#i am in duress

[heartlcssboy]

❛ is this what you think love is? ❜

Peter's jaw tightened and the forest fell silent the moment that the question had been posed. Even the wind did not dare draw Peter's attention as a vehement rage overcame him. He looked through her instead of at her as the upset built. Had he asked too much of her? Of everyone he'd ever cared for? They were always clawing at him for more. When he had already given them EVERYTHING; more than they were willing to give him in return! More by leagues! They wanted to tell him all the ways he was deficient, but he wasn't the one incapable of feeling. They were; Wendy and Jamie both!

He was so sick of that word being thrown at him like an excuse. That horrible, horrible, meaningless word! Because, for them, that's exactly what it was! Meaningless! A false promise. Another thing corrupted by the influence of the Other Place. That's what it did. The Other Place took things and hollowed them out, turning them into a mockery of what they once were. Just look at their cities, nature gutted by industry for the sake of convenience. But nothing about Pan was made to be convenient no matter how badly others wanted to change that.

"And what do you think it is?" He demanded, too far incensed to worry about scaring her as he pressed in closer. Each word a step nearer. "No, really. Tell me, Wendy! I mean it! I want an answer! What is it! What's love?!" His volume of his voice continued to build as he went on until finally it reached its crescendo with: "Tell me!"

Peter could feel tendrils of his shadow pulsating at the edges of his psyche, pleading with him, soundless but clear inside his head. He could feel its panic, but it was overtaken by Peter's anger. It begged for him to cease his onslaught before he ruined everything. But Peter wouldn't stop. He couldn't. He wasn't finished! His body was shaking from the volatile medley of emotion wracking through it. Wendy had asked him a question and he never denied her anything. Now did he?

Peter had crowded her until her back was pressed against the trunk of a large tree. His voice was a growl now, words coming out in a hiss, "Because everyone is always trying to tell me what I can and can't feel or what I'm doing wrong as if they have any idea about what I'm capable of! I keep being told I'm the broken one when it's everyone else pretending. Everyone lies and acts like they know what love is, but then they run away as soon as it becomes too real. Because no one actually knows what they want! And they get scared because it's all too much! Because you don't want to feel things, not real things!"

Peter howled in frustration and his fist collided with the rough bark of the tree Wendy was trapped against, missing her head by inches and splitting open the skin of his knuckles. Crimson leaked from his hand as he pulled it back, stepping away and turning from Wendy. He shook his hand so that droplets of blood splattered across the forest's floor. It was pointless. No amount of blood would heal this wound. It'd been open and raw for long enough that he knew that with certainty.

When he turned back to face her, all of his anger had dissipated. That righteous rage had been all that had been holding him together and now even speaking was an exhaustive and painful effort. All he wanted to do was run to Wendy and cling to her frame for comfort, but he maintained their distance.

"I think I'm the only one in the whole world who knows what it really is to love someone...and no one else is alive enough to feel it." His voice was hardly a rasp, choked with the effort it took to speak the admission aloud, but otherwise calm. He hated to say it. To confront it. Because he meant it and it meant he'd always be left wanting. Forever.

And that absolutely terrified him.

[askinkiskarma]

WHAT THE FUCK BESTIES YOU BETTER CHOOSE THE LAST OPTION OR I WILL CRY AND THROW A HISSY FIT!!!! I NEED TO SEE IT SO BADLY wdymmmm baby???? I NEED TO BE THE BABY WHILE DADDY JAKE TEASES ME WDYMMMM

gonna try to get at least one of my drafts posted tomorrow, trying to take my mind off a few things :)

*they will all be published eventually! just a matter of which one’s posted first !!

[veinsfullofstars]

⭐ Protectors of Popstar ⭐

(ID: Kirby series DTIYS piece based on this post by @das-a-kirby-blog. Thoughts in the tags and more detailed description in Alt Text. END ID.)

Started 11/26/24, finished 12/09/24.

[lautakwah]

Hey what's up it's Ling your favorite neighborhood nonbinary lesbiasian (or not, maybe you know someone cooler i wouldn't know) and I'm here to be insufferable about it being my birthday month <3

In all seriousness though, I'm currently unemployed (again) and it's hell out there for a uni dropout so if anyone's feeling generous I'd appreciate it a lot!! Also running a sale on my Etsy until the end of the month so if anyone feels like getting anything that'd be nice too :)

ppal | ko-fi

[novelconcepts]

The more the show progresses, the more I want to see the 90s cast infiltrating the modern timeline. We've gotten hints of it with Shauna and her younger self, her Jackie hauntings. We've gotten a little more with adult Lottie seeing teenage Nat (and Laura Lee), and with Natalie getting teenage Lottie in her final moments. I want more. I want the teen cast to be absolutely invasive on pivotal adult moments, infecting their adult counterparts when least expected. I want Taissa's argument with Van to dissolve into their teenage selves, their bond endless and timeless and inescapable. I want Misty absolutely wrecked by young Natalie lurking around corners, watching from mirrors. I want to see these women unable to navigate adulthood without the specters of their teenage selves cropping up absolutely everywhere, more and more as they let the memories in, as they stop being able to repress the trauma. They didn't grow up. They never could. You are always doomed to regress around your high school teammates. You are haunted by the phantom elements of your misspent youth. It is a comfort, and it is a gift, and it is a trial, and it is a curse. I would love to see that reflected with greater intensity, until the lines blur, until the timelines have no choice but to intersect. They haven't escaped themselves at all. They didn't grow up. They just got older.

[asurrogateblog]

I keep seeing photos of people going to paul's tour dressed as john and listen, I get it, but I just feel like when you buy tickets to a concert its kind of an unwritten rule of conduct that you should try not to psychologically torture the performer as he stares out into the crowd with visions of the ghost of his dead lover. just sayin

[texaschainsawmascara]

Caleb Landry Jones & Arielle Holmes, Heaven Knows What (2014) dir. Benny & Josh Safdie

[koolaidashley]

@bettertwin9000 is the cutest and funniest and most awesome kindest person I’ve ever spoken to in my whole life and they gonna have the best bday party known to man ! 🙏🏻🙏🏻🩷✨

[patrice-bergerons]

Work is once again super intense this week so unable to make much progress on my actual WIP, I wrote something quick — it technically comes after the current installment of the law au i am working on, so you can consider it a delicious little teaser of sorts.

It's only a tie—there is no point in making it into a bigger deal than it is. A very expensive tie, the understated elegance of which not a single soul with a modicum, nay, the tiniest sliver, of sartorial sense could miss, but it is anyone's guess with Francis, isn't it, because even the lowest bar turns into Mount Everest when it comes to him and fashion.

Besides he may have well been dressed for work already when he opened his front door this morning, in one of his dull insipid suits no doubt, and been too lazy or in too much of a rush to change. James may not run into him at all in the next few minutes. Francis had a hearing in the morning, sure, but the courthouse lobby gets as busy as a beehive during lunch hour, with barristers and solicitors and clerks running about to grab a quick bite before rushing back into afternoon sessions or rushing in from the outside or rushing back out to their chambers and offices. It takes very little to lose someone in a crowd like that. Francis may equally decide to hang back and converse with a work acquaintance he ran into in the hallway and not emerge until after James has left. It is possible. It is fine. James is not here for him. He is here because he is grabbing lunch with someone, who also happened to be in court this morning, and he wanted to make life as convenient for her as possible. Because he is a good friend.

God, he is such a crap friend.

Appalled, he stops himself, closes his eyes, and does his best to take a slow, full breath. He has missed the hubbub of a courthouse, all that noise around him, the indistinct chatter and the clacking of a dozen heels against the hard floor. It is great to finally get out of the flat, to put on a good suit and take on the world, and these…unfortunate thoughts and sensations he is experiencing are the after ripples of trauma, nothing more. He may not have had his head on straight for the last week, in a manner most unfamiliar and unbecoming to himself, but he has also barely been able to get into the shower without triggering a full blown panic attack, so there is that.

Once he almost called Francis actually, to come and sit outside the bathroom door, only stopping himself, grinding his teeth, and getting on with it because he knew Francis would come. And it would be just a tad awkward, wouldn’t it, what with the guy he is currently seeing also presently in his flat. He has not at all considered that he could go and shower in Francis’s flat instead, because that would be, in one word, insane.

He casts his gaze around the space, looking for Marianne and Marianne only, when–

"James?"

James turns around, his breath caught in his throat all of a second like a helpless, small bird.

He is here. He has found James—he always does—he is already making his way towards him, parting an undulating crowd like Moses with the Red Sea as he walks.

He is wearing the tie.

James has seen a bit of him in the past week but not much. Chris, the dear that he is, has been staying over to look after him, and Francis has apparently given up on the one man war of attrition he has been waging against the parliamentary Conservative Party, one MP at a time, for now. Possibly, for good and for good reason.

But there is no recrimination in his eyes or his voice now as he says "don’t tell me you are back at work already." Just a bit of concern and an ocean of affection. Francis is glad to see him and he isn't even trying to hide it, the bastard.

“No, I am only here to meet a friend for lunch.”

James's voice sounds gravelly, distant, to his own ears.

Is it as simple as that? When you realise what a moron you are being buy me another tie in apology—a very expensive one, he had huffed, and James has, but after everything he has put Francis through, after everything Francis has done for him– Francis is such a Labour man at heart he has nationalised forgiveness. James has to suppress a laugh at that thought, which makes him cough instead. Immediately a hand comes to rest on his arm. Gentle, steadfast—like air to him when he could not breathe. Like air to him now.

"I won't overdo it mum, I promise," he replies gallantly, doing his best not to shiver. Then, "how are you? How is your day?"

"Not bad, actually."

The declaration takes Francis by surprise, James can tell—not the words that fall out of his mouth per se, but the truth of it. Neither of them has mentioned the tie. James does not think it is in his imagination only that Francis is standing a little straighter today, charisma oozing from him in every direction. James has been trying to tell him for ages what a difference dressing well makes for one's psyche, only for his plea to fall on deaf ears. Perhaps he has finally seen the light.

"I should say," Francis starts, "thank–" but he is interrupted with the sound of a ringing phone. His phone. Bugger. He takes it out, he glances at the screen, and James knows their time has come to an end before Francis opens his mouth to say, with such a note of apology in his voice,

"I am sorry, I need to take this."

"Yes, of course. I won't keep you." God knows he couldn't if he tried—keep him. Have him. James gestures towards the sliding doors with a brave smile. "My friend should be here any minute, I will catch you back home."

Francis looks at him for another second, with his ridiculously blue eyes, like the Mediterranean on a summer afternoon, serene and beautiful and filled with light, and James wonders what would happen if he said– whoever is not calling is not nearly as important as me. Ignore them and take me to lunch. He doesn't. He may be a bastard but he is not that much of a bastard. Francis nods, answers the phone, and starts to walk again, this time towards and through the doors.

Only once Francis is gone does he stumble to the nearest bench, reaching for the rescue inhaler in his pocket because his traitorous lungs are refusing to let enough air into his body. He closes his eyes and still all he can see are Francis’s eyes, a near perfect match for the colour of the tie, of the pocket square. His hand on James’s arm. His hand wiping James’s tears and reaching for James’s hand. His hand wrapped around–

Oh, this is bad, he thinks, because there is a gaping, bleeding hole where his heart used to be.

He does not get crushes. He does not fall in love; he is not a teenager, thank you very much. Let alone with straight men.

Let alone with Francis Crozier.

He chuckles to himself. You save a man's life and this is your reward apparently. No matter. Marianne will come and find him in a minute. James will greet her then and smile and have lunch. And he will teach himself, perhaps on the cab ride back, to be for once, grateful with what he has been so generously given—and to not ask for more.

[skitskatdacat63]

2023 Brazilian Grand Prix - Podium - Fernando Alonso

[lgbtlunaverse]

I'm chewing on this and my thoughts aren't fully formulated yet but i have been having Thinking about and jgy and his definitions of harm and his moral framework and generally he seems to very much come down on the side of consequentialism- what with him considering himself as having "murdered" qin su when her death was unambiguously a suicide. But she killed herself because of things he did, so even if he never wanted her to die or took actions toward that, he considers himself as having killed her.

And yet every single time he is confronted about his actions, he is incredibly quick to emphasize that he had no choice, he didn't really want to, there was just no other way out. It's a complete 180 from the motive not mattering at all to it mattering a LOT.

And that has led me to me believe that when he's talking about his lack of choices he's- the uncharitable might call it lying for sympathy, but that's not it, jin guangyao does sincerely believe he had no other choice (except, as nmj so nicely put it, sacrificing himself) but he's also not defending himself with full sincerity. It's more that his motive doesn't really matter much to him as a matter of morality, but he knows it matters to other people. He is not genuinely defending himself and arguing he doesn't deserve blame, he is arguing he shouldn't be punished. There seems to be a very strict barrier in his mind between accountability in the moral sense (what does he hold blame for) and in accountability in the practical sense (What punishment should he get.)

Which makes perfect sense for a guy who is well aware that the justice system will never actually be just for him. That any punishment levied toards him within the legal and politcal system he lives in will primarily be because of who he is and who his mother was and not because of what he actually did. Yes he thinks what he did was wrong yes he thinks that is morally repugnant no he shouldn't get punished for it.

And well. I don't agree that people should just get away with mass murder because the judicial system sucks but... is he wrong? I mean, what did him in at the end? Payment for his actual crimes? No. It was a lie that was believed just because he was the one being accused.

[screamting]

I do genuinely feel like one drawback of specifically modern superhero comics is that sometimes you read a run and it's like... you know when game of thrones was on and they were like "yeah if we need characters to talk but don't have anything for them to do we just have them talk during a sex scene" ?

Sometimes it feels like superhero comics are that with fighting.

Didn't know what to have happening on screen. Gonna just have this conversation with our *fists.*

[lace-sutures]

@mr-urple is the best brother ever and i love him so much and he isnt making me write this at all because im totally not indebted to him forever and ive already given my soul so go and tell him how amazing and awesome he is because hes just that great

[n3ongold3n]

Ngl i'd love to see him in a cool harness 😅💚

[raspberryjellybrains]

image I.D. below the cut

image description start:

[a promotional picture of Sam and Dean Winchester, Sam on the left and Dean on the right, their images from circa 2010. They both stare challengingly into the camera with their arms crossed, though Dean also holds a large blade. The background is a two lane blacktop with an older style of power line and corn on either side. At the top and bottom are flames. Sam says "im restricting", Dean says "and im bingeing" and the flaming text gif at the bottom reads "the eating disorder brothers.]

image description end.

[balkanradfem]

In consensual sex they don't say no and seem fairly comfortable anything else is feminazi obfuscation that nobody else cares about

their failure to present sexual boundaries should have been their parent's job but now it's theirs they're a big independent woman now i'm sure they can handle it

I was gonna delete this on sight but 'its their parents job' has me crying laughing, you really pushed it all the way to 'if I rape her its her mothers fault'

rapists mantra everyone, don't feel uncomfortable blaming your rapist and calling it rape, because he feels comfortable pushing blame all the way to your parents, because there's always responsibility on everyone else to stop the rapist, but rapist himself is innocent little baby who just didn't understand someone's sexual boundaries. Going off of this logic he can rape any woman abused in childhood and its her abusive parents fault and he's blameless because how would he not rape someone who struggles to say no. Her experience and perspective don't even matter in this. She isn't even a person to him.