#if you’ll let them.

[badolmen]

He knew he was going to die.

It was something you only understood if you had died before. He had - briefly, long ago, revived by a beloved friend and his magic. The revival he didn’t remember as clearly as death. The growing dimness of the world, the warm ache of organs slowly failing. The way he felt now was familiar, and he took comfort in that.

His beloved couldn’t bring him back this time. For all their magic they couldn’t bring themself back. That’s why he started this damn quest - to find someone who could.

That’s why he was dying, alone in a cold dungeon; tricked by the castle’s lord who promised aid only to proffer treachery instead.

His breathing was growing shallow, wounds deep and hands numb with cold. Soon. Very soon he might see his beloved’s face again. How disappointed he would be with him. But he would be forgiven, he knew he would be.

He hoped he would be.

The skittering sound in the shadows could have been rats, waiting for the mangled man to be more palatable with decay. But it was something else - a small lockbox, hardly the size of his hand, squirming on uneven legs to sit in the open.

He would have laughed if he could draw a breath deep enough to do so. What a weak mimic. Nothing like the cruel and powerful warlock that had brought him so close to death and left him to rot in this dungeon. It skittered closer, lid slightly ajar - just enough for him to see it’s pinprick teeth.

“Hungry?” He voice was raspy, the stony walls echoing it back to him. The mimic froze, lid screwing shut as it teetered on unsteady, half formed imitation legs. “Here, I’m not gonna use these anyway.”

The rations from his bag were meager but pristine - he rarely had a need to rely on stale bread and hard cheese when taverns and game offered far tastier choices. His shaking hands tossed the ration bag toward the mimic, the creature squelching as it scrambled back to the shadows as though it excepted a blow.

Slowly, painfully slowly it crept back to the center of the room. Flickering torch light illuminated its drool slicked teeth as it snatched the bread and ran off, disappearing into the recesses of the dark, damp dungeon.

One last kind act. He could rest easy with that.

—

He didn’t expect to wake up. Not considering the state he was in when he had dozed off - bloodied and bruised and feeling the cold, steady hand of death squeeze his heart.

“What?” He croaked, voice too loud in the silent dungeon. There was an empty glass vial beside him - shattered, remnants of the red liquid that it once held staining his hand. And beside it, a lockbox with a cluster of yellow eyes, watching him carefully. “Where did you get - wait!”

The mimic startled when he raised his hand, scampering to the opposite edge of the room and watching. He leaned forward to follow it, and found not all of his injuries were magically healed. With a grunt he managed to crawl toward the creature a few paces before stopping to catch his breath.

The healing potion residue on his hands was sticky, and smelled as sweet as melons.

The mimic across the room made a sound - a throaty gurgle that, if he thought too hard about, sounded curious. He breathed a humorless laugh, pressing his face to the cool stone as he fought back a sob.

He was done. He wanted to be done. Why couldn’t it just be over?

“Sorry, little buddy - I, I don’t have anymore food. You should go, go off and try somewhere else.” There weren’t any other people in the dungeon besides him. He knew that. And the only person who might check on his would-be corpse was a warlock more powerful than any magic user he had met.

The mimic cooed, a warbling noise as it’s body shifted. It’s shape changed, smaller and thinner. A key. He lifted his eyes to the iron gate of his cell.

If the warlock found him trying to escape, that would be the end of him. He could finally be at peace.

“Okay, fine - fine! We’re leaving. Happy now?” The mimic trilled happily as he picked up the key shaped creature, reaching through the bars to undo the lock.

The mimic was warm in his hand, a gentle pulse of life in its perfect imitation of a key. It was nice, against the chill of the dungeon. He started walking, a vague memory of the direction the warlock had dragged him.

The mimic hissed, pseudopods waving wildly as he took a left instead of a right.

“What? You know a better way out?” The mimic hummed at his question, body contorting into something sleek and metal. A compass, though the arrow clearly pointed away from the passage the warlock had used.

If this was a trap to feed him to larger mimics, he welcomed the possibility of a swift death.

“Whatever you say little buddy.” He just wanted to see his beloved’s face again.

The pair walked in darkness, no torches beyond the main cells. He held the mimic close to his face to read the needle, the creatures pinprick glowing eyes lining the brass case of the compass. It hummed to him - not quite a tune, but certainly some patter of clicks and trills not meant to communicate anything specific.

It somehow managed to bring a smile to his face, the warm, gently illuminated compass in his hands the closest he had felt to happiness in a very long time.

It was a dead end. His shoulders fell, the ache of still healing wounds aggravated by the long trek in the cold and damp. The mimic jumped from his hand - or fell, given how his fingers fell limp at the sight of the boulders and cobbles piled high.

It whistled, pseudopods flailing as it crammed itself in a crack between the rocks.

“No.” Frustration was welling in his blood. He just wanted to do one last good deed. He didn’t want his wounds to heal. He didn’t want to escape. He didn’t want to live without his love. “No - I can’t fit; dammit what was I thinking! Gods you don’t even understand me.”

He held his face in his hands, hot tears welling in his eyes as his breathing grew uneven and hitched. He didn’t know the way back - he didn’t know how to get the warlock’s attention. He was going to starve to death in the dark because he followed a half-witted, strange little mimic.

He dropped to his knees before the pile of rubble and sobbed openly, a gentle draft of cool air on his face.

A draft of air that smelled fresh and clean and so, so close.

The mimic was standing in front of him, shape changed once again to a shining pick axe. It trilled softly; golden, pupil-less eyes beckoning. A gaze between disappointment and hope. The same gaze he imagined his lover watching him with if he was here with him now.

“Please,” It seemed to say, “Get up.”

He rose to his feet, the wooden handle of the mimic smooth in his hand. He struck the stones, cobbles shattering under the force of the blow.

He didn’t want to always be hurting. Another blow, the air on the other side flowing steadier. He didn’t want to stay here, alone in the dark. Another blow, thin threads of golden sunlight shimmering in the dust. He didn’t want to live without his love, but he would want him to. Finally, a gap large enough for him to squeeze through was opened.

He scrambled over the stones, escaping into the sunlight. The grass beneath him was green and vibrant, the air sweet and clean. The mimic in the grass beside him chirped as sweetly as any song bird.

“Thank you.” His tears were different, streaming down a face that wore a wide and earnest smile. “Thank you so much.” The mimic curled on his chest, warm and alive and purring softly.

He knew he was going to live.

Edit: Donate to Palestinians in Gaza

Why did you give the last of your food to that poorly disguised mimic? You were finally at peace with letting go, but now this odd thing won’t leave you alone and is even turning itself into various items in an attempt to aid you.

[bluebeesknees]

give him back 🪻

[muttcvnt]

woof, and bark even.

tip the dog

[wistfullywaiting2]

The biggest misconception in the bsd fandom ever to me is people constantly portraying Atsushi as someone who trauma dumps excessively when he canonically barely talks about it at all.

The entire point is that Atsushi does not talk about his trauma he’s just constantly thinking about/reliving it. He can’t escape the memories of his past so he tries not to acknowledge them.

He only mentions it when asked, either directly or when someone asks him to explain himself.

Atsushi doesn’t even give a cohesive explanation for what he saw while under Dogra Magra, he just apologizes to Haruno and Naomi.

If Lucy hadn’t had her whole “you’ve never suffered the way I have” spiel then I doubt even the audience would’ve gotten to find out about his scars

If Akutagawa never asked him how it felt for the orphanage headmaster to die Atsushi would have never told him that he’s been hallucinating.

In the omake where Kyoka asks him why his hair is like that it’s clear he wouldn’t have told her that unless she had asked.

In 55 minutes Atsushi very briefly mentions sleeping on a dirty floor somewhere to Kunikida because he was trying to explain and justify his behavior.

And the thing is that there are scenes that implies that the other characters see Atsushi behaving strangely and are visibly confused because they do not understand what’s wrong with him.

Remember, we as an audience get to see things about characters that the main cast doesn’t. Just because we see into Atsushi’s mind doesn’t mean the other characters know what’s going on in there.

Also little footnote here that I think this is a reference to the moon over the mountain but I digress

[ghostbeam]

Mech pilot yuuta and his mech that’s incredibly possessive over him. He takes to you as a handler almost immediately, excited for the help after his last few handlers were scared off. You’re not allowed inside, your constantly dodging malfunctioning limbs and faulty wires, but you’re not one to back down, and gaining her trust is just as important as gaining his.

Rika only realizes how important you are to Yuuta the day after you spend the night with him, and he’s left alone in the morning with an empty bed and a broken heart. You’re his handler. You’re not supposed to leave him. Not ever.

She lures you into her chest one night, faking some sort of lighting malfunction and allowing you inside for the first time. She keeps you inside all night, enduring all your yelling and banging on her insides to be let out, a nice gift for Yuuta.

[theatre-mqn]

“Why should I trust you?”

“You probably shouldn’t. But you always do anyway.”

The time loop au fuckers have me in a chokehold

(Little detail: every killing blow from past loops leaves a scar. Hence the… jagged mess around her throat. Execution by beheading is not pretty.)

[nicollekidman]

season six spuffy is also nuts bc spike is clearly like. please just tell me i’m good and let me sit at your feet on the off chance you want to give me scraps and buffy WANTS to hold his leash (and yank on it) and she wants him to bite her hand so she has an excuse to hit him except. that sort of urge would upend the status quo (not just in their relationship but again, the bedrock the slayer/vampire dynamic is built upon) so instead spike has to play the corrupting influence to buffy’s reluctant and seduced white knight and it doesn’t fit either of them anymore!!!!!!!! spike says “you belong here in the shadows with me” but it sounds like “i accept you for all that you are and nothing in the dark could resist you” spike says “stop me” but it sounds like “tell me what you want” spike says “look at your friends and tell me you don’t like getting away with this” and it sounds like “isn’t this fun isn’t this worth Being Alive”

[melefim]

Hey @netflix honestly how do you expect people to watch your shows and invest their time and money into you when EVERY SINGLE TIME you have something people love you just throw it away?

What’s the fucking point if a show with a 92/90 on Rotten Tomatoes and that’s made MULTIPLE Best Of lists isn’t even given a chance to grow?

Let’s look at some comparisons of a few other recent Netflix shows that got a second (or more) season, shall we? How are they stacking up on RT?

Stranger Things: 91/90

The Sandman: 88/80

Bridgerton: 84/74

Shadow & Bone: 83/84

Wednesday: 73/85

Locke & Key: 68/56

Avatar: The Last Airbender: 61/72

Fate: The Winx Saga: 45/82

So good reviews and critical acclaim won’t do it. Multiple weeks on your top 10 won’t do it, making the Nielsen top 10 won’t do it. Engagement from a devoted fan base won’t do it. I’m curious, what’s the metric here? Just because it wasn’t an instant runaway sensation, it’s not worth it to you? Is that what it takes?

Here’s a hot tip: if you want people to continue to pay for a subscription to your service, maybe give stuff a chance to grow. Maybe invest a bit of time into actually advertising a show before it premiers.

One of the most popular tweets about Dead Boy Detectives when it came out was someone saying they didn’t want to watch it because they didn’t trust you not to cancel it and break their hearts. There were THOUSANDS of people agreeing with it. Thousands of viewers, thousands of accounts you missed out on because people didn’t trust you. So how is this move going to help that?

How are you planning to get people to stick around when one of the best shows on your platform isn’t given a chance? How are you expecting them to ever give your shows a chance when you’re proving again and again that you can’t be trusted to follow through?

Dead Boy Detectives is a great show. It’s a quality product. The cinematography, the lighting, the sound design, the sets, the props, the COSTUMES. The scripts are good, the acting is great, the effects are believable. the cast and crew poured their hearts into it and you can see it on the screen. The characters are relatable and real. This is a show that is rewatchable. A show that is fun. A show that is entertaining. That has a good message, that deals with heavy topics with care and sensitivity. That’s got comedy and drama and horror and mystery. That’s got representation and diversity. That means something to people. Means A LOT to people. But that’s not important to you.

Dead Boy Detectives was THE reason I renewed my account. I watched it multiple times. (See how many magnifying glasses there are after my name up there? Fun fact: I added one every time I watched the full season.) I was even making a list of other shows and movies I was planning to check out. But that’s not happening any more, because I’m canceling my account as soon as this post is up. And I know I’m not the only one.

[arcanegifs]

This is the last time I'm going to be annoying about this, I swear.

A few examples of that I, a gifmaker, personally love seeing under the tags:

Analysis of said scene, show, or character, especially the long ones going in depth that span like 1000 words

People saying how crisp the GIFs look and how nice the coloring is THANK YOU. ILY GUYS. That's always huge praise for me.

Reacting with how emotional you got with the scene. How painful and emotional or how touching a scene is.

People making funny jokes, memes, comments, etc.

Literally ppl horny posting LMAO. It's super funny to read and I love seeing all the unhinged comments.

Seeing how much you loved the show and its characters

Things I don't like seeing under the tags. And these are just two very specific things:

How much you hate the show, how much you think a scene is bad, how much you hate a character, the ship, the creators, etc. or how much you dont like this ship anymore, calling a ship horrible because ____ reasons. OKAY! I get it! But I don't want to see that. Make your own hate post on your own blog! You're free to have an opinion on how much you hate something. Just do it on your own blog.

Asking why I leave out certain scenes out, why I decided to gif this scene, or not gif more of these characters. Sometimes, I'm just exhausted. I can overlook things. You guys don't know how draining making gifs can get to me, especially the scenes that are really long. But I do it because I LOVE Arcane, the story, and the characters, and the particular scenes that I make gifs of. I have my own biases too. Of course I’m making them first. Please, just make them yourself instead of complaining under the tags of my edits. Yes, I can see them.

Don’t get me wrong, I wholeheartedly appreciate everyone who supports and follows the blog. I want to make a million more HQ gifs of this amazing show, but sometimes, the very rare negativity can still get overwhelming, to the point where it demotivates you.

Arcane is extremely special to me because it's such a fantastic show, and that alone motivates me in trying to create more GIFs. Honestly, if it was any other fandom or show? I would've probably left already. Arcane is THAT great.

I know the block button is there. I use it too, but sometimes, the amount of effort and time you exert to create FOR FREE just isn’t worth it. And that’s why gifmakers and creators stop making things for fandom. It’s not fun anymore. It’s not worth it.

Some people think that making my style of GIFs is easy. Then great! Since you think so, then do it yourself and help create for the fandom too! I wholeheartedly encourage you to do it!

TLDR: Don't be rude on people's fanwork, especially when they are created FOR FREE. If you don’t like their fanwork, you can make them yourself.

[captain-rickbond]

…Rickbool? Lazbenpool?

[mof17]

Day 3

prompts were:

Neck Kiss / Sculk / Masquerade

@scarian-smooch-fest

[euthymiya]

Whenever you’re in labor absolutely cussing Ayato out for doing this to you and putting you through this because he couldn’t keep his dick in his pants, he’s staring at you with heart shaped pupils thinking you are the loveliest woman to ever have graced his presence and he can’t wait to put another baby in you as soon as he can

[flowercrowngods]

felt like letting mike and steve work through some shit again

cw: descriptions and imagery of them being lost and self-sacrificing, left alone with trauma they have no means to work through, could read as suicidal tendencies or intrusive thoughts

🤍 also on ao3

“What do you want?” Mike asks when Steve sits down beside him, gravel crunching, their feet dangling over the dark and endless abyss that is the quarry at night.

Steve doesn’t answer right away, doesn’t really know what to say now that he’s here, now that he found him. He looks so small, now more than ever, and it reminds Steve so painfully that he’s still just a child. He was always just a child, and children shouldn’t—

It feels like they got their rights at a childhood revoked years ago, and then they were just… supposed to be okay with it. It was expected, it was implied when nobody came to talk to them after.

When all they got was one NDA after another. When none of the professionally trained adults took one look at the children that they were, and asked, Are you okay? What do you need to be okay? I will talk to you once a week and make sure you learn how to be okay again.

Steve feels like a big brother to most of the kids now, sure, but he’s not their shrink, and he sucks when it comes to actually talking about shit. He can be there to drive them anywhere, can provide an evening of distractions and as much of a sanctuary as a house as haunted as his can be.

With everything else, though, he’s helplessly lost. So he says nothing, weighs his words to make sure they come out right — especially for Mike, who’s always just waiting for him to say something wrong and throw it back in his face with the sunny disposition of a feral, rabid cat.

“Hey,” Mike says then, irritated again; but his voice is hoarse, too. Tired. No heat behind it after that stupid fight with Dustin and Lucas earlier tonight that made him snap and leave Steve’s house in a frenzy. “I said, What do you want?”

Steve shrugs, looking ahead into the darkness that feels endless and alluring and deeply terrifying.

I miss my friend! My best friend, Mike!

“Making sure you’re okay.”

You’ve changed, you know that? You’re not the guy who would jump off a cliff for me anymore, I don’t think I even know you anymore!

Dustin’s voice echoes in Steve’s mind as it undoubtedly does in Mike’s, too, and he can only imagine how much that hurts, especially if he’s shivering like that even though the night is warm for early September.

“I’m okay,” Mike says, sounding endlessly annoyed about the fact. Steve almost huffs out a humourless laugh. Yeah, right.

“Sure you are,” Steve says, keeping his tone carefully neutral.

He shrugs off his jacket and drapes it over Mike’s shoulders without a comment, half-expecting him to just throw it into the darkness below. But Mike doesn’t move, is eerily still beside him, pretending not to notice that Steve’s watching him.

“But you know it’s, like,” he starts again and trails off, looking for the right words because this is unfamiliar terrain and the ground beneath his feet is quite literally nonexistent. “It’s fine if you’re not, right? It’s actually really fucking normal to be more than a little fucked up after everything, all that crazy shit. Or just… in general.”

You were twelve, he wants to say. You were twelve and you jumped off from here. You were twelve and you were going to die. And not because of those monsters, not yet. Just because… you were twelve.

Mike doesn’t say anything, but the gravel crunches once more as he reaches for a handful of stones to throw them into the darkness one by one, the void beneath them so enormous that they don’t even hear the noise of impact.

You jumped.

The longer Mike remains silent, the more Steve wants to scream, wants to grab him by the shoulders and shake him, wants to make him see and understand that Steve knows about the scars a decision like that leaves, especially when you live to deal with the consequences.

He gets seizures to deal with the consequences. His ear is fucky, his eye is twitchy, his head is aching constantly, he gets migraines that knock him out for a day or two, all because he wanted to protect his friends. All because he did protect his friends. It worked. They’re safe.

But they’re also unaware of… of everything. Of the horrible stillness as clarity dawns and all signs point to the one way that always seems to work. The one easy way out, and still the hardest of them all when the plan goes wrong and he makes it out alive. When It’s gotta be me is the only thing to say, but later turns into an angry It never should have been me because the world looks different when it’s smeared with your blood.

And it’s always the lost boys who make decisions like that. Steve wonders, some nights in cold sweat, what happens if he makes these decisions without immediate danger. What happens if he just… decides to jump. Decides to run. To give the world more of his blood. Without saving anyone.

It’s not like he wants to — but he’s terrified that it’s just who he is. Who he’s turned into, terrified that his friends will forever expect him to.

And he’s even more terrified knowing that Mike jumped before he learned about monsters. Before he learned about fighting and surviving.

You were a kid, he wants to say again, but his throat is closing up on him.

“I don’t think that’s okay actually,” Mike says after a while, tearing Steve away from his fears. They’re still both looking ahead rather than at each other, but it’s fine. They’re still here. “Like, people say it is, but it feels so empty when they do, you know? Like, sure, yeah, I’m not fucking okay, but what the hell do we do about that now? Oh, right, I know! Let’s throw it in my face that I’m not good enough for you anymore now that there’s no monsters to kill anymore. Now that I’m just Mike, who’s not even enough to be that anymore, sure. Right. Yeah. Let’s pretend it’s all fine, Steve, let’s pretend it’s okay to hurt all the fucking time!”

Mike is shaking now, violent tremors running through his body, and Steve’s first instinct is to reach out and pull him close, to keep him from that edge and take him to his car; turn on the heating and talk there. But Mike seems to need the darkness, seems to need to be faced with endless depth to give voice to his thoughts.

“What Dustin said was messed up. He shouldn’t have said that.”

Mike shrugs, throwing more pebbles into the darkness, though his motions have lost their vigour. “He’s right, though.”

Steve sighs, though not unkindly. “No, he’s not. Hey, listen to me.” He waits until Mike turns to meet his eyes, and he leans forward. “It’s not okay. It’s not right what he said. You don’t deserve to have that shit thrown in your face just because Dustin is a tactless little douche bag.”

Taking a bullet for someone is not the baseline for friendship, he wants to say, and it occurs to him once again how fucked up their perception and idea of friendship must be, now that they’ve all bonded over the most horrific shit and actual grief they never learned how to work through.

It’s not even Dustin’s fault, not really. They’re all just collateral damage to something Bigger, and all they have is each other, leaving them in a vicious cycle that is so, so fucked up.

“Why’d you jump?” he asks eventually, quiet in case the darkness tries to listen in. “Back then, why did you jump?” And do you wish El had let you? Do you sometimes wish that? When your room is quiet and it’s only you living with all those silent, terrible decisions?

Mike shrugs again, but there’s not much fight left in him, Steve can see that, can feel it in the air between them.

“Will was gone,” he says like it explains everything— and it sort of does. Steve has seen the way these boys look at each other when the other’s not looking, he has seen the hurt and the anger and the gentleness stored there, the words unspoken and the fear that, despite interdimensional monsters, kinda goes unmatched.

Because they have each other. They only have each other. And if someone’s suddenly different than what they thought they knew, if someone’s suddenly different, then… Everything might just fall apart.

And Steve wants to grab him again; wants to pull him close and say, I’m the same. We have the same scars. We have the same!

Slowly, carefully, he does lean over now, weaving an arm around Mike’s shoulders and pulling him into his side.

“I get that.”

Mike swallows heavily and exhales shakily. “I don’t think you do.”

“No. I think I really, really do. But it’s okay, Mike. You won’t be alone with this, okay. I’m on your side, you little shit.”

A pause, a beat, a moment’s respite. Then, “Why?”

“Because,” his heart is racing, his mouth trembling around forming the words for the first time, but he knows it’s the right thing to do. Knows it’s important.

Knows it might just save a life.

“Because I fell harder for Eddie Munson than I ever thought possible, and once i found out what was happening, I kind of wanted to jump off a cliff, too. But I didn’t, because I had someone with the same fears as me, and instead of stupid shit we just… Cried together sometimes. Screamed into our pillows. Laughed with and at each other, calling ourselves hopeless, and— I don’t know. It’s really fucking scary, and that doesn’t go away just because you have someone to talk to. But it‘s… better. It’s so much better.”

He huffs, swallowing around the lump in his throat, smiling into the darkness.

“So I’ve got you, okay? Whatever it is, whatever makes you feel like it’s not fucking okay, I’ve got you. You come to me, yeah? Lucas does, Dustin does, even Max does. This is your official, standing invitation and whatever, okay, dickhead?”

Mike shoves at him lightly, still not parting from the rather awkward side-hug they’ve got going on, and Steve is glad for it.

“Okay, okay, geez,” the little shithead says, rolling his eyes which Steve can see even in the dark, and it feels like the edge has moved away from them, like they have solid ground beneath their feet again.

Steve doesn’t say anything more after that, just waiting for Mike to stir to lead him back to the car, load in his bike and take him wherever he feels like spending the night.

But Mike doesn’t move for another long while, and it makes Steve feel like something big has just happened between them. Like they finally have found the common ground that Steve’s been suspecting they had for months now, even years.

Eventually, as they make their way to the car and Mike goes to grab his bike, he speaks up again, but more subdued now.

“Hey, Steve?”

“Hmm?”

“Does… Does Eddie know?”

“About what?” My tendencies to take a leap off the edge?

“You. Being…”

“Oh!” A smile as he unlocks his car and opens the back door to squeeze Mike’s old bike in there with minimal smears of dirt. “I’d hope so, we’ve been dating for months.”

“You’re dating?! You? Eddie’s dating you?”

“Yeah, listen, do you want me to just leave you here or would you rather be thrown out in the middle of nowhere?”

Mike grumbles something unintelligible as he climbs into the front seat, waiting for Steve to start the engine before he speaks up again.

“It’s just, you’re so… How did you even do that?”

Steve laughs at that, disbelieving and all, because, “Trust me, I have no idea. Must have been the ol’ Harrington charm and all that.”

Mike rolls his eyes and crosses his arms in front of his chest, sinking lower in the seats to pout. “You’re so lame.”

“Sorry, I couldn’t hear you over how much I have a boyfriend and you don’t.”

If his heart skips a beat because it still feels like a forbidden truth saying the word out loud despite the playful banter, then he’s ignoring that in favour of revving the engine.

“Asshole.”

“Dickhead.”

“Grow up,” Mike says, but Steve can see the smile he’s not even trying to hide, and he mirrors it with his own as he turns on the radio catching the final tunes of Springsteen’s Dancing in the Dark.

They’re not okay, none of them. But the car is warm, the cliff’s edge is behind them, and they’re not listening to the same ten songs anymore.

They’re getting better, step by tiny step.

[stuck-in-jelly]

Cant stop thinking about how apparently Season 7 is going to be Ezran’s season and the slow and steady build up to a breaking point for him.

Ezran is in a weird delicate balance, walking across the tightrope of being a child and being a king. We see both sides equally, we see Ezran’s barely clinging childlike mannerisms and we also see him command and lead both with love and with force.

And he is equally regarded in this manner by the people around him, some addressing him more as a child then king and others more king then child.

“Who is this child?” “Such childish dreams.” “You deserve time to do kid things” “the whining child king.” vs “He is a King!” “Because you know-you’re the King.” “That is what King Ezran decided.” “I serve the true King.”

That is already a lot to try and balance, his wants versus his duty as a king but now that balance is being tested.

The weight of everything is starting to crash down. His stressful rule as a king in a time of insurrection and war, his own people pushing back against his ideals and attempts at progress, his citizens and home decimated by a dragon, his father’s murderer being freed by his own brother, and now the releasing of an ancient evil.

No one told him his father was dead, too worried to tell a child horrible news, and no one had told him the plan to bring Runaan back, hardly giving him a second thought.

The more I think about it the more my brain drifts to this section from the season 2 novelization:

“No. No, no no!!” Ezran shouted. He didn’t care if he sounded like a two-year old.

“Ezran. It’s going to be okay,” Rayla started to say.

That was about the dumbest thing anyone could possibly say, Ezran thought. Nothing was ever going to be okay again.

Just the moment Ezran fully reverts to being a small kid again, when he stops caring that he is acting like a child because he is a child because he is mad because its all hitting him at once and it isn’t fair.

I want to see how he takes it all

[i-cast-zone-of-truth]

hey it’s ok you don’t have to do apologism to like Li Lun! He WAS wrong and he DID kill people for attention and ZYZ being unable to accept that WAS reasonable! Li Lun simply refused to get over his ex and made it everyone’s problem and that’s what makes him great. embrace the wretch! be free!!

[vilsoo]

my mutuals (majority that had bigger blogs) have all been dropping like dead flies because of a toxic, pathetic writer on this app that drove all them off. rip to munsonsins, getoswhore, kazushawty, literally everyone. and those that have heen affected yet still continue to stay on this app, i hope you’re all doing fine. but these ppl were driven off all because of jealousy reasons, false plagiarism accusations, death threats, cyberbullying, you fucking name it. we lose so much good works and genuine people on here that created their own platforms for the purposes of consuming fanfiction/writing fanfiction 😐 but since they were being dragged into discourse with a certain someone on this app, it’s crazy how their followers dickride the shit out of that thing and send hate/death threats to them through anon like wowww. 😹