#but i know that i'm not ready for a relationship anyways

[reginamillls]

this AU has been floating around in my head for months where Buck is a dog groomer, and Tommy has a service dog that needs a hair cut

* * *

The sign says closed, but Tommy pushes past into the darkened front office. There's light coming from the back, illuminating the front reception area just enough that Tommy has no trouble seeing. There's some music playing as well, a song Tommy doesn't know well but could hum along to the memory.

There's a tug from his arm, and Tommy scratches at Charlie's ears before bending down to unclip her leash. She isn't on duty right now, but still, she sits at his side, waiting for permission to go.

"Go on," Tommy says with a smile, and Charlie goes off into another room. Tommy follows at a slower pace. This is the third time that Evan has allowed them to come in after hours, and Tommy appreciates how much calmer everything is.

When he gets into the grooming room, Evan is sitting on the ground with Charlie between his legs, giving his dog a lot of well deserved attention. Charlie is on her back, paws in the air, tail wagging enthusiastically as she takes in Evan's attention. Briefly, Tommy entertains his desire of wishing Evan would give him all of his attention as well, but Tommy pushes those feelings aside. Charlie adores Evan, and Tommy doesn't want to take that relationship away from her.

"-the most beautiful girl in the whole world," Evan is gushing, his hands in Charlie's thick fur. He looks up when Tommy comes in, and his smile is just as bright for Tommy as it is for Charlie.

"And how is her owner?" Evan asks and Tommy feels like he has to catch his breath under Evan's attention. "Not the most beautiful girl in the whole wolrd, but I'm okay," Tommy lightly teases and he's rewarded with Evan laughing slightly, the sound warming Tommy up. He looks away, noticing the bandanas hanging up on the other side of the wall. They're all tye-dyed by volunteers for when Evan does free grooming for local shelters to help adopt out some dogs. Evan does a few himself and gives them out to his clients.

He wonders what color Charlie is coming home with.

"Thanks again for the after hours," Tommy says. It's Charlie's fourth appointment with Evan total and her second one after hours, the accomodation more for Tommy then Evan. Tommy tries to make it up to Evan by leaving a large tip that he knows goes straight to the volunteer work anyways.

"It's not a problem," Evan says and he gets up on the floor to the tub. Charlie follows and hops in without further instruction and Evan pets her down on the side, complimenting her again. The rest of the appointment goes with Tommy sitting at the shair while Evan gives Charlie what he calls the "princess treatment" and Tommy smiles at the commentary. Evan takes a few photos for his page and promises to send them to Tommy as well.

All the while they chat about their days, more Evan then Tommy, but it puts Tommy at ease and he appreciates just how easy it is to be around Evan.

Soon - too soon, it's over and Tommy is grabbing Charlie's leash and admiring the beautiul green bandana that Evan had set aside just for Charlie, and he's ready to say leave-

"Hey so, I was thinking," Evan says as he finishes up Charlie's paperwork. "There's this new hiking trail that I've been on a few times, and I think that ah- that Charlie would like it," Evan ducks his head before looking back at Tommy with his bright blue eyes. "And well, you too."

"I like hiking," Tommy says and internally he winces.

Smooth Kinard, real smooth.

But Evan's smile grows and Tommy can't help but return it.

[acourtofthought]

Feyre to Rhys:

“I think I was falling in love with you for a while,” I said, the words barely audible over the trickle of water as I washed his beautiful wings. “But I knew on Starfall. Or came close to knowing and was so scared of it that I didn’t want to look closer. I was a coward.”

Nesta to Cassian:

“From the moment I met you, I wanted you more than reason. From the moment I saw you in my house, you were all I could think about. And it terrified me. No one had ever held such power over me. And I am still terrified that if I let myself have you … it will be taken away. Someone will take it away, and if you’re dead …” She buried her face in her hands. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “I do not deserve you, and I never, ever will.”

Elain, currently around Lucien:

Elain only shrank further into herself, no trace of that newfound boldness to be seen.

"act hesitant"

"Pull back when things get to close"

"making excuses to distance themselves"

"sabotage potential relationships"

"may show interest but retreat when faced with the commitment required for a serious partnership"

Nesta / Elain to Cassian / Lucien after the war; a war that saw both Nesta and Elain sharing moments with their mates:

“Stop following me. Stop trying to haul me into your happy little circle. Stop doing all of it.”

She just ignored him or barely spoke to him until he got the hint and left.

Nesta had made it clear enough she had no interest in Cassian—not even in being in the same room as him.

“She wants nothing to do with me.”

“I don’t think she’ll tolerate two minutes alone with me, so forget about two weeks.”

“I’ve made my thoughts clear enough on what I want from you.”

"She has no interest in him anyways"

He knew about the drinking, about the males. He told himself he didn’t care. He told himself he didn’t want to know who the bastard was who had taken her maidenhead. Told himself he didn’t want to know if the males meant anything—if he meant anything. He didn’t know why the hell he cared. Why he’d bothered. Even from the start.

"I'm talking about you, about to kiss Elain, in the middle of the hall where anyone could see you, including her mate"

I don't know how much more obvious Sarah can make the parallels at this point.

Elain was willing to hook up with Az because she's not afraid of feeling anything intense for him just like Nesta wasn't afraid to hook up with many others outside of Cassian despite having feelings for Cassian.

In the novella and SF, both sisters demonstrated behaviors that track with pulling away from the one who they could share the deepest feelings with because of being afraid and SF proved this was the case for Nesta.

They both lost so much in such a short time, of course they'd be afraid of losing the one person they share a mating bond with as that bond is deeper than anything they'd ever felt. Nesta wasn't afraid to lose a random guy at the bar which is why she let herself engage in a way she wouldn't with Cassian and in a similar vein, I don't think Elain was afraid to have things with Az not work out. That she was willing to make out with him after spending a year barely talking to him tells me that she doesn't have much invested in him, that she's not fearful of what opening herself up to him could mean if something happens to him. But opening herself up to Lucien would mean more and that more is what set her up for her past heartbreak (not to mention that it's canon a mating bond will always bring out even more intense feelings than that of regular love). I will never believe that she lost the fiancé she loved with all her heart, a guy who truly broke her, followed by the immediate loss of her father (the first man she ever loved) a little over a year ago but was ready to run into the arms of Az on Solstice (someone who avoided her for most of that year) and bare her soul wide open for him. That she was ready to love him. That she was ready to start another lifelong commitment to him. That does not track with true loss / healing, it does not track for the progression E/riel had on page and it definitely doesn't track for Elain considering we had zero declarations / actions showing that she has any real feelings for Az. What makes the most sense is that she's running scared from the person who was given a direct link to her soul regardless of how much time they spend together. Not only does it make sense from a psychological standpoint, that the person she is the most drawn to is the one she's experiencing the fear of commitment issues with after her pervious losses, but it also makes sense based on how Sarah did this exact same thing with Nesta and has written Elain to be having a very similar response.

[silkenwinger]

would do crazy, unspeakable things to get TA Gaz's attention. he's just so nice. never playing favourites, necessarily: his attention is always divided evenly. after all, he is a tutor figure for an hard class, and all of you need help. and while you're scared shitless of price, you know you can count on gaz's calm tone to tell you what you wrote wrong. never judging. understanding. encouraging.

it's not just his behavior, of course. have you looked at him? he's top 10 most handsome men you've ever talked to. wait, more like top 5. okay realistically he's the best looking one. and you're not the only one to get lost in his eyes, either. you hear hushed whispers of fuck me behind you when he stretches mid hour. you telepathically send whoever said that a strong mental message of stay away from my man.

as for your relationship... well. you've been working really hard on building a particular rapport. by that you mean you sit in the first row, greet him immediately, and try to come up with at least one question per session. looking hard for things to ask him has led you to a vast amount of knowledge you really don't need to pass this class, to the point you know you're getting glares from the other students. it's hard to be more forthright: you wish you could, but you're still somewhat inhibited by everything about him. for christmas, you brought him some homemade cookies, saying you made them for all TAs (absolutely false). gaz had smiled that absolutely devastating smile that made you weak in the knees. your five attempts and hours wasted had given you something back!

you've convinced yourself what you've going on is special. gaz (and oh my god, the day he told you (aka the class) you could call him that instead of mr garrick was the highlight of the month) knows your name and asks how you're doing frequently, which has completely revolutioned your world. you spend two hours getting ready every time you have to see him. when you saw him in the distance while you were talking with another classmate from another course, you almost threw the poor guy from the corridor balcony to not be seen with him.

of course, your friends call you fucking delusional, short of telling you you have absolutely no chances with him, but hope never flees true warriors' hearts.

eventually, all good things come to an end. price's class ends, you submit your long ass essay, and you don't see gaz as frequently anymore. you almost cried the last session, with him telling you all that he was kinda sad to let you go and that he was sure your final would go well. he'd even touched your shoulder! it would have been hard not to hug him if you hadn't been paralyzed by his touch in the first place.

one day, checking your results, you see that alongside price's grade there is a considerably longer email. the professor is telling you that he's seriously impressed with your essay, and that his TA, recommending you, wants to work with you on a project related to the class.

a project.

with gaz.

alone!

a/n: for both mine and your peace of mind, please tell me if this is wildly inaccurate for british universities! i'm basing the TA role as it exists in my country: someone (usually freshly graduate or about to be) who leads a secondary course for a major class, that can deal with redoing what has been done in class, solving students' doubts, in depth discussion, etc. i think this blurb will stay this way anyway, but if i ever want to write something longer on the topic 👀, i'd like to know how stuff actually works in the country it is set in lol

[bongsavior]

Wow i'm going the fuck Thru it boys

can i get an injection of Happy Something Or Other ? This isn't fun anymore

[hajihiko]

Thunderclouds 🌩

[sunnymainecoon]

How many people witnessed softie food addict horror who needed something in his mouth or he would actively kill and turn to cannibalism 🧍‍♀️ or was that just me.... anyways honestly it was silly.. he'd maybe get along with cook horror... I just like fanon crossovers guys*sadge

Anyways canon horror is also silly(really silly. What an asshole, man)(no seriously he's actually such an asshole.. I might love him for that but-) I don't think he would get along with the others(loser)

[fiona-fififi]

If I'm being honest, I actually think I would prefer to see Tommy NOT become the boyfriend. I really like the idea of the two of them dating a bit, and Tommy helping Buck to explore a little, but I think it would be much more interesting if Buck doesn't immediately jump into a more serious relationship with him. Allowing Buck to explore more casually as he starts to figure himself out just feels a little more meaningful here. He's always so quick to jump into relationships. I'd rather see him really take his time and let himself have some fun. And absolutely, Tommy can be a major part of that. But so much of the speculation around them feels like it frames him as the boyfriend, but I don't know that that's what Buck needs from him, to be honest.

[princessamericachavez]

like yes yes eddie needs to choose and buck needs to be chosen but also 

Eddie needs to get over the very big trauma of losing his wife. Last time he dated someone he had literal panic attacks at the thought of her being mistaken for Chris’s mother and as much as we saw him work through in therapy we never?? really?? talked?? about?? that?? So, yeah, Eddie needs to realize that he’s at a point where he’s ready to risk his heart and give love a second chance 

(and maybe realize he already did becase there already is a partner in his life who gets consistently confused for Chris’s guardian and it feels natural to him?? but he still needs to realize he’s ready for love)

And Buck needs to be ready to be in a relationship where he’s loved for who he is, where he doesn’t bend and twist to fit someone else’s expectations. And for that Buck needed to die, and needed to come back, and now he needs to process that trauma and steady himself. 

(and Buck loves so quickly, so openly, so loudly, and he gives so much of himself and he wants to be loved that way, and maybe he’ll realize that he already?? is?? loved?? but he needs to let himself accept it)

so basically, it’s not only a matter of choice... eddie needs to be ready to love and buck needs to accept that he is loved if they are ever going to find each other properly together

and that, my funny little friends, is the point of their arcs were we are at right now

[thanatologie]

anyone that says emmrich never actually faces his fear isn't actually paying attention. hear me out, okay, i've talked before (so many times) about how i think for emmrich his fear of death is less actual thanaphobia and more...his fear of being alone. of living alone, of spending eternity alone - especially in a culture and a society that places emphasis on lovers being buried together; he's terrified of it. and a romanced emmrich is so terrified of his relationship with rook - and how he feels - that he's willing to try to end it on the eve of a battle one or both of them might not come back from, because he's worried it might not be the big damn love story he's been aching for his whole goddamn life.

and guess what! rook doesn't come back.

he spends almost a month making that damn dagger - and like the rest of the crew - trying to find rook to pull them out of the fade prison because he's lost them. he's lost them right after realizing his fear's gotten the better of him and he's staring down the barrel of eternity without them. he was already trying to backpedal the whole thing before solas pulled his switcheroo and you know rook telling him they'll talk about it at home was like...a constant refrain in his head that whole almost month they were lost.

(which raises a good point with the mortal vs lich path in this respect, because a mortal emmrich was ready to tear open the fade to get rook back, imagine how many lines a lich emmrich might cross, especially given his line about never letting them be parted in this or any other world again. i have thoughts about how emmrich doesn't come back wrong from that, no, but he definitely comes back changed, he's...off. i've seen speculation that lich emmrich isn't emmrich - which i don't buy - or isn't entirely emmrich - which is a little more interesting and there may be some truth to the latter, or it could be he thinks he's indestructible at that point and gets really reckless and less measured but that is another argument for another time.)

and basically the point i'm leading up to here is...you can complain all you want that he never uses the l word before the final battle, but even with harding pointing out he's gotten a little spacey and distracted and mopey with a relationship on the burner, and all the other pet names he uses so damn liberally (dearest, darling, flame of my heart), he's still holding a lot of stuff back. he's still holding himself back, quite a bit, until that moment when he finally (finally) tells rook he loves them. he never calls rook my love until after the fade prison in the mortal path, and it's just the once, as far as i can actually remember. and it's because of all of that shit above.

(lich emmrich does it earlier, because that this may be my last chance to say it comes a hell of a lot sooner, and he uses my love liberally after that point.)

this is intentional on his part. this man has skirted around using the word love so much ("very fond of you" my ass) that rook totally has the option to call him out on it and it's like a record scratch.

he's, i think, terrified of loving something that can die? and he's terrified of being alone. and ultimately a romanced mortal emmrich has to face both of those things, one after the other, between manfred and the fade prison. and i think, going forward, it's not going to be completely gone - in fact for a hot minute after everything it's probably exacerbated to a large degree and he's probably extra...like that for a while - but it makes him confront those things head on in...very blunt ways. here's a reminder of what losing someone you love deeply to death feels like. here's what losing someone you've given your heart to for safekeeping feels like. it's kind of disingenuous to claim his fears are left untouched, when he's given a one-two knock out punch and is left having to deal with the fallout of that.

eta: and none of this actually touches on the fact that it's him that tells rook to grab the dagger before they go poof, so he's siting with that constant weight on his chest, too, but we'll dig into that at a later time because it's cold and my fingers are starting to get stiff.

[lucreziaces]

thinking about the dark side of cesare fanning the flames-- or at the very least just not doing anything to stop them-- of the unholy love/desire he and lucrezia felt for each other when he just playfully chased her around the garden after discovering she was watching him fuck another woman, or when he planted the idea that he'd be the only one to care for her heart, or when he implied the love between them was comparable to the love of God, calling it "as all-consuming and pure as the love of God"....an idea she later reflects in season 3 when she says "one touch of your hand and God comes rushing back" (also in the same scene "whatever it is, it overwhelms".) like, yes, okay I do believe lucrezia is probably the one that shifted their relationship into sexual terrority (not on purpose though!!), but cesare is older by a few years. he would've understood it to be wrong before she did, and he could've sat her down at any point in season 1 or 2 and told her "hey, this isn't how brothers and sisters are supposed to feel about each other. we can't lean into whatever this is, okay?" and then made an actual effort to let her go instead of just half-assing it before then immediately beginning the build up of the already thick sexual tension between them until it was unbearable and she was left thinking her husband didn't care about her because he wouldn't sleep with her, so she climbed into cesare's bed and convinced him they should just get it on because no one else could understand them and people already it whisper about them anyway, so "why deny ourselves the pleasure?" very sick and twisted of him. I kinda hate him for it actually. because if he hadn't gone and created this "ideal lover" in lucrezia's head that only he could fit the mold of, she might've found actual happiness with someone else!! 😡 😡

[hooligans-holiday]

Depressed Patient and Creepy Doctor Meet Again (part 1)

(Yu Yu Hakusho ep. 99)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

So you know this party banter between Aveline and Carver?

Aveline: I don't like some of the people you've been associating with, Carver. Carver: Talk to my brother/sister. He/She's the one in charge.

If you're on the rivalry path with Aveline, she says:

Aveline: Who says I don't mean him/her too? This city's full of people who are dead set on ending badly. I don't want to see you end up the same way.

I just- Aveline, you- you're so- hhhhnnnngggggg

I always rival Aveline when I play a mage, and if you think Edgar Aristide Hawke, who practically raised Carver and Bethany after Malcolm died and Leandra became a distant mother in her grief, wouldn't stop dead in his tracks at Aveline heavily implying he's a bad influence on his brother and Carver shouldn't hang around him so much since apparently Ed's someone set on ending badly...? Absolutely not.

This is another case of me wishing Hawke had the option to jump in during party banter with different options, because Ed would've chewed Aveline out for that.

Oh, and then there's:

Carver: Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least? Aveline: No.

Aveline...................stop it.

[queen0funova]

Nothing like watching your favorite aromantic headcannon die in real time 😔

[littlespoonevan]

tragic: the song i've been obsessing over for two days straight is actually best represented by buck and abby's relationship and i will never be able to convince someone to have an in depth discussion about it with me and/or make a gifset of it 💔

[myjustice]

sudden intrusive thought about how furina/focalors was to egeria what pikachu was to ash ketchum from pokemon.

[forcedhesitation]

I finished act 2 again, but properly this time. and I cannot even begin to put into words how satisfying and beautiful all of that was. I loved act 2 the first time I played, but figuring out how to save the last light this time, properly completing halsin's quest, storming moonrise towers with jaheira and her harpers, seeing aylin reunite with isobel...all of it. I love it even more. and the beginning of act 3 feels all the more rewarding, having fixed my past errors.