#emotional strokes

[the-ace-with-spades]

(another unfinished post i found on the way to glasgow - that was the longest train ride in my life - I'm sorry in advance)

When Ice finally passes away, at the age of 73, in his sleep, Bradley moves Mav into their house the same day.

He gets the call in the morning, while trying to simultaneously cook Jake's breakfast and try to make their daughter put on a rain jacket. It's not Mav, but someone from the hospital. Jake doesn't know this — Bradley's face twitches only for a second and then he's back to the nagging, relaxing tone and telling their daughter it's raining and it won't stop. Jake only finds out when he comes back home from the school drop-off and Mav is already there on their couch. Jake doesn't even get the full explanation until that night, just a quick, "Ice passed away overnight."

There's only their three youngest living with them at the time — their 18-year-old daughter who attends UC San Diego, and their 15-year-old son who is still in high school, and their 7-year-old daughter — so Mav takes one of the vacant bedrooms.

The first few nights, Bradley sleeps in the same bed with him. Neither of them looks like they get much sleep. They don't really eat, either, just drink coffee and nibble on the crackers.

The kids start coming back home, and their oldest helps Jake arrange most of the things for the funeral, at least for the first few days. Mav is... numb, not really there, and Jake understands — he would, too, if he woke up one day and his husband died in his sleep next to him. Bradley is silent, mostly, the way he usually rambles to fill out the silence, the way he hums, the way he sings at any given time when there are no words spoken, it's all gone and Jake doesn't know how to fill out the silence either, how to ask, how to make it better without asking.

Bradley doesn't cry, or at least not the way he knows Mav does — he can see Mav's red eyes every morning — but there's something empty in his gaze, in the way his eyes follow Mav and in the way he melts whenever Mav is around, always close, always brushing against him. Mav spaces out a lot, doesn't talk much, doesn't—well, doesn't do much. Every time he tries to help with something, paperwork, the funeral arrangements, the hospital bills, even just sorting out the kids' school leave or Jake's own work leave, he fumbles a bit, not really able to focus on anything for long, and it's like his mind is completely scrambled. Jake doesn't know how to help him — doesn't know if they even can.

The kids, well, did not take it well, as expected. The oldest two try to be brave and help Jake with everything, keep the house going, but their youngest daughter doesn't really understand why her pops isn't back, the middle kids don't understand why now — Ice was in remission, in good health, would go hiking with them once a month, play with them in the backyard, talking about plans for the future with them, nothing that would tell them to expect their pops passing away. Mav and Ice had taken care of all of them for years, while Jake and Bradley were still deployable, and helping out as much as they could. Ice was a huge part of their lives, since the very beginning.

Bradley is certainly not doing any better but one couldn't be able to tell if they didn't know him well enough. He's always been more for packing his feelings into a tight neat box, compartmentalizing until there is too much and it all overflows in some explosive way. His focus is mostly on Mav and the kids, trusting Jake to take care of anything he can't.

Jake can't even ask him how he's doing until the night before the funeral.

Mav tells Bradley he wants to be alone that night and Bradley lands in their bedroom.

He acts normal — checks the kids are in bed, checks on Mav, prepares stuff for breakfast in the morning, has a shower. Only when he sits down in their bed, their dress blues, cleaned and pressed sitting on the hangers hooked up on their wardrobe, right in front of him—only then he freezes, a blank stare still on the uniforms.

Jake sits down next to him on the bed. "Talk to me, Bradley."

"I knew it was going to happen at some point, I just," "I just thought we would have a few more years."

Bradley sleeps curled up on his chest — he sleeps the whole night, soundlessly, and Jake is almost settled.

Almost. Mav is a couple doors down, alone.

Ice's been—had been retired many years now, but he had been high enough in the ranks that the Navy still insists on making a military funeral. Jake tried to take away as much of the flashy bullshit as possible, but there are still things leftover — the sailors with the flag, the flyover. But there's no one who wasn't close with the family at the ceremony, there's no speeches, and no one tries to hand either Mav or Bradley a flag.

The wake has an even smaller amount of people, all packed in their house — Mav hasn't been at his own house since — and thanks to Slider, mostly, and his 'the bastard wouldn't want us to mope around', it's less sad and quiet.

Mav eats two slices of cake, which is the most Jake's seen him eat since, and even laughs at some stories about Ice people are exchanging.

Ice had a good life. A big family. A big happy family that loved him.

But life goes on without him. Jake goes back to work first, then the kids have to go back to school, then Bradley has to back to work. After a couple of days alone at their house, Mav starts bringing up moving back to his own house.

He's not really doing great. He's still quiet, still spaces out more often than not, still forgets himself sometimes, still freezes whenever he tries to say something and the we he uses is one person short. He's—lifeless, for a lack of better word, and seems like he's noticing it now that Bradley isn't with him most of the waking hours.

"That is our home," Mav tells them. "I can't abandon it forever, I'd be abandoning him, too, if I—"

Jake—Jake gets it. He doesn't like it, but he gets it.

Bradley's been fielding off any suggestions of Mav moving out but he's pretty sure that soon Mav is going to pack his stuff and up and leave without asking for permission.

"If he wants to move back home, we can't exactly hold him here. against his will."

"Jake," Bradley says. "I feel like—if we let Mav go back there alone, he's going to die of a broken heart and I won't have either of them anymore."

"Sweetheart—"

"I know it's selfish," he interrupts, "but I can't lose him, too. Not now."

Jake can't make Mav stay with them — so he finds the best solution he can and instead, they all move in with Mav. Hell with it, he's going to try to get everyone to live their lives to the end. They'd done it before, Mav, Ice, Bradley, Jake and their two kids under one roof, when their oldest two were their only two kids.

The two of them and two of their youngest; two of their kids move into their house so they don't have to sell it.

Mav lives on. They try to occupy his mind by throwing their youngest at him — ask him to take her to school, pick her up from school, take her to her gymnastics class, do her homework with her, teach her how to play piano. The other kids pick up on it, too, and their high schoolers would wrap Mav into doing math workbooks with them, or ask him to drive them to their friends' house, and the kids that have moved out ask Mav to go to lunch together or call him to ask him things about car and house repairs that don't exist.

Mav gets brighter every day. Never as bright as before, but no longer so numb.

Their daughter ends up never moving out and so do they.

They all get older but Mav holds up pretty well. He does break his hip when trying to wash the windows, had a limp and terrible back ache ever since, had to stop driving because he can't see shit, had to stop piloting even sooner, and his memory is also shit, but Jake is pretty sure his cholesterol is lower than his own and he has better blood pressure than Bradley. Bradley and Mav are the ones cooking after all, Jake is the one eating all the tasty but not healthiest food, and Mav's life revolves around spoiling his cute great-grandkids and Bradley's is filled with the constant stress of managing Navy's top flying school.

For his ninetieth birthday, Mav flies a fighter jet as a passenger, the oldest person to ever do that — his youngest granddaughter is the one to take him up in the air, a junior grade lieutenant herself. They have a birthday party held at their house, Mav falls asleep in the armchair, Bradley makes fun of him and promptly falls asleep on the couch, too. Jake loves them both so much and still kind of can't believe he has this — house full of grown-up kids and grandkids of his own, his graying husband of over thirty years, his father-in-law coming to an age he wanted to see his mother at.

They're cleaning up, their two daughters who still don't have kids and didn't need to go home helping, and Mav tells them he's going to get some fresh air on their veranda. "I've got a terrible headache," is all he says.

Half an hour passes, they've packed all the clean and dirty dishes, and Bradley huffs to himself. "He fell asleep on the bench again, didn't he," and goes outside.

Bradley shouts for him in less than a minute. The ambulance is there in eight. Within the half-hour and a CT scan in the hospital, the neurologist tells them Mav is too far gone to survive the day. Within six hours, every single person from their family has come to say goodbye. When they pass the seven hours mark, Jake stands up from the plastic chair behind Bradley — he's not about to tell Bradley he should rest, but he's been holding Mav's hand since the minute they admitted Mav to the ward and hasn't eaten or drunk anything all day. He tells him he'll go grab them a coffee and bagels and gets a little nod and a smile.

Jake comes back twenty minutes later and Bradley doesn't even look up from where he's gripping Mav's hand.

"Can you get the nurse for me?"

[r0b0t1me]

You are not supposed to be here. You don’t belong here. Get out get out get out GET OUT-

fanart for chapter 4 of take little bites by @bigdvmnhero​

bonus. because i couldnt pick a single scene to draw out LMAO

[thetimecrystal]

[codenamesazanka]

i want it be known that I think Deku's been a shithead since Chapter 1, and I have always thought that. Had a problem with his supposed heroic qualities and 'saving' from the start.

It was fine when the story was about kids going to a Hero high school. That was forgivable, tolerable. So he worshipped Heroes. So he thought never spared a thought about Villains and how they come about. So he went out of his way to try to convince a 5-year-old grieving orphan that Heroes are cool because isn't disliking Heroes so unusual??? Well who isn't a shithead at 15.

It became less fine when the world started to expand, and the Villains got developed in much darker territory. But Deku stayed the same.

I never saw Deku as OOC in the last act. He's the same boring, incurious, unexceptional-despite-the-story-insisting-he-was-so-unique character as he's always been. It was just that the story was refusing to develop him, and then was lying to me on an even larger scale by trying to frame everything he was doing as actually groundbreaking and heroic. Still, I was resigned to it. I was prepared for him saving Shigaraki in a very unconvincing way that he didn't earn—but that Shigaraki would be saved.

My surprise is entirely that Shigaraki didn't get saved. That Horikoshi didn't do some asspull where Deku saves Shigaraki despite having done zero effort towards it.

But all of Deku's actions have been more or less consistent throughout the whole story. He's never given a shit about Villains. He's only ever worshipped Heroes and refused to think too much about any flaws in society. His brain is consumed by Quirks!!! Heroes!!! and never about like, examination of the conditions of his world that produces discontent and how to truly address that.

Broken record, but when he told Shigaraki 'i don't understand you and i can't accept what you do' and then basically agreed to ignore and dismiss Shigaraki's resentful "All Might acts like there's no one he can't save" when a cop told him to, all the way back in Chapter 69, it now feels like that was foreshadowing that he would fail to save Shigaraki. One might be able to argue that Chapter 69 was supposed to be the start of his change and development, based on the fact that he's supposed to be full of empathy (but note: never toward Villains; mean and aloof classmates don't count), but that didn't happen, did it? The story just let it stayed that way, and he stayed the same character he was.

He wasn't OOC back then, and he wasn't OOC now. He was just Deku.

[1whump-dump1]

Home and Away - Josh's brain injury

(btw, in the second last gif he tells his brother that he is scared 🥺)

...

You can find all the episodes that are shown in these gifs+more by searching the following titles on Dailymotion:

Home and Away 6319 5th November 2015 Home and Away 6320 5th November 2015 Home and Away 6321 9th November 2015 Home and Away 6324-6325 12th November 2015 Home and Away 6326 16th November 2015 Home and Away 6330 19th November 2015

[agtavio]

hbgngb drops this and leaves

some misc stuff while my life was on fire (it still is)

reality is whatever i want it to be (i wanted to randomly draw vash with all my favs so bad it was insane)

man idk i watched myself in horror as i lost it on a monday and blew through 600 chapters in a week and then a 100 more the next

[suchaspookyginger]

would you guys read an asl bros + dadan (+ law) ficlet based on my and my brothers' real-lived anxieties regarding my mother being an absurdly young recipient of a carotid endarterectomy? be honest

[pawyuta]

𖦁ׅ ࣪ ׂ 𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒻𝑒𝓈𝓈 𝒾 𝓁𝑜𝓋𝑒𝒹 𝓎𝑜𝓊 𝒻𝓇𝑜𝓂 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓇𝓉 . . ៵ ࣪ ִֶָ ⋆

‘when i talk to you oh, cupid walks right through, and shoots an arrow through my heart . . ꒰ ♪ ˊ͈ ﾛ ˋ͈ ꒱ ੭ ~ and i sound like a loon, but don't you feel it too ? confess i loved you from the start . . ಇ’

[nevesmose]

Perturabo was silent for a long time, his attention completely focused on the disassembled objects spread out before him.

"No, Fulgrim," he said eventually. "I am not fun at parties. Why do you ask?"

The Primarch of the III Legion smiled. "No reason in particular. I merely wondered if you'd like to take advantage of so many of the family being close by."

Fulgrim stepped away from Perturabo's worktable, elegantly avoiding the discarded parchments and empty grey plastek sprues littering the room.

"Goodnight then, brother. I shall leave you to your..." he paused briefly, for once unable to find the right word. "Figurines," he finished.

"They're miniatures," the Lord of Iron said bitterly. Fulgrim gave the briefest of shrugs and left the room.

Oh, Perturabo, he thought fondly as his brother's door slid closed. Don't ever change.

"I told you he'd say no," a rough, low voice called from further down the hallway. "If it was anyone but you he would've started throwing things."

"Very comforting, Ferrus." The two primarchs walked together for a few moments in a close, pleasant silence. With anyone else Fulgrim would have found the quiet oppressive, felt the need to speak, to act, to perform in some way.

It had never been like that with Ferrus, and in his introspective moments he treasured that quiet as something uniquely theirs.

"How goes the process of civilising our newest brother?" Ferrus asked.

Oh, Konrad, Fulgrim thought. Please change, even just a bit.

"He has been a challenge," Fulgrim admitted. "More so than I expected."

"Really?" Ferrus asked, amused. "I thought you relished a challenge."

"Not this one," Fulgrim answered. "Have you ever considered the logistics of bathing a fellow Primarch?"

"I could be persuaded," Ferrus said.

Fulgrim gave him a pointed look. "Not like that. I mean someone of our size and strength who adamantly refuses to even consider basic hygiene. And our father wants me to turn this... being into a capable leader of his own Legion."

Fulgrim sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"At the moment it's a miracle if he sleeps through the night without some kind of outburst. His latest development is wandering the corridors to scream at every mortal he sees about the exact time and nature of their deaths."

"You must be tired."

Fulgrim laughed bleakly. "Tired," he said, as if it were some arcane alien concept. "Yes, I suppose I am."

"Come in, then." Seemingly without intending to, they'd arrived in the hallway outside Ferrus's chambers.

"The Gorgon of Medusa invites me to his quarters," Fulgrim said archly. "People will talk. What scurrilous rumours they might spread."

Ferrus shrugged. "Let them."

The room was cool, sparsely lit and, with the exception of Forgebreaker in pride of place on a wall rack, minimally furnished. The opposite of his own in every possible way, but at times like this Fulgrim found the contrast refreshing.

Ferrus flung himself down onto a primarch-scaled couch as Fulgrim's gaze was drawn to the incongruous sight of a rectangular open-topped frigerator unit containing ice and several glass vessels.

"And what might this be?"

"Oh, that," Ferrus said. "One of the latest archaeo-tech recreations based on analysing residues from ancient Terran artefacts. It's an alcoholic drink somehow brewed with crystals."

Fulgrim took a single delicate sip and wrinkled his nose slightly.

"Apparently it was extremely popular on old Earth, but only for a very short time before something else replaced it. Magnus would be able to tell you more."

"I imagine he would," Fulgrim said, turning his attention back to Ferrus. "But with the greatest of respect to the Primarch of the Fifteenth, I don't particularly care about Magnus just now."

For a long moment neither of them said anything. Then Ferrus slid back on the couch, legs parted, and patted a hand on the seat just in front of him.

"Come on, sit down."

Fulgrim quirked an eyebrow.

"Did I stutter, Phoenician? Sit down. You need to relax."

"If you insist," Fulgrim said. He moved to sit cross-legged in the space between Ferrus's legs. After a moment's hesitation, he leaned his full weight back against Ferrus.

"There you go," Ferrus said, starting to run his hands through Fulgrim's long hair. "You don't have to be perfect every single moment of the day."

"Perhaps," Fulgrim replied, closing his eyes. "But then what would I be instead?"

What is this called, he wondered, sudden and cold. What are we doing? The idea threatened to ruin everything if he dwelt on it. To ruin this, whatever it was that he and Ferrus had.

We're Primarchs, he thought. There isn't any existing human word or concept for what we are or choose to be, other than what we decide for ourselves. Like the first ancients naming the stars.

A single cool metal finger poked him gently in the back of the head. "You're thinking," Ferrus said. "I can tell."

"Congratulations. I knew if you saw other people do it you'd eventually start to recognise the signs," Fulgrim replied without any real malice, tilting his head back as Ferrus's hands resumed their movement through his hair.

He felt Ferrus's chest move behind him as he laughed. "You wound me, Fulgrim. I'll withdraw from society to weep and write poetry."

"Anything but your poetry, I beg of you," Fulgrim said quietly. "The galaxy isn't ready for that level of pain and suffering."

[lengthy-artery]

.

[chibishortdeath]

Great googley moogley it’s all going to shit! Every day becomes exponentially more terrifying!

And all perfectly timed to just right at the start of what’s supposed to be my adult life where I get my shit together and be useful and productive!

[spaceboy-art]

Watership down was definitely one of the more fucked up books about talking animals that I've read

[alien-ally]

i think i figured what my preference is. If it’s a show about romance, where romance IS the major plot, i’m okay with it. enthusiastic and enthralled even. but god forbid it shows up anywhere else and i’m deeply upset, cursing out god damned amatonormativity, my disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. LIKE CANT YOU SEE THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS TO FOCUS ON HERE?

[1whump-dump1]

Elite - Season 4 Episode 4. (Part 2.) (Part 1 here.)

[irondadfics]

I’m looking for a fic you’ve found before where Peter is having a hard time adjusting to the cabin and one day it’s extremely hot and he ends up getting heatstroke after playing with the Starks for a while and he and Tony talk about how difficult the change has been for him.

Here you go!

feeling hot, hot hot by turtle_bean

Summary:

"Good morning, Peter. It is currently 9:24 in the morning. Today's forecast has a low of 80 degrees and a high of 102." -- or, peter's family has had five years without him. that isn't something he can just walk off, quite literally. [bad things happen bingo / prompt: misunderstanding]

[binch-i-might-be]

I think it would be sooo sexy if John got hurt really bad while on some sort of mission with Gwash,, and Gwash was absolutely horrified and blaming himself and just trying to keep the boy alive and distracted,,, and if John in his delirium just fucking clung to Gwash because he trusts him so deeply and unquestioningly,, that's his general his commander his father-in-law his dad