#I'm blabbering

[biopanik]

Not to be a huge bitch on main but the fact that most fanfiction is written by women and still is mostly derived of dude characters processing certain feelings sometimes really complicates things for me. How come this is a safe space for queer people, but wlw content is either sexualized or just random asf? Why is it that the angst tag is GOVERNED by mlm hurt/comfort? Why aren't there more female ocs and pre-existing characters going through severe emotional turmoil? Where is the portrayal of a violent psychic episode, why does it have to have a masculine form at all times? Where is the parent-daughter tag, the sisterhood tag, the complexity in the few stories that are tethered to it? Why does it feel like I'm a minority when I talk about how female writers in fanfiction repeat the same cycle of weak female characterisation, or a flawless one? I'm sick and tired of all the Mary Sues, the bland "badass bitch" archetype, the damsel in distress and the kuudere. I'm sick of wanting to comfort myself with something that I can fully resonate with and being met with a stock character or a well-written passage about some dude. I want girls in pain. I want girls being angry and hurtful to others and themselves. I want realism, but if regular media AND fan-made media keep failing me, why should I bother?

[pinkanonhopes]

tomorrow i'll be officially an adult (i'll have a meeting at the bank)

[wardingshout]

apple season

[meirimerens]

youtube shorts is just tiktok without being on the app the amount of "i'm a [qualification] and [misinformation]" could make one turn their skin inside-out in protest. "i'm a board-certified OB-GYN & it's only been about the last hundred years that women have actually experienced menopause. We didn't live long enough to experience it" how can you be so incredibly wrong about something so integral to your practice. King of the Hittites Hattusilis III was told in 1250 BCE that his sister was too old to reproduce at age 50+. Aristotle wrote in the 4th century BCE that women stopped menstruating between ages 40 to 50, common menopause ages today still. i cannot begin to tell you how 4th century & 1250 BCE don't really count as "the last hundred years" unless that -s is doing a lot of heavy lifting. waiter waiter more misinformation laws.

[candiedfright]

"your hair has gotten so grimy princess" yeah fyodor because you're one to talk when you look like you haven't washed your hair since 15 resurrections ago

[meziniart]

my bf has informed me that Snake wears a corset so i made him this

[solarisfortuneia]

— 𝐟𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐦𝐢𝐧𝐮𝐭𝐞𝐬.

and the smell of camphor dancing in the wind.

✦ info: he didn't know he'd lose you so soon. (come back, please. even if it is just for five more minutes.)

✦ featuring: alhaitham.

✦ warnings: angst, character death (reader), heartache, 1.2k words, somewhat proof-read.

✦ notes: i cried so goddamn hard writing this. why is my first work after hiatus pain. why did i pick up the angst wip. but!! i'm writing again, so that's good. (more notes at the end.)

he didn’t know that it was your last day together. 

he didn’t know that the smile you gave him that afternoon, your eyes sparkling like sunlight upon the serene waves of the ocean, would be the last he’d ever see. that the playful light in your gaze would fade so very soon, slipping through his fingers like sand.

he didn’t know that last night would be the last time he held you close while you drifted off to sleep. he didn’t know that today would be the last time he’d wake up with you.

he didn’t think he’d lose you like this. 

he didn’t think he wouldn’t be able to save you from that blow. 

“please, please,”  he begs, both to you and to whatever force that is just barely holding you together. “just stay with me for five more minutes, please. until i can get you somewhere.” 

the rain soaks him to the bone, clothes and hair sticking to his skin. your lips stay motionless, eyes shut.

“wake up, please,”  he bargains. “you can have all the five minutes of extra sleep you want later, i promise. just—”  his vision blurs, and something shines on the ground before it is gone, swallowed by damp earth, lost amidst drops of falling rain. 

desperately, he tears off parts of his traveling cloak to staunch the bleeding. deep inside, he knows it is futile. he knows your wound is too great. he knows what lies ahead. but he cannot help but press the cloths to your wound and pray. 

please, please tell me it’ll be okay. 

please stay with me, beloved. i’ll read you all the books in the world. i’ll sleep in with you everyday, even if we end up whiling away our time. 

please. stay. stay with me. i can’t lose you yet.  

“— just wake up, beloved.” 

by some miracle, your eye flutters. just a bit. just enough to set hope ablaze, just enough for the grip on his heart to loosen a tiny bit. he buries his face in your shoulder, resting his head against your neck, uncaring of the blood that stains his clothes. your blood. on his clothes. his hands. everywhere. 

no. no. this can’t be happening.

he feels you strain beneath him, your unwounded arm gently, weakly brushing his back. he jolts upright, eyes trained on your face. you send a frail smile his way. he clasps your face softly as you nuzzle into his palm.

“alhaitham—” 

his full name. archons, how long has it been since you called him that?  

“— take good care of yourself, okay?” you tell him, chest heaving, your fingertips touching a tear on his cheeks. “i love you. so much.” 

those are the last words he hears fall from your lips. he presses a kiss to your forehead, to your eyelids, and to your cheeks and to your lips, over and over and over until he feels your breath slow, hoping they’ll say what he knows he cannot manage to choke out.

i love you. 

he stays there next to you for who knows how long, holding you until the rain slows and a faint rainbow smiles in the sky.

until he can’t smell camphor anymore.

—

every person has their curiosities. 

they’re just the little traits that set them apart from others, the things that make them tick just a little bit differently, the things that make them, them.

for instance, someone may be obsessed with collecting tiny furniture, while another eats the crusts off their sandwich before actually consuming it. someone may have an affinity for the most niche aspects of linguistics, while another can accurately predict the next raindrop that slides down a window pane.

after all, no two people are exactly alike, are they?

alhaitham knows he’s got his fair share of these curiosities himself. his aversion to soup and all things that resemble it, to name one. and with you, he’d noticed two things. 

number one: the scent of camphor that seems to linger on every inch of your person. 

he’d caught whiff of it almost immediately the first time you met. you were but one of his juniors in the akademiya, filled with bright-eyed curiosity and anxiety to match. you had tripped over a stair and bumped into his table in the library, bringing the mountain of books in your arms crashing down.

and with subsequent coincidental meetings, he learnt that the subtle scent of camphor dancing in the air meant you weren’t far away. 

you were, unfortunately, one of the poor souls who seemed to be cursed with constantly recurring minor illnesses, and almost always walked about with a stuffy nose. and so, you always carried a small disc of camphor in a handkerchief, as well as in your pocket.

you swore up and down, left, right and center that sniffing the vapors helped make breathing easier.

‘it’s my grandmother’s remedy, alhaitham! camphor always works wonders. well, that and eucalyptus oil.”

alhaitham may not know the validity of your claim or the legitimacy of the cure, but he knew to never, ever question a grandmother’s remedy. that, and he’d much rather refrain from starting a back-and-forth about something so small.

and number two: your neverending pleas of different variations of ‘just five more minutes!’ 

“five more minutes, ‘haitham. please.” you’d whine grumpily when he woke you up to start your day. “let me sleep in for five more minutes.” 

“five more minutes, habibi,” you’d ask when he put down the story you’d requested he read out to you before bedtime. “read me the part where she finds the music box?”

“five more minutes, baby,” is what you’d tell him when he asks how much longer you’d take getting ready. “you can’t rush perfection!”

those five more minutes were never five minutes long. 

but he’d always, always indulged you and those pleading eyes of yours. as stoic as he appeared to be, you lived in his heart. of course he could never deny you anything under the sun.

—

alhaitham remembers that silly little song you sang over and over, the one you’d learnt from a kid in the bazaar. he’d taken you to see one of nilou’s performances, and, friendly soul that you were, you’d struck up a conversation with some of the eager audience members before the play. 

“oh, how i wish i was a bird flying free,

i’d see the world, every mountain and every sea!

oh, how i wish i was a cloud in the sky,

wouldn’t you like to wave to me as i pass by?”

you’d hum that rhyme on every idle afternoon.

loss is inevitable. he knows that, with how logical and rational and straightforward he is. he’d lost his parents, but he was far too young to remember. he’d lost his grandmother, but she passed in her sleep of old age, serene and wise.

but you? he didn’t think you’d leave him this soon. a singular wish sits in his soul, making its home in his bones. 

a wish that you’d come back, somehow. 

he wishes you gave him five more minutes, just as he always did.  but he knows that you could’ve given him five more hours, five more days, five more years and five more decades and it would still not be enough time spent with you. 

a blue feathered bird comes to perch on his shoulder, interrupting his musings just as he raises his face to the sky. he sees the heart shaped cloud that floats idly above sumeru city.

 he thinks of the rhyme again, and something in him tells him to wave. and so he does. a scent so familiar lingers, faintly brushing his nose in the wind that picks up.

“alhaitham, it's time to go.”  kaveh calls his name softly.

 alhaitham doesn't move. “five more minutes,”  he says, echoing your favorite phrase. “i smell camphor in the breeze.” 

✦ extra notes: my alhaitham characterization for this fic stems from how i believe that when alhaitham is attached, he's attached. so i focused more on that, and less of all that rationality and whatnot. this one loves deeply, yk?

that camphor thing is a real grandma remedy in our household (my mom would tie some in a hanky and put some under my pillow and still to this day reminds me to do it when i'm sick) which is what originally sparked the idea for this

when i'd initially started this wip, i didn't expect it go this way. usually i write with my brain, but i think i wrote this one with my fingers working faster than i can think hsjhsj so sorry if it's kinda out of place lmao but yk what? i'm happy with it still even though i feel like it doesn't have my usual quality.

thanks for reading.

[ink-n-shadow]

I’m wondering what did angel do to become fallen??

amazing wonderful stunning question, anon

so angel isn't actually fallen! angel is still very much an angel, but they're broken.

angel was roaming the human realms one morning (as they often did) and ended up hurting one of their wings, rendering them unable to fly and therefore unable to go back up to heaven with the rest of the angels.

demon!ghost, on the other hand, is very much fallen—but angel doesn't know how or why ghost ended up fallen in the first place. it seems like a sore subject to him, something that makes him tense up and become snippy anytime angel even attempts to bring it up for ask.

maybe i'll tell you guys what happened to poor demon!ghost sometime soon...

link to all my works in the demon!ghost au can be found here

[eleventh-mugiwara]

The Apothecary Diaries becoming one of the most popular anime of its season had this hilarious side effect of guys who would not normally watch it picking it up and then leaving reviews like, ‘Wow, a good female anime character!’ (referring to Maomao) And it’s so funny cause like, sir, you have never seen a single (good) shoujo anime in your life and it shows.

[screwpinecaprice]

Sorted my folders and I actually added a dialogue to this?

[kn-rainbowblood]

It took me more than a decade and several playthroughs to realize that having Edgeworth say he picked up the gun in the boat without thinking mirrors the way he did the same thing with the one in the elevator.

[tubbytarchia]

I think it's endlessly more intriguing to think that the Watchers don't do crap, even if some characters place importance on them, like Jimmy praying to them (lmao) as if fate is in their hands when really Jimmy's tended to do horrible because of the environment the other characters have created for him and not because of any intervention from beyond

I love it when the characters are horrible to themselves or others in death games. They are flawed and interesting like that. They put a name to the canary curse and they expect and enforce it. Every fault that any character has showcased is their own. The Watchers don't sway anything because they don't have to, these people are all already insane and suffering. They're just hanging out playing pocker or something, but the thought of a characters THEMSELVES blaming things on them etc is an interesting one

[jhonskii]

It's funny to see who watched the campaign and who watched the shorts cus the amount of "Frost's Mind Hand" and "Chuckles' Ghost Hand" is an interesting insight xD

[feverflushed]

When the whumpee is really, REALLY out of it with a high fever, and it's making them really worried and anxious, so their partner has to reassure them, explaining every little thing they're doing to whumpee.

"I'm going to put a nice cold towel on your head, honey, it's going to feel really pleasant."

"You can't keep lying in those sweat drenched bedsheets. I'm going to change them for you, okay? Fresh, dry sheets feel so much better."

"I'm going to give you a little sponge bath, alright? Just some lukewarm water and a soft sponge..."

"Are you tired, love? I'll dim the lights for you so you can take a nap. And it'll help with your headache."

"I'm going to take your temperature again, dear, we need to keep an eye on that fever of yours... I know that the thermometer feels really cold, but bear with me for a moment...."

[meirimerens]

Polychromatic Bison (reproduction/interpretation) from Altamira cave (Cantabria, Spain) | Pathologic 2 map depiction of deity Bos Turokh

[candiedfright]

no matter what you do don't think about the fact that ryuu has to be a protector again years after said role was taken from him when he lost his friends in the slums