#anyway. can you tell i’m bitter? i’m very bitter. i put in free labour for so many maps and while it is within a host’s rights to kick

[lockandkeyhyena]

So so sorry if you've answered this before [or if you just didn't wanna talk about this] but I noticed your part is absent from the Primadonna Spottedleaf map? Again sorry if this is overstepping bounds but I'm just curious if you knew about that

all good. got kicked for supporting bi lesbians i think. they just said ‘because of the drama’

[fulltimemoaner]

Just something cute like Childe and Zhongli are crushing on each other but they think the other doesn't share their feelings so both of them are being dumd and trying very hard to hide their feelings. Meanwhile, everyone knows they're in love with each other.

Zhongli knows he is being irrational, there is nothing in the world that could possibly bind an adeptus and a human together, nothing short of disaster and broken hearts, anyways. Of course, there are adepti that could argue with his stance, such as the law consultant Yanfei, who is the very product of such a connection. However, the vast difference between a mere law consultant an ex archon is omnipresent in his mind, and so is the fact that he is more than five thousand years older than a certain troublemaker. When he sips his painstakingly prepared tea, his face sours, the leaves leaving a bitter tinge on his tongue, over-boiled and somewhat stale. There went six hours of wasted kitchen labour, all due to his own knack for overthinking and contemplating. He had all the time in the world, after all, to drown in his own musings, even if Hu Tao was still yelling at him to do his duties and other earthly errands. No, Zhongli didn’t look down on those, quite the opposite. He had taken to loving the simple life of the human Zhongli, without the hassles of being Morax. Humanity, however, came with its cons, such as attraction and irrationality. Again, it wasn’t like he hadn’t loved as an Adeptus, madly so, perhaps, but this wasn’t the time for him to be arguing with himself. He simply had to put his desires on a leash. He took another sip of bitter tea.

There was no way Ajax liked him back, after all. He was young, a few millennia so, (yes, he isn’t about to stop repeating that to himself) and strong, quick witted, humorous, loud, adventurous- Everything that Zhongli had lost in the past thousand years of being Morax. A heavy sigh leaves his lips and he leans his chin into the inside of his palm. In times like these, it’s hard not to miss Jueyun Karst and the company of his kind, it’s in times like these when he is filled with confusion and lack of understanding involving the humans he so greatly adores. He wonders if the loss of his Gnosis led to the loss of some of the divine, whether it brought him closer to the earthly beings, which was why he found his heart squeezing so hard at the thought of ginger hair and aquamarine eyes.

A loud thud shakes Zhongli out of his reverie, the sliding door of the Wangsheng Funeral parlour slamming open to reveal Hu Tao’s gleaming eyes, as well as a very handsome yet petrified Snezhnayan. “Zhongli!” The woman coos, her hand holding an iron grip on the Harbinger’s wrist. “Someone needs your assistance.”

“Tartaglia.” Zhongli clears his throat, easing into his front of apathy despite his hammering heartbeat.

“Ah, Mr. Zhongli.” Childe laughs awkwardly, rubbing the back of his head in that telltale way that radiated tides of awkwardness that would put his elemental abilities to shame. “There is a death within the Fatui,” He’s lying. No one has died under his watch. “And we need to bury him, it’s too hot to transport him back to Snezhnaya as it is.” His stuttering voice is probably giving him out, but Hu Tao elbows his ribs so hard he almost gasps.

“Ah, what a tragedy!” The parlour owner throws a hand over her eyes. “Such honoured guests suffering a loss like that! Zhongli, this calls for your assistance. I am so busy and I’m afraid my knowledge in Snezhnayan burial customs is vastly limited, so feel free to take this on!” She gives Zhongli the most suspicious thumbs up known to mankind and sticks her tongue out, and just like she always comes and goes, she practically evaporates out of the room.

Childe is sweating. He is staring at Zhongli with wide eyes and a suspicious tingle in his stomach, a playback of Scaramouche’s words rolling in his brain like a jammed tape.

“Go short your stupid crush out. Don’t show your face in the Northern Bank until you are ready to act normal, fucking idiot. You’re slowing us down, and by the Tsaritsa, I’m not above ratting you out and having you demoted to an errand boy.”

Childe almost cringes at the memory of the aggression in the Sixth Harbinger’s voice. He is going to kill him. Childe Tartaglia Ajax is a massive coward, and he is about to be murdered by his superior because he has a crush on a six thousand year old adeptus that is too good for him and wouldn’t bat-

“How did they die?”

Childe’s brain is like a train about to derail. Zhongli is up now, boiling some tea that smells suspiciously much like Jasmine, just like Ajax prefers it. If he tries to do as much as think of a single thing, all he can do is visualise Zhongli’s golden eyes gleaming underneath the lanterns of that odd Liyuan festival that Childe did not exactly comprehend, be it for his lack of interest at the time, or his complete concentration on that rich voice that kept whispering tales to him about the lanterns and the dead and the local myths.

“There is no one dead.” Childe blurts out, now or never. To be frank, he is absolutely shitting it. This is harder than fighting in the Abyss, worse than getting his ass kicked repeatedly by Traveller and that flying chicken that followed him around all the time-

“I seem to have misunderstood.” Zhongli watches him confusedly, teapot hanging forgotten on one hand. Childe can almost visualise him making that very same tea in his home in Snezhnaya, with the raging blizzards going strong outside, his soothing voice telling tales of dragons and giant monsters to his baby siblings to entertain them for a lack of anything better to do in the catastrophic winter. “You do not need my assistance?”

“No. I mean, yes, but not in that way.” Childe grunts, rubbing his eyes with both hands, stood ten feet away from Zhongli because he simply can’t stand the way his body burns when their shoulders brush together. The ex archon continues to look completely lost, his lips slightly open and his brows furrowed in his weak attempt to grasp the situation. Childe is stubborn, ridiculously brave at most instances, but above all, he is an idiot. And like an idiot, he says: “Have you ever kissed a Snezhnayan?”

Zhongli stills, blinking stupidly, unable to tell whether this was another one of the Harbinger’s jokes that their generational and cultural gap didn’t allow him to understand. He places the teapot down. “Excuse me?”

Childe wants to smack himself across the face. He forces out a loud laugh. “No, that was a joke!” He can feel the hairs on the side of his head sticking to his face. If the Abyss could swallow him again, now was the time. “What I mean is…” Childe takes in a deep breath. “Will you go out on a date with me?”

Zhongli stares at the wall across him, way past Ajax, into the eyes of some unseen divine force that is absolutely messing with him right then. “Did Hu Tao put you up to this?” After all, she always told him he needed to get laid, but he never understood where exactly he was supposed to be reclining. Mortal language had taken to weird expressions over the centuries.

“No, God, no,” Childe shakes his hands defensively. “Alright, mr. Zhongli, I’m so into you I can’t sleep at night, and I have been like that since I first saw you walking by Wanmin Restaurant, when you were trying some local delicacy and doing your ridiculous, bourgeoise critique on the authenticity of the flavours-” Childe goes quiet, his rant dying amidst its blooming as he watched Zhongli’s eyes soften and his brows tense, an unmistakable redness spreading over the adeptus’ face. “Mr. Zhongli?”

“Ajax, stop.” Zhongli hasn’t felt this flustered in thousands of years. He isn’t sure what it is about this human that is so awfully endearing, but it’s making him sear and liquify from the inside. “I’ll go out with you. We need to discuss the place and time, as well as the attire and the mood of the overall meeting, since leaving things unclear leads to misunderstandings that can not be resolved without-”

Ajax’s smile is stretching so wide across his face that he fears it’s going to split, a sudden ego boost booming so hard into his chest that he feels like he could fight the entire Fatui army and win. He takes a few steps forward and puts his hands on the table in front of the ex archon, hovering slightly above him. “Leave it to me.” He leans in closer and Zhongli can smell the exotic perfume on his skin. “There’s only one question left.”

“What?” Zhongli treads carefully, his jaw setting when a gloved hand finds his chin and tips his head back, fixing their gazes together.

“Have you ever kissed a Snezhnayan?”

[iamdeltas]

Question for Falcon (I wanted to watch after the show had aired, always been a bit bitter about Bucky and early tumblr calling him female coded), how bad is the imperialism? do they try and talk about racism without much Sam interior scenes or is it not as bad as I've heard? sorry if this is labour, I just respect your opinion

Honestly, I think a lot of the imperialism and Blatant Military Propaganda, while super grossly overt in the first episode, kinda subsides afterward? It’s still fairly bothsides-ish/centrist, which... I can’t say I was surprised by tbh, I mean, it’s still a show made by a large media conglomerate to broadly appeal to a mass consumer base. It was never gonna say anything Overly Radical. That being said, I was pleasantly surprised by how much they at least tried to explore racism, and systemic racism at that. And I really liked what they did with Isaiah Bradley, who in the MCU is a Korean War era super soldier who was given the serum without his knowledge (he and the other people in his squad, all Black, were told it was a tetanus shot), drawing parallels to the Tuskegee syphilis study, and was thrown in jail for 30 years to be experimented on to study the serum further when he tried to free his fellow soldiers from a POW camp. His talks with Sam were some very good moments. BUT yes, Sam did feel a lot like a passenger in his own story for the first few episodes, and I think the show didn’t do as good of a job as it should have with exploring Sam’s POV and his interiority. But I did love how it showed his journey to accepting the Captain America mantle and that part felt very earned. Overall, with the show as a whole, I’m inclined to agree with a podcast I recently listened to: Very good with the character beats--I adored Sam and Bucky’s dynamic and relationship growth, and overall their characters were served fairly well--but the plot was... lacking and confusing. Internal motivations were solid, external motivations were confused. And the villains just weren’t very good, honestly. Karli Morgenthau’s motivations were confused--it really felt like they were trying to make a Killmonger 2.0 but they just really failed because it was much easier to see where Killmonger was coming from, and while people do generally lump him in with the category of “villains who make a good point but, oh, whoops, they just burned down an orphanage to make sure the audience doesn’t root too much for them”, it actually made sense to me from a character POV why he did what he did so I actually wouldn’t put him in that category (I adore Black Panther, can you tell?), but Karli is VERY MUCH in that category. Her movement from Robin Hood figure to blowing up hostages and buildings for... reasons?... just wasn’t well done or very believable. John Walker on the other hand would have made for a very compelling villain if they didn’t completely blow it in the last episode. (I would say what they did that ruined it but I feel like I should at least try to kind of avoid spoilers lol.) Zemo was fun but I also genuinely do not understand why he was involved in the first place, and I think he could have been (and should have been) removed and the plot would not be affected in any way (plus maybe we could have actually gotten more characterization and screentime for Sharon Carter! She could certainly have used it!). There’s also another villain I was massively disappointed by but a) spoilers and b) also I have kinda complained about them a lot on my Tumblr anyway, though I did tag those posts as spoilers. I think. Anyway. Basically, Agatha blows all the TFATWS villains out of the water. I mean, I am a smidge biased but. I’m also right. I think also it just tried to tackle way too many things. WandaVision worked well because it focused on one theme, and one theme only: grief. TFATWS was trying to deal with a lot of different things thematically and it pretty much failed at all of them. I think it’s a decent enough show but if you’re gonna watch it, don’t expect something of WandaVision level quality, basically. It’s entertaining enough but it’s definitely not as good as it wanted to be.

[movedto-dazaipositive]

sad Q-era jackparse pseudofic

like most of my writing these days, this started on the parseposse. it’s basically a train wreck of sad Q-era jackparse feat. hockey culture. it’s also the outline for the fic I’ve been meaning to write (hahaha) so I thought I’d put it up here bc I love discord but it’s not very good as far as saving stuff goes. anyway, this is sad.

it started with frances (@lexatargaryen) hc'ing that Kent was super insecure and wanted jack’s approval. then I ran with it.

Kent’s always been a lil dumb for approval from people he looks up to/loves

so like,,,,,when he’s living with the Zimmermanns? it’s like he’s constantly being praised/approved of (Kent has a praise kink but it’s not really a kink it could be but mostly whenever people praise him he’s just a little overwhelmed bc he doesn’t ever think he deserves it)

and bad Bob definitely plays hockey with them and he holds both of them to extremely high standards and for both Kent and Jack, an okay from Bob is worth twice it’s weight in gold

but also in the Q where Jack is the one holding both of them to impossibly high standards. Kent is always free with what he thinks–like he’ll tell Jack if he’s playing badly/being a moron/could do better. but Jack is the kinda asshole that just yells at Kent to play better all the fucking time. and it drives Kent to tears more than once except hockey culture is Bad and he Cannot Be Vulnerable and so he’s mostly crying in the shower after practice and hating himself for crying

and it’s tough to take that from a guy you love and it’s worse bc Kent and Jack are living and breathing hockey. there’s no separation for them. everything on the ice bleeds into the bedroom. and practices where one of them isn’t playing as well as usual are the worst bc then afterwards they’re making out but there’s also so much resentment

and Kent is like. starving for approval, specifically Jack’s approval, but this boy has never done emotional labour in his life and he sure as fuck ain’t starting now.

not even for Kent

and Kent can’t deal, y'know? maybe he’d have tried harder to care about jack’s anxiety if Jack hadn’t been depriving Kent of any kind of positive response

but it’s so tough on both of them bc the pressure Jack is putting on himself and Kent is insane

and like. that whole situation in the Q is so ridiculously toxic for both of them. it’s no wonder Jack ODs. and Kent is so fucking bitter afterwards, because they could’ve been golden together. but some days he thinks he’s glad it happened because at least now he doesn’t have to deal with not being good enough for Jack

like, obviously he doesn’t really feel that way. but he thinks that. in his heart he knows he won’t ever be as good as Jack and on bad days he wonders if its worth it to even try.

but he tries anyway. hockey is the only thing he has. and even if he’s not the best, at least he’s playing, right? at least some team wanted him.

but Kent always feels guilty. even when he’s lifting the Cup he has this little thought in the back of his head that maybe it’s Jack who deserved this.

KENT HAS IMPOSTER SYNDROME

and he’s always going around wondering when people will find out that he’s not the one they want. that he’s only pretending to be good at hockey. that he’s not nearly as good as everyone thinks he is and he’s always scared people will figure him out but he thinks that when they do figure it out he’ll be relieved because pretending all the time is exhausting

and at this point frances came back in with the fact that Jack had won the Stanley Cup /and/ scored the gwg. and Kent basically thinks okay, no one needs me here anymore. the golden boy is here.

(I’m paraphrasing)

and Kent starts letting it slip a bit? like the next time someone compliments him about a goal, he just looks at them sorta incredulously and goes, it’s okay, you don’t have to pretend anymore. and whoever he’s talking to (probably another hockey player) says, wtf are u on, what do you mean pretend? and Kent

is extremely flustered and he doesn’t want to explain but he ends up explaining anyway

and you know what, this conversation happens with swoops

and it’s bad, because every time kent comes up with a reason why he’s not good enough, Swoops has an argument for why the opposite is true. and Kent hates it.

he hates it because he’s kinda not used to this from someone he really cares about (the last time was with Jack, and that was completely different) and Swoops is obviously serious and Kent can’t deal with this

it’s such a shit show. they’re shouting at each other. and Kent and Swoops both have their pride and they’re not giving in.

this is making my heart hurt

but swoops isn’t getting through to Kent and it’s pretty obvious that Kent is lowkey panicking. so the next day

Swoops talks to the whole team. and they’re kinda ?? bc Kent? is their Captain? this arrogant, confident dude? but they Love him so they’re like okay we can compliment him

he’s their Smol Captain and they love him

so the next day when Kent walks into practice Smithy tells him he’s “looking good” and Kent is like wtf. but this goes on all day with people randomly complimenting him and Kent’s not dumb, he can figure out what’s going on

but he can’t really tell why they’d do that? either they’re making fun of him or they actually care about him? and the latter option is Impossible so it’s gotta be the first one

but the compliments do make him feel a bit better? even if he knows they’re just making fun of him? and it hurts bc even if they don’t care about him it’s pretty fucking cruel and rude of them to take advantage of his insecurities like this

and he’s sad bc he thought that even if he’d never be worth anything there’d still be people who cared about him and he’s so fucking hurt

but he puts up with the //fake// compliments. and then someone hits a lil too close to home and Kent fucking erupts at them

and tells his whole team about how he’s never felt like he’s good enough for anything or anybody, especially Jack, and he’s nothing compared to Jack, and he knows this but could they please, please stop reminding him of it because it hurts

the Aces are horrified. and Kent is crying and his hangups about crying in front of people have never really gone away. and Kent runs. except that he can’t really see and he definitely bangs his toe somewhere, and the rest of the aces catch up with him and

give him their own little impromptu speech about how he’s the best Captain they could ever have hoped for, no really don’t try to argue with us, Kent, and he’s one of the best hockey players currently playing, possibly ever, and he deserves every good thing that’s ever happened to him, and he deserves them a hundred times over

and Swoops ends up treating the whole team to dinner at Kent’s condo. and after the rest of the Aces go home, Jeff finds Kent standing in the kitchen and he hugs Kent from behind and and whispers, i love you

this is the first time that Kent hasn’t been the first to say that to someone. and after he cries into swoops’ shoulder for five minutes, he says it back. and then they kiss

the end