#idk i am just thinking. does it make sense

[panchulien]

So that using Price as leverage idea against Nik.

Would Nik’s captors also kidnap Price or simply just threaten to do so?

Would they keep Price somewhere separate so Nik couldn’t speak to him or would they just threaten to shoot Price in front of him?

When would Nik crack?

ooh it could go in a lot of ways and they're all so good i can't choose 😵‍💫

But, if you want Nikolai to break, let's go with both of them being captured. It's Nik they want, it's information that only he has. (C'mon, with the things that guy has been through, I'm sure SOMEONE out there wants this man dead/captured lol) So the only way to get to him is by Captain Price.

I think if they simply just "threatened" to harm Price while he's not there, Nikolai wouldn't budge. Its nothing new, he sees through their bluff, he knows by the time they get to John, John and the boys would already be alert. (seeing as Nikolai is missing)

Now, where to keep Price. I feel like it wouldn't be their first time dealing with something like this (being captured), and they both trust the others ability to make it out of there soon. That is, considering they're separate. Because John's also tough to crack, he wouldn't make it easy on them.

But put a bloody and bruised John Price in front of Nikolai, and that's when shit gets serious. This man has endured all sorts of torture before, but this is by far the worst. The one thing he values the most in this world, right there in front of him, being threatened.

Price knows this, he can't do anything about it but beg Nikolai not to say anything. There is too much on the line, too risky. He doesn't care what happens to him so long as the captors don't win. Maybe he can't speak, maybe he can, but he's still begging Nikolai not to say a word.

Nikolai on the other hand lost all rational thinking the moment they brought Price into the room. He can't think straight, his head is ringing, heart pounding. It breaks Prices heart to see the man in such a state. He's bruised up also, but the sheer look of terror on his face when Price enters the room is something he'll never forget. Nikolai is seething. How dare they take something so beautiful and ruin it. Nobody touches the Captain.

If he was by himself, he'd already be on his way home. But now he's got nothing. No escape plans, no tricks up his sleeve. There is Price's life on the line and his only hope is the 141 finding them soon. He doesn't doubt they're searching, he just prays they make it quick.

So.. he'd maybe resist at first. Coming back with smart replies, trying to negotiate. Eyes flickering between the men and Price, who's currently on the floor, blood dripping from his head. Trying to stall, just enough to not let anything out before the boys arrive. But each passing minute his hope wears thin, with each blow Price takes his heart stops. He can't do anything but watch. And when exactly does he break? The moment the muzzle touches Prices head, the world stops spinning.

For the first time since he arrived there, his tough guy act drops, his voice cracks as he shouts, "Wait... Please." Theres a click from the gun.

Price barely looks up at him, trying to stay focused and not pass out, voice hoarse as he whispers; "Nik.. Don't."

Nikolai's reasoning is long gone, he just begs them. "I'll tell you. I will! Just.. put the gun down."

Nikolai's tears stained face and horrified expression is the last thing Price sees before a gun hits the back of his head and knocks him out cold.

[prongsandpetals]

no one asked for this but i’m saying it anyway because i am tired of this grandpa.

i dont hate jegulus or their shippers. personally, it doesnt make sense to me and my moral compass trickles into fiction meaning i dont have much interest in any of the slytherins. it could also be the fact that when people would create oc’s for james in their fics 10 yrs ago and made lily a raging bitch id be fighting them all in the comments- a fight or flight response that now has spread to jegulus- but thats neither here nor there. it brings people joy and they are fictional characters, and it doesnt physically hurt anyone!

but there is something to be said about some of the less savoury implications it has had on the fandom. it feels as though jily is in its own subfandom sort of pushed to the side, leaving two mlm ships to dominate. unfortunately a lottt of female characters have been forgotten or pushed aside because of this. a lot of people who joined the fandom not that long ago either dont know or forget that this fandom was not built on either wolfstar (who i love), or jegulus. yes, they popularised them, but this fandom has revolved around jily for over 10 years. not to mention many of these fics were written from lilys pov, meaning there was so much more depth put into the girls characters. to erase this is to erase the fandoms history.

the diversifying of characters is something amazing that has come more recently with the popularisation of the fandom and thats one of the good parts!! however if someone still views aaron taylor johnson as their james, that doesn’t make them a racist - the man has been james since at least 2006.

another (smaller) thing ive seen is someone will post a song or a photo and attribute it to a jily moment with harry that we can realistically see happening canonically and a comment will say something along the lines of: “this but its how james felt when regulus (insert something that did not happen here)” idk if its the autism but god those always get me a little bit, especially when it includes harry.

similarly, it feels as though people who ship jily are assumed to be less progressive. as a lesbian jily shipper i can’t disagree more. just because a ship is a straight ship does not make it a bad ship - i think we can all agree there are so many amazing LGBTQ+ ships out there now for everyone to enjoy. it does feel quite strange to me to place the two characters who created the child that there are seven books about into different ships, but people like them so its chill!! but when its just complete eradication or discontent with the canon ship… ;(

i also think that to have jegulus be endgame (except aus), a lot of james’s insanely important character traits literally HAVE to be erased. his hatred for death eaters and fight for justice, his unending loyalty to his friends - especially sirius- his black and white view on right and wrong, all of these traits become warped and stretched when it comes to jegulus. of course there isnt much canon to go off of so when people disregard it entirely i can understand it to a degree. but when you erase the important canon points we have on their characters, we are basically just creating oc’s with real characters names.

another thing that i find irksome is the fetishisation of these mlm ships- if youre gonna ship two men together do it right!! why are you calling regulus a cute little baby victim and james a big strong protector!! let them be complex and messy or dont do it at all! not to mention the erasure of a lot of wlw ships... lowkey gives girl who has gay boy best friend that thinks lesbians are weird… anyways off topic! ive heard people say its not fetishisation, its because the female characters arent written with depth- that’s why people read jegulus and wolfstar! okay? go give the girls some depth? regulus is a character we basically know nothing about canonically and youve turned him into a fully fleshed character who is now a lot of peoples favourite - it can be done with the girls too. there is such emphasis placed on wolfstar and jegulus for their deep, tragic love stories - and the marauders friendship in general. the gryffindor girls are right there. dorlene is right there. marylene is right there.

and if it truly werent fetishisation, i would argue that it can be a romanticisation of toxic relationships. a lot of people dislike jily because there is no “angst”. the angst is fighting in a war at 21 years old. the angst is lily and james’s differing blood statuses and the implications this has on their lives. the angst is having a prophecy hanging over their unborn child’s head that forces them into hiding. the angst is being betrayed by their best friend, leading them to sacrifice themselves for their family and the wizarding world. the angst is literally right there, but because their relationship is healthy and happy- one of the only things in their lives that is not full of pain- they are deemed boring.

again, i dont hate jegulus. i especially dont dislike anyone who likes the ship and gets something out of it. but there is so much change this fandom has gone through since their introduction and popularisation that has made interacting with the fandom as a whole almost unbearable sometimes, and thats what i do hate.

all in all, multishippers definitely have the most fun.

[giantkillerjack]

Okay, so

Yes, get their asses!!!!!!! 👏👏👏👏

Idk what deer you are talking about? She didn't kill a deer, did she? She saved someone "They" were trying to claim, thus taking something from "Them."

I didn't know about the influences on this movie! That is very interesting!! It suddenly makes a lot more sense that the movie was validating the shitty conspiracy theories of true crime podcasts when such theories hurt people irl! (Kudos to my wife catching that as a shitty thing before I did.) The whole film is linked to another gross conspiracy theory!

This film is well-acted and well-shot, but the scariest and coolest part of the whole movie is literally in the YouTube trailer thumbnail, so it's all downhill from there really. In some ways, this movie could have been an email. An email with a 5-second gif of the scary tree head/face.

I think the fact that the film is so competently produced made it extra confusing when the writing didn't pan out in a good way. It's lacking so many of the tropes we associate with trashy horror, so I think I just assumed it was going to be good, but... ???

I am not sure the filmmakers actually had any idea of what they wanted to say, outside of a general engagement with the idea of trauma. Which makes their use of traumatic imagery feel, in retrospect, flimsy, gross, and unnecessary.

Especially when the moral of the story seems to be, like, "sometimes there are powerful forces that horrifically consume people, and even if it your job to help those people, you should instead let them suffer and disappear." Like, not every story needs to have a moral. But this story DOES have one. And from what I can tell, that's what it is.

8. But more than anything, I just can't get over the fact that they made a movie about nature and national parks THAT FUNCTIONS AS AN ARGUMENT AGAINST PRESERVING NATURE.

Literally, it seems like the only way to stop "Them" from sadistically kidnapping/murdering a bunch of innocent people for forever... is to drain the lake, fill the sky with light pollution to obscure the stars, and then clear out the dense vegetation to make way for roads!! Which feels eminently reasonable when the alternative is to continuing feeding innocent children into an eternal nightmare realm!

And just-- Why??? Why make a movie with this messaging?? Ms. Sutherland, are you trying to develop a shopping mall on this land like a Scooby-Doo villain? Did a national park spit in your coffee?? Have you not been paying attention to the dire state of nature conservation that has been a constant presence in North America ever since white people started showing up here??? Like, what is UP, girl?

watched lovely dark and deep and i'm so grumpy about it

it's important not to overexplain a horror concept because overexplaining or providing too much information can end up removing the fear aspect from your premise

but here it's just like. ok. why would she do that though

if she doesn't want to shoot someone in order to escape, why would she just stay in the woods and let it continue to keep other people? are we to assume that killing a deer is equivalent to a human life - and if so… what about many areas of wilderness, where hunting is permitted? what about the fact that most national parks do allow for some animal death even if not hunting, like necessary deer culling?

especially because this story is explicitly linking itself to and referencing the reddit SAR series and separately paulides' missing 411 work, it seems absolutely absurd to me for the story here to take the premise that the rules of the national park are somehow according to a spiritual law or practice or whatever set by "them" rather than a human thing put on signs to remind people not to litter or to accidentally cause damage to ecosystems within the parks

the problem with some of these films is that they're very attached to a white american's idea of ecology and particularly to like. nature-based spiritualism

and subsequently it ends up like "WELL IF YOU KILL AN ANIMAL… THE FOREST WILL KILL YOU BACK… LAW OF NATURE…" and it's like. no, animals die. humans die. death is fine and normal. humans are part of the broader ecosystem.

if you want as a storyteller to ascribe a higher meaning to humans dying or humans killing, you have to do it for a purpose or with some sort of reasoning in mind - trespassing, spilling blood on specific, sacred ground (not large swathes of wilderness), attach a reason as to why humans are more important than any other animal, particularly any other predator or hunter

because otherwise you end up with this fucking nonsense that's like "mmm mother earth wants us to go vegan because she feels bad for the deer <3" and it's absolutely fucking facile.

[egophiliac]

the lovers, reversed

(aka I'm still freaking out about Jou)

[rarepairnation]

when boromir died for merry and pippin and then pippin saves faramir's life. when pippin says i offer you my service in payment for this debt. when he offers it to denethor but really it's to gondor and to boromir and to the man that denethor once was. when boromir saving pippin's life directly means that pippin saves faramir's life and literally...to boromir, that would've been enough, to have his brother live. for gondor that is enough, to have their captain returned to them.

[gojosbf]

what is also interesting about yuuji's domain expansion is that sukuna looks more like when he was in yuuji's body, it is not his real form neither how he looked when he was in megumi's body, it's almost like he's a part of yuuji and we are seeing sukuna through his eyes, that yuuji will always associate sukuna with himself. it almost tells you the amount of guilt, blame and responsibility he's been carrying, also maybe through this dissection he means to set megumi's soul and body free.

[beanghostprincess]

I will forever love seeing Luffy and Nami holding Zoro's swords. He's so protective of those three but it's not even because he fears something might happen to them, but because he's scared something might happen to the crew and himself if he doesn't have them with him. They're like extra limbs. The ones he uses to fight and protect and breathe. He feels uneasy whenever his swords aren't around him, and that is just a fact. You can't deny that he feels comfort in having them by his side at all times, knowing that he'll be able to protect the crew from any dangers. They're tied to his heart and soul in a way that if he loses sight of them he might actually lose himself too. So he does not enjoy seeing his swords in somebody else's hands. They can disappear, he will find them. They can run away, he will follow. They can break, he trusts them not to but if they do, he will keep going carrying their bond with him still. But he doesn't like seeing them in somebody else's hands because those are his swords. His limbs. His heart. His soul. It's just not right. It never feels right. But.

But.

But sometimes Luffy acts like he knows what he's doing and actually asks for permission instead of just taking what he wants. As if crossing Zoro's boundaries would be unforgivable, when he knows Zoro would give him anything he wanted to take from him. But he asks. He asks, with a careful, polite, deep voice Zoro isn't used to hearing. But it always ends with the softest of smiles and the petition reaches a place inside of Zoro's heart that he just knows has also touched his swords. So he lets him, because how could he not, and he runs his fingers through all of them. Amazed. Astonished. Respectfully talking to them as if they could hear him. And they can. Zoro knows they hear and feel and love and crave and long for his captain's touch. He knows, because he does too. Because who wouldn't? Luffy holds them in a way he never holds anything else- Carefully. Like they aren't his. Like befriending somebody he fears might reject him. Like taking hold of Zoro's heart and holding him so gently in case he might break him. He worships them as if he weren't the god in this relationship. He looks handsome, too. Not pretty. Not cute. Handsome. Mature. His hat covers his adventurous gaze but leaves his mischievous grin for the whole world to see. And yet, the swordsman trusts him enough. Without any look or any word. He knows Luffy's face by heart, he realizes, now that he can picture his eyes quite too perfectly under his hat. His skin glistens under the sun and his tender fingers hold the sword with so much clumsiness it looks dumb. He doesn't know how to hold them, yet they don't want to move away from him. It's clumsy but it takes over them. Maybe it's his haki. Maybe it's the effect the future king of the pirates has. Zoro thinks it's just him. Luffy. And his heart stops the second Luffy smiles, as if he had just heard the sword respond to him. He wants to kiss him. Bite him. Let him bite back and draw blood and eat him. Let him hold him the way he holds the swords but tighter. Closer. Maybe he's in love. Zoro. With Luffy. It's not a maybe. Who is he trying to trick? He knows he is in love. With the way he smiles and the way he holds and the way he wants but respects and loves. It's funny like that, the fact that Luffy keeps being so careful when Zoro would let him tear his heart apart and eat it if he so desired. It's funny that the swords love him with such gentleness when they often demand power. Perhaps kindness is the most powerful weapon of all or, at least, Luffy's most powerful skill. Zoro hates it when somebody else holds them because they don't own them. They don't own him. He doesn't even own his swords, anyway. Nobody can. They're his the same way he's theirs, just with a bit more dominance and respect. But Luffy isn't owning them. He's praying to them. Talking to them. Befriending them. Loving them. And they would bow to him if he so desired. Zoro knows they would, as fierce as they are and violent as they seem and as sharp as they cut. They'd bow to him because Zoro would too. The uneasiness does not exist when Luffy is the one to hold them because, if Zoro had to give out his soul for somebody to take care of, that would be Luffy. And if he has to be unprotected. Naked. Bare in front of a thousand soldiers. He will if it's Luffy the one fighting instead.

Sometimes Nami wants to hold them just to feel what it's like to be in Zoro's shoes. It's a stupid reason. He refuses to let her do it as an instinctive reaction at first. She doesn't seem as interested in following the protocol as Luffy is, but she knows where to stop and she knows what to say to get on Zoro's nerves, anyway. She's equally as fierce. Equally as sharp. He won't let her hold any cursed sword, but it's not like she wants to. She's smarter than that. Careful and respectful but not that interested in the swords and what they mean, more in how they feel. Zoro gets it. Kind of. Somehow. She says something about always letting them eat her precious tangerines, so he should humor her by letting her hold Wado at least. She isn't pushing him. He knows she wouldn't. She's just teasing because she knows. She always knows. She knows he will say yes. Because he always does what she says, although he keeps demanding a bit of respect to not be treated like a dog. But Nami never forces him to do anything. He could refuse. She would give up at some point. But there's just something about her- Stubbornness. Strength. Love. So much love and care and worry and anger. And Zoro likes her. She's selfish, too, like a pirate should be. Stronger than Zoro in the ways that matter. Smarter, too, even if he wouldn't admit it out loud. But she leads the way and he follows, not because that's a dog's job, but because he wants to. He trusts her. Something he never thought he would. But he does. She's smart. She leads the way. She knows where they're going. They somehow are the same and totally different at the same time. Zoro grounds Luffy when he gets lost. Nami leads them both so they won't. So there's something about her curiosity that makes him soften. He never knows exactly why he does what she says. Why he indulges her like that. But it's satisfying, for some reason he refuses to read within himself, the satisfactory and pleased grin on her face when he hands her Wado. She's careful with her. Awful at holding her. Bad posture. Great smile. Horrible movements. Beautiful eyes. It's okay, though, he thinks. Wado likes her because Zoro likes her. Nami loses interest within a minute, complaining about the weight and the sudden realization of "you always have this thing in your mouth" which makes her want to give her back. But she stares at her for a whole minute. It isn't her thing, but her eyes spark when the sword is returned to Zoro. Trust. A smile. Thankfulness. Her bangs are getting a bit longer and one strand of hair gets in the middle of her teasing smirk. She says she prefers her clima-tact, but swords are fine, "I guess". "She's pretty" she says. Zoro thinks she is pretty. Nami. In a way he can't quite describe because he has never really been good at that. But she is. Like a blade. Sharp. But in the right hands this time for her not to cut the ones she loves anymore. She hands him a tangerine next, every time he lets her hold his sword. An exchange. "I give you something that matters. You give me something that matters". Zoro wants to say it's not the same, but the tangerine is sweet. Juicy. His fingers then smell strongly of citrus. Almost as similar as steel. If he can feel Nami's heartbeat in every bite, he wonders if she has been able to hear his in the hilt of his sword. Calm. Peaceful. Safe.

Zoro doesn't like seeing his swords in somebody else's hands because those are his swords. His limbs. His heart. His soul. It's just not right. It never feels right. But.

But sometimes it does.

[tenderjock]

the synonym of companion is:

[itspileofgoodthings]

one big thing I’ve learned by 29 is that the Plan, the God’s Plan of it all I mean, is bigger than me and not just bigger than me but also bigger than my understanding of narrative threads and their limitations. And it’s bigger even than just a simple paradox, turning-on-their-head thing way of being bigger. It’s just so vast. And there is so much room for surprise and possibility and hope in that reality.

[theusernameiwantisntavailable]

Tim who can't pull away from his vigilante duties. Who has nearly quit several times but every time it pulls him back like an addiction. And Bernard who can't let him go because he's already lost Darla. He can't do it again, it makes me so unwell

[m-a-r-i--c-h-a-t]

but who told them all my distorted thoughts lmao

[aroaceleovaldez]

i would like to say my ideal PJO adaptation (if i was being physically forced against my will to have to pick a live action adaptation over an animated one for some reason) would be a combo like writing of the musical + casting of the show + visuals of the movies

BUT the show actually does have the playwright for the musical as one of the major writers for like three episodes and that did nothing for it. so...

[oceanwithouthermoon]

another thing i dont like about the belief that soulmates are a strictly romantic thing is like... people in this fandom will be like "aiura and saiki are only not dating because hes aroace" which does not make sense and is weird 😭 so like you think soulmates have to be romantic but it can cancel out if one of them is physically incapable of feeling romantic feelings... which, even though its STRICTLY romantic in your mind, is apparently totally possible and somehow more acceptable than just not dating your "soulmate" because you dont like them like that

"theyre not dating AND hes aroace" makes sense. "theyre not dating BECAUSE hes aroace" does not make sense.

[flowercrowngods]

ronance yearning hours

Mornings like this are becoming Nancy’s favourite thing, with the rising sun painting the room in golden light that always, always lands on Robin, who usually sleeps long past sunrise when she can. Nancy lets her; there’s nowhere for her to go anyway on this slow Saturday morning in Steve’s house, and the boys will only wake in an hour or so.

Nancy has taken to using that time to watch the picture of absolute serenity that is a sleeping Robin, with her cheek smushed into the pillow and her hair falling over her face in a way that never fails to make Nancy smile.

It also never fails to make her fingers twitch, itching to reach out and brush that hair behind her ear and see if her cheek is as smooth to the touch as it looks.

It gets stronger, this urge, with every slow Saturday morning that she wakes in the same bed as her. The journalist inside her wants to find a better word for it, a stronger one, to avoid repetition and ensure clarity. But all the words are big and carry implications for which Nancy is not yet ready.

She refuses to call it longing, this need inside her to touch and linger. She refuses to call it yearning, the way she looks forward to Friday nights at Steve’s with Robin and Eddie, or the way it fills her chest with excitement and giddiness just to think about sharing a bed and waking next to her and watching as all the things that overwhelm Robin on a daily basis are held off for at least another hour yet.

What’s in a word? she’ll scoff when it comes to interviews and articles and hours of agonising over sentence structure and synonyms.

But it’s on mornings like this that she realises that some words require bravery and tenderness rather than simple contemplation and calculation. Some words take time.

Beside her, Robin sighs quietly in her sleep, and Nancy shuffles closer. Because if she can’t be brave with words yet, not even with herself, she can at least be closer.

Using the momentum of a moment unguarded, her right hand comes up before she can stop it, finding a home on Robin’s cheek as she slowly, reverently brushes the hair out of her face and behind her ear. Her touch is light, fingertips ghosting over soft, warm skin — and feeling that softness upon her touch, she wonders if falling in love with Robin would be just as soft, just as gentle; just as warm.

Not a second later, Nancy pulls her hand away as if burned, her heart racing in her chest as if it were signalling her to run, you should be running, i’m racing like you’re running for your life before you’re caught and found out. Nancy balls her hand into a fist and scoots further back on the bed, feeling a heaviness inside her chest that has only been there for a few of these mornings. A fear. A panic.

Because terrible things happen when Nancy Wheeler wonders about love and touch and tenderness. And worse things still, because it’s not supposed to be like this. Not with Robin.

So she stays on her side of the bed, watching the sun dance along Robin’s skin, her hand still warm, the ghost touch of Robin’s soft cheek still present. And she watches, hand cradled to her chest to stop herself from reaching out again. She watches and wonders if maybe she should start using bigger words, because the pit in her chest is growing larger with every passing second and she needs something to fill it.

~*~

It happens again the next week. And the week after that. It seems like the first time broke something in Nancy, or maybe it came alive, but either way she can’t really stop reaching for Robin now. And her repertoire of words is growing with each Saturday morning, too. Longing, aching, yearning — they are classics. But there’s basking, too. Hoping, wishing, and imagining. God, does she imagine.

She imagines Robin’s lips turning up into a smile with Nancy’s hand on her cheek, she imagines her hand coming up to capture Nancy’s and just holding it. Or an image that makes her heart race again: kisses brushed to her knuckles. Or her lips.

She imagines, and she wishes, and she longs. But there’s also belonging. In fact, there’s a whole novel Nancy feels she could write in those early morning hours. A thousand pages dedicated to all the words that exist around Robin Buckley. Words that live inside Nancy; that part is important.

Four weeks have passed and the feelings have only grown stronger, developed more words that will forever remain between her and the morning sun. And Nancy can’t stop herself from trailing the back of her finger along smooth, warm skin, the touch too light to disturb the sleeping beauty.

Sleeping Beauty, who stills and stiffens minutely, but Nancy is too mesmerised to notice until it’s too late.

“You’ve gotta stop this,” Robin whispers, her voice hoarse from sleep, and Nancy’s heart leaps out of her chest in panic and embarrassment.

“Sorry,” she whispers, pulling her hand back toward her chest. She’ll explain. Robin had something on her face that Nancy brushed away, that’s all. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s—

“Or I’ll fall madly in love with you if you don’t.”

Oh. Oh?

Oh.

Nancy swallows as her thesaurus dissolves and all words escape her. She blinks. Robin’s eyes are still closed but there’s a shadow of a smile on her lips, dimpling the skin that Nancy caressed just seconds ago.

There is the chance to just ignore that this ever happened, with Robin not looking at her, not making this moment real yet, on the brink of sleep and wakefulness. All she’ll have to do is wait. It’s the best chance she’s ever going to get, to forget about all this and get over it. Over her. Over whatever she has been building inside herself under the light of the rising sun over the past weeks.

All she’d have to do is remain still and silent and wait for Robin to fall back asleep.

But there was something about big words and bravery, and even though her thesaurus has left her and the thousand pages of things to feel, to say, to do, to think around Robin have torn themselves up because they were bleak and bland and not enough, Nancy feels brave on this particular morning.

Because the world hasn’t ended yet in all those weeks that she’s been thinking about Robin. In fact, the world has stopped ending since she started seeing Robin for who she is. And in a world where bravery is not about surviving, it is always about love.

And maybe that’s what she feels, maybe that’s what she wants, what she allows herself to want when she lays her hand on Robin’s cheek to caress the softest skin and gently comb back the strands of hair that are threatening to fall back over her face again. Her beautiful face that’s pulling up into a smile now — and Nancy is not imagining it. In fact, she’s smiling, too. She’s smiling so wide that a tiny little laugh bubbles past her lips.

Robin scoots closer, eyes squinting open now, as if to make sure this is real. As if she’s feeling the same. As if she meant it, what she said just now.

Nancy swallows thickly when Robin tucks her head under her chin, her body curling into Nancy’s, finding one of her hands to hold it. She still feels too raw, too vulnerable, and she wants to ask. Wants to be sure. Wants it to be real.

“Five more minutes,” Robin says, already on her way back to a deep sleep. “And then we’ll talk about this. I’ll tell you all about this girl I like. Think she might like me back. And she’s so warm.” She buries a little deeper into her side to chase that warmth that is now filling her whole body.

And Nancy gasps out a laugh this time, a tiny one, gentle and tender and all those words that are slowly coming back to her now that Robin is curled into her side and holding her hand. Her free hand comes up to comb through Robin’s hair in steady motions to lull her back into a slumber.

“Sleep,“ she breathes. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Robin hums, cuddling impossibly closer, and Nancy feels herself drifting off again, too. With a smile on her face. For the first time in years.

[fffanii]

09.07.24

hello, you have reached the point in which the queue point has passed the date of ii16 coming out. now you will have to listen to me lose my mind and experience the stages of grief in the tags.

alt ver. ↓

[moe-broey]

Amateur Hour but I gotta outsource this. Aromantics. Heed my call. What is "romantic" love to a non-believer?

Bonus Round if you're not entirely ace -- does experiencing any amount of sexual attraction influence your answer? Also acknowledging that both aro/ace identities exist on a spectrum. Believe me. I am deeply familiar... with so many kinds of spectrums........... 🧍

Also if this breaches containment It's Not That Serious........... just a personal question. For a friend. Me 🙂‍↕️