#doesn’t even have to be romantic (it is)

[stompandhollar]

reminding everyone that the in-universe problem with The Doctor and The Master isn’t “ooo horrible nasty enemies who hate each other and don’t get along and fight all the time but are also in love”

the problem is that they get along. the problem is that they can’t stop themselves from falling naturally into a rhythm of riffing off one another and enjoying the other’s company. THAT is the problem. the problem is that it works and that’s the thing that caused all their issues. they like one another. they just click.

[the-meme-monarch]

i’m a mabel defender forever dipper is Just As selfish as she is and also if you legitimately think mabel is at fault for not breaking it off with gideon herself i will actually just start throwing rocks at you like i don’t know what i can say to convince you how insane you sound. it is a cartoon but that part was upsettingly real. it is horrifying as a girl when you’re having your boundaries pushed in little ways that still make you uncomfortable bc then You’re being unreasonable somehow, just saying No is unreasonable somehow. and then here shes Also being societally pressured into dating him. i think it was very sweet that dipper tried to break up w gideon for her bc the episode legitimately sets up that She Couldn’t. but no she’s Wrong for that somehow. girls are taught to be nice to boys pushing their boundaries too much we need to give them hat pins again

[bithcisweartogod]

no but it’s so sad how lu guang used to think that even the smallest alteration from the events of original narrative could change everything beyond repair but now he sees time as something almighty, something he’s unable to fight against. i wonder what he could’ve tried to do that lead him to thinking that time is THAT powerful. and how devastating it is to understand that you’re absolutely helpless, that nothing you do means anything, again and again it’s all the same, from “hey newcomer, wanna play basketball with us?” to “save them, lu guang” but he can’t. cheng xiaoshi passes the ball and whatever lu guang does he is destined to miss this time. cheng xiaoshi passes the ball and lu guang only worsens the situation. and still he keeps on trying. because cheng xiaoshi put his trust into him.

[blue-mood-blue]

I can pinpoint the moment that destroyed my life today:

It’s been a handful of weeks since Murderbot came within inches of having a new, organic governor module implanted in its head via infection - do you think, maybe, that’s also been hiding behind the redacted? Not the way everything else is, just as a deep-seated reminder of what it can’t afford to lose?

What a way to be told “I love you” - to be told “I will not lose you, I will not let go, I will do the hard part of holding on even if you don’t want me to”

[eggo-tistical]

thinking about post-yotsuba light going about his new life and never outrunning himself.

it starts out relatively innocent: adding extra sugar to his coffee in the mornings and when he realizes it he dumps the lot in the sink.

opening his mouth to say that he’s done in the shower, then closing it right back up.

having a brief conversation with the task force and getting frustrated when they don’t catch onto his point immediately.

seeing a pair of baggy jeans and a white longsleeve tee in the window of a store, walking a little faster on the street.

developing the habit of circling his hand around his other wrist like a phantom handcuff.

checking the weather report almost obsessively, staying inside if it rains.

throwing out the worn chess set in his bedroom when he can’t stand to look at it any longer.

then it gets worse; glancing at his own reflection in the mirror, dark circles underneath his eyes, before always turning off the lights whenever he’s in the bathroom.

visiting bookstores to buy armfuls of shitty ‘who done it?’ mysteries, promising himself to get some reading in before sleeping, but they all end up beneath his bed as he pulls more and more all-nighters.

turning into somewhat of an adrenaline junkie, allowing his family (who are all so proud of him) or misa to rope him into day trips to amusement parks, if only to feel his heartbeat go faster and his palms start to sweat (all natural human reactions).

scrolling on his laptop and encountering this stupidly colorful ad for a dessert cafe that just opened, turning in his chair to ask a ghost if it wants to go.

curling up below the covers in the dark, twisting around absentmindedly to pose a riddle or protest another accusation, and only finding a cold dip in the mattress where L used to lie next to him.

but it’s fine. it’s fine because he’s kira, and this is his new world, and he won. he has won, alone in his room, his life, and living — he is alive, he’s sure of it. and that’s more than his equal can say.

[sweetmapple]

Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate getting their shit kicked in by the Bloody Crow

[spookymovie]

“my expectations for relationships were messed up by romcoms” “my expectations for relationships were messed up by fanfic” i mean this so genuinely when i say my expectations for relationships were messed up by dan and phil

[bitchapalooza]

Modern au where Sanji and Zoro were classmates in elementary school. They, like other kids, were into pokemon and traded cards all the time in recess. Sanji had this mint condition base set charizard, you know a card that exactly worth *that much* at the time but actually climbed and absolutely soared in collector’s value in time. Sanji *lent it* to Zoro for his deck for one single battle with another kid—but he never gave the card back because the teacher came over and said his uncle was here to pick him up. Zoro didn’t come back the next day. Sanji never got his charizard back.

Cut to present day. They’re in college. They realize they are the actual Zoro and Sanji from each other’s childhoods. Turns out Zoro had moved away and just didn’t even realize he was moving (“I just thought my uncle really liked cardboard boxes…”). Sanji asks about the card. Zoro says he doesn’t know where it’s at, he stopped being into pokemon after the move because that’s when his uncle enrolled him into his new dojo for sword fighting, it kinda took over his headspace. Now they have a petty arch enemy type of relationship purely because Zoro lost his charizard—he’s not even into pokemon anymore either, BUT ITS ABOUT THE PRINCIPLE OF THE FACT. He wants his goddamn base set charizard back dammit!

[steddieas-shegoes]

cw: mentions of scarring, canon-typical violence, flashback (not graphic), minor body horror (again, not graphic, mostly just emotional feelings about scars)

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Everyone gave him weird looks when they walked in, quickly schooling their features when they noticed he was awake and watching them.

He didn’t know exactly what that was about.

They had him on a lot of good drugs.

But eventually he got weaned off them, and he noticed the pull of bandages on his side, and his arm, and his neck, and his face.

He was still unable to get out of bed. Still couldn’t even reach his arms above his chest for more than a few seconds.

But he damn sure reached up to feel the cloth and plastic surrounding his cheek. How had he not noticed for days? How had no one bothered him about it?

Maybe they had and he just didn’t notice. The morphine was one hell of a drug.

Wayne was soft, patient with him. Saw him touching it, saw the way his eyes filled with tears. He’d never been particularly vain, hadn’t cared much about what he looked like to others, but this felt bigger than that. This felt like he was changed in a way that everyone could see.

Add it to the list of things people could bully him for.

He cried himself to sleep, Wayne’s hand in his, silently comforting in the way he’d always done.

When he woke up again the next morning, he was alone.

It was the first time he’d been alone since the boathouse.

He could swear he heard bats outside his door, screams coming from the attached bathroom, flashes of someone dying on the ceiling.

He felt the sharp sting of teeth puncturing his skin.

He felt hopelessness creep into his bones as he gave in.

Maybe this time they would finish the job.

“Eddie!”

Steve Harrington’s voice broke through the thoughts, panicked enough to bring Eddie back to his hospital bed within a second of hearing it.

“Shit, are you okay?” He continued, hand brushing against Eddie’s bandaged cheek.

Eddie nodded once, closed his eyes, leaned into the touch.

He could blame it on any number of things if Steve felt weird about it. The morphine, the flashback, the loneliness.

“You’re okay, Eddie. I promise. Won’t let anything happen to you,” Steve whispered.

Eddie believed him.

He fell back asleep with Steve’s hand gently cupping the mangled side of his face.

If Steve could still touch him there, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

Steve came by every day, sometimes in the early morning, before visiting hours officially started, sometimes well after Wayne had left to get some sleep. He always smiled when he walked in, a genuine one, not the one everyone else gave that was so fully of pity and pain he couldn’t bear to make eye contact. He sat down on the side of the bed, not the chair like everyone else, not scared to be close.

And every single day, without fail, he would run his finger along the edge of Eddie’s bandage on his face, watching his own movements and cataloging any changes.

Eddie sat quietly, still, scared to put words to anything happening. Scared to tell Steve what it meant to him to have someone acknowledge his pain in this way. Scared to think Steve could mean anything by it.

It was easy to pretend Steve was doing this because he cared.

Maybe he did care.

But he didn’t care the way Eddie wanted him to, needed him to.

So he stayed quiet, still.

He watched.

He fell asleep while Steve talked about his day, the kids, what Joyce made Hopper do around the house.

He woke up alone most days, but that was okay, because Steve would be there eventually.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

“You ready to get that thing off?” Wayne asked, gesturing to the bandage.

“Oh. Today?” Eddie suddenly didn’t want to ever be without the bandage. Removing it meant he’d see what was under it.

It meant seeing how much that place had ruined him.

The pull of the stitches hadn’t been as obvious with the pull of the bandage masking it.

But now it’s all he felt.

The nurse smiled at him as she put some antibiotic cream over the area, saying he would probably still have to keep it extra clean for the next week or so while the stitches did their job.

Wayne smiled at him in the way that meant he didn’t really want to smile at all, but knew Eddie needed him to.

Steve didn’t come.

Eddie didn’t sleep.

♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️♦️

He woke up with panic in his chest and a silent scream in his throat.

He woke up with Steve’s hand on his face.

Gentle, soft, but a strong comfort.

“Promise I washed them first. They said we have to be careful about germs,” Steve said quietly.

“You don’t have to. I know it’s…it’s gross. It’s ugly. I’m ugly.”

Steve shook his head. “No. Not gross. Not ugly. Alive.”

“Steve-“

“You’re alive, Eddie. You could have your entire face held together by staples and you would still be a miracle. You’d still be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

Well, Steve’s charm wasn’t an exaggeration, was it?

He wasn’t even sure if the skin barely pulled together could blush anymore, or if the heat that should be on his cheek was burning on the outside the way it felt like it was on the inside.

“It’s gonna be awful when it heals. I saw it in the mirror.” Eddie could feel every stitch in his jaw, the few that spread across the corner of his mouth and bottom lip, the ones that were nearly up to his ear. “I’ll always have a crooked face. The scar will always be huge. It’s all anyone will see.”

“Then they aren’t looking.”

Eddie bit his lip, eyes searching Steve’s. “But you are.”

“No. I’m seeing. There’s a difference. I see you. I see what you’ve survived. I see the mark it left on you. I know it wasn’t just the scars that cover your skin.” Steve leaned his head down, touching Eddie’s forehead with his own. “We all have them. And we’re all still here. Your heart’s beating. That’s all that matters to me.”

“Who knew you were so good with words?” Eddie smiled sadly.

“Robin says I’m just good at not having a filter.”

“She’s right as always.” Eddie wrapped his fingers around Steve’s wrist, turning as slowly as he could to kiss his palm. “You’re not scared of it.”

“No. Are you?”

“I’m scared that you’ll change your mind when it’s always there as a reminder of what happened.”

Steve kissed his nose, making him smile for the first time in what felt like years.

“I’ll have the reminder that I got you out of there. That no matter what, the bats couldn’t finish the job. That you were stronger and you made it.” Steve let his hand drop, but quickly laced his fingers with Eddie’s. “I know it’s a lot to ask of you to trust me, but will you? For today?”

“Just today?”

“I’ll ask again tomorrow.”

“And what? Every day after that?”

Steve smirked.

His eyes were glistening with tears, but Eddie could tell it wasn’t sadness or fear.

“If that’s what I have to do.”

They hadn’t even talked about feelings, not really. Nothing that made any sense to Eddie, nothing that they could define. A part of Eddie was still convinced he was in a coma and dreaming this entire conversation up.

But even the nurse had noticed the way Steve watched him, how he touched him, how he fought for him. She said he’d been a firecracker from the moment he carried him into the hospital, dripping blood on the tile, staining the halls with his demands for help.

Wayne said he barely left his side the first day, only doing so when the doctors had told him they would call the cops if he didn’t.

Erica even noticed how things had changed between them, stating that she refused to watch her babysitter and the only DM she had respect for make out.

But Steve held Eddie, made him feel like he could get out of the hospital bed and live a life that wouldn’t keep him running. Steve was there.

Steve might even love him. If not now, then some day.

And Eddie could trust him today.

He could probably trust him tomorrow.

“Kiss me?” Eddie probably shouldn’t. The stitches tugged when he talked, and another mouth anywhere near his wounds was just asking for an infection.

But Steve would be careful. He knew what Eddie could handle.

It was barely a kiss. A graze of the lips at most.

But it was the best kiss Eddie had ever had.

At least until tomorrow.

[angy-grrr]

spoilers for chapter 429

idk if you guys remember but ochako does have parallels with All Might, specifically as the side who saves. It’s not that he feels the same for them both or something like that, they serve to represent the type of heroism he naturally goes to; his friend is not his love interest, from his perspective she’s out there having a crisis over not being able to save her, and Izuku reminds her that she is a hero bc she is his hero -she saved him multiple times, and she should be able to feel like a proper hero.

This conversation is not about the nature of their relationship, is about heroism; Izuku relates to a conflict between being a hero who saves and failing to save someone, and doesn’t want to see Ochako ending spiraling because she couldn’t also fulfill that role as expected. She’s his hero not because he loves her romantically -he’s a nerd I’m sure he would be way more nervous and blushing if he was confessing anything he thought was romantic- but because she’s able to go and do what All Might does to Izuku, save him physically and emotionally.

He knows she hides her feelings in order to not be a burden, yet he doesn’t talk about his own feelings outside of his guilt in heroics -what does he feel about losing OFA? About his own failures? About the people he personally lost? He can’t talk for others and claim Ochako is everyone’s hero, but he can speak for himself, and that’s his personal perspective -she is a hero to him, she’s his hero. And then the class appears to make sure she’s able to get support and understand she’s not alone, and she’s important to them too.

but Izuku doesn’t get support. Izuku cries a little and talks a little about himself, but he doesn’t get supported. If this was meant to be romantic, I don’t understand why he would hold back what’s inside of him.

the end of the chapter reveals that boy is going to be helped by that woman who regretfully ignored Tenko, and they both witness it and are happy about it while hearing izuku inspired that change, and iida wonders what’s up with them -this is the conclusion to their relationship. In their hearts these two are saviors who struggle to be heroes who save others, and they are happy there are appearing more people who want to be heroes like them. Heroes who save. Save like All Might.

That grandma for example, interpreting the narrative as what I think is intended, would be that boy’s All Might; she’s his hero.

Izuku and Ochako are heroes who save, and Deku is here to remind her at least she did save him many times, that she is still a hero because she is his hero. I don’t believe is meant to be interpreted as romantic, not that Izuku sees that phrase as it neither -after all, he said he does want to be like All Might and feels good to imitate him, but he doesn’t love him.

Ochako’s All Might hair moment, the parallels with Toshinori telling him he can be a hero, the trying to save from black suffocating quirks, the we can do it and do your best…

Do I need to remind you heroes arent a romantic thing for Izuku Midoriya?

[howcomethatthisishappening]

So I don’t think I could ever ship Zoro with someone other than Luffy, I’m sorry, and I realised why so here it is. The thing with Zoro ships that aren’t Zolu is that I can’t see them working out because I don’t think a situation exists in which Luffy is not his number one priority as well as his second and third. Like his partner’d want to do something, try to give him a kiss whatever and he’d be like No sorry I gotta go cuddle my captain or help him do some stupid shit or lay down my life and pride for him.

So I’m not trying to shit on y’all’s ship but honestly shipping him with whoever won’t make him stop being so disgustingly painfully sweetly devoted to Luffy that if every ounce of it equalled an onigiri Sanji could feed their whole planet with it.

[the-meme-monarch]

what if i Entirely made up another relationship but with the express intent that they Don’t get together actually. this started out as a lol an lmao even but honestly i think i needed this. cathartically

based on the tags of my post here

👍if you ship scc go away

[potato-lord-but-not]

I offer to you the ship of Roland Cummings, Delphine Cummings, and Charlie Dowd that has been absolutely rotting my brain and is ripe for Charlie angst. I talk about them a bit here in which I discuss multiple Charlie ships but I must spread the propaganda of them o7

Ohhhhhh despite not really being Roland/Noel girlie I can indeed see the appeal 👀

[whipbogard]

To the anon that asked if I’ve listened to the Audio Adventures earlier:

Thanks. You just murdered me.

I wasn’t prepared for Bruce’s voice message to Harvey in Episode 3.

[daisyachain]

RW spending his marriage in the firm belief (knowledge actually because it’s true and factual and is proven) that his lover will overdose and die on the job if he turns his back for five seconds (he will and does) and CD spending it in the knowledge (belief actually because it’s not true or factual and is disproven) that his lifelong sworn partner’s first priority is finding his old partner for whom he will leave him the very moment that they’re reunited (ERROR REDO FROM START)

[read-write-thrive]

the dead boy detective agency main four are a polycule on various points of the aromantic/asexual spectrum (in addition to their various sexualities), with the various side characters playing the roles of parental figures or talking stages. thank you for coming to my ted talk