece of wasted potential that is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake of 2017.

When you'll also see the number 2 spot on my villainesses list, you'll come to realise that this spot is more of the "I really wish I could put this at number one but I can't because objectively he doesn't deserve it and the majority of things I love about him in canon were probably an afterthought and in fanon were never plausible to begin with."

And that's how I feel about Bradford Buzzard, an antagonist I spent more time thinking about than probably anybody else on the Earth.

The show runners were so genius for this: we are going to create an original character that will probably struggle to maintain a foot print on the franchise due to the way the Duck verse works, we'll give him an insanely cool backstory and motivation, all coupled with interesting character traits and ideology, we'll make him the ultimate foil to Scrooge McDuck that has been working with him for literal decades, we'll make him the one who has got the closest to isolating Scrooge and destroying his family, and THEN we'll turn him into a generic anime villain that shoots lasers and fumbles his own plan and loses because of insane plot armour and contrivance. Good job writers.

Anyway, I should probably make the case for why this guy ranks so highly in my mind to the point of almost taking the podium for my most liked villain of all time, especially when compared to the stiff competition that we just went through.

Now, part of it is just because this is a personal top 10 and so I can put whoever I want in whatever order I want. But also, with Bradford in particular, there's a personal aspect of relatability, various interests, and passions all coming together to make him stand out in my brain.

The thing is, I've had a pretty strong connection to Disney's Duck's comic books my entire life, even if my love for them came dwindling over time, so when I finally started watching the Reboot and it was amazing, all of that buried passion and love finally re emerged back to the surface, turning me into an annoying super fan. But while season 1 and 2 were great, season 3 actually gave me something to latch on for the rest of time even after the show had ended: the character of Bradford Buzzard.

You see, DuckTales, both in the shows and comics, always had a plethora of villains; from the crazy, megalomaniacal millionaires, to witches, demons, and other mythological creatures, to power hungry aliens, to straight up super-villains. But while all of that is true, there has never been another villain, aside from Magica, Glomgold and Rockerduck at traits, that was built specifically as the anti Scrooge McDuck, and even further, there has never been another antagonist who challenged the very core ideas and concepts of the entire franchise.

Bradford is like the Frank Grimes of DuckTales: just a regular, average, real world guy who's fed up with the nonsensical constant state at which their fictional universe operates and seeks to correct it in the most logical way possible. And while Frank was ultimately a victim of a world in which he couldn't conform, Bradford's outrageous and extreme plans and methods put him on everybody's hit list until he was left all alone, but not before indirectly causing every major disaster throughout the reboot's runtime.

A cold, calculating, machiavellian mastermind whose impact and presence secretly permeates the show, right till the very end.

Shame he wasn't written better.

And now, for the one and only,

Number 1:

Qilby (Wakfu)

Qilby is the biggest example of an anomaly that you could ever observe in a work of fiction. The first time experiencing a story is the most important and impactful moment of that story, as every future rewatch won't be as good as the first. In particular, this is an important aspect of twist villains, as they can only surprise you the first time, since at future rewatches the twist becomes predictable.

Furthermore, if the twist ends up ruining the character that was established up to this point, or it doesn't make any sense, then the story is kind of ruined and it only gets worse on future rewatches, since now you know that everything that you are seeing right now is ultimately worthless and doesn't provide any value.

So why do we love twist villains and keep churning them out? Well, you see, it's a matter of execution. A bad guy introduced in an unconventional manner is much more memorable than one introduced in a straightforward way; the twist can also serve to showcase different aspects of the character before becoming an obvious obstacle, be it quirks, interests, personality in casual settings, or cunning.

Let's not beat around the bush.

If Nox is the single greatest sympathetic villain of all time, then Qilby is by far the greatest twist villain of all time, and the crazy thing is, that he surprises you two times in a row, at first by revealing himself as more evil than you could ever imagine, and then, by outing himself as more complex than you could have ever anticipated.

Let me paint you the picture: you just finished the first season of Wakfu, and you are still pretty fresh of the hype surrounding Nox, so you think to yourself "Oh, now every future antagonist is ruined because nothing could ever top the emotional gut punch that I just went through. Whatever, I'm going to stick around just to see if the story gets worse" and you start the second season.

So far, everything is normal, even better of the first season in terms of engagement value, but you can't help but feel the lack of a Nox like figure inside of the story, but at this point, you just accept it.

Then the final six episodes roll around and OH MY GOD WHAT IS HAPPENING, HAS THE WHOLE SHOW JUST GONE INSANE?

Somehow, in some mystical, french, magical way, the season 2 finale is arguably even better than the ending of season 1 despite the fight having less buildup and introducing a lot of brand new characters and an entirely irrelevant faction into his conflict.

The entirety of the scene in Emrumb is some of the best writing I have ever experienced in any work of fiction, and the music accompanying it only accentuates the repressed dopamine being released after various episodes of filler, all of them important for this moment to be as impactful as it is.

Qilby is also just a great, tragic character, that is simultaneously an unforgivable bastard that tried to kill his family and doomed his entire race for a family trip, and a sad, nihilistic man still trying to reconcile his love for his family and his need for knowledge and discovery; his curse never truly allows him to move on or relate to others but his ego and need for his forgetful brothers attention just pushes him even further into resentment, ending up damaging himself and those around him, until he's finally isolated again by the vary people he harmed and showed his love towards.

He's as good as the evil secret sibling trope can get and I never get tired of watching him on screen. His reveal scene to Adamai still gives me the chills to this very day and demonstrated me just how good the surprise villain concept can get when it's executed correctly.

Just an all around great show.

[disassociation-daydreams]

Secret Admirer Part II - Dave York x F!Reader

A/N: So, it's been over a year since I wrote the first part, and yet, this only took me a few hours. Probably because I've written it so many times in my head. I just felt like I finally needed to get it down or else I'm not sure I ever would. If you've read Part I, I hope this gives you the ending you were waiting for. I’m posting this before passing out from exhaustion and am honestly terrified because I don’t know how I feel about it now that it’s actually typed out, especially the dialogue. Regardless, thank you to everyone who supported Part I. @murder-wife, your reblog today is really what gave me the final push to make this happen. 🤍

If you haven't read Part I yet, you can do so here: Secret Admirer Part I

Text Divider by @bunnysrph

Summary: Dave can't watch you through the window anymore, so he watches you elsewhere. It's only a matter of time before you catch him. Will it all come burning down?

Pairing: Dave York x F!Reader

Rating: 18+ (mdni)

Word Count: 2,267

Tags and Warnings: allusion to murder, possessiveness, stalking, obsession, age gap, pervy Dave, pining Dave, allusion to drug addiction, angst, too many Icarus references, probably more things so let me know if I need to add any!

You start to feel it again… that paranoia that you’re being watched. It’s different this time. Not in the way it feels, but that it’s happening everywhere outside your apartment now.

You closed the curtains peering into your apartment a week ago, and if you’re being poetic, you metaphorically closed the curtains to your heart along with them. The feeling has been back for a day: you first felt it while making your way to the subway, then again when you exited the station near your work, and when you went down the block to the coffee shop on the corner for your lunch break. You felt it when you walked back into your office building, when you walked to the subway after work, and when you made your way home from the station.

Of course, you couldn’t be certain it was the same person watching—no, admiring you—and maybe you should have been more concerned, seeing as they seemed to know every little detail about your routine and where to find you. But if we’re being honest, your self-preservation skills have never been a strength, and you may have some slightly worrisome quirks that make this whole thing set your skin on fire in the best way. And, well, you just knew that whoever this was, wasn’t a threat to you. At the end of each day, the only thing you were left wondering was if you’d ever get to meet the eyes of your secret admirer.

He knows you can feel him watching again. He could tell the second you became aware of his presence this time. He’s a selfish man, maybe a little deranged, though he thinks you could be too. He should have taken the closed curtains as a sign. Should have rid his mind of this obsession and gone back to focusing on his missions.

He tried to justify it. He just wanted to make sure you were okay, that you hadn’t closed the curtains for any other reason. It was only supposed to be one time—following you to the station on a workday when it was easiest for him to blend in, just to see that you were alive, and then he’d move on with his life and stop worrying about some random girl. But he also wanted to make sure you got to work safely, that there wasn’t some freak subway accident that would stop you from getting to your destination. He learned through a quick search where you worked and which station you’d be getting off at, so he met you there… kind of. He watched you exit the station, followed you around the corner and down the block to your busy office building, then took a seat in the bustling lobby while you waited for the elevator. It was easy enough for him to blend in with everyone else, especially since you always seemed to be lost in your own little world, oblivious to the people and everything else around you.

When he followed you home that day, he told himself that would be the end of it. He’d finally get to see the other parts of your routine he’d missed before—he could fill in the gaps, memorize these pieces of you that he had only previously imagined. But you were like an addiction, and if he was honest with himself, one he didn’t want to kick. So, he was there the next day, and the next, and almost every day after that for a month, excluding the weekends.

Why hadn’t you really tried to figure out who he was? Maybe he should be more worried about you if you didn’t seem to care that you were being stalked—even though he knew he would never hurt you. He could see you looking around sometimes, attempts at being subtle, but you made no real effort. You kept going through your monotonous routine each day: subway, work, lunch, work, subway, home. Subway, work, lunch, work, subway, home. Subway, work, lunch, work, subway, home. Subway, work... You got off at your usual station—but you didn’t head to your office building. You still turned the same corner and walked down a block, but then you kept going. You ended up at the same coffee shop you frequented at lunch. Maybe you needed an extra jolt this morning because you slept terribly? Maybe you ran out of coffee at home and needed some to survive the day?

But then, why were you sitting at a table now, staring directly at him, with your usual order placed in front of you and a plain black coffee set down in front of the seat across from yours?

You wonder if he thinks you’re truly oblivious. Yes, you wear earphones almost everywhere, and you tend to stay focused on yourself instead of the strangers around you. But that’s a force of habit—if you leave them alone, they’ll leave you alone.

You couldn’t figure out who it was right away, to be fair, and there was no way to be completely sure. It took you about two weeks into this game you seemed to be playing to really narrow it down. You’d look around subtly, study your surroundings with your peripheral vision, sometimes use the reflection on your phone to see the people behind you.

There were a few choices as to who it could be. You knew some of the people in your office building lobby each morning since they worked on the same floor as you. Some of the others you had seen around for much longer than you’d had this feeling of being watched. There was a younger man, probably mid to late 20s, close to your age. You hadn’t really seen him around before, and he always seemed to be leaving the building for lunch around the same time as you. But you soon found out that he was a new hire on another floor, and you saw him walk the opposite way of your subway station one evening as you were leaving the office when you still felt the eyes on you. So, no, definitely not him.

Another option was a middle-aged woman. You had caught her eyes on you a few times, even making eye contact once or twice, only for her to quickly look away. You guess you hadn’t completely ruled her out, but you didn’t get that certain feeling when your eyes met hers. Maybe you were delusional to hope for some kind of connection and dismiss someone based on something you couldn’t even describe.

There was a revolving door of possible people, but there was one you were really holding out hope for. He was older than you—maybe even 20 years your senior. He dressed like a businessman—nice dress slacks, black loafers, freshly ironed shirts. He had hair the color of freshly brewed coffee, broad shoulders that you could easily imagine wrapping your arms around. You couldn’t tell the exact color of his eyes, but from a distance, they looked dark—in color and meaning.

You’re pretty sure he was at least a semi-new addition to the dull routine of your day-to-day environment. You’d have to be blind not to notice someone as striking as him. You could be wrong, of course. You never saw him during your lunch break, even when you felt the eyes on you, and he wasn’t there, or at least not in your line of vision, when you left work each day. Now that you think about it, there seems to be more evidence pointing to him not being the owner of the burning-hot stare you feel tracing your body throughout the day. And yet, you just have this feeling.

You think it might be easy to know for sure. Maybe you’re naive, considering what you suspect he might have done to your neighbor without getting caught, but you still have the feeling that you’re the one weakness that might make him slip up.

It’s simple enough—they follow you every day, they know your routine. All it will take is for you to change it up a little bit, knowing they’d be curious about where you’re going, needing to know your every move. You couldn’t make it too obvious, though, so you picked a place you frequent—the coffee shop down the block from your work. It makes sense to go there in the morning too. Maybe they’ll think you ran out of coffee at home or didn’t have time to make some before heading to the office.

You place the order on your phone ahead of time—your usual, plus one more: a plain black coffee. You took a guess, inspired by the color of the person’s hair you’re hoping to finally meet.

As soon as you reach the shop, your orders are already at the end of the counter for pick-up. You grab them quickly, knowing you have a little time before they'll arrive as they must follow you from a safe distance. You sit at the table directly next to the door, the one everyone inevitably looks at when they enter.

The bell above the door chimes. Your drink is placed in front of you, the black coffee set down in front of the seat nearest to the door. Your eyes are already looking up, ready to make contact, and that’s when you see him.

His eyes are the color of espresso beans before they’re ground and lose some of their depth. They’re the color of pure, dark chocolate—rich, indulgent. You can see the bewilderment in them—the shock that he’s so easily been caught—but also awe, because what kind of mind would one need to best his?

He doesn’t run. He walks steadily to your table, his eyes never leaving yours, not for a moment. He pulls out the chair across from you and takes a seat.

“Hi,” you say simply as you reach across the table, hand outstretched in greeting. His much larger, warmer hand engulfs yours, and before he has a chance to utter a word, you speak again.

“I would introduce myself, but I have a feeling you know everything about me by now.” You say it with a smirk, a teasing lilt to your voice, bemusement in your eyes.

He chuckles because what else is he supposed to do at this point? Your small hand is still clasped in his, the feeling of your touch unlike anything he ever dreamed of, but everything he ever imagined.

“Dave York,” he introduces briefly. “And no, not everything.”

“Maybe we could change that,” you reply, smirk still in place, even as you stand. “I have to get to work, though I don’t need to tell you that. You know where I live. Pick me up at 7?”

He nods, his eyes never leaving yours, as if they’ve found something they never want to lose. He was worried before that meeting you might be like the story of Icarus—get too close to the sun, and everything would burn. But instead, he feels like the ocean, absorbing your light and reflecting it back to you. It’s the least you deserve. “See you at seven, sweetheart.”

He’d been here before. In the apartment next door, finishing a job. He’d even hand-delivered flowers to your doorstep prior to that, though that seems like a lifetime ago now.

He lifts his hand to knock, but the door swings open before his knuckles can make contact. Your eyes meet his for the second time, but nowhere near the last. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen anything shine as brightly as you. You’re not just radiant, you’re celestial, a vision that demands reverence, a being who should have wonders and monuments built in your name. Maybe he is Icarus, drawn to you by an irresistible force, but if this is what it feels like to burn, he never wants to know what it’s like to be cold again.

His gaze shifts, sweeping across your apartment, landing on the floor-to-ceiling window. The curtains are pulled back again, and the fading evening light spills across the room, painting everything in soft gold.

You speak, your voice soft but steady, and he turns his attention back to you. “I thought you might like to see what the view looks like from this side—after dinner, of course.”

“Shall we?” His arm slips around your waist, pulling you close as he presses a tender kiss to your hair. You close the door behind you with a soft click, locking it with the same sense of finality you felt when your eyes met his for the first time this morning.

When you meet his gaze again, it’s heavy with an intensity that doesn’t waver. There’s no mystery left between you now—only a raw, unspoken understanding. It's his job, his life to know everything about everyone, and to use this knowledge to his advantage. Yet, he knows he’ll never truly know you completely and it doesn't scare him. In fact, the unknown no longer seems like something to fear. It’s the very thing that draws him to you. His obsession has evolved into something more—something deeper, maybe even predestined. But he is only one side of the coin.

As your eyes hold his, the coin flips. This isn't just his game—it’s yours as well, and you’ve already decided where it goes next. You won’t let him drown in his own darkness; you’ll give him the light he's been searching for.

And when the time comes, when you both get too close to the sun and can’t help but burn, at least you'll burn together.

[skinnypaleangryperson]

Feeling strange because I'm pretty sure that the next time I sit down to write and work on my stories tomorrow I'm officially going to be done with my 20 million plus or narrative of the BoJack Horseman fanfiction I started writing I think 3 years ago and worked on everyday since, which has been the biggest and most complex spiritual profound in a journey that I think I've ever gone on in my entire life, and I've never discovered so much about myself neither as a creative or as a person until I started writing it after the experience BoJack has a character gave me.

It's strange because an American society if you're just a nobody that's creating things, especially fanfiction, people will either ignore you or insult you, and that goes for literally every platform in existence with no relief from it. I know that the story that I've created will never receive anything but apathy from every person and every community that will ever exist have best, and it deranged morbid insults at worst as has been the case with the entirety of the journey of writing this.

But I'm so happy, and I'm more content and more confident and fulfilled within myself and I've ever been in my entire life, despite the fact that I also feel like I've completely lost my mind from the individuality that I've learned and from the experiences I've had solely from my creativity and the extensions of the worlds I've created.

I know I'm not the only person on here that's creating entire worlds and emotions and feelings only to be completely ignored. It's just the way that things are. I feel like I'm living a completely split identity, one for the people around me (both for real life and online communities), and one for the person that I actually am going the person that I wish that I could be if people cared about it or if people were wired to care about something other than what they've been molded to only care about within the superficiality of the way that people think and are. This goes for both real life and online life, there's no difference, and I'm literally forced to put on a performance between the person that I actually am, a profoundly passionate storyteller, and the person that realizes that those things don't matter to literally anyone on this earth, and having to be able to accept putting on the performance of person people will ever respond to.

It's a profoundly lonely existence, to be a genuine creative person and to write and to create every single day, to have profoundly complex interimagined experiences that cannot be found in officially published consumption. But as lonely and as disorienting as it is I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. Not a single thing. Finding my own inner voice as a creative has changed everything about the way that I view the world and how I navigate the day-to-day life of myself and the people around me. The blackest part about it is that I've developed a disdain for 99% of people because I've realized that they were never care about the true genuine imagination in of who I actually am and I will be forced to put on a mask if I ever want a relationship or a sense of community with anyone, and I'm looking at a very dull disorienting performance of an existence to appease my need for human connection even if it's only fake tolerance at best.

But I can't change the way that people think. I certainly can't change the way that the only respond to things that are officially published for them to consume that they are assumed the only things that are worth paying attention to. If my own family cares more about celebrities and TV shows more than they care about their own daughter's projects, of course I can ever expect a partner, friends, or a community to ever care.

I'll always have my muses themselves, and the profound in our life in and of itself of an experienced, and I will continue to live an entire world that is apparently only for me, that will only exist, as the entirety of my existence has really only been experienced by me in all of its resounding complexity, and magic, and experience and will continue to be so. I will continue to see what nobody else sees, and I will continue to have a rich life for it.

Congratulations to Bojack And His Wife being completed, a 20 million word romantic fantasy philosophical narrative.

[gallusrostromegalus]

AEIWAM ask spam 1: you’ve already elaborated on all the weird grudges people have, what about weird friendships?

THANK YOU! I am stupid busy but I am having a ton of fun with the friendships in this fic, so short versions that I can/will elaborate on later:

- Kenpachi and Byakuya: when Kenpachi first arrived in the Seireitei, Byakuya was a recently orphaned teenager and Kenpachi is, as he says "related to his mother" and can't help but take him under his wing a bit. As it stands, Kenpachi is, functionally, Byakuya's step-father.

- Izuru and Komamura: Wabisuke and Tenken were friends first, but it grew from there when Izuru got sent to investigate the curious incident of the dog in the night.

- Hanataro and Akon: The 4th needs more supplies than any other division and the 12th provides them, so the 4th's Toxicologist and Go-Fer gets to see the 12th's shadow captain all the time.

- Ikkaku and Sasakibe: the first lieutenant's meeting Ikkaku was at was ALSO the first lieutenant's meeting after TBTP, when nearly all the lieutenants had been field-promoted or killed, and there was a general bereavement, but when Sasakibe walked in to see what maniac the wildman that took over the 11th appointed for a lieutenant, he instead found Ikkaku doing stage magic tricks to cheer up a distraught Isane and Kaien, and realized this was a kind, if fundamentally ridiculous soul.

- "The Kids": Yachiru, Nel, Toshiro, Weiss, Syoga No Kotowari, and all the other Court Guard Brats tend to travel as a pack, and things can get a bit Lord Of The Flies sometimes.

- not exactly a friendship per se, but The Thirteen Daughters of Aramaki, including Hisana Kuchiki nee Aramaki.

- Soi Fon and Chikane Iba: after TBTP, Soi Fon ended up bonding with her fellow female captain and single mother Chikane Iba. And by "bonding" I mean "basically moved in with". Chikane was deeply relieved to have a regular babysitter and Soi Fon relieved to have another home to go to that doesn't contain her family. Or what's left of it.

- Rangiku and Retsu: Retsu, canonically, runs the Ikebana club, is the Chief Judge at the Seireitei Flower Festival, and keeps an enormous flower garden. Her first introduction to Rangiku is finding the academy student crouched in her foxgloves, and then being subject to a surprise 30minute lecture on the medical and cosmetic applications of digitalis, and realized she had found a kindred soul.

- Nanao and Gin: Nanao was quite possibly Gin's favorite person in the Court Guard, because she was very used to explaining things very slowly and in little steps, and Gin was functionally an escaped sausage roll in an executive position so 76% of the credit for the 3rd division's functionality goes to her. She liked having someone who actually listened to and took her advice and MAN, things got weird after Aizen.

- Uryuu and Yamamoto: Yamamoto doesn't actually hate Quincies- it's really only the "evaporating souls" thing he's got a problem with. Long ago, before the gotei-13, he was even friends with the ancestor of all Quincy, and misses his friend and curses Yhwach for what that monster did to him. Uryuu bears a startling resemblance to his ancestor, and it's nice to have someone to practice his German on again. Uryuu is fucking bewildered, but also severely short on men to look up to in his life and- well. Maybe. Maybe if they are friends, they can finally stop this feud?

- Yumichika and Ukitake: Yumichika was raised by his mother and the rest of the nurses in the first hospital in the Rukongai, and that's where he learned to fight too. It's a huge surprise for Ukitake when Yumichika knows what to do when he starts to have an anaphylactic reaction, but far from an unwelcome one.

- Renji, Iba and The Lads: Graduates of the Zaraki Kenpachi Finishing School for Young Men With Good Knees

- Orihime and Tousen: Hey, remember when we were both kidnapped by a deranged maniac that one time and coped by doing religious math and improvisational surgery about it? Good times!

- Chad and Komamura: "What do you guys even talk about?" "Nothing." "Why the secrecy?" "No Literally. We don't talk, and if we do it's about Nothing."

- Tatsuki and Mashiro: "This is boring, you wanna break chairs over each other's heads?" "Yeah!"

- Momo and Byakuya: The Rice Farm Subsidies Fraud Investigation.

[twoa-plus]

dissecting stanford pines and finding organs that don’t exist but like in a metaphorical way

that’s it that’s the title i’m going with. this is a long one folks o7

most of this isn’t sourced or canon at all it’s just personal interpretation/headcanon/whatever else u wanna call it, but!! since more people are seeing my deranged gravity falls ramblings now i figure i should probably give some perspective as to why i like/defend ford as much as i do

(in my other gf posts i do try to stick to canon to back up whatever point i’m making - this is just about my personal opinion of ford as a character, and should be able to be thrown out in regards to my other posts)

so for some background/setup/whatever (it’s important i promise bear with me), different people have different instinctual responses to anxiety/stress. i come from a family (genetics are fun) where the default response is to start (metaphorically ofc) biting and hissing like a cornered animal. this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any actual hatred or malice or anything towards the people that end up getting scratched - they might just be at the wrong place at the wrong time, they might’ve done something super minor and insignificant that added on to a preexisting pile of stress, etc etc

i cannot stress enough that i am not saying this is ok. you dont need me to tell you that hurting people who don’t deserve it is a bad thing, lol. what i am saying though is that sometimes people can kind of suck for reasons other than just genuinely wanting everyone around them to be miserable

this is the last “background” part i swear BUT another thing thats less genetic and more just me being weird is that i’m the type of person where like. any minor environmental change can really stress me out lol. like even just reorganizing my desk can be pretty emotionally taxing

SO. finally back on topic. stanford pines. i see a lot of the behavior/patterns i just described in him. like i’ve spent my entire life around people like this, and while i understand why a lot of people see him as just some asshole, i can’t help but see him as a guy who’s just kinda going through it lol

just talking about the more recent events as of the series, he’s just spent 30 years god knows where doing and seeing god knows what, he has an abusive ex who wants to murder him and his entire family (plus the whole dimension, really), and in the three decades he’s been gone the entire world - including his own house - has changed and left him behind. add onto that that he went missing in 1982, way before we had all of the emotional/mental health resources we have now, we all saw what the stans’ childhood was like, and that ford is terrible with people - including, imo, himself. if there’s anybody out there who would have Feelings and not understand what they are or where they’re coming from or what to do about them, it’s this guy

this entire setup is the perfect circumstance for fear and anxiety and stress and uncertainty to all get translated into anger. a really big example of this, to me, is how he talks about dipper in journal 3. i’ve talked about this before somewhere so i’ll try to summarize as fast as i can lol

reading his initial entry about dipper would make u think he like. hates this kid lol. but i really don’t think he ever did - he was really excited to meet the kids in the show and already seemed to care about them just by virtue of existing, and his opinion on dipper in journal 3 seems to do a complete 180 pretty quickly which ,,, doesn’t really fit ford as a character. like i love the man but that guy can hold a GRUDGE

here’s how it reads to me:

ford gets back to his home dimension after 30 years and everything is different

he’s subconsciously kind of struggling with the fact that he doesn’t really have a “home” anymore - the sense of familiarity and comfort that would normally come with the word is gone. (i specify that it’s subconscious because, like i said earlier, i do not get the vibe that he’s particularly aware of his own emotions)

he finds out that journal 3 - something he made with his own two hands and considers part of his life’s work - has also changed in the decades he’s been gone. this adds to the feeling of unfamiliarity with the world around him

it’s easier to blame that “final straw” and say that he’s just upset about his work being tampered with rather than address the actual root of the problem, so that’s exactly what he does. this still doesn’t mean that there’s any genuine hatred towards dipper. anger in the moment, yeah, but not hatred

again, this is entirely personal interpretation, and i completely understand if u don’t see it like this!! this is just a pattern of thoughts/behavior that i’m very familiar with, so it’s easy for me to apply it to situations like this even if it’s not really part of the canon

i also think there’s a big problem in this fandom with just ,, not seeing ford as a Person with Emotions? idk how to explain it but it feels like people expect him to always know exactly what to do in every situation just bc he’s old and academically smart. like whenever another character does something objectively bad it’s “well there were extenuating circumstances,” (which is usually true and i agree !!) but ford never really seems to get that treatment. if he does something bad it’s just because he sucks

a big example of this i think is the fight between him and stan (y’know the “you ruined my life”/“you ruined your own life”). you cannot look me dead in the eyes and, in full seriousness, with the context of everything ford was going through with bill at the time, say that he was fully mentally/emotionally stable during that conversation. “oh so you’re blaming stan-“ NO!!! stan was also going through it!!! that’s the entire point - they’re both people with their own lives and emotions and everything else that comes with that, they had very human reactions to their respective situations, and they both ended up hurt!! hopefully i’m explaining this right but i just don’t like it when people pin everything on ford, like there was a lot going on and at the end of the day he’s just a human

wasn’t really sure how to work this in so i’ll just put it here - i don’t think ford ever truly hated stan, either. familial bonds are complicated, and there can be a whole lot of anger towards someone without true hatred being present. i briefly mentioned the stans’ childhood sucking earlier, and i don’t just mean stanley - it’s easier to pinpoint him as a victim of abuse/neglect, but that doesn’t mean ford had it great either. their parents (specifically filbrick, but caryn didn’t exactly do a fantastic job with them either) expected nothing of stan and the world of ford, both of which would weigh heavily on any child. plus, ford being the favorite doesn’t mean all of his emotional needs were met - filbrick seeing him as an opportunity to make money doesn’t mean he was suddenly an emotionally present and caring father towards him. WCT wasn’t just an opportunity for ford to go be a famous scientist or whatever - it was a chance for his father to love him, something both of the stans desperately wanted. (WCT was also on the opposite side of the country from where they lived but i’m sure that’s completely unrelated !!!)

do i think stan deserved anything that happened to him after the science fair incident? no, absolutely not, he was a child. do i think it was right of ford to just stand there as his brother got thrown out? no, absolutely not - but he was a child too. as for them not speaking for a decade after that, like i mentioned earlier ford can hold a grudge like no other. (this doesn’t just apply to stan, either, ford dedicated half of his life to trying to kill his ex lmao.) i think ford’s ability to hold on to anger like that is actually a pretty major part of/flaw in his personality, but again, anger - even the strongest, most long-lived of it - is not synonymous with hatred. stan, who ford has always gone to for help when he truly needed it, it not what ford’s hatred looks like. bill, who ford actively wants to die, is

anyways!! i never know how to close these things lol. ig in summary i just see ford’s behavior (in the show at least) as more of a sign of internal struggle rather than like ,, genuinely hating the people around him and wanting their lives to suck. did/does he have an ego problem? absolutely. is he incapable of love and human connection? no. is he immune to manipulation/abuse/neglect/etc and everything that comes with that? also no

he’s an interdimensional criminal why can’t he go to the theraprism. i think he should

[dovand]

i am as always thinking about 14 and the nobles... specifically 14 & shaun. CRIMINAL lack of 14 & shaun content . excuse me that is my emotional support deranged lovers-in-law prongs of a queerplatonic throuple V. that is my little scrinkly wet cat and his chill saint bernard friend. that is my symbiotic relationship weirdos who sleep back-to-back to 14 can a) leech his body heat b) cuddle donna c) not fall off the bed. that is my favourite “both wake up early but one of them is being clung to like they are a teddy bear and it is Not Shaun, who is making ‘too bad’ faces at 14 and tiptoeing away” dynamic.

(14 either ends up dozing again after he wakes up early or just lays there curled up thinking—but, either way, when shaun shows up with breakfast in bed every sunday, he is treated to the beautiful sight of the two huge autism creature eyes peering up at him from behind the most bedraggled mop of hair ever seen. whether there are any thoughts behind those eyes depends on whether their owner has been napping or Pondering)

(yes this is all made up in my head!!! yes i am dismayed by there only being FOUR FICS (4!!) using it as a tag and none of them (afaict) doing it in a qpr way. where is my deranged weirdplatonic polycule!!!)

further insanity under the cut pleasseee please please read. please i need to be insane about this with people

(also btw this post is about queerplatonic doctordonna, doctordonna shippers i love you and you are welcome to contribute but it is a Little squicky for me so if tag ur additions (so i have a heads-up) that would be so lovely and i would adore you forever <3)

shaun likes listening to people ramble and 14 likes rambling so it is a regular occurrence to find the two of them like. standing in the kitchen holding cups of tea except one of them is actually drinking the tea and one of them is talking too rapidly about equivalent exchange to remember to blink, let alone have a sip of earl gray that has veered violently past lukewarm and is headed straight for room temperature

if 14 is in a not-wordy mood tho… thru shaun’s expert tutelage he has mastered the art of the Dad Nod. he passes shaun in the hall and gives him a little nod. shaun gives him one back. 0 words are spoken but they understand each other on a deeper level than if there had been.

they go on a Family Outing to a thrift store. rose and donna disappear to the dressier sections. shaun creeps along the racks of trousers, solemnly comparing seemingly identical pairs of jeans. 14 follows him and stares for a while, then silently hands him a loudly patterned pair of shorts. shaun takes them without question and adds them to his basket & sylvia loses her mind just a little bit when she sees him wearing them

(^ this inspired by going thrifting w my friend and looking @ everything and then finding her dad looking thru the racks of shorts comparing two beige ones, and my friend handing him a pair of pink shorts with penguins on and him buying them. because he has some . i think plaid shorts? at home and when he wore them his wife said he looked gay. so he’s trying to do it More) (it's an incredible family dynamic there. i have no idea what is going on)

god jesus. 14 learns how to cook so he can be the housething (as opposed to housewife or househusband. he is just a weirdgenderthing. little creature). someone buys him a nice apron and he wears it with so much delight. chases everyone else out of the kitchen so he can concoct something lovely. runs out into the garden to stick something into an oven in the tardis kitchen because “i am not working with enough ovens, here, people!”. organises the pantry and gets this crazed look if anyone tries to stop him. “how will i know where things a—” “it will be LABELLED.” brandishes a label maker that DEFINITELY is not from modern-day earth given that it seems to take dictation as input and can print in colour and has not needed a refill of paper even though he has extensively labelled EVERY PLASTIC BOX of stuff in the pantry

sometimes he gets into Moods where he needs to solve a problem before it makes his head explode and that used to be a like. tinkering in the tardis thing. where he’d have himself and whatever poor companion he was with just floating in the time vortex for a week while he tries to make this bit of the tardis do what he wants it to. now it’s a day or two spent almost entirely in the kitchen trying to find the scientifically optimal method by which to make meringues. he starts gesturing dramatically with a spatula forgetting it is not a sonic screwdriver. makes a sonic spatula. realises he doesn’t often need to like. scan a pancake for malware. sadly puts the sonic spatula away

he is absolutely a nightmare to watch movies with btw bc a) can’t sit still b) so tall. either he is bouncing his leg and shaking the whole couch or he is stretched out across the entire sofa. no in between. donna buys a thick rug so he can just lay on the floor. the rug is TOO comfortable and he starts just spending time laying on the floor which would be fine if he thought to turn the lights on because people keep almost stepping on him while he’s having 4am Floor Time (on the nights he's not drooling all over donna's pillow)

if anyone else has thoughts about Them PLEASe share i will love you so much and forever. doctor~donna/shaun weirdcule is the only thing in my head

[our-destiny]

Day 6 of @creativepromptsforwriting's 30 Days Writing Challenge - Write about a blackout

A/N: These past 5 days I have been going outside my comfort zone, well today I decided to jump back in and write more Soft Dark Bucky :]

Content / Trigger Warnings: Stalking, Murder, implied noncon touching

I am not responsible for the media you consume, read the warnings, minors DNI

30 Days Writing Challenge Masterlist

Word Count: 1228

. ☪︎* ☁︎. . * ✰ .· ☁︎ . *  ✯. ☪︎* ☁︎. . * ✰ .· ☁︎ .

He was always watching. Everywhere you go he was always there keeping an eye on you. Or keeping you safe, as he described it. He left notes sometimes, though they were getting more and more frequent. That's also how you knew you weren't just paranoid; he really was everywhere. It seemed like as long as there were shadows for him to hide in, he would be watching. At first, they weren't as creepy. The first one you found on your desk when you walked into work. By now you had been feeling watched for about a month, but chalked it up to a lack of sleep because of work, but this quickly made you change your mind. The piece of lined paper was folded in half, blank save for some messy handwriting at the top.

I don't trust Michael. You should stop talking to him.

- James

Michael was your co-worker, he seemed pretty nice, you wouldn't call him a close friend but you talked to him occasionally. But you didn't know anybody named James, especially nobody that would leave a note like this. It was probably a prank, some of your co-workers were tricksters they probably saw how tired you were recently and thought you needed some fun in your life. You ignored it, kept speaking to Michael during lunch breaks and kept brushing off that feeling of being watched. That was until a week later you found another note on your desk, the same lined paper, folded in half with the same messy handwriting.

I didn't want to do this but you left me no choice. You should have listened.

- James

That day Michael didn't come to work. Or the next. Or the next. And a few days later they found his body. So maybe that wasn't a prank. And maybe you weren't just being paranoid.

The notes continued sporadically, a few of them were warning you not to get too close to that new friend you made and despite how bad you felt suddenly ghosting people you were too afraid to find out what would happen if you didn't. But most of them were harmless, maybe you would even say they were sweet if they weren't from your stalker. Stuff like, "Remember to drink water, you can't live off of caffeine." or, "That shirt looks nice on you." All from James.

But then they started showing up in your house. And 'James' started referencing things no one should know about you. How your shampoo smells nice, or reminding you to buy more bread before going home because you're running low. Or how that one annoying ex "won't be bothering you anymore." You assume they never found the body since you didn't hear anything about it. He also starting signing off differently, before it was just his name but now he says all sorts of things. "Yours Forever", "Love, James", "You own my heart,". He was talking as if he were your lover, not a deranged stalker with an unhealthy obsession. But that was how it stayed for a while. You'd never be apart from James, he would manifest in the shadows and you could feel his gaze scanning every inch of your body. You didn't know what he wanted but for now he seemed content with just looking, dealing with anyone who got too close for his liking, and leaving you weird notes around your house, lined paper, folded in half with messy handwriting.

As embarrassing as it is to admit, you were becoming slightly scared of the dark. Whenever you looked into shadows you swear you could see something moving in them, James haunting your mind, making you feel like the shadows are watching you. Your new found fear of the dark started becoming a hindrance on your life, making you jump at nothing, scared to walk down a dark hallway.

Which really didn't help when the power went out one night.

The storm was pushing against your windows, the occasional crack of thunder lighting up the sky. He was here, as he always was, watching you from the shadows. You had every light on, but even then he was still just out of sight. That was, until the room was swallowed up by darkness. And your phone was dead. How convenient. You should have charged it in advance, of course the power would go out on a night like this, but you were frozen on the couch the past half hour, waiting in suspense for the moment the power goes out, as opposed to preparing for it. You knew that he would make his move now when the room was pitch black. So you have to make your move first.

You stood up from the couch, ready to make a dash for the door at a moments notice. The wind was still screaming outside, making it hard for you to listen for him, but you heard him anyway. Footsteps. To your left. You turned to face the direction he was, and slowly tried to walk towards the door despite how little you could see. Then the footsteps stopped. Silence. You should have kept going, it was obvious he was in the room but instinctively you stopped, trying to listen for him again. That was a mistake.

He was behind you. You didn't hear him move at all, but that quickly faded to the back of your mind when he put his hands on your hips. When it comes to dangerous situations you always thought you'd fight or run away, you didn't expect to freeze. But you did. James rest his head on your left shoulder, nuzzling into your neck, and when he spoke you could feel his breath just below your ear.

"You scared of the dark sweetheart?" His tone was soft, caring, a bit gravelly, like he hadn't used it in a while, but it sounded warm. Not at all like you expected your stalker to sound.

"Shh, shh, don't worry, m'gonna protect you. No need to be scared, I'm sure it'll come back on in a minute." He started gently swaying the both of you, you guess the action was supposed to be comforting.

"James?" The combined fear of the dark room and your stalker made your voice shaky. God, you felt pathetic, the door is right there, he's not even holding onto you that tight.

"That's right, sweetheart. It's nice to finally touch you, when you're awake at least." James gave a small chuckle at the end, as if it was funny that he was touching you in your sleep.

"But, why?" What did he want with you? Why was he killing off random people for you? Why was he treating you like his lover when he's been stalking you?

"Mmm? Why?" He waited a breath while he thought of an answer. "Because you feel like coming home. After Hydra I didn't know what to do. But you feel like home and I'm not willing to lose that again."

He wraps his arms around your waist, the left one felt colder, pressing against you uncomfortably. He gave you a small squeeze, still rocking side to side with you.

"I'm not gonna lose you. Not gonna let anybody take you from me. You're all mine."

You don't think you're ever going to get over your fear of the dark. Not after this.

. ☪︎* ☁︎. . * ✰ .· ☁︎ . *  ✯. ☪︎* ☁︎. . * ✰ .· ☁︎ .

Support content creators by reblogging, I'd really appreciate it <33

[holylulusworld]

Deranged Marriage (1) - Let it go

Title: Deranged Marriage

Summary: Your father wants you to choose a husband. Your chosen one doesn’t like the idea one bit.

Pairing: Mobster!Bucky Barnes x fem!Reader

Characters: Ayo, Okoye, Jake Jensen, Steve Rogers

Warnings: arranged marriage, language, unwilling groom, angst, Bucky being an ass, sadnes, banter, tension

A/N: I got no self-control so this will have more than one part.

Deranged Marriage masterlist

“Why, not daddy,” you whine as your father refuses to let you leave the party. “I’m an adult, you know. I want to spend some quality time with my friends.”

“Sweetie, you are a grown woman and must stop acting like a teenager. I want you to finally choose a husband. I got a list including a complete background check.”

Your father points at one of his business partners. “How about him? Or Stark’s son. I heard he adopted yet another boy. Maybe he’s your age.”

“Daddy, no. All your business partners are old, and their sons are stupid frat boys. I want a good-looking, strong, sexy, and tough man.”

“Fine,” your father seems to be just done with your behavior today. “Choose whoever you want. I don’t care. Just let me check his background first.” He shoves his glasses back up his nose. “Or do you prefer a pretty lady, sweetie? I’m open-minded, Y/N.”

“Daddy,” you mutter as he chuckles. Your father doesn’t seem to care you are close to throwing a tantrum. “Gosh, this is so annoying. I don’t need a husband to rule your empire.”

“I’m sure of it, sweetie,” he wraps his arm around your shoulders, guiding you toward one of his newer business partners. “How about Rogers? He’s not too bad to look at.”

“He’s tall and attractive, but he only has eyes for that uptight British chick,” you sigh deeply. “You know that.”

“I don’t care. If I say he must marry you, he’ll do it.”

“And cheat on me,” you huff.

“Who else caught your attention, Y/N?” your father nudges your side. “You know I want you to be happy. But people are people. Especially in my line of work. You’ll need a strong man by your side.”

“I want—” you let your eyes wander. “I want…” you dip your head to glance at the man who caught your eyes months ago.

“Who, sweetie? I want you to tell me his or her name,” your father whispers so no one can spy on him. Even among his friends and partners spies and traitors are waiting for their chance.

“Barnes,” you point at James Buchanan Barnes. The cockiest and grumpiest of your father’s business partners. That man dared to ignore you for three years, and now, he’ll finally pay you attention.

“You want Barnes?” your father gasps. “You know he’s got quite the reputation. He’s not the kind of man settling for one woman, Y/N.”

“He’s tall, handsome, strong and I like his metal arm. It makes him imperfect but perfect at the same time. Like a poem without a rhyme or a painting missing a color,” you watch the brunette mobster push his neatly gelled hair back.

Bucky takes a large sip from his drink as he watches your father from across the room. He knows that his business partner is looking for a husband to take care of you. The mobster simply is not interested in your bratty ass.

“She’s staring your way, Buck,” Steve snickers. “Do you think she will choose you? I bet you’ll be putty in her hands.”

“Like hell,” Bucky grumbles. “I won’t marry. Not now. Not ever. He can keep his little brat. She’s the worst.”

Steve nods but watches his friend look your way again. “If you say so, Buck. I will get another drink and hide in the back before she finds me…”

“Barnes,” your father stalks toward your chosen husband. “We should talk about business. I know this is a party, but my girl chose you.”

“Chose me?” Bucky smirks in amusement. “What am I to her? One of the dogs you bought her only for her to lose them on of her shopping trips.”

“You know that I’m looking for someone to protect my daughter. She will take over my empire and will need a reliable and loyal man by her side.”

“No.”

You are fuming next to your father. James Buchanan Barnes dares to not even look at you. He once again ignores your whole existence.

“No?” you huff. “You should be honored I chose you. Men would kill to even get a smile from me.”

“They will kill themselves if you ever smile at them,” you gasp at his words. No one dared to talk to you like this before. “Don’t you get it, doll? No one likes you. You’re a spoiled brat without manners and you’re not my type.”

“Careful now, Barnes. I respected your father and we are partners. This doesn’t mean I let you talk like that to my daughter.”

“Sir, with all due respect, I won’t marry your daughter,” Bucky finally looks at you. “She is annoying, loud, and immature. Even her friends hate her.”

“My friends love me,” you fight back. “What do you know about my friends?” He laughs about your antics.

“I know that the girl you call your best friend since childhood is so afraid of what you will do to her family that she pretends to be your friend for almost fifteen years.”

“You’re lying. I hate you!”

“Oh, sweetness,” he takes a step toward you to look you up and down. “All of them are afraid of your father and his men. Did you ever think about how they will never say no? All of them always follow your lead.”

“No…” you step back, shaking your head. “I met Lavender at school. She wouldn’t lie. She’s my friend.”

You turn on your heels to run out of the ballroom, angrily wiping your tears off your cheeks. Bucky’s rejection and his words hit you hard.

“How dare he reject me. How dare he tell me lies about my friends!”

“He lied…he lied…” you pace back and forth while clutching a picture of you and Lavender to your chest. "She's my friend. All of them are…”

You sit on your bed, opening an old picture album. There are pictures of you and Lavender at the age of ten. You smile into the camera as your father just bought you another dog.

“She’s my friend,” closely looking at the picture you recognize for the first time that your friend doesn’t smile. There is something in her eyes you never saw before. Fear.

“No…no.”

You turn the pages, looking at all the pictures of you and your friends. “No…” You slam the album shut and fling it across the room. “She was a kid and a little intrigued by daddy and his men. I’m sure about it.”

For a moment you sit there in silence, remembering the day you met your best friend. She was new at your school. The only one not making a beeline around you.

Well, the other kids knew better than to get involved with a mafia boss’s daughter.

That day, someone wanted to mess with her and stole her backpack. She cried and you stepped in. One glare from you and the boy dropped the backpack and ran for his life. He didn’t have the guts to mess with you.

Lavender smiled and thanked you. She even hugged you, taking you by surprise. After school, you offered to drive her home. Or rather, your bodyguard drove her home.

You saw her father look at your bodyguard. It was written all over his face that he was scared of the man protecting you.

“What if…?” you whisper to yourself as you unlock your phone to look at more recent pictures. Lavender and you at her birthday party. You and your friends at a club. Lavender and her brother at a pool party. “She never smiles. None of them smiles.”

“Y/N, it’s me Okoye,” you sigh deeply as your bodyguard calls from outside your room. “Ayo is here too. Do you want to join us? Come on. Screw Barnes.”

“I’m a little tired.”

“What did he say, Y/N? Why are you hiding in your room?”

“It’s nothing. I got a terrible migraine and want to sleep. Don’t worry. Barnes can eat shit. I don’t care.”

“If you need me to kill him, give us a call.”

“Mr. James,” you nervously look at your best friend’s father. Barnes's words wouldn’t let you sleep. Now three days later you drove out of town to visit Lavender’s parents. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure…Y/N,” he stammers. “What can I do for you?”

“Lavender,” you lick your dry lips. “I—are you and your daughter afraid of my father? I need to know if Lavender became my friend out of fear.”

“No…” he chuckles nervously. “Why do you say such a thing? Lavender is your friend.”

“I see.”

You swallow audibly. Accepting the truth is the worst and most painful thing you’ll ever experience. “Thank you for your time. I hope you have a great day.”

“Wait…are you mad at Lavender? Did she do anything wrong?” the look in his eyes brings you to tears. Lavender’s father fears for his daughter’s life only because you came to visit them.

“Oh, no! I was just asking myself if we should take a break from our friendship. I’m quite busy with upcoming tasks and possible marriage. I hope Lavender won’t be mad.”

“What? No! She would never be mad at you. Lavender is your friend.”

“Of course, she is,” you nod in agreement. “A friend of mine will always be safe. Even if we cannot see each other for a long time. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Hi, Lavender,” you leave her a voicemail. You didn’t have it in you to face your friend, so you make it easier for you and her. “Listen, we were friends for so long but I kinda grew out of our friendship. We should give each other space. Uh-I mean you should spend more time with your family and your other friends. Stay safe and thank you for being a good friend.”

You end the call before she can hear you choke out a sob. “Another one,” you sigh deeply. Before you ended your friendship with Lavender, you called all of your friends.

Barnes was right. None of your so-called friends was a real friend. It didn’t take you long to find out that all of them are scared of your father and his men.

“What’s up, sweetness?” Jake pokes his head into your room. “What did you do with all the information I got for you?”

“Jensen, not now,” you throw your phone against the wall. “I’m not in the mood for one of your not-funny jokes.”

“Whoa, who fucked with you?” he asks. “Do you want me to send them a nice little virus?” Jake grins.

“No,” shaking your head you sigh deeply. “I just need a little me time.”

Jake silently closes your door. He is just another employee of your father. Not a friend nor an ally. You won’t make the mistake and trust anyone ever again.

“What are you doing?” you roll your eyes when your new nemesis, Bucky Barnes himself strolls toward you. “Oh, are you cold?”

He looks at the brazier, frowning as you throw pictures of your friends, trinkets, and plushies inside the fire.

“What do you want, Barnes?” he furrows his brows when you don’t even look at him. Usually, you’d hang on to his every word. “I’m kinda busy here.”

“I can see that.”

Bucky crouches down to look at the box you placed next to the brazier. It’s filled with all the memories you made with your friends. “Why are you burning that shit?”

“I’m cold,” you snap at him. “Can you leave me alone? Don’t you have a granny to rob or people to kill? Or whatever an important and all-grown man like you does.”

“Aw, are you having a little campfire on your own,” Bucky mocks you, but you don’t give a shit. “How about we get some marshmallows.”

“Fuck off.”

“Watch your tongue, my lovely bride,” he sneers as you finally look at him. “You made it. I got no other choice but to marry you. Your father made sure of it.”

“I don’t care anymore,” you crouch down to grab a handful of pictures to throw them into the fire. “Go and fuck some prissy little missy. You are not man enough for me anyways.”

“Not man enough?” he laughs darkly. “You wouldn’t survive our wedding night.”

“Because you are always dressed to kill?” you cock your head and look Bucky up and down. “Maybe you rejected me because you like your friend Steve more.”

“I can fuck whoever I want to. Men, women, both,” Bucky picks the box up and empties its inherits into the fire.

“What the fuck! That was my ritual. You cannot come here and ruin everything all over again. You’re such an asshole!”

“Well, no shit doll,” he growls back. “Remember, you asked for this. A little girl forcing a man like me into marriage; dumbest move ever.”

“FUCK YOU!”

“You wish I would, but I won’t,” Bucky snarls. “I will fuck my way through town while you will be waiting at home. You will be a nice little trophy wife, nothing else.”

“In your dreams,” pushing against Bucky’s chest you scream in frustration as he won’t budge. “My father will have your head if you dare to fuck with me.”

“He won’t,” he grins down at you while you slap his chest. “I agreed to become his new right-hand man to take over his empire one day.”

“No—I’ll take over his empire. I’m his legacy,” you stop hitting Bucky. “He can’t do this…he can’t. All my life I only did what he wanted. I never had real friends because they were afraid of him.”

You step away from Bucky, shaking in anger. “We will see, dollface…we will see…”

>> Part 2

Tags in reblog.

[white-lotus-pavilion]

Qi Rong and Shen Jiu

You know something I am not all that surprised at the characters that I like the most in MXTX's novels are Qi Rong and Shen Jiu.

And in all honesty this is because of the fact that they are both villains who essentially have so much depth to them but it only gets revealed near the end when they are no longer part of the story and the potential that they have to become amazing characters not good people but just amazing characters is essentially wasted by the end of the novel and it leaves me just hanging and so invested in their stories.

Now the thing is in regards to Shen Jiu this want for more of his story and more of him as a character is very taken care of as I have been a part of the SVSSS fandom for a while and the abundance of art and fanfiction of him as the centered character is amazing and there's so much depth that is delved into when it comes to his character and I absolutely adore the SVSSS fandom for this and it is one of the main reasons they are part of my main fandoms.

We saw that his character was so interesting and he has so much to give as a character and we sunk our teeth into it and he's one of my favorite characters in the entire SVSSS series because of the fact that he is a character that is taken so seriously. He is a character that people actually think about an in turn write about and the fanfics that are centered around him are absolutely amazing and I adore every single one of them.

Now the thing about Qi Rong is that this is not the case for him. For him I desperately want more fic where he is the center focus. Where he is the one who is being delved into as a character. There are so many aspects of his character that I find so interesting.

The fact that he is essentially an abused child who grew up to become an abuser adult and then who after centuries adopts a child who essentially was just like him and helps that child heal (even if he does it in his own deranged way)

Like, that is so interesting! The past of someone who used to be abused turning into an abuser and then not reforming but finding that one person whom they can see themselves in and making it so that there's one less person in the world who becomes a horrible person. (even if it is under the gize of 'toughening them up'

There are so many aspects of his character that I find so interesting, so many can be delved into but there are essentially no fanfics or fan art about him that really go in depth into this aspect of his character. Fics and arts that really delve into what it is like to be Qi Rong. coming from and abusive household. Coming into wealth but not receiving the affection (the real affection) and understanding he needed to heal and than going right back to being abused for centuries and his self sabotaging character. The thing about him is that he is incredibly self aware of all his horrible actions and I neeeed more exploration of that!!! He is a character that fills me with so much grief because I'm like there is an amazing character right there in this fandom who is as complicated as Shen Jiu who is as hated in Cannon as Shen Jiu! Someone who has such an interesting compelling story that you have to do a double take and be like how can I expand on this.

And the fact that the potential with his character unlike SJ is being completely wasted is so devastating to me. I want fanfics that are basically all from his point of view from when he was being abused by his father to the very end of tgcf when he dies and oh my God I can't find anything and it pisses me off and it makes me want to cry because this is a travesty! a devastating travesty.

It's to the point where I'm reading tgcf fanfiction he comes up and he is portrayed as just this one-dimensional bad person I skip the parts where he is in because there's nothing interesting about his character that is being portrayed. There are so many parts of him that are so interesting the fact that even though he is crass and a horrible person his truth speaks so much louder than his lies... I want people to delved into that more.

I'm just in need of more QI Rong centered fixed that go deeper into his psychological mental state and how he views the world because he's such an interesting character but he's not talked about enough.

And don't say do it yourself. I'm deep into a small fandom that I am cultivating and am currently deeep in the brain rot for so there is no way I can focus my attention on that and sadly can't write anything for qi rong.

Fellow authors I beg you!!!

[himshoo]

I feel like as a society we need to talk about Satsuki more. For all her appearances where she isn’t a blob in the background (which is only like 2 btw) she just has this crazed wide-eyed expression and is just generally off putting. She has so much potential considering her personality and dynamic with Kuniko, like wdym she would not admire the deranged school doctor who’s the father of the person she can control. Also her interactions with Kurahashi in the Kyoto matchmaking chapter where she just a hyper menace was actually so good. In my mind her, Kurahashi and Toubyou would be such good friends like look at them.

(that whole panel is actually so cute)

She is so silly i need more content of her.

Same goes for the other people of the class, cuz im pretty sure Akibe doesn’t appear outside of Oota, same thing Koizumi with the crush on Ame. Like please let the girls have personality and screen time.

This is why I really want the anime to include more appearances of the minor characters and flesh out the early parts. It has the opportunity to set up more of the characters personalities and dynamics early on. Like even in the background such in the finding a club chapter they can include Kurahashi, Kashima and Toubyou on the basketball team.

Anyway my delusions grow each day I await updates on the anime.