#i hope it's not too bleh

[hairupintheair]

Never Leave Me

Summary: Viva is working through some stuff, okay? Word Count: 1,263

It's short enough that I'll just post the fic under a cut, if you prefer to read here rather than over on Ao3:

Sometimes they agree on a sleepover, and she's always giddy with the thought of it. With the thought that they now have this, a whole lifetime of this, to look forward to: parties in the daylight and nights spent laughing and close. That it wasn't taken from her the way she thought everything else had been.

Her family, her friends, her people, her home. Everything gone. But not anymore. Like the laws of physics changed. Like reality twisted itself into something that shouldn't be possible, something she doesn't deserve but will do anything to keep. How can you thank someone enough for coming back from the dead? How can you be worthy enough to earn back a family stolen from you?

The first time she's ecstatic. Even knowing what comes with the night, with the darkness and the quiet. It doesn't matter. She has a sister again, and she's not going to let anything get in the way of that. Not ever again.

And then the night is here and so is Poppy, and it's wonderful and fun. There's music and snacks and giggled confessions by the mushrooms' soft glow for hours, long into the night... But then the talk starts to peter out into exhausted yawns and sleepy murmurs, and the darkness starts closing in on Viva's back, pressing against her spine like a heavily breathing animal.

And Poppy boasts that she can go all night, that they're going to stay up to watch the sun rise together, but Viva can see she's already fighting it. Her eyes momentarily close like a shade being drawn down over a window, until she jolts back up and they fly open. But it's a losing battle and Viva can feel it, like a vise tightening around her chest.

Finally Poppy's halfhearted murmurs trail off into nothing, drifting off even in the middle of her sentence, and Viva's own voice stutters to a nervous halt. The only light comes from a cluster of small blue mushrooms casting a faint glow around the room. The pod is silent. Her ear twitches. From somewhere far away something in the forest croaks.

She feels her heartbeat growing in her chest, faster, louder. Cranked up just as if something has been waiting for this exact moment, biding its time all day, waiting through the parties and the excitement, ready to pounce and dig its claws into her as soon as everything slows. A voice that stalks her mind for the quiet moments in order to wrap her in insidious words of her weaknesses and failings. Her heartbeat now is loud and clamoring. She presses her hand against her chest to try to contain it, fearful that it will escape and wake Poppy and reveal all her worthlessness.

She doesn't want to think about it. Doesn't want to remember the suffocating dust of the tunnels or the thudding of giant feet overhead, the worry that the next moment, the next step, would bury them alive. They say she fought off Bergens that day, but she knows the truth. She knows that all she's good at is running away, with fear taking up every space inside of her. A small, scared animal fleeing for its life.

And during the day there were new trolls to meet and everything new to see, keeping the voice at bay, but now it's just the two of them in the pod with the darkness and the quiet, and Viva swears she can taste dust in the air that a moment ago was only scented with marshmallows and nachos.

Her eyes dart around the room. Her sister is flopped on the floor next to her, sprawled in a sleeping bag of pink-tinted leaves, head pillowed on her arms. She's so still and so, so quiet. Not like it should be. Not like her at all. Not like she's alive and full of life and sunlight. Like she's...

Before Viva knows it her hair is wrapped around Poppy's waist, pulling her close, and she presses her face into Poppy's side to try to control her shuddering skin, her panicked breathing. One ear presses against Poppy's chest to listen to the air going slowly, easily, steadily in and out of her lungs.

The strong beat of her heart and the breath in her body combine to make a song that drives back the dark voice lurking in the silence, and Viva wraps her hair around both of them and her arms circle around her sister's waist because inside the golden cocoon she's HERE and she's SAFE. She's sleeping and that means she won't hear the mocking voice that lives in the back of Viva's mind, reminding her that she's not good enough, she's never been good enough to stop the most terrible things from happening, and now that she's been given this gift, it can be taken away again at any moment.

Viva couldn't let that happen. She couldn't lose anyone, ever again. She'd die first.

But the voice rises up against the tempo of Poppy's heartbeat, a counterpoint of cruel laughter that destroys the gentle song. Mocking. Taunting. Reminding Viva that no matter how good she gets, how hard she works to protect everyone, the silence will always be waiting for her, and the uncertainty will rush in to fill the quiet void any time Viva stops. Any time she's not big and vivacious and loud. It's waiting for her, there in her own mind. Where she'll never escape it. Because you can't escape the truth.

And then Poppy is suddenly awake and staring at her with the roundest, widest eyes Viva has ever seen. Viva cringes, forces her wince to morph into a big, toothy grin. Her voice takes off without consent and words prattle down between them like raindrops, all about the fun they had and the more fun they will have the next time, and the time after that, and the time after, and the--

And then Poppy's hands are on her shoulders, on her cheeks. Their eyes are inches apart, and she presses a soft kiss to Viva's forehead, between her eyebrows. And Viva lets out a sob of relief as the words falling from her lips and the mocking voice in her head both fall silent, at last.

She waits for the next attack. A reminder of another failure. For something. Anything. But the horrible voice is gone now, as banished as when she used to ask her daddy to look for Bergens under her bed before she went to sleep. And Poppy is looking at her with a light in her eyes like she understands, like she can see the horror in the back of Viva's mind and doesn't judge her for it, doesn't think she's crazy or a failure. Viva's quiet sobs turn into a pained wail, a tidal wave she didn't realize how desperately she was trying to hold back. Poppy's hair threads through Viva's until the two of them are wrapped in a spiral gold and pink cocoon that shakes with the force of her cries.

It takes too long for the torrent to peter out. Her throat is raw and abraded, her vision blurred. She has to speak. Viva gathers her courage, forces raspy words out between sniffles and shuddering breaths. And Poppy's touch is like cool rainwater and her words are promises that wash away old grit and dust from her wounds, until there's nothing left inside the cocoon that isn't strength and warmth and love and healing tears.

"Never leave me. Please."

"I never, ever will."

[dootznbootz]

I currently have writer's block and fucked around and made Iliad and Odyssey memes :'D Some look like "repeats" but aren't. Just different scenarios/people. Enjoy!

There's... A LOT. I don't care if you pick out your favorites! I put this all in one post as I don't want to spam the tags! :D

[neilarmstrongssmile]

Ok, I need to talk about it. The Five x Lila thing is uncomfortable and kinda gross to me. But mabye I'm not seeing the vision/my discomfort is not the reason it's a bad idea necesarilly. So... here are some reasons besides that on why it's just a bad idea:

1. Why give Five a love story at all? He had a love story, has had it the whole show - love for his family. I'm not saying he doesn't deserve romantic love (with an actual human), but knowing it's the last season and knowing they have only 6 eposodes mabye don't? Introducing the romance in the second to last episode? And developing it through a montague? It's not enough time

2. What's the purpose of the subway station to the story? The only characters on it are Five and Lila (later also Lila's family + Claire), they don't accomplish anything with it, don't find anything useful, don't learn anything new. It's an excuse to have them get lost there, so that they could fall in love. IT'S THE LAST SEASON! Don't waste a cool location like that! Why didn't other characters get there? Why didn't they get Bennifer there and put Ben on one train and Jennifer on another while they think of another permanent safe solution? Use the subway station for actual plot or get rid of it - and that way we don't have the out-of-character falling in love crap

3. Ok, thay are lost, it's been years, they are loosing hope, they are clinging to the only other real thing. There's no guilt? No talk of Diego, Lila's children? There's no false start? They just kiss, remark it's not weird and live idyllicly together? I don't need depressing scenes of them crying for their family and hating themselves for being together, but what we got was not a relationship created by necessity but a normal falling in love story as if Lila isn't MARRIED CURRENTLY to Five's BROTHER! There should be some weirdness, some discussion of what exactly their relationship is, what would happen if they managed to come back. It's inconsistent (with previous characterisation but that's another thing) - are they genuinly in love, or using each other? Is Lila trully happy and in love, or pretending, while being desperate to come back to reality with Diego and her kids? They seem really in love, but after Five finally (5 months!?!?? WTF that's gross) shows Lila the notebook and she leaves she makes it seem as if she's choosing Diego and her marriage. But then she cannot answer 'Do you love him?', gives Five longing glances, is holding his hand... I know that she could be confused and unsure but it doesn't seem as if she doesn't know, it seems like she acts in the way for all the scenes to be dramatic even if it contradicts what happened previously.

4. So they manage to go back, Lila doesn't immedietly confess to Diego, and when the truth comes out Five is mad? He is in the wrong! He went after his brother's wife, he should be apologetic, he should feel weird to be in Diego's home, not combative. Yeah, your love life is complicated and not everything is roses after your return but it's on you YOU WENT AFTER A MARRIED WOMAN! WITH KIDS! And you're mad at her husband for being mad at you? No, he should be ashamed. And ok, get mad later, say that you were finally happy, and now it's gone, scream it at Lila or Diego, but not from the get go. That makes him seem like such a scumbag .

5. You wanted Five to have a romance. In my opinion unnecessary, but do you. You wanted it to be with Lila. In my opinion very weird choice, but sure. Why have Lila and Diego married? We have a 6 year time skip. They could have been just co-parenting and no longer together (and never married). Why make a subplot where Diego thinks Lila is cheating on him (as a joke) to then make it a reality? Why not have Diego and Lila have this season to grow close as friends and co-parent as a unit after years of conflict and have Diego be supportive of this weird incestuous relationship? (TUA unfortunately is no stranger to that, and UA already has weird and complicated relationships all around) instead of falling apart in such a fashion? IT'S THE LAST SEASON at the very least have all our main characters go out without conflict with each other. Five's lat words to Diego were 'I'm gonna kill you'.

It seems they made this whole thing as messy as possible, but then didn't dive deep into the mess to have some actual drama, didn't adress the mess, didn't vindicate any of those characters. And if you're just creating mess and don't engage with it, and it's THE LAST SEASON mabye you should've just left it alone - Lila and Diego together and happy, and Five doing everything to be with his family, safe. I'm dissapointed.

[temeyes]

yet another sloppy painting w/ ghost

[harukapologist]

a cute detail in haruka's room

This turned into a half-ramble half-headcanon post so I apologize for how messy it is lol

While watching undercover for the first time I noticed that there seems to be a sketchbook in Haruka's room, in which a colorful tree is drawn

Haruka seems to be hyperempathetic, and usually hyperempathetic people are quite artistic in their worldview and their hobbies, so I have a headcanon that Haruka likes to draw and/or paint, as a hobby and coping mechanism, a little escapism (especially since Haruka's no.1 coping mechanism with traumatic/stressful events seems to be denial—I'm going to elaborate on that in a different post because I've thought about that very, VERY often, and it partially explains why he acted the way he did in T2, to me) (I'm projecting a little bit because I kin Haruka and I'm a (hobbyist) artist myself but teehee)

When he was asked about his hobbies in his T1 interrogation, he just said he liked to talk to the other prisoners, but I think that's because he's insecure about his art being bad or unconventional (it looks like he used crayons or simple markers for the tree drawing. And also, the leaves are all different colors... perhaps I'm overanalyzing a simple scene, but it seemed to me that it's kinda symbolizing how he views & interacts with the world differently because of his neurodivergence. Still, the drawing is quite pretty imo, and he used the colors very well, so even though it's a tree with unusual colors, it still looks beautiful; even though he's different, it doesn't mean he's inferior, and there's still beauty despite how much he struggles to fit in. You know?)

Also also the way a lot of frames in weakness have hyper-realistic, vibrant backgrounds, as well as the blood being colorful (though that appears elsewhere too, like in Muu's MV) it really convinced me that Haruka sees the world through the lens of an artist, a passionate person who feels things very intensely.

Since the prisoners can request anything, I like to think Haruka secretly requested a sketchbook and some crayons to continue his hobby (I'm not sure if he can do that since it's unclear how the prisoners request & receive stuff (I'm a relatively new Milgram fan so I might've forgotten/not have seen an explanation if there's any ueueu))

I like to think he keeps his sketchbook to himself at first, but slowly opens up to the other prisoners about his hobby. First Fuuta and Mu, then maybe Mikoto, then the others (and they're all very nice to him & praise his art!!! Especially Mikoto I think. he would be very excited to see all of Haruka's art!!! Supportive big brother figure) :3c

[sualne]

started reading trigun

[dovesick]

red eyed reindeer

[mellonyheart]

I've seen some short and sweet devilgrams before but this was very short and rather light on the sweet.

And I was looking forward to it too.

[spade-club]

Oh uhm. We broke up by the way.... 🎉 :/

[luzclarita57]

Sketching my favorite bitchfaced Ghostface.

The headache is in this room with me right now.

[that-was-anticlimactic]

okay bsd rarepair enthusiasts,,, have we considered margaret mitchell x higuchi ichiyou👀

[rock-hoarder]

tic attack fashion ✨✨

i'm exhausted

[spock-smokes-weed]

Harris is throwing away any good will with young voters if she picks a staunch Zionist to be her VP

Young people already don’t really like her because they don’t trust that she’ll be any better on Palestine than Biden, but picking someone who’s over and over again pleaded their loyalty to Israel is really just giving a middle finger to the youth vote that’s helped boost her since the switch :/

we don’t know the vp pick yet, but rn the media is saying it’ll probably be Shapiro, and if it is him, that’s incredibly disheartening. I just want this nightmare to end and it’s so disgusting to see the Democratic Party time and time again dig their heels in on the subject of US support to Israel :/ 

[r0semultiverse]

I don’t know, me personally, I just think two adults playing pretend & pretending being gross together with full open communication & consent between them is harmless, but maybe that’s just me.

[nctsworld]

hey cee i don't think i tell u this enough but. i hope you're doing well and thank u for being such a constant presence on my dash <3 like all nct gifs i see are from you, and occasionally i go "oh another #glasses! must be cee" or "oh cee's talking about her wedding again" and idk it's nice!

awww kimchi!! that's so sweet of you to say T_T i'm glad i can be a nice constant presence on your dash!!! <3

[be-good-to-bugs]

FUCK YEAH its raining