#in every community there are bad people and they shouldn’t be held as the standard. which should be applied to ~bad orgs/states too

[eddieydewr]

Hi! This may be a bit of a rant but there is something I really wanna share with someone so I hope you don't mind.

I have a friend who I knew 'cause we were in the same club at uni. He's very eloquent and smart, so I really respect him (but mostly from afar 'cause I was shy lol). And then I saw him post about ST season 4, and about Will in particular so I mustered up my courage and messaged him "hey have u seen the parallels between Will and Vecna?". And we started talking about other ST-related stuff. We even ranted a lot about vol 2 after watching that lol. We also talked about books and TV shows and overall, I was glad ST helped me make more friends.

When the free Palestine movement became popular last year, I was not surprised when I saw him post about Gaza or Rafah 'cause well... he's just like a typical queer, chronically online, twitter user lol (both complimentary and derogatory, sometimes I find his humor funny, sometimes I just wanna roll my eyes). We have never talked about this topic and honestly I really don't feel like. I just simply carry on sharing posts and stories about discrimination against Jewish and Israeli people and anti-Hamas stuff.

And then recently I saw him posting overtly anti-Israel things, like "u think this is hot now, wait til you go to hell for supporting Israel". Not gonna lie, I chuckled when I saw that 'cause first of all, I am an atheist so whatever man I don't believe in hell anyway. Second, I don't know what other non-Jewish people who support Israel (as in 'its existence is legitimate and the people there deserve peace', not the government itself) may feel about hell, but as far as I'm concerned, Jewish people don't seem to put that much weight on the concept of hell and heaven, right?. So like "bro you should have choose something else more menacing than that lol"

Now I can scroll through that post but what irks me the most is what he chose to share today.

https://x.com/redstreamnet/status/1841561550378651724

I find it so freaking ironic how after everything that has happened in Iran recently (and how many Iranians have spoken out against the Islamic republic), this is the first Iran-related thing he posted about. Like I'm so close to just forward to him a video of Iranians celebrating the death of Nasrallah or comments/posts of Iranians thanking Israel for it, or overall just people between these two countries wishing each other peace and freedom. I'm not sure if I can call what I'm feeling "anger" 'cause it's not exactly strong as when I see people deny October 7. But there is surely a sense of resignation.

I don't see those pro-pal people as bad or evil. I actually believe that most of them have good intentions, but to me, they are too caught up in their self-righteousness and black-and-white views to acknowledge the grey area of this whole mess.

I saw you own up to your own hypocrisy a few days ago and ngl I admire you for that lol. I only think of humans as "paradoxical by nature" so a person saying conflicting stuff is normal to me. But it's annoying as hell when someone doesn't think they are capable of hypocrisy or double standards.

Anyways, have a great day. Thank you for reading all this. Sorry it's kinda long. Being concise is not my strong suit lol.

hey anon, let’s hug. if you want?

i rly don’t have much to offer bc my brain is currently mush, you probably just wanted to vent and that’s ok. i just didn’t want to leave you on read. 💚

look, i’m using jquinn even though he annoys me atm but i just couldn’t resist, lmao. like yeah, #me.

[forjustice]

Growing up, Cynthia always knew she was beautiful. She is completely confident in her looks today as well. But during her teen years when she was getting into the world outside the communes for the first time (especially the Coordinating world), she was hit with all the ridiculous beauty standards and it made her seriously question what everyone said growing up that she was a beautiful little girl. One day she went sobbing to Volo that she didn’t think she was beautiful anymore, that now that she had gone to the outside world she knew what real beauty was, she felt lied to all these years that people told her she was pretty. A devastated Volo held her and dried her tears and assured her that there was no such thing as “real beauty” because beauty is subjective, and that she shouldn’t listen to outer society’s way of distorting self image for the beauty industry’s profit like in a capitalistic funhouse mirror.

And then Volo went BALLISTIC.

Her seething hatred of what the world had done to her perfect daughter manifested in a curse—a terrible curse. From then on, for many years, nearly the entire world of celebrities who relied on physical appearance was afflicted with not only physical ailments like weight gain, acne, and wrinkles in the aging population who were desperate to hide them, they also had the most CARTOONISHLY bad luck and streaks of incompetence. No matter what happened, no one with prominence in appearance-focused celebrity careers could do ANYTHING right. Renowned international Coordinating festivals became shitshows of disastrous slip ups, from the embarrassingly comedic to the occasional career ending injury. Pokémon battlers seemed to lose all their strategic know-how overnight, turning the competitive scene into a joke where people battled with all the intelligence and finesse of a Pokémon game AI losing against Twitch Plays Pokémon. For this entire span of time, no new movies were made or released because everything kept going wrong, from camera tech always glitching to actors routinely forgetting their lines. And make no mistake about it, women were affected just as much as men—because Volo knows well that celebrity women can participate as much in upholding toxic and patriarchal beauty standards as men do. Those who actively fought to change things and those who suffered from things like eating disorders and dysmorphia were spared, but everyone else got absolutely fucking wrecked. Only after Cynthia resolved her image issues did the carnage stop. Never underestimate what Volo would do for her.

That being said, it's not as though Cynthia completely approved of her mother's actions. The curse wasn't intentional, and really it couldn't have been because Volo has a thing where she can't control the full extent of her powers unless her emotions are triggered in some way. But still--Cynthia is not the type of person to wake up and choose violence, so she would have felt saddened at the fact that no new movies were made for a good span of years because it took away something meaningful for so many people. She also thinks that every celebrity being afflicted with what they perceive as ugliness might also be counterproductive in some cases, because celebrities also suffer from the system they participate in. Sometimes, it comes across as but a shallow understanding of the struggles of ordinary people, where celebrities try too hard to be relatable while not realizing that by virtue of being societally accepted as the most beautiful people on the planet they can't exactly pull the "I'm really just like you" card. Other times though, it causes legitimate issues even if they don't rise to the level of eating disorders or dysmorphia--so Cynthia worries that Volo didn't fully take into account who exactly she was affecting. Not to mention, some peoples’ careers were straight up ended by this—she sees it as a major blow to the arts and entertainment. She can't deny that after the curse, people in the celebrity scene started making strides to do better with not enforcing strict beauty standards. But, as is the question whenever Volo does some shit like this, at what cost?

[robininthelabyrinth]

Spilled Pearls

- Chapter 13 - ao3 -

The wedding of a sect leader with the stature of Wen Ruohan was, as Lao Nie had predicted, an experience unlike any Lan Qiren had ever had before.

It was also, as Wen Ruohan had predicted, loud and full of crowds, things that Lan Qiren didn’t especially like. Luckily, despite being the groom’s ‘brother’, Wen Ruohan wasn’t requiring Lan Qiren to actually participate in any way, and he was just able to watch from a distance.

He tried not to think of Wen Ruohan’s casual admission that he had, in fact, devised the marriage just to deal with the issues with Lan Qiren’s reputation – and Lao Nie’s concern thereof, no doubt – and reassured himself that the bride was undoubtedly well prepared for her new life and would soon find her footing as the mistress of the Wen sect, where she would more than likely be happy in time.

That was how such things went, wasn’t it? Even with his sect’s notorious tendency towards love-madness, the people like his father, who married for love, were the exception and not the rule…

(He also tried not to think about the fact that Wen Ruohan accepted all the toasts for his wedding using a drinking bowl in Gusu style, painted with a border of vermilion birds, or the fact that, despite Lan Qiren having gifted a set, it was the only one of its kind on the table, leaving Wen Ruohan's new bride to drink from a much fancier gold-gilded bowl – but that was more because he didn’t understand what it meant, and wasn’t sure he wanted to.)

“Did you even get a chance to see him?” his brother asked when they returned, looking coldly disapproving.

“I did,” Lan Qiren said, thinking to himself less of the dinner that they’d shared with Lao Nie and more of the brief moment when the Lan sect delegation been about to leave, a servant appearing and whisking him off briefly back to the family quarters where Wen Ruohan, looking as composed as ever, pressed a too-familiar hand to his head and told him that he was sure he’d be seeing him again soon. “He didn’t say much.”

Nothing his brother would care about, anyway.

His brother nodded, looking unsurprised, and dismissed him, remarking unnecessarily, “You missed the first few days of classes,” as if Lan Qiren wasn’t aware of when each season of classes started for the disciples better than him. After all, Lan Qiren hoped to become a teacher one day, when he tired of traveling, and to do for future generations of the Lan sect what his teachers had done for him, and he took it as seriously as he did anything else.

The seasonal classes were his favorite, largely because such classes were open not only to the Lan sect disciples but to certain guest disciples – typically the children of rogue cultivators that the Lan sect wanted to encourage to join the sect, which meant that they had to pass through the same rigorous standards applicable to the usual sect disciples. Lan Qiren had always thought it was a shame that their classes were so limited in scope, although he acknowledged there wasn’t much to be done about it; after all, how many sects would be willing to send their children to be taught by outsiders?

A puzzle for another day.

For now, Lan Qiren made his way to the classroom, taking advantage of the lunch break to settle his things in his familiar seat at the side of the room. He hoped that coming in during the middle of the day would reduce the number of whispers that seemed to invariably greet him these days – luckily much more inclined to see him as a source of information rather than a victim or, worse, a perpetrator – but he didn’t have much faith in it.

“Hey, you’re in my seat.”

Lan Qiren looked up: it was a female disciple. Her face was unfamiliar to him, which suggested she was a rogue cultivator – while men and women lived separately in the Cloud Recesses, they came together for meals and other such events, and despite his introversion, Lan Qiren knew most if not all of his peer group by now.

“Sanren,” he said politely, rising and saluting. “Forgive me, but this has always been my seat.”

She frowned at him. “You didn’t claim it at the start of classes.”

“I missed the start of classes due to an unavoidable conflict.”

“I’ve been using it all week,” she said, and looked at him expectantly, as if anticipating an answer.

Lan Qiren wasn’t sure what he was supposed to say here. “I’ve been using it all my life. What’s your point?”

“So you’re not going to give it up for me?”

Lan Qiren stared at her. “Obviously not.”

She grinned toothily at him. “All the boys give up their seats for me. I understand that it’s a matter of etiquette.”

“Whoever told you that was lying,” he said flatly.

“Oh, I like you,��� she said, and crossed her arms – an aggressive posture, although her tone, like Wen Ruohan’s, seemed more amused than anything else. How strange to see a sudden resemblance, when they very clearly had nothing else in common. “How would you know? Maybe it’s in the rules.”

Well, that was a mistake.

“Really,” Lan Qiren said, and smiled. “Why don’t we examine that supposition?”

She blinked at him, suddenly wary, but it was too late: if there was one thing Lan Qiren knew, it was his sect’s rules. Learning how to beat people over the head with them on purpose was a more recent development, and he was still working on fine-tuning that – most people started begging for mercy while he still felt irritated, but when they continued listening with apparent interest, as the rogue cultivator girl did, he swiftly forgot that he was trying to make a point and shifted over to actual enthusiasm for the subject.

“Cangse Sanren!”

Lan Qiren’s listener started and very nearly fell over – she’d put her chin on her hands at some point during the discussion of the origin of the rules regarding interactions between men and women, and hadn’t accounted for that when twisting to see who was calling her.

It was a mixed group of sect disciples, with some of Lan Qiren’s cousins and disciples of other surnames that he recognized, plus a few more that were likely rogue cultivators’ children as well.

“Oh,” she said. “You. What is it?”

“I see you got caught up in one of Lan-er-gongzi’s boring rule lectures,” one of the disciples said – one of Lan Ganhui’s friends, with Lan Ganhui himself nearby, grimacing at him in an attempt to make him stop. Lan Ganhui had gotten a lot more likely to leave Lan Qiren alone ever since Lan Yueheng had decided to befriend him, even intervening to make his friends leave off, but this time the other disciple ignored him, his eyes too focused on those ahead of him to pay him any mind; he was smiling intently at the rogue cultivator girl in a way that was clearly attempting to seem charming. “Don’t feel like you have to listen to him just because he’s main branch, you know! No one else does.”

“You shouldn’t say that,” one of the others muttered, glancing warily at Lan Qiren. It wasn’t apparent whether he was concerned about Lan Qiren’s rank, personality, or family connection.

For his part, Lan Qiren just felt tired. He would like to think that they were all part of the same sect, learning the same things, but he knew that wasn’t how the world worked. There were good people and bad in every sect, and the undercurrents that came with any community were inescapable.

“You’re joking, right?” the girl – who had the title of Cangse Sanren, apparently – said unexpectedly. “His explanation is three times more interesting than the stupid learning by rote we’ve been doing so far.”

“Learning by repetition has a long history of being the most effective way of learning something,” Lan Qiren objected. “Even the most unrepentant scoundrel would learn the rules by heart if he had to copy them down for a month, and then when that was done and the foundation built, you could get started on explaining the why of them.”

“But repetition’s not as interesting,” Cangse Sanren said. “I really liked that story about Lan Yi.”

Lan Qiren looked at her suspiciously. He’d never outgrown his tendency to speak in a dull monotone – one of his peers had once compared it to the thudding of grinding stones in a mill – and it was the rare person who actually appreciated the rules the way he did. His teachers, of course, and some of the other more studious disciples did, but even with them he’d be hard pressed to say they actually liked his rambling.

She held up her hands. “Really! I feel like I understand why she put the rule in place now, whereas before it felt like I was just learning the rule for the sake of learning the rule.”

“That’s because you need to learn the rules before you learn the background,” he said. “The rules are a house built without nails, each piece in its place doing its part to maintain the whole - one rule backs another, while being supported in turn. Only once you know what the rules are can you move to understanding the reasons behind them.”

And from understanding to accepting, allowing our ancestors’ wisdom to act as a guiding light that clears the fog from your path, he wanted to say, because he loved the rules, truly and sincerely.

People made fun of him sometimes, thinking him boring or stuffy or overly strict, with no flexibility and too little empathy, saying he was obsessed with the rules for no beneficial purpose, but to him the rules were a gift from the past to the future. The Wall of Discipline represented the accumulated life experience of dozens if not hundreds of Lan sect disciples before him, turned through debate and contemplation into advice they thought would be able to help guide those that came after them to living a good, clean, happy life. As their descendant, how could he fail to honor that which those people, who had loved him without knowing him, had strained themselves to give him?

In just the same way, it was his duty to love the future generations that had yet to be born, to act as the bridge to that unknown future, entrusted by his ancestors to carry to them the rules that would be both his inheritance and his legacy. Those nameless faces dressed in Lan white, unborn children with his brother’s face or even his own, of his cousins and fellow disciples alike, all those souls that had yet to enter this world but who he loved so much already – if he could spare them a single iota of pain through his own experience, how could he not do so, and gladly? How could he not do everything he could to give them everything he had received from the rules, that sense of pride of their history, the strength and wisdom that could be passed down no other way? How could that be a burden?

Lan Qiren had never really had the chance to explain any of that to anyone, his tongue too stiff and clumsy to convey what sometimes he felt could only be expressed in song or poetry, and he did not have such a chance now: as usual, the other disciples were already laughing, dismissing him as a teacher’s pet, overly rule-bound, obsessed with homework and test-taking, a boring old fart whose soul was prematurely aged.

“What’s wrong with being old?” Cangse Sanren asked, her voice flatter than it was before, and the boys in front of her suddenly scrambled to start apologizing so fast that Lan Qiren was left wondering what exactly he’d missed.

“Class is starting soon,” he said instead of asking, though he promised himself he’d ask around later. Surely someone would know. “Everyone should take your seat – no, Cangse Sanren, as I’ve said, that one is mine.”

She grinned unrepentantly at him and stepped back over where he’d kicked his foot out to block her. “You win, this time,” she said, and took the seat next to him with absolutely no remorse for whoever might have been sitting there before. “Watch yourself, stick-in-the-mud.”

Lan Qiren glared, though somehow Cangse Sanren’s teasing didn’t feel as annoying as the other disciples’ usually did. Even if she did make several more attempts on his seat over the course of the day, causing him to have to fend her off or think ahead to evade her latest attempt.

He initially thought that she might try to come to class early the next day to try to claim it before he did, but instead she dragged herself in only moments before class was due to start, face haggard as if waking up at the very tail end of mao hour was the equivalent to rising at yin, although she was back to her regular form soon enough, bright and clever enough to make any teacher fond of her.

This became something of a pattern, in fact – sluggish wakening, intellectual jousting during class and an unspoken competition over the seat that had formerly been reserved for him outside of it. In the afternoons she usually went off with the more martially minded disciples, while he spent his time in the library or musical halls, though at some point she started dropping off random foodstuffs by his door in the early evening as if she thought he was too thin.

“Maybe she has a crush on you!” Lan Yueheng said enthusiastically; bizarrely enough, he seemed to like romance as much as his explosions or his math.

“I think it’s a little closer to treating me like a stray cat that she found and took a shine to,” Lan Qiren said, shaking his head. All the boys in the sect would have paid in gold and jewels for Cangse Sanren to give them a second look, and she didn’t care one whit for the best of them; there was no need for her to go courting when she could get three serious offers of marriage just by winking. “Give them here, I’ll redistribute them to the younger children.”

“You can’t do that!” Lan Yueheng looked offended. “It’s her sincere offering! From the heart!”

“It’s food she purchased in town,” Lan Qiren said doubtfully. “It’s not as if she baked them herself. Anyway, I can’t eat this many sweets without getting a stomachache. What else am I supposed to do with it? Let it rot?”

“Qiren-xiong, you’re the most unromantic person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m going to assume that’s a bad thing,” Lan Qiren said, not taking offense. “Do you want some? Last offer before they’re gone.”

“…well, I mean, if you’re going to give them away anyway…”

He told Cangse Sanren what he was doing the next day, as a matter of politeness in the event that she wanted to stop once she knew what he was doing, and she just laughed – she always laughed at just about everything, he’d found. She didn’t stop delivering food, either, which he might have expected, though she did shift over into items that were easier to distribute.

Their entire mode of interacting was simultaneously very annoying and also not, and Lan Qiren didn’t have the slightest idea about what to do with it.

And then he got his first letter from Wen Ruohan.

[bigskydreaming]

Hi! I was reading a fanfic and it brought up Roy and Dick's fight, which I see a lot of in fics but never what they fought about and consequently why they don't talk. I thought it was a vague excuse/reason why Roy was Jason's friend not Dick's anymore but this fic brought up when Dick was batman so I was wondering if there was actually a fight between them? Btw I really enjoy your metas! They're v thought out and well articulated. Also it's v easy to separate what's your opinion and what's fact which is. Very helpful for me

Yeah this is one hundred percent a fanon thing that's kept deliberately vague to justify why Roy in his friendship with Jason seems to have no positive thoughts or concerns about Dick whatsoever. Now granted, Dick and Roy are not nearly as close in the New 52 as they were pre-Reboot. The lack of their friendship there is definitely one of the things I disliked most about the Reboot - and I actually don't care if Jason and Roy are friends tbh, its the total erasure of his history with Dick as if he can't be friends with both, that like, bugs most.

But so like, yeah, Roy and Dick aren't super close when they interact on the Titans in the New 52, but there's literally nothing in any of their interactions that explains the complete absence of him from Roy's life or a reason that Roy would like, hate him the way he tends to in a lot of Jason-centric fics.

When you factor in pre-Reboot stuff though, it starts to get a LOT more.....uh wyd? And this is why I have trouble buying that people just write Roy and Jason the way they do because its the only thing they know from recent comics. Like one, most fans talk about how they don't even read the source comics, so there's no reason their knowledge of the characters or events would be limited to just recent comics if they're going off wiki summaries and scans anyway. And second, most fans AREN'T limited in their knowledge to just recent comics.

Like, the second people start writing Roy and Jason and Kori but with their pre-52 characterizations and references to events from THAT timeline, it all gets very messy, the way they're like, completely antagonistic towards Dick a lot of the time. Because Roy and Dick were always solid. Yes, they fought. A lot. But they always, ALWAYS made up afterwards. They had conflict about Roy's drug addiction - it didn't stop Dick from being there to support him through rehab, or Dick being the first person Roy called to help him get Lian after he learned of her existence. Dick literally held Lian before Roy ever did? He's the one who first put her in Roy's arms for the first time.

(Which is the prime grudge I and most Dick Grayson fans have about Roy and Jason fics which make Jason like, the absolute apple of Lian's eye. If you want to expand Lian's circle of loved and trusted ones to include Jason as Roy's friend and thus her uncle, like go for it! But there's zero reason that should require invalidating and erasing the fact that Dick was this little girl's adored godfather and uncle for pretty much her entire life. And the way Dick is just shoved offstage from Lian's life entirely, to slot Jason into his place as though they're completely interchangeable, its like....THAT'S the kind of thing that gets people irey about how Jason 'steals' Dick's dynamics and character relationships.

Because there's nothing saying they both can't be major players in Roy and Lian's lives! But just that they're not interchangeable! You need to develop the specific role Jason plays there WITHOUT just overwriting everything Dick actually did in relation to the two of them pre-Flashpoint, which is what you're drawing from the second you write Lian, unless you're specifically going with the few appearances we've had of her within literally just the last year.

But I mean, when people just search and replace Dick Grayson in all Roy and Lian's pre-Reboot stories and act like Jason was the one doing all of that instead.....why wouldn't fans of the source material be annoyed by a character getting credit for interactions and things done for Lian and Roy that Jason literally NEVER DID, while at the EXACT SAME TIME, conjuring some mysterious, unnamed 'Falling Out' that Roy and Dick had, that was clearly all Dick's fault, and resulted from him being basically excised entirely from Roy and Lian's lives?

Same with Kori, for the record, and like despite being Dick's ex, she and Dick have NEVER been like, estranged? She and Dick have often been close even after their breakup. None of it makes any sense, and the fact that a lot of fans don't even try to make it make sense or justify it, and expect other fans to just be fine with settling for an inexplicable reversal of Dick's every actual dynamic with these characters while setting up Jason to occupy the exact same role Dick played in these other characters' lives, like.....lol. Its fun.)

Anyway, back to your question, like, there are fights you can go with pre-Reboot as the source of various conflicts between Dick and Roy - but again, I maintain its just as crucial that they're always written as getting past them. They have a very tempestuous relationship because they are the two people MOST likely to call each other on their shit, two of the two people WITH the most shit in common due to the parallels in their childhoods and the roles they've occupied in the Titans and the superhero community in general, and the two people most resistant to being called out on their shit by each other, lol. Mostly in that case because like, they do recognize that they have a lot in common and understand each other very well, so the second the other is calling them out for something, they're usually like "ugh, if HE'S saying this, its probably true and I am just not prepared yet to be wrong about this. I need more time being unjustifiably rawr about things." Its like that thing where they both look at each other doing something that feels familiar or calls back to their own reasons for doing something and they're like ugh I'm in this picture and I don't like it.

So they clash. A lot. But always with the implicit bedrock of like, there's nothing either of them can do or say to the other that will push the other away for good.

They fought over Roy replacing Dick as leader of the Titans when Dick's wedding fell apart, even though Roy actually didn't want to do it and was kinda pushed into it by the government, but again, Dick like, got over it and realized it was for the best and forgave Roy for it that very same issue. And on and on. It always went like that. So there's plenty of stuff that can be used or pointed at as a source of conflict between the two, but the part I'll always call unbelievable is the idea that they never make up after one of these fights. Why now? What fight, specifically, is so bad between them that despite everything else they've gone through AND gotten past, they can't get past this one? Y'know?

So yeah, that's my take on this. There is no definitive falling out between Dick and Roy as many fics like to point to in order to shove him offscreen and make room for Jason in Roy and Lian's lives, and personally, I just don't find it necessary and I actually think it makes Roy look REALLY bad. Because when you're not specifically detailing all the things that Dick has actually DONE for Roy, the lengths to which he's been there for his friend, and like, specifically invalidating each and every one of them as something that never happened in a particular fic, then literally anyone who reads that fic and has their own awareness of Dick and Roy's friendship is kiiiiiinda likely to be reading that and thinking wow what an ungrateful asshole, when Roy's just written as bitching about Dick with Jason and sandbagging him without any real explanation as to WHY, beyond just 'oh they had a fight years ago.'

(And coming up with some random awful thing that Dick did to justify Roy hating him now isn't like, a superior alternative, lmao, because again, its still just trashing one character for the sake of getting him out of the way of two other characters' friendship and people are going to think what they think about that).

Anyway, my now standard stock disclaimer that like, there doesn't actually need to be a canon fight obviously, for people to just write things this way and handwave that Dick and Roy had an epic falling out years ago and now they just hate one another or whatever, or just Roy hates him or vice versa. Obviously people are free to do what they want. They don't need a reason other than "I want to write it this way so Jason and Roy are friends and Jason doesn't have to 'share' him with Dick or have his friendship be overshadowed by their greater history together." That just happens to be a reason that no Dick Grayson fan is ever really going to be happy about, lol, for what should be perfectly obvious reasons, so it honestly shouldn't be surprising to people that fans of the source material often gripe about it.

Because yeah fanfic is a tremendous opportunity to transform the source material into something better, but if what's better for some fans actively takes away what was working perfectly well for other fans the original way, they're going to say that. Especially in a fandom where so many new fans take their view of the characters and their dynamics from fics rather than the source material - when fandom has that much of an influence on what new fans perceive to be 'canon,' fans are perfectly within their right to emphasize what is ACTUALLY canon and what isn't, so that new fans at least have the opportunity to determine for themselves what take they want to go with, instead of just accepting at face value that the nature of say, Dick and Roy's relationship is just that Roy hates Dick because of some mumble mumble ancient history vague mumble details not found mumble mumble fight.

[samdotdocx]

A very long-winded essay about why I love Night in the Woods and The Ramayana makes me Big Mad ft. Lets Talk About Mental Illness™

So I was in this class called 'The Ecology of Language". Excellent class, 10/10 would recommend - and especially relevant in the Indian context in particular, but that's a topic for another day.

One of the things we talked about was the concept of 'relatibality' in media, which, I'm sure we can all agree is a large component of contemporary character or story-line development. Considering the context of modern readers, what that sometimes ends up looking like (in our society that is built on constantly being told we are lacking, and the subsequent need to satisfy manufactured desires), is some wonderfully nuanced characters in stories stories that are three-dimensional, well rounded, and well developed and written. It's pretty great. And sometimes, what that means is that we have excellent characters that don't conform to the standard 'protagonist' stereotype. They might not even be 'good' (this is NOT a villain-apologist post). In fact, they might be complete idiots. They might be the people in stories who make all the wrong choices.

One such relatable character is Mae, and it's because she's an unmitigated train-wreck.

Anyone who knows the game probably knows what I'm talking about when I say the illustration style and character designs are gorgeous. Anyone who's ever dissociated probably knows what I'm talking about when I say that illustration style and character design were excellently used to create the sort of subliminal, surreal state of Mae's mind. And as you play the game, you see how that state of mind plays with the other characters, and - spoiler - it isn't great.

This is the first of the relatable aspects of Mae’s character; there are people around her who love her and are worried about her, but at the same time, are angry and irritated about her behaviour. At what point does it become too much to ask of those around you to forgive all your continuous and repetitive mistakes? Even if you have a good reason for it, mental illness is not an excuse for being exploitative, even if it is unintentional. Mae is not trying to hurt the people around her, but she constantly needs emotional labour from them – it’s exhausting, and people’s patience is going to run out eventually, as is their right.

Another aspect of this behaviour is the lack of reciprocity, an example of this being when Bea’s mother died of cancer – and Mae didn’t even notice.

There are several instances of Mae’s thoughtless behaviour throughout the game; she gets completely wasted and makes a scene at the party, gets jealous of of Greg and Angus because they’re leaving the town without her, and ends up destroying the radiator Bea was supposed to fix, getting her in trouble.

The thing is though, that Mae is given the opportunity to fix her mistakes.

A large part of relatability is the want so see yourself in a character. Mae is relatable to me because there are several circumstances and events in our lives that match up, but more than that; the game is an interactive visualization of her healing process. Her nine steps, if you will. She is given a second chance – and that chance is hard won, particularly in the context of the game.

Mae talks about feeling like she’s falling behind, of knowing that she is, in a way, wasting an opportunity that was a privilege in the first place, especially considering her family’s financial situation – but at the same time, being literally unable to help herself. And the aspects of the gameplay that hint at the supernatural elements of the story possibly being a figment of Mae’s imagination – well. All us depressed losers know what it's like to not be able to trust your own judgement and point of view. She talks about why she dropped out of college, and her description of the dissociation, and the mental and emotional deadening that it causes is spot on and so well represented.

It underscores the point that the logical brain knows that mental illness is an illness like any other – but the emotional brain doesn’t care.

The game does a brilliant job of laying bare the realities of middle class life, and makes painfully clear the fact that, at that level, it doesn’t matter how difficult things are for you. The world isn’t going to wait for you to get back on your feet.

Mae’s mental state and the limitations it imposes on her cultivates a state of extreme frustration. Again, relatable. It’s an understated aspect of illness of any kind; the anger at yourself, and how that anger carries over into a lot of things in your day to day life. After a point, it becomes a habit. Mae does this too; she's belligerent, and instigative, and unrepentant of consequences, because anger blinds you.

It's not how things will always be. I have the privilege of hindsight, so I can say that with authority. But, this isn’t the kind of thing that ever fully leaves you, either. If you break a kneecap, it’s going to bother you for the rest of your life, and similarly, mental illness has a ‘no return, no refund’ policy. So you grow up, and you try to adapt those habits and impulses into a more positive context. Recycling, right? Maybe you set your sights on things that actually deserve your anger, and you go from there. You find people who, for their own reasons, perhaps or perhaps not related to your own, are angry.

And you don’t understand the people who are not.

A large part of the anger and frustration surrounding mental illness is due to the stigma surrounding it. It’s frustrating to be so powerless and dependent, but this is exacerbated by the attitude of ‘it can’t be that bad’, which makes it so difficult to reach out, to be able to say, ‘I need a break’ – and actually get one. This is an attitude that carries over to a lot of other issues as well, and the worst part is – we are surrounded by people who are okay with it, who believe in and support that mentality.

The myth of Sita, for example. She is a strong female figure in Indian mythology, who overcomes her circumstances to live a ‘good’ life, and for all intents and purposes, is a hell of a role model.

But that’s the thing; her life wasn’t good, was it? She was supposed be a goddess reincarnated, she should have been powerful, and respected, but instead she is reduced to ‘wife’ – and everyone today is fine with it.

I respect her immensely for the choices she made; marrying for love was her choice, going into exile with her husband was her choice. She was the paragon of virtue, of 'wifeliness', of kindness – she chose her husband over everyone and everything else, including herself, as was expected of her. But yet – she couldn't win his trust or respect. It should not even have needed to be won.

It’s commendable the way she takes it all in stride, but why did she? She was kidnapped and held captive for years, entirely against her will, and her husband's response to that is to force her to walk through fire to prove her ‘purity’ – and she does it. And she stays with him after, and I cannot understand the depths of her patience and forgiveness, because I would have been livid, and I want her to be so too. I’m furious for her, because Ram was not just her husband, he was also the king, and his later verdict to exile her, alone, while heavily pregnant, his readiness to condemn her based on speculation and public sentiment, was not just a verdict against her, it was against every woman in his kingdom who had ever been victimised.

Sita became a martyr to the modern feminist movement – if she could not be angry on her own behalf, we will do it for her. But at the same time, she is still relatable, because we are held to a slightly lesser degree of the same expectations. There are always going to be aspects of things that you relate to. ‘Big Mood’ culture is a strong indicator of the human ability to empathise, especially with characters that you like, or respect.

Sita’s world, I imagine, was run by the expectations her society and community had of her, and maybe she didn’t even have the liberty to be angry. Who is responsible for portraying her in passive acceptance of her fate? Is that representation reliable? Would the story have been different had it been written by a woman?

I can't remember a time when I was not angry, especially about things like this. I am always ready to fight, and I think the same goes for so many other people today, sometimes to our detriment. I cannot imagine a world where that was not at the very least an option. Not necessarily the best option, - but Sita’s world was very different to ours. Even with centuries between us, we’ve just gotten over angry and depressed women being labelled as ‘hysterical’ and subsequently being locked away. What is it like, to have to be calm and careful in response to being treated like this? This care in response may not be an overt requirement anymore – though the fact remains that society will not take you seriously if you become hysterical - but shouldn't you, at the very least, be able to rely on the support of other people in the same boat?

That is the main difference in these stories, and another main point of relatability to me; Mae, like myself, had a support system. Sita did not. Mae was selfish and demanding in so many ways, and required a lot of time and patience and healing before she was able to give back, but she got there eventually because she was able to put herself first. She fought for herself, and when she couldn’t, she had other people to fight for her. Night in the Woods represents the intersection of oppressed minorities and community with their portrayal of Mae, Greg, and Angus in particular, and the importance of community support – and, the difference between geographical community, and communities formed through camaraderie and actual unity. And so does the Ramayana - except, where was Sita’s community? Where were her sisters, or her parents, when she was abandoned in the woods, and later when she committed suicide? We are well aware, in the modern day, of the state of mind that causes people to kill themselves, and yet that is a part of the story that we never talk about. Where were her people then?

What would have happened if she had been more like Mae, and put herself first instead of bleeding herself dry for people who never respected her, and would never do the same for her?

People relate to personalities. They relate to choices, and circumstances, and habits, and it is neither a good nor a bad thing, to be relatable or not. Sita will be highly relatable to people who, like her, were governed by their circumstances, and were screwed over despite their best efforts. People who felt they couldn’t, or shouldn’t exercise their power and agency. Sita’s death was at odds with her strong personality, and so was her deference to her fate on many occasions, but there are a lot of people out there who will relate to the feeling of simply wanting things to be over. Mae on the other hand; she’s a steamroller, and she doesn’t stop. There’s a reason her character is a cat, and jokingly referred to as feral in the game. She is persistent, she is growing.

[1] In Defence of Kaikeyi and Draupadi: a Note – by Fritz Blackwellhttps://www.jstor.org/stable/23334398?read-now=1&seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/

[sp-ud]

tubbo: plays dbh/sp, only gets warnings / Ranboo: shows interest in playing dbh/other games, gets FULL threads on why he shouldn't play those games (with misinfo sometimes...) / Tommy: makes one tweet on the C*nversiong Therapy topic, gets hate for not being educated enough / Tubbo: makes one tweet too, gets ''you tried, love you <3'' tweets // absolutely no hate to Tubbo, I'm just starting to see a pattern on mcyttwt's blatantly obvious difference of treatment on certain cc's...

anon you have a good point, but i think how you worded it is a bit off. you're focusing a bit too much on the odd amount of slack tubbo gets compared to the others when you should focus on the fact the other two are held to way higher standards.

because ranboo has shown the most vocal support and understanding towards his ND and/or LGBTQ+ community, people expect him to always be educated, to never fuck up, to be perfect, to accommodate every single need every single person in his audience has. but that's super unfair because ranboo is a person too.

for tommy, it seems like people assume he was raised with all the same knowledge as them. but he's a cishet white teenage boy who loves video games. it shouldn't come as a shock when he is uneducated, and we should be happy when he educates himself instead of shaming him for not knowing sooner.

why tubbo gets so much less than everyone else is likely related to just how infantilized he is, how he is seen as an 'accessory' to tommy or ranboo a lot of the time, and probably some ableism due to his dyslexia. hell, his dyslexia was why people were saying "he tried", he said conversation instead of conversion in his first tweet.

all of these are bad things the community needs to check themselves on, and focusing on only one of them is a disservice to the other twos.

[rae-is-typing]

kicked out

Description: You’re a part of the LGBTQ+ community, but your mother is a part of a religion that hates the LGBTQ+ community. You come out and she kicks you out. Tony helps. 

Characters: reader, reader’s mother, Tony Stark, mention of Peter Parker

Reader is gender neutral!

Warnings: homophobia, transphobia, general hate towards those in the LGBTQ+ community, intense bigotry, being kicked out, anxiety attack

Disclaimers: This one shot is not meant to be one about hating religion. This piece was loosely based on my own internal struggle with myself and the religion I was raised in. I’ve also never dealt with direct backlash because of my identity. I’m not out yet and I have no desire to be out yet. This is the worst case scenario I would be facing if I did come out.

I tried to make the religion and the identity as ambiguous as possible to make it a little more universal, but this one shot definitely points to the identity being gay, queer, bi, or pan, so I’m sorry I didn’t make it anymore neutral.

If you have a problem with this fic or the way it was written, I urge you to message me. We can have a conversation about where I went wrong and how I can learn from the experience and do better in the future.

Word count: 2k

The Avengers love you, plain and simple. How could they not grow to love the adorable teen they let into their unconventional family? (If Tony had his way, he would legally adopt you in a heartbeat.) Unfortunately for Tony, you had a mom. She was a pretty good one, she fed you, clothed you and supported you in most things you did. You moved to New York together when your father died. Your mother was also very religious. You were born and raised in the church your mother and father were raised in. You never had a problem with it; the people were amazing, the community was like a big family, you grew up with all the youth, and, most importantly, felt loved and safe. You rallied together against what they claimed to be of the devil. That included people in the LGBT+ community. When you grew up, you realized how you truly feel about people of your sex, and how you feel about people of the same sex. It started slowly. You began to accept that part of yourself when you met someone like you. He was nice, compassionate, accepting of others and helped everyone he could. He was one of the best people you’ve ever met. He was nothing like what you’re mother and religion told you LGBTQ+ people were like. What had really convinced you that the LGBTQ+ are real people was when one of your closest friends came out. You accepted them, they were not only in the same boat as you (not that you were ready to tell anyone), they were one of you. But not everyone thought so. You saw it whenever you went to church and they were at the meetings. It didn’t make sense to you. They were one of you, right? So they got a pass. Apparently not. You knew through the disappointed and judgemental eyes burning with disgust. It made you sick and only further solidified your resolve to stay in the closet. You soon learned it was easier said than done. Whenever you wanted to avoid the rallies, you chickened out and went, too afraid to disappoint your friends and mother. You always stuck to the standards and tried to be the perfect child your mother always wanted. It was exhausting. Admittedly, you saw the difference between your congregation, and the Avengers when you first met them. They were the first people you could truly be yourself with. As cheesy as it sounds, it was evident. They encouraged your individuality and loved you because of your personality and your abilities. 

You could talk to them, and you did. You told Peter first. He hugged you and told you that he’s bisexual and hasn’t come out to May yet. 

You told Tony about yourself a week later. He smiled at you, wrapped an arm around you and told you he was proud of you for discovering yourself and beginning to accept that part of you. It was something you didn’t expect, not that it wasn’t welcome. You were on top of the world for a couple weeks, thankful that some of the most important people in your life loved you still. But as of late, your thoughts about yourself have been killing your spirit. You were so tired of pretending. The toll it took on you was obvious to everyone that didn’t know you as the perfect sheep. The people that were worried the most were the Avengers. You were at the tower a lot more than usual, not that they were complaining. It was just odd. You hesitated when they asked you simple questions, spaced out a lot more, ate less and claimed you felt sick almost every other day. They’d share concerned glances and tried to talk with you, but you’d brush it off and used school, drama or headaches to excuse your strange behaviour. It worked- for a while. Then you stopped going to the tower completely. It wasn’t your fault. Your mother heard you say one positive thing about the LGBTQ+ community and freaked out. She went off saying that it was the Avengers corrupting you and that she never should have let you take the Stark internship in the first place, and so much more. You had never heard her yell so much in your life, it was terrifying. She stopped letting you go out, you were only allowed to go to School and Church, took away all forms of technology and outside communication. 

You were going crazy, there was no way you could keep living like this. So, you told her. You finally told her what you are, how you felt and why she shouldn’t make decisions for you when you were perfectly capable of making them yourself. You had waited a couple weeks, so you thought she’d be more level headed. But, you were wrong. She freaked out more than before. 

You knew for a fact that it was worse than before because she kicked you out.

You were shocked, confused and most of all hurt. You’re a part of the LGBTQ+ community, but she was still your mother. 

“What?” You asked, confusion lacing you voice. 

“You heard me, get out. Get out of my house.” Your mom stated firmly, disgust obvious in her voice. 

“You can’t do this, I’m your child!”

“Not anymore. You have until I get back, get you stuff and get out!” She shouted, walking out and slamming the door. 

You sat on the couch until her words sank in. Your mother is kicking you out.  

I’m homeless now. Where am I going to go? What am I going to tell my friends, what am I going to tell Peter? What am I going to tell Tony? What am I going to do? I can’t do it on my own. I can’t do it. I can’t… 

Your breathing sped up, your heart races, and waves of nausea hit you hard.

Nevertheless, you got up and searched for your phone. As soon as you found it, you eagerly dialled in his personal number and called. He didn’t answer. You wanted to cry, you tried again with no answer. You plugged in your phone, put your head in your hands and sobbed. 

Moments later, your phone rang. It was Tony. 

“Tony,” You breathed out. 

“Y/N! Where’ve you been, kid? It’s not as fun here without you.” His tone was light and relieved now that he could talk to you and make sure you’re okay.

“Tony, my mom, she- I- I wouldn’t have called if I had another option, I’m sorry, it’s just-”

“Whoa, hey, slow down and take a deep breath, Y/N.” His tone changed from fun to concerned in an instant. “What happened with your mom?”

“I-I told- I told her about me and that- that I- and she- Tony I can’t- she- I don’t-” You’re crying hard, unable to form coherent sentences and unable to breathe properly. 

“Y/N, where are you?” Tony asked.

“H-home.” 

“I’m coming over, stay on the line with me sweetheart, can you do that?”

“Ye-eah.”

As promised, you didn’t hang up until Tony was standing in front of you- Iron Man suit and all. He immediately pulled you in his arms when he got the suit off and began to calm you down.

“Can you tell me what happened now, kid?”

“She kicked me out.” You spoke into his chest. 

“She what?” Tony growled. How could a mother be so cruel? Anger flooded his veins, how could someone turn away from their child for simply being honest with themselves?

“I’m sorry, I wouldn’t have called you if I had any other option. Please don’t be mad, I’m so sorry.” You bury your face in his chest, wanting this day to be a bad dream. 

“It’s good you called me, Y/N. I’m not mad, not at you.” Tony held you in his arms, cradling your head against his chest and rubbing an arm up and down your back. There’s no hesitation, he knows that he needs to be there for you. “You’re staying with me.” 

“W-what?” 

“My dear, you are coming back to the tower. You will be sleeping, eating, doing your homework, socializing, and living with me and the rest of us at my tower. Okay?”

You can only nod, too overwhelmed to speak while clutching the back of Tony’s shirt like it was the only thing that was keeping you alive. He kept rubbing your back and letting you cry into his chest. Right now, his comfort doesn’t matter to him, not when his kid is crying in his arms.

It seems, though, that he’s the only one that heard the door begin to open. 

Tony grips your forearm and steps in front of you. Your mother opens the door with puffy red eyes and dried tears on her face. She looks genuinely sad for what she had to do, but that look of sadness dissipates when she sees Tony and you standing in her living room. 

“What are you doing here?” She hisses. “What is that doing here?" 

"Y/N, go to your room and pack what you want to take.” Tony’s voice is even and strong. You hesitate, tears still streaming down your face, fingers still clutching Tony’s clothes like you were a toddler hiding from another adult. “Y/N, now.”

You turn briskly, running down the small hallway and into your room. You lock the door, rip your suitcase from your closet and stuff all of your sentimental items first before your favorite clothes. 

Their voices are easily heard through the thin apartment walls. You hear Tony defending you and your mom berating you. 

“That thing is not my child. I did not raise a sinner!”

“Y/N is a human being with a name that you gave them. You are their mother, mothers are supposed to love their children, not throw them out like yesterday’s garbage.”

You’ve never heard Tony this angry. 

I shouldn’t have called him, he’s mad, she’s mad, I made her mad, she hates me she hates she hates me she hates me

You grabbed a pillow and cried in earnest into it, managing to cover your ears as well as your mouth to muffle your sobs and the voices coming through the walls.

A knock at your door makes you jump and hold your breath. 

“Y/N, it’s me. Are you ready to go?” Tony says. You can hear the anger that was in his voice, even if he’s trying to stay as calm as he can for you. 

“Yeah,” you croak, wiping your face. You grab the bag and open the door. Tony is shaking with fury, but he wraps an arm around you and walks you to the living room. Your mother says nothing to you as she sits on the couch with a prideful look on her face. “We’re flying back to the tower so I need you to hold on tightly and do not let go under any circumstances.” 

You nod at the instructions and Tony suits up. The quiet mechanical sounds are music to your ears. He places an arm on the middle of your back and hooks one under your knees. He hoists you up easily, the bag resting your chest and held tightly by you. 

Tony flies slower and lower than usual, keeping you in mind. You have one arm around his neck and the other holding the bag to your chest. He lands on a balcony to one of the top floors and carries you inside. Placing you on the ground with care, he holds your shoulders and assures himself you’re stable. He takes off the suit and walks you to a room. 

“You can stay here for now. I’ll talk with Pepper and the team about what happened. I’ll only tell them that you’re staying for awhile. You can tell them the other news when you’re ready.”

You nod. He closes the door and you sit on the bed, staring at the wall. 

A feeling of deep longing grows in your chest, along with feelings of rejection and pain. Your head drops to your hands and all you can do is cry.

[wolveria]

Blue Moon - Chapter 1

Pairing: Android werewolf!Nines x Reader

Summary: It was Halloween night when you stumbled across the android that looked more monster than machine. Damaged and alone, you didn't have the heart to leave him behind.

You'd always had a weakness for strays.

Prompt: Inspired by art!

Warnings: Rated E, eventual smut, Zlatko experimentation, monster romance

AO3

You pulled your coat closer in a useless attempt to ward off the cold. Winter had decided to make an appearance early this year as snow laid on the ground, and you lamented over the fact you’d chosen to walk home instead of take a taxi. The coffee shop was only a couple blocks away from your apartment, but it felt like a cross country trek as your breath billowed out of your mouth.

The wind rustled through the trees and you shuddered again. The park you’d taken a shortcut through was a good size, and you could no longer see the streetlights that signaled civilization was near.

Why had you decided to do this, again? And on Halloween night? Not that you believed in the paranormal or anything—

You dropped your nearly-empty coffee cup, the last drops spilled and forgotten on the footpath. A pair of glowing blue eyes stared out at you from the underbrush around the base of a tree.

Before you could think to scream, a low whine came from the bush. You placed your hand over your heart and let out a long breath, smiling faintly. It was just a dog, that was all. And the light from the full moon must be making its eyes glow like that. Yes, that’s all it was.

“It’s all right,” you said, offering your hand in what you hoped was a friendly manner, praying it didn’t have rabies. “Come here, boy.”

There was a low thudding noise accompanied by the brush moving. A sad, fluffy tail thumping against the ground.

You gave a sympathetic “awwww” and lightly patted your thighs, hoping to coax it out of its hiding place.

“You poor thing. Are you cold? I bet you’re hungry. Come here, sweetie, let’s get you some… food…”

Your voice trailed off as the glowing pair of blue eyes rose, higher and higher—definitely not at canine level—before it stepped out of the shadows.

It was huge, or at least seemed that way when you’d been expecting a large dog at most. Standing on two legs, it reached over six feet easily, not including the wolfish ears that stuck up from its head. With blue-black fur, sharp nails and a hint of teeth peeking out from its lips, you would have never guessed it was an android if not for the spinning yellow ring at its temple.

The android was also completely naked, not a stitch of clothing to be seen, and you quickly snapped your eyes back up to its face, face flushing at the sheer size of what you’d seen.

It—he took a hesitant step toward you, and if you’d had any of your senses left, you would have run. Android or not, you were fairly certain you were about to be murdered and eaten, and not necessarily in that order.

But your joints were locked, your limbs frozen, and all you could do was watch as the android bent down and wrapped a clawed hand carefully around your discarded coffee cup. Stepping directly in front of you, he slowly held the cup out, his ears laid flat as if afraid you were going to whack him with a rolled up newspaper.

You glanced from face to his outstretched hand. That was when you caught sight of the gash across his ribcage, the exposed internal circuits glittering in the dark.

You’d always had a soft spot for injured animals. And while he might not be an animal, per se, it was close enough that you gently took the coffee cup and gave him a soft thank you.

His ears perked and his tail wagged hopefully as he retracted his hand. He continued the slow wag of his tail as he stared at you expectantly. It took you a minute to realize what he was waiting for. He was, after all, an android, and a canine-like one at that.

He was waiting for orders.

“Are you lost?” you asked. Was he even programmed to talk? “Where do you live? Do you need help getting back home?”

You almost asked who his owner was, but it didn’t feel right. You suspected you’d made the right decision when the question had him folding his ears back, his floofy tail dipping towards the ground.

“Uh, that’s okay.” You tried you best at a soothing smile. “The police station isn’t far from here. I can take you there—“

It was precisely the wrong thing to say; his LED went red and he winced as if you’d slapped him. You weren’t at all prepared for him to open his mouth, and a raspy, rough voice to come out.

“No. Please. Not there.”

You gawked up at him, hardly believing what you’d heard with your own ears, but the android could definitely talk. As strange as he looked, he was capable of communicating his wants.

…and you’d heard rumors about the kinds of androids that wanted.

Carefully you glanced around, but no one else had come across the two of you. It was lucky it was Halloween when most people would be trick-or-treating or handing out candy; the last thing you needed was to be caught in the middle of the night, in a park, with a strange, naked android.

“Okay. No police station.” You rubbed at your arms as you glanced him over, immediately regretting it as your sight dipped below his belly button. Looking away resolutely, you offered, “Why don’t you come back to my place, just for tonight? Get you some clothes and then… we can have a talk.”

Finally, you had said the right thing. His ears went all perky and his tail wagged its fastest yet, but most of all, his LED went blue for the first time. It was the same shade as his glowing eyes.

You gulped. This was such a fucking bad idea.

“I would like that,” he said, voice all soft and gentle. And just like that, you were a goner. No turning back now.

“Come on,” you sighed, stepping around him to continue in the direction of your apartment. It was a bit silly still hanging onto the empty coffee cup, but all you could focus on was the near-silent footfalls behind you as you tried to come up with the best way to sneak a naked android werewolf into your apartment.

***

As it turned out, dealing with the android was a lot less surreal when he had clothes on, even if it was a pair of sweatpants and a tight sweater that barely fit him. You’d have to order some clothes for him tomorrow

If he even wanted to hang around that long. You were under no illusion that if he wanted to leave, you wouldn’t be able to stop him, but for now he seemed content to stay.

The android was currently standing in your living room, fussing with the hem of the sweater that barely covered his waistline. You covered your mouth with your fingers in a poor attempt to hide a smile. Now that you were confident he wasn’t going to eat you, the android was actually quite adorable. You’d even cut out a hole in the back of the pants for him to pull his tail through.

You plopped down onto the couch and padded the cushion next to you. It had been a long time since you’d had a houseguest, and it said a lot about your state of loneliness that you were excited over having a strange android for company.

Said android stared at you for a moment before perching, quite primly, at the other end of the couch. The fact he had to move his tail out of the way before he sat down ruined the composed image he was trying to convey.

He really was very odd, and not just because of all the wolfy bits. This android seemed very much alive, a fact that should have had you picking up the phone to call the authorities. But… you didn’t.

Instead, you bombarded him with questions. What was his name? Where did he come from? Was he a custom model? How had he been injured? The wound looked ghastly, but he hardly noticed it. You made a mental note to add Thirium and android chassis repair sealant to the shopping list. You’d never owned an android before, but you’d always been fascinated with them and knew the basics of what they needed.

“RK900,” was his answer to your first question. He skipped over to the third. “I am… I was a prototype created by CyberLife to assist law enforcement. It would be safer for you if I said nothing further.”

Unable to imagine an android like this working with the police, you guessed he’d looked different, before. More like a standard android instead of one so altered he was nearly unrecognizable.

“Okay, I won’t pry,” you said, amassing all your willpower not to assault him with more questions, the biggest one being why do you look like something out of my deepest, darkest, most shameful wetdream? Yes, you were definitely not venturing into that territory.

Your next question was caught on a yawn, and you looked away as your face grew warm. He was just an android, why were you being so self-conscious about every little thing you did?

It could have been the way he’d watched you ever since you’d stumbled across him in the bushes: laser-like focus that never broke. It didn’t help that the sclera of his eyes were black, making the blue stand out even more.

Also, he didn’t blink. Like, ever.

“I’m gonna head to bed.” You thumbed over your shoulder toward the hallway. “Will you be all right out here? Do you need anything?”

“Yes,” he said. “And no.”

You were picking up on his mannerisms very quickly. He over-enunciated and spoke with perfect grammar. It was in direct contrast to the way his sharp nails toyed with the sweater, or the way his ears would swivel at sounds you barely noticed. At some points in the conversation, he would tilt his head at you in a way that was so dog-like, you had to keep fighting down the smiles. You’d definitely never met an android like this one before, even if he had looked perfectly human.

“I will be fine,” the RK900 added when you continued to stare. “I will rest and repair. I have neglected to enter stasis mode for… quite some time now.”

His eyes dropped to the carpet, demeanor evasive and uncomfortable. It took everything you had not to reach out and pet him on the head.

“I shouldn’t intrude in your personal space. I will be gone in the morning.”

And then you did reach out, placing your hand on his arm. He was solid and surprisingly warm under the fabric of the sweater.

He stared at your hand for a moment before slowly lifting his head to meet your eye. His expression was so… sad. You had no doubt it was authentic, and that you were right about what he was.

“Please, you don’t have to go.” Your voice was soft, ensuring it was a suggestion and not a command. “You’re more than welcome to stay. I want to help you. Will you let me do that?”

The ring on his temple was a solid yellow and you nearly pulled your hand back, but then it went blue and he gave a small nod. You sighed with relief and gave him a gentle pat before letting him go.

“Thank you.” You rose to your feet, stretching to get the kinks out of your shoulders. It was stressful bringing a wayward android home. “I’m just down the hall if you need me. See you in the morning.”

Before you made it to the hallway, you paused and half-turned.

“Do you have a name?”

He blinked up at your question.

“I mean, I know RK900 is your model number, but… you have a name, don’t you?”

His ears drooped. You were learning they were a better indicator of his thoughts than the color of his LED.

“No. CyberLife never gave me one.”

Of course they wouldn’t, you thought, not the first time you’d unhappy with the way androids were treated. CyberLife was by far the worst. Why would they care about any of their merchandise?

“Well, maybe you can come up with one.” You hoped he understood the things you weren’t saying aloud, that you understood what he really was beneath the strange exterior.

His ears perked up and his expression softened.

“That… would be nice.”

Before you could say anything to embarrass yourself, or worse, run over to him and give him a hug, you excused yourself to get ready for bed. Already your mind was going through a checklist of all the things you’d need to care for an android in the long-run, and that was being optimistic. The RK900 could still change his mind. There was still so much you didn’t know.

It wasn’t until you shut off the lights and stared at the ceiling that the implications of your actions truly hit you. You’d seen the news reports, read the independent websites that couldn’t be suppressed by CyberLife. There were androids out there, said to be “lethally malfunctioning,” that were disobeying and turning on their humans.

One of the most common signs to watch out for was mimicry of human emotions. Anger, was the main one, but there was also fear. And that was something you’d seen a lot of tonight shining out of the RK900’s eyes.

You weren’t just harboring an android that looked like a werewolf.

You were sheltering a deviant.

[kumeko]

Prompt: Iskander/Waver, slice of life, domestic

A/N: For the @fateverse-exchange for @t1mco! I love these two and hope you like the fic!

…

…

…

…

There were certain communal standards in life. Despite not being a very social person, even Waver understood that much. He got up when an old lady got on the bus, he held the door for whoever came after him, and if there was a line, he stood at the back of it like any other decently raised human being.

 “Why would we wait?” Iskander asked, his thick brow furrowing with confusion as they stood near the back of the game store building.

 Unfortunately, Waver wasn’t dealing with a decently raised human, he was dealing with a Servant. A Servant who never obeyed like a servant, but instead ruled over his master and everyone else like he was still King, like they were in Macedonia and he was still conquering the world. As usual, he was wearing a ridiculous, utterly trashy game t-shirt. They had too many freebies like that these days; once Iskander had discovered the world of pre-orders, Waver started counting his savings by whatever spare coins he happened to have.

 Rubbing his forehead, Waver gestured at the line that wound around the corner ahead of them. “We have to wait for our turn.”

“Our turn is now.” Iskander snorted, amused. He always sounded like that whenever Waver mentioned a rule, as though it meant nothing to him. Maybe it didn’t—he was a Servant, after all. Anything he did would just end up as Waver’s problem. It always did.  

 “It isn’t.” Waver could just feel a headache coming. No matter how he pressed his fingers into his skull, the dull ache only grew. The sun didn’t help; it was an utterly hot day and sweat beaded on his skin. “The person at the front of the line can go in. They waited all night for this.”

 “And I waited all week.” Iskander laughed, patting Waver on the back. It was a sign something terrible was about to happen.

 “You didn’t wait out here all week,” Waver replied as patiently as he could. “You just learned about the game last week.”

 Iskander wasn’t listening already. “We just need to stand at the front of the line.”

 He nodded. “Yes—no!”

 It was too late. Iskander, in all his ridiculously tall height, left their spot, walked around the corner, and disappeared. Waver groaned before jogging after him. He should be surprised by now. It happened every time.

 He was just never ready for it, somehow.

 As he turned the corner, Waver spotted Iskander stepping in front of the head of a line, an exhausted teen who was blearily looking at his phone.

 “You can’t do that,” he protested, looking up. The bags under his eyes were almost black and Waver hoped that was only from this one-night wait and not doing this every day.

 “I can’t?” Iskander raised a brow.

 The teen squeaked, finally realizing just who stood in front of him. As a foreigner, Iskander already had an imposing air with his fiery red hair and chiseled face. Add in his overly bulky frame and his monstrous height? There was no one in Japan who could face him without cowering.

 Well, maybe the military or some hotshot punks. Waver secretly prayed that they didn’t have to deal with that before the war ended; there was no way he could handle that type of stress on top of everything else.

 Terrified, the teen shrank back, shaking his head. “It’s…fine…” he mumbled. “Go ahead.”

 “Good lad.” Iskander patted him on his back. Each hit sounded like a cannon going off. Noticing Waver still watching, he gestured impatiently. “Come on!”

 The line looked at him. Waver ducked his head slightly as he quickly hurried to Iskander’s side. Maybe he should start wearing disguises when they went out together. “That’s not how lines work.”

 As usual, Iskander didn’t listen. Instead, he wrapped an arm around Waver’s back, forcing him forward and into the building. He didn’t know how waiting worked either. Waver groaned; he could never return to this place again.

 “There is the game!” Iskander grinned as he made a beeline to the new arrivals display. Sitting on it was Admirable Tactics Five: The Hope of Fight Pilot Sophia. The case looked silly in his big hands, but he was oddly gentle. “And there are so many of it!”

 “That’s how companies make their money.” Waver tried not to laugh at his shocked expression. Sometimes it was easy to forget that he’d come from the past, what with all the knowledge the grail gave him. Yet, at times like these, it was all too obvious that this wasn’t his home. “They sell as many copies as possible.”

 “Even our libraries could not produce so many tomes.” Iskander glanced around, noticing the shelves of different games now. “Are these all games?”

 “Yes…” Waver trailed off, immediately guessing just where this was heading. In many ways, Iskander was like a child: extremely straightforward and honest about his desires. “We’re only here for Admirable Tactics.”

 Humming to himself, Iskander shifted through the shelves, picking up every genre from rpgs to first person shooters. Either he hadn’t heard Waver or he didn’t care. The end result would be the same.

 “Fine but limit yourself to like three.” Hunching over slightly, Waver followed, looking idly at the latest releases. There was a new Tales of, though it was still in pre-orders only. Next to it was the latest Fire Emblem. And beside it—

 Waver looked down and groaned. Just when had he grabbed all of those cases? It was supposed to be just one, maybe two, and now he had like twenty in his arms. There was absolutely no way he could buy that many, let alone even have time to play them all.

 Maybe he shouldn’t have chided Iskander earlier. Clearly, his self-control was just as bad or worse. Discretely, he dumped the pile into a basket and scurried away before an angry employee noticed just how much work he’d left them. Looking up, he scanned the rows for his Servant. “Iskander?”

  Luckily, it was impossible for Iskander to hide his big frame. Even when he bent over, he was still a head above the racks. “Waver! We will also get this!”

 “What did you pick?” Coming closer, Waver swiped the game out of his hands. “Steamy hotsprings—”

 Immediately, he flushed a bright red and dropped the case like it was cursed. “What—that—what are you trying to play, you idiot?” he screeched.

 Iskander furrowed his brow, staring at the fallen case. “A game.” Clicking his tongue, he picked up another one. “Try not to drop this one.”

 Waver stepped back, refusing to touch the thing. The clerk was looking at them funny and he lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you know what that game is?”

 “Of course.” Iskander looked at him pityingly. Pointing at the cover (graced with several busty women that Waver was certain couldn’t be anatomically correct), he explained slowly, “This is game where you conquer people! What better game is there for a king?” He guffawed. “Truly, there is a game for everything!”

 “Conquering…people…” Waver tried not to stumble back. “You’re not wrong…but you’re not right either…” What if any of his associates found out he had bought that game? What if they found the case in his things in a few months? At least with the other games he could claim he was practicing tactics or something, but a harem game?

 A hentai harem game?

 “No, we’re not buying it.” Waver stomped his foot. He probably looked as intimidating as a rabbit, but he glared at Iskander. “We’re not getting that or any like that.”

 “Hmm?” Iskander cocked his head in one direction, then the other. After stroking his chin a few times, he grinned, and Waver knew that whatever inane idea had entered his mind was utterly wrong. Chuckling, he reached forward and ruffled Waver’s short hair. “There is no need to feel jealous.”

 “Jealous?” he squawked, his arms hanging limply at his side as his hair started to resemble a porcupine from all the rubbing.

 “I am only conquering them.” Iskander winked. “You are more than a trophy.”

 “I—that’s…” Waver clawed the air, unable to find the words to explain exactly how un-jealous he was, how fine he was with the whole thing, and what did Iskander even mean by trophy?

 Iskander added, smirking, “Our bond is deeper than that.”

 From the corner of his eyes, Waver spotted the curious cashiers leaning closer, trying to listen in on the conversation. If he let this last longer than it already had, the entire town would know. If they didn’t already know. Iskander was loud and unashamed and Waver wouldn’t be surprised to hear he had told every person he’d met.

 “Fine!” Waver growled, swiping the stupid case and marching to the counter. “We’ll get that and nothing else.”

 “I knew you’d like it!” Iskander patted him on the back again.

 “I do not—” Forcing himself to take a deep breath, he cut himself off. There was no point in arguing with Iskander. He had learned that already. Slamming the case on the counter, he barked, “I’ll buy these two.”

 A middle-aged woman, she blinked in surprise before nodding. “Would you like—”

 “No!” He scowled, daring her to ask another question.

 Fortunately, she picked up his irritation. “Okay, no insurance then, no points card—”

 “That…” Sheepishly, he slid his points card on the counter. “I have that.”

 She gave him a look before accepting it. “Alright then.”

 When she picked up the harem game, she didn’t react. Perhaps because she worked here, selling it in the first place. That didn’t stop him from flushing either way, his neck and ears warm as he imagined what she was thinking. Fortunately, the transaction was quick.  He slid the money over while his dignity was still somewhat intact.

 Handing over the bag, she bowed. “Have a good day.”

 “You too,” he mumbled, clutching the bag to his chest as he slowly inched away. The plastic felt thick. Maybe no one would notice what was inside. His head bumped into Iskander’s chest and he froze.

 “You make a cute couple,” she added as she waved.

 “Couple?!” Waver jerked his head up, not sure if he heard right.

 “A handsome couple,” Iskander corrected, wrapping an arm around Waver and pulling him close.

 Part of him was pleased. A bigger part of him flushed a bright red and he cried, “But we’ve only started dating!”

 “And?” Iskander looked down, confused.

 “It’s…it’s too soon…” Waver flushed before sprinting out. Between this and the stupid game, he couldn’t handle anymore of this.

[jcmorrigan]

Do you support anti-harassment and pro-shipping?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: This is an issue I’ve been monitoring and grappling with for a long time, and I feel like while my core philosophy has been the same for a while now, the nuances I’ve held shift every so often. I don’t identify as an anti. I just don’t. I think shipping things - be it incest, adult/minor, or one of the many flavors of abusive - is an ENTIRELY separate issue from wanting to do that IRL. I think sometimes people just want to write taboo topics for various reasons. Because the topics themselves are taboo and that’s interesting, because they offer methods of coping, even because some people are kinda into projecting upon the person on the losing end of the power dynamic and being dominated and kicked around, since that’s not something you should really chase in real life (unless it’s during a roleplay with a network of safewords).

There are many ships I think are gross, but I don’t want people to stop shipping them because I don’t like them. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 13 with anyone over 18. I don’t like ships that involve anyone under 18 with anyone over 30. (Aging up is a whole different matter; if you write the younger character older and legitimately have them behave the way you think they would as an adult, it’s all good.) I REALLY don’t like ships where a character is either confirmed homosexual or only shown onscreen to be attracted to the same gender in a big-deal reveal sort of way (if the character has crushes on many genders or the creator uses Word of God to say they’re bi/pan, it’s fine) and the ship involves putting them with someone of the opposite gender (shipping them with enbies is fine). And no, I don’t think it’s a double standard that I sometimes like to do same-sex ships for characters who are coded very very straight. But this is all to do with my tastes and beliefs, not with what I think the rest of you all should do. If you like something that falls in my personal no-no category, then go ahead and do it. I’ll decide how much I want to interact with you, and that says more about our potential chemistry as a unit than it does about you as a person. And if you have boundaries yourself - if age-gap ships skeeve you out - then that doesn’t make you a bad person or even an anti! Just block as needed, talk to friends if you feel betrayed by them, and recognize what it is you don’t like and that you don’t have to like it.

Selfshipping? Do what you want. Again, I might personally have reservations about shipping with somebody too young (I actually perceived my own main f/o as in his twenties when I first watched his source, then saw Word of God say he was NINETEEN actually, even though that invalidates many many jokes about how he’s bad at adulting, so I just said “fuck it” and he’s at least 24 to me because that makes more sense and is more of my comfort zone). But what I like shouldn’t dictate what YOU do. I might give you a little side-eye if you’re shipping with somebody young, but I don’t know your reasons for doing so and I don’t have the right to judge. I might distance myself from certain situations if I’m feeling skeeved out. Or I might not feel skeeved out depending on how it’s handled. I also again would raise a brow if you’re selfshipping with an opposite-gender gay character, but same principle: you have your reasons, you shouldn’t stop because some rando (me) has an issue with your ship, and if I have a problem with how you handle it, I’ll just peace out on my end and not make a deal out of it.

A lot of this comes from the fact that I have mega OCD and I already try to moralize everything I do and hyper-analyze my choices to make sure I am being a Good Person. If I try to follow the “rules” to make my ships palatable to everyone, then I start worrying that any deviation makes me unforgivable. The vast majority of ships in my deck are squeaky-clean and have no problems, but sometimes I’ll get, like...Ventus/Papyrus, where Ven is 15, and Papyrus is in age limbo but I always thought he was at least 18, and then I don’t want to spiral into a moral crisis because I really think it would be cute to put the anime boy with the skeleton and I think they’re both asexual anyway. Or when I aged up Zevon from Descendants in order to make him make more sense as Yzma’s son, and then I had to give him a ship with an adult and I found one I really like (Kamdor from Power Rangers). And this is not even scratching the very complex issue of “The writers of this piece of fiction were ACTUALLY horny for incest and I can see the subtext for it and now I gotta figure out what to do with this mess because I like the series and I do want the characters to have partners who will treat them right.”

That said...up until recently, I looked up to the more extreme proship community, even so far as to kinda be more of an “anti-anti.” But as time went on, that...didn’t seem to fit. I’ve unfollowed a few of those blogs now because first of all, proshipping as a “political party” seems to come with some things I don’t believe in, such as forming a parasocial relationship with AO3 or saying that freedom of fans to ship what they want means the creators of mainstream media should be allowed to portray whatever they want and that being “critical of media you consume” is an automatic dogwhistle for bullies. More importantly: I have at least one friend who I know leans more anti, and I value her a lot and I think it’s valid for her to have her boundaries. After a while, the things that anti-antis did to protect themselves from bullying started to feel a little bit like bullying right back. I can’t really call myself a traditional proshipper anymore, even though I’m definitely not an anti. But I don’t want to be an “anti-anti” either. Because actually, I USED to be an anti on a different social media platform long before Tumblr, and though I can’t tell you exactly why I was that way, I can understand what it’s like to feel that strongly about things that gross you out and want to get them out of your face. I don’t want to say I’m against a whole bunch of people who are probably as varied in intensity as proshippers are.

At the end of the day, what I want is for us all to CHILL OUT. Can we please, PLEASE just focus on having fun in whatever way that comes - problematic ships or no - so long as people IRL aren’t getting hurt? Can we respect that there are probably a LOT of people with OCD on social media who spiral easily if shamed too much (which is probably how the anti movement rose in the first place - I’m sure my anti phase was fueled by my secular scrupulosity)? Can we not assume that people who ship weird age gaps are Actual Pedophiles, which is an entirely separate issue? (Listen...I grew up in the Age of AkuRoku. I hated AkuRoku. But if all the AkuRoku shippers turned out to be pedos, well, the news sure didn’t cover it. I’m saying the majority of them didn’t. And it’s been a decade.) Can we not spread the fear of being cancelled or that having a certain fictional preference will ruin a budding friendship? Can we communicate with one another in private if a friend says or does something that makes you uncomfortable, such as shipping something that makes you question their moral stance? Can actual legitimate creators of media not take sides in the goddamn pro/anti war, thereby making groups of their fans feel alienated from being welcomed by the source? Can we just have fun PLEASE?

Also, just...stop fighting about Reylo. That’s the dumbest thing to fight over and we managed to somehow get the actual SW crew in on that dumbass fight. Some people like Reylo and some people hate Reylo and THAT’S IT. WE’RE DONE HERE.

It sure says something that I worry, before hitting the Post button, that this might ruin some of the relationships I have or inspire a mass exodus of the followers whose names I come to like seeing in my notifications. But it’s ultimately better for all of us if I’m honest.

[alittlebitgoofy]

hihi for the au/trope/prompt game !!! au 1, trope 1 and prompt 5/24 (either or both!! im indecisive lol) <33 OH and lemyanka ofc did u expect anything different from me

HI, so ik this took a while (the other ones will but i will get them all done i s2g) but i got a bit too into this one so here it is and it’s like 1.4k :)

1. roommate!au 1. friends to lovers  24. “you have the emotional capacity of a brick”

Priyanka was conflicted, she adored her best friend but Lemon wasn't the one you went to for emotional consoling. She could provide one hell of a distraction but she wasn’t good with her own emotions, let alone someone else’s. She could listen but couldn’t help the lack of emotive energy she had a lot of the time. 

“Girl, something is clearly bothering you, you can talk to me.” The concern on the blonde’s face was appreciated, no matter how little she could do to help the situation. How do you explain to the person trying to console you that they’re the problem?

“Lem, I love you but I’m not coming to you for advice, you have the emotional capacity of a brick.”

“Bitch! Fuck, Priyanka, I just don’t like seeing someone I care about unhappy, is it bad to try and help you?” The genuine hurt in her voice shook the brunette. It wasn’t like Lemon to get so riled up over a joke but maybe now wasn’t the most appropriate time. She let out a dejected sigh, attention falling to her lap as she tried to avoid the prying eyes of her roommate. 

“I’m sorry.” The meekness made Lemon do a double-take, even when she was upset, Priyanka would have some kind of witty response to most things. Even when they squabbled, she rarely submitted with such sadness. Something was truly wrong.

“It’s fine Pri, just talk to me, doll, even if you don’t want to talk I just wanna help you feel better.”

Priyanka left the thoughts of the clear care and concern lemon had for her aside, with her feelings they’d easily get misread as romantic. That was impossible, lemon rarely held more than a slight crush on someone before getting bored as they never fit her standards. 

“Alright, there’s this girl. But there’s nothing I can do about it, she’s not into me.” the immediate interest lemon showed hurt, Priyanka sighed inwardly, this was going to be a long conversation. 

 “Have you asked her?”

 “No? Who asks people, you flirt, and if they don’t flirt back to go and cry yourself to sleep because you know you’ll never find love.”

Lemon looked even more concerned, it sent Priyanka through a loop to see such compassion on her face. There was no trying to hide it, just some sort of love and care for her that made her broken heart feel that much better. 

“Maybe she’s just dumb,” Lemon said with a soft giggle, the kind of noise that would melt anyone’s heart and sent Priyanka into orbit any time it came out of her. 

“Oh, she is, the stupidest person I know. But I love her, and I'm too scared to say anything and ruin our friendship”  

“It’s not good to bottle up your feelings, you keep quiet about it so long and you just want to die every time they go on a date or get their heartbroken, but you can’t say anything or give it away because it’s been so long. It’s scary Pri, but don’t let yourself get to that position. You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

That was a lot, Lemon realised how much she’d spilt but couldn’t find the energy to hold up her walls. She trusted Priyanka more than anyone, how much was it to let her know about her long-running crush that she had no intention of acting upon and fuck up her one good relationship with a person that wasn’t her dog. 

 “Lem, why don’t you try? If you feel that strongly about someone, surely it’s worth trying?” 

 Lemon scoffed at Priyanka’s romanticism, life wasn’t like a romcom. People didn’t fall in love with their best friends and live happily ever after, they suffered from the burden of loving someone who crushed on someone new each week and came back to them heartbroken. There was a reason she couldn’t deal well with emotions, she was scared to show them.

 “She doesn’t like me like that, it’s painfully obvious cause she likes someone else.”

 “You’ll never know if you don’t try.”

 “I actually hate you, oh my god!.”  Twisting her words was a low move but it wasn’t surprising. Priyanka was just like that and as annoying as it could be it was one of Lemon’s favourite things. She always had a quick wit to bounce something back. It made arguments a nightmare, she’d pick up on any contradiction but it was hilarious in the right context. 

“You love me, who wouldn’t” Though she’d glanced away, lemon would hear the smirk in Priyanka's words. She wanted to rub the smug look off her face, it was infuriatingly adorable when she got all cocky about her appeal 

 “Most people.”

 “Bitch! You’re lucky you’re cute, cause you’re an ass.” the brunette laughed at the deadpan delivery. Lemon loved to fight back with her lack of emotion and it never failed to get a laugh. 

“I’ve got a nice ass thanks for noticing, doll.” The pair erupted in giggles at the absurdity of it all, the spilling of emotions before falling back into the comfort of their jokes. It felt good to be understood by someone, but they both yearned for something more while thinking the other was yearning for someone else.

Priyanka convinced Lemon into laying close to her as they both chilled, looking on their phones, comfortable in the company of each other. It took her by surprise when the smaller girl cuddled into her. Affection was rare from Lemon, it made her heart pound in her chest as she continued to lay her head onto her shoulder and latch her arms around the closest arm. 

Priyanka couldn’t help beginning to stroke her hair, she started slowly attempting to gauge the reaction from her before continuing as Lemon relaxed into the touch. She let out a soft sigh, completely letting Priyanka be as affectionate as she wanted. 

Lemon felt her fear melting as they stayed like that. She wished she had the courage to speak up about her feelings but the words eluded her. Something about now felt like the right time if ever. Courage slowly bubbled up, leaving lemon dead silent in the arms of her roommate wishing she could telepathically communicate her feelings and avoid this whole headache.

“Hey, Pri?” Lemon whispered, turning her head to face her friend with an apprehensive look. It would normally be enough to worry Priyanka but something felt serious about this like she shouldn’t interrupt. Lemon glanced around, attempting to avoid the problem of speaking despite having started the conversation herself.

“I just…” She trailed off, wondering if she could even say it. Was it worth it? For a chance with Priyanka, she had to try. “I love you, Pri. I’m glad you’re in my life.” 

She wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but earnest words of appreciation from Lemon wasn’t it. The feeling it brought her was euphoric though. It warmed the brunette to her core to know that her best friend liked her that much. Lemon wasn’t one for soft sappy moments, she showed her affection through playful banter and the occasional compliment. Something was different, she meant everything so clearly with her heart that it made Priyanka question if she could just kiss her right there.

“I love you too Lem, you have no idea how much.” Though it sounded innocent, she didn’t know how much

She didn’t know how Priyanka spent nights on end thinking about Lemon lying next to her, making snide comments about the most random things to get a laugh out of her. She didn’t know how every heartbreak fades quicker around her, how the feelings for her were the cure for anyone else. She was why dates failed. They weren’t Lemon, and that was all she wanted. 

Their eyes met, wordlessly exchanging affections with soft smiles. Priyanka couldn’t help but lean ever so much closer, Lemon soon mirroring her action. Was this about to happen? Was Lemon aware of what she was doing? Before she could overthink too much more, their lips met. It was as soft as she thought Lemon would be. Though neither wanted to end, they had to break apart for air soon enough. It took one soft, dopey grin from Priyanka to send the blonde’s heart fluttering in her chest.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

[revengeoftheantichrist]

Seven Devils

Warnings: Catholic convent, Priests gone wild

AO3

Day 1

You looked over the wasteland that was now the world.

This was all your fault. You had caused this. You blamed yourself.

You thought back at what had led to this.

7 days.

It had taken 7 days for your curiosity to cause the end of the world.

“Why do you cry for the world? You gave into the temptation. The blood of 7 billion people is on your hands angel,” the blond man taunted.

You ignored him and continued to observe the landscape in front of you, thinking back to that week last summer.

////

When the sisters at your catholic school had announced that they would take a few girls to mainland Europe to spend a summer in a convent, you scoffed at the idea and threw away the letter. Turns out your parents get emails and had signed you up; you were not very happy about that decision.

So here you were, in the middle of fuckass nowhere, standing outside the Convent of Saint Y/N. The entire bus journey here was spent with your friends laughing at the fact you shared a name with this saint. As Sister Ruth was debriefing you all on behaviour standards and things of the sort, you turned to your friend Claire, “Actually, if I was a saint this is exactly what I’d want my convent to look like, it’s kinda sexy.”

“I hope the inside is sexier, I love a bit of stained glass,” Claire replied.

Sister Ruth interrupted your conversation, “Miss Y/N and Miss Claire! I can hear you both giggling while I’m giving you important instructions. The pair of you better behave yourselves, I do NOT want a repeat of Lourdes!”

The pair of you bit back a giggle as you remember the fun you both had last year, tormenting Sister Ruth and getting drunk when you shouldn’t have been. “good times man,” Claire said, as you made your way inside.

The interior of the convent was just as remarkable as the outside. High arches, colourful stained glass and columns carved with intricate patterns. You were greeted by the Mother Superior of the Convent. “Good afternoon ladies, I’m Sister Frances and welcome to the Convent of Saint Y/N. We have a lot of activities for you to get involved in this summer. For now, I’ll take you through to your rooms.”

You all followed quietly, taking in your surroundings. As you walked through the cloisters, you noticed a tree in the centre of the courtyard. It seemed to be growing both apples and pomegranates, as a gardener yourself, you knew it was impossible.

Mother Superior stopped at the tree, “Girls I must tell you about this tree and its importance. This tree is one of St. Y/Ns miracles. It somehow grows both pomegranates and apples. The tree was the only thing that remained after the great fire, and St. Y/Ns martyred body was found underneath it. It has been untouched since. Eating the fruit from this tree is forbidden, it is poisonous, and I fear we may not get you help in time; we do not want any deaths here.”

How ironic, forbidden fruit in a convent.

As you walked towards the dorms, you swore you heard a heartbeat coming from the tree. As if it were alive, or something was trying to break out.

The first day had left you with a strange feeling, as if you had been here before and were forgetting something. Your deja-vu had never been this bad before. You closed your eyes and tried to sleep, the sound of a heartbeat lulling you to sleep.

////

Sister Maria Y/N did not like change. She hated it. All the worst things in her life happened because of change.

Her mother got married and everything changed for the worst; her stepfather being a more pig than man.

Her mother died and everything changed; her stepfather accused her of being a witch, forcing Y/N to flee and seek refuge in the convent, becoming a nun to earn her keep.

This wasn’t her plan in life. But peasant girls didn’t have many options. Sisterhood was better than being married young and constantly with child. She learned to read and write, something the women in her family never did. She would spend the rest of her life without the company of a man, but she was never too fussed, no one was worth changing her rigid routine for.

The biggest and worst change of Sister Y/Ns life would come in the form of the new Monseigneur. Father Thomas had died of old age, the man had dedicated his life to God, and it was finally time for him to reap his rewards in the afterlife. Everyone was curious as to who would take over. Father Thomas had had the job for a long time.  

The new Monseigneur came in the form of Father Michael Langdon. Angelic in both name and appearance. He was the total opposite to Father Thomas. Michael was a lot younger and a lot more guarded. He wasn’t one for community work; you wouldn’t see him give direct aid to the poor nor would he be seen in the community gardens that were ran by the convent. He was only ever seen with the sick to give them their final rites, never to pray for the living. Father Thomas took his vow of poverty seriously, the man died with very little to his name, only the clothes on his back and the rosary in his hand. Michael’s hands however, were adorned with jewels that glimmered in the church candlelight. He was draped in fineries that were far too expensive for a man of the cloth.

She remembered her first sermon with him. His honey like voice had the room in a trance. The way he moved his hands to illustrate his points was almost sinful, as if he was the conductor and the parishioners were just instruments for him to play. People held on to every word that came out of his mouth. Church attendance had never been that high.

There was something off about him. Sister Y/N didn’t like the way he looked at her; he always seemed to be watching her. His fingers lingered far too long when he placed the communion wafer on her tongue. He loomed over her during her daily prayers, his exotic perfume from the east almost distracting her from her duty.

She thought she figured out what type of man he was when she saw the widow leave his quarters one night. Her dishevelled state indicating what had gone on. Sister Y/N wondered who her children were with. Father Langdon made eye contact with Sister Y/N as he was shutting the door. He brought his finger to his lips in a ‘sush’ motion and winked, smirking at her. She was at a loss for words, standing there wide eyed as he clicked the door shut. She put her head down and made her way to the chapel, hoping that God would give an answer to the question she didn’t know she was asking. But Sister Y/N was naïve, God had abandoned her long ago. She had devoted herself to an entity that did not care for her. The prayers of the righteous would not save her from the fate that was to come. Sister Y/N did not know this that night, but Father Langdon was a worse man that she thought he was.

Next>>>

[the-awkward-outlaw]

Hello! Can you do something with a very (VERY) clingy Arthur and a female reader. Modern times. Like she could be doing things and he calls a lot or texts a lot. But he does it outta love and cuz he’s scared of losing her

You’ve been in a relationship with Arthur for nearly a year. He works on a ranch only about thirty minutes out of the city you live in. There’s something incredibly refreshing about dating a rancher. Perhaps it’s the fact that he doesn’t live in the city, or that he retains a certain sense of masculinity that you find attractive. It’s not toxic luckily and Arthur’s always held a respect for you and other women, but he still holds himself to a certain standard. Plus he looks super good in his rugged clothes, worn out by years of use and faded by long hours in the sun. 

Every weekend, you’ll go and stay at his place. He offered to switch with you every other weekend to stay in your apartment, but you need the break from the crowded city and the rude people who live there. His ranch, nestled in a bowl made by mountains and cradled in a forest, is exactly the kind of release you need every week, even in the bitter cold winters. He doesn’t mind of course, and you know it saves him some money so he won’t have to hire someone to tend his livestock for two days. 

When you first started dating Arthur, he was incredibly respectful of your space and time, but after you were together for six months and finally slept together, something in him changed. Something better. He became more open with you and more touchy. You’d always been a bit touch-averted, a product of your childhood and a general distrust of people. There was something about him that made you able to warm up to him. You even found yourself longing for his touch and it didn’t help that when he held you against him, you fit like a puzzle piece. 

Over the last three months you’ve been with him, he’s gotten a little more clingy. He texts you every day, usually just asking how you are and what you’re up to. He also likes to video call you just about every night. When he first started doing it, you were kind of skeeved out about it, worried he’d be getting possessive, jealous, or suspicious. Your previous boyfriend was like that. He demanded you show him all the texts you’d sent over a period of the last few days, constantly accusing you of cheating without any proof. You weren’t, of course and then you found out after a couple of months that he was. You were worried when Arthur would ask where you were, suspicious he’d accuse you of cheating. He never did though, he just said he wanted to make sure you were safe. 

Arthur doesn’t like the city, he never has. It’s too crowded for his taste, the people too selfish. Sure, his small town has its problems, of course. The youth in it are particularly involved in drugs and underaged drinking, but there’s a strong sense of community and friendliness to it. Everyone looks out for each other and helps one another. Something you’ve never seen in the city. But Arthur’s dislike of the city leads him to constantly worry about you. He fears you getting attacked, robbed or even in a car accident. That’s why he likes to check in on you once a day, just to be sure you’re safe. 

When Arthur first started doing this, you were worried he’d demand to go through your phone like your last boyfriend did. However, never once did he ask you to unlock your phone so he could go snooping through it. He never even asked for the code to unlock it. Once, you asked him why, incredibly suspicious. He looked shocked that you thought he’d want to do something like that. “Your privacy is somethin’ ain’t no one got a right to, darlin’,” he said. “I ain’t ever gonna try and invade that.” 

After that, your trust of him grew even more and so did your relationship. It’s been nearly a year now and you’re absolutely crazy about him. You also long for his lifestyle. Sure, your job pays a little more, but you’ve helped him on the weekends at his ranches and there’s something satisfying about the work. The constant movement, being outdoors, interacting with the animals. You’ve grown particularly fond of one of his mares he named Boadicea. You’ve found yourself fantasizing more and more about doing that full time, quitting your job in the city and just living with Arthur. You doubt it could happen though. There simply isn’t enough money in it, which you hate thinking that way, but in this world, you simply can’t get by without some means of decent money. 

The physical distance hasn’t put a damper in your relationship, though. You were afraid for the first few months that it would be the thing to break you apart. Part of you still fears that, but you recall a night from two months back. One of his fears came true when you were in a car accident. It wasn’t your fault and it wasn’t bad, though it totaled your car. You’d been sitting at a light when someone, who was suspected to be on their phone, slammed into the rear of your car. Luckily no one was hurt, but it shook you up quite a bit. As you sat on the side of the road while the police worked on cleaning things up, you called Arthur and told him what happened. He lived over thirty minutes away from where you were, but he got there in twenty. When he got there, he almost looked like he wanted to deck the person who hit you in the face, but he didn’t. He stayed close to you the entire time and when the police had your car towed and said you could leave, he helped you into his truck and drove you immediately to an instacare room. You said you felt fine, but he wanted to be absolutely sure you were okay. After a checkup, the doctor deemed you’d be fine, just sore for a few days. 

Arthur drove you home that night and as soon as you’d changed into some comfy pajamas, he threw a blanket around you and held you close. It was a good thing too, because the shock set in then and you began to shake and cry. He held you the entire night. He stayed with you for a week as well, only going back to his ranch when you were at work. He drove you there and picked you up everyday until you got your insurance money and were able to buy a new car. Arthur helped you pick it and you loved it. It got better mileage than your last did, which meant you didn’t have to waste so much gas on the weekends when you went to see him. 

You’re headed home now and  your phone dings. It’s probably Arthur, texting you to make sure you’re okay. When you reach a light you know won’t change for a few moments, you pick up the phone. Instead of the usual, it says: “face time tonight?” You reply, “Yes”.

As soon as you’re home and settled to be in your house the rest of the night, you open your laptop and call him up. He responds immediately with a big grin. 

“Hey, sweetheart. I, uh, I wanted to talk to ya about something,” he says. 

“I do too, honey.”

He invited you to go first and you rush into the news quickly. “I talked with the higher ups at my work. They said they could get me set up to work remotely from my laptop, but that I’d still have to come in on Tuesdays for the weekly meetings.”

His face splits into a grin. “That’s funny, because what I wanted to ask ya goes along with that. Darlin’, I was thinkin’ we could move in together. You could live here, I know ya hate that apartment of yours.” 

You look around at said apartment. You have hated it here. Three long years of paying for three overpriced rooms with a landlord who hardly gives two shits about anything that goes wrong with it. And a lot goes wrong since it’s an older building. 

“You’d be okay with that?” you ask. “I know you’ve lived alone for the past few years.” 

He told you about how he grew up with his uncles Dutch and Hosea, who owned the ranch and took him in as a young boy. They passed away a few years back, leaving Arthur alone. 

“Darlin’, if I wasn’t okay, I wouldn’t be asking you. Besides, like you said, I been alone these past few years. I’m ready for somethin’ different. What do you think?” 

Your face splits into a huge grin and you tell him how excited you are. He chuckles and then says he has a surprise for you. Before you can ask him what it is, he disconnects. You try texting him and even calling him, wondering if your service is having problems again. Another problem with this damn apartment. 

Thirty minutes later, a knock comes on your door and Arthur walks in, holding a bundle of beautiful flowers. As soon as he walks in, he pulls you into his arm and kisses you. “You’ve made me a very happy man, Y/N. I just hope…” 

“You have made me happy,” you say, cupping his cheek. “I am so excited to live with you! Your ranch is gorgeous.” 

“I was just thinking maybe living out there could do you some good, darlin’. Help you heal.”

You kiss him softly. “I’ve no doubt about that. But why’d you get me flowers, Arthur? Did…. did you take them out of your garden? You shouldn’t have! It’s not even Valentine’s Day.” 

He chuckles, letting you talk. “I’d rather get you flowers I grew myself on a random Thursday rather than some overpriced, half dead common roses on the day everyone else gets them for their significant other. I just want ya to know how much I love you.” 

He kisses you again and you respond by taking his hand and leading him to your bedroom. You’re suddenly excited for everything the future has in store. 

[elcorhamletlive]

fandom: MCU (post-Civil War) ship: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark tags: Angst with a happy ending, lack of communication, casual sex, POV Tony Stark

The first time it happens, it’s not the smartest thing Tony’s ever done. In fact, to be precise, it’s a little dangerous, reckless and - fine - maybe more than a bit stupid.

It happens in a split second: Tony turns towards Captain America, raises his hand, and fires his repulsor. The blaster goes straight straight to Cap’s shield, raised at precisely the right angle to send some chitauri heads flying off to the sky.

Tony can’t explain why it happens. Even if he’s okay with following Cap’s orders in the field, the two of them hardly got off to a nice start – and, honestly, even if they did, they’ve known each other for too little to pull off this kind of risky move. One second of confusion could make Cap think Tony was attacking him for some reason, or worse, make Cap reflect the blast right at him.

It’s… incredibly reckless, really, even for Tony’s standards.

Still, it happens, and it works.

Tony does not stick around to talk afterwards – there’s other things to worry about, and he has long learned that it does no good to interrogate sheer dumb luck when it comes across your path like that.

Cap goes back to the fight as well, and Tony pretty much forgets all about it.

-

That is, until it happens again.

And again.

Since it’s always unconscious, Tony frequently finds himself only reflecting on it hours later, when the battle is already over and they’re back in the Tower, or in the middle of a debrief. Then he realizes all the moments where he and Steve moved in perfect harmony to take the bad guy of the week down, and he’s always utterly shocked by the fact that, without fail, it happens without any planning or forewarning. He doesn’t remember ever falling in sync with someone like this before, and, yeah, there’s no other way of putting it.

How bizarre, Tony thinks, eyeing Steve afterwards, trying to somehow gather if he might be thinking the same. But he ends up making himself look away, thinking no, it’s just a coincidence, and, besides, who’s to say it’s ever going to happen again, right?

And then it does.

Again and again.

-

It would be fair and logical, Tony imagines, if the wonderful synchronicity he and Steve fight with also translated to their relationship outside of the field.

Since Tony’s life is often neither fair nor logical, of course, it’s not the case. In fact, he and Steve spend most of the time when they’re not gracefully fighting together butting heads over every tiny, stupid, little thing; driving each other crazy with what should be the simplest of disagreements. Most of the time, they end up pissed and frustrated with each other, their battlefield connection nowhere to be found.

It does work with sex, though. And—oh yeah, that’s a surprise.

Tony hadn’t planned to start hooking up with Steve at all, even if he has imagined it before (come on, who hasn’t), so it’s a shock when it happens, the moment right after a rarely peaceful banter, in the living room, where Tony lets his eyes wander to Steve’s pink mouth and he thinks hmm, wouldn’t it be nice, and he looks up and notices the way Steve is looking at him. It’s an even bigger shock when their mouths crash together, Tony’s body roaring to life in a manner he frankly hadn’t imagined would happen with Mr. Capsicle, of all people.

They don’t even get to the bedroom. In the following times, though, Tony does tweak things a bit to get Steve to his penthouse, because, well, he’s not 21 anymore, okay? There’s only so many times he can handle awkward positions over the couch or the wall, and he has a king sized bed for a reason--to enjoy opportunities like this.

Especially because – well. Steve is the type of sweet that quickly becomes dangerous, because it gets addictive. He’s clumsy and alternates between seeming a little shy to being overly enthusiastic, kissing him open mouthed and blushing like a schoolboy afterwards, but this somehow works in his favor, because he keeps Tony intrigued in a way very few people can do.

Which is why it keeps happening.

Again and again.

-

They never really talk about it (of course they don’t), but Tony is aware that it isn’t a serious thing, what they have. It can’t be. It’s too fickle: they can spend months without touching each other and then fall into bed at the drop of a hat, for unspecified reasons – a look, a flush, a little quirk of Steve’s mouth that’s just impossible to ignore.

It’s not a thing, is what Tony means.

Which is why, when it stops, Tony is aware he has no right to miss it. He’s leaving the team, after all, and, having just come out the Ultron disaster, the last thing he and Steve need is another reason to be tense around each other.

They don’t talk about it, of course (they’re bad at talking). Instead, when Tony leaves for good, he gets into a ramble about working things out with Pepper, maybe buying her a farm, and Steve’s eyes seem sad but also somewhat accepting, as if he, too, knows this is how it’s supposed to be.

-

Their weird sync continues, on the rare occasions Tony whips out the armor to help the team with a mission. Without the sex, though, it doesn’t extend to anything else.

Well. With one memorable exception.

Did you know? Tony asks, desperately clinging to some remaining shred of doubt, but he already knows what Steve is going to say.

-

In hindsight, Tony wishes he had kept his reaction colder, less emotional.

He also wishes he hadn’t attempted to kill Steve’s best friend, even if he – Steve, not the best friend – probably deserved it.

More than anything, he wishes he hadn’t been so… transparent. He wishes his grief and fury hadn’t blinded him to the need to armor himself to not let the wrong things come out. His stomach clenches and his chest tightens when he thinks of lying there on the hard ground, watching as Steve turned his back on him as he held onto Barnes, as Tony yelled at him like a rejected child.

He wonders if Steve was able to tell – if he was able to understand, truly, how much that yes hurt, as if he tore through Tony’s chest with his bare hands (and Tony would know, because he’s been there before). He wonders if Steve was able to see through Tony’s righteous anger, to see the things he had tried to keep buried.

He wonders if Steve knows he misses him.

Tony thinks – hopes – he doesn’t. He wants to cling to this last piece of dignity, at least.

He doesn’t want Steve to know he dreams of his mouth sometimes – that he wakes up thinking about the way he laughed and the way he moaned and the way a small dimple appeared in his cheek as he smiled. He doesn’t want Steve to know that he misses their effortless synchronicity in the battle field. Above all, he doesn’t want Steve to know he misses not understanding him, misses the fights they’d have, misses staring at his face constantly trying to figure out what he was thinking and always, always failing.

-

A month after the disaster in Siberia, Tony waffles between calling or not calling Steve, twisting the flip phone on his hand.

He decides against it, because he knows they wouldn’t be able to talk, anyway.

-

The thing is, Tony likes to not understand Steve. It’s bizarre, but he does. People alternatively elude or impress Tony, but they rarely intrigue him. A genius mind wanders a lot – it’s hard to keep interest for long.

But this doesn’t apply to Steve. In fact, Tony finds that the more he finds out about Steve, the more he wants to know. Even now – with Steve away, with the mere thought of him hurting Tony’s chest – this is still true. He wants to know – he wants to understand. He wants to… to not understand, either, if that’s what it takes. He wants…

God, he wants to see Steve again.

Again and again.

-

Of course, when he does see Steve again, it’s not by his own choice.

Granted, it’s not by Steve’s choice, either. In fact, Tony is pretty sure no one bothered to inform Thor of the entire ordeal he missed while roaming through space, so, when he comes back and decides they should gather the team together before Thanos comes, no one tells him to ask for Steve or Tony’s opinion beforehand.

Probably for the best, really.

The result is that they end up standing next to each other awkwardly in a crowded quinjet, and, every time Steve tries to say something, Tony makes sure to be very interested in literally anything else in the opposite direction.

It’s not the most mature thing to do, sure, but it’s what it takes to keep himself sane.

-

They fuck. Of course they do. It takes, what—just one battle for them to fall back in bed together again.

And Tony knows this isn’t sensible, that they shouldn’t, they can’t just… But it all fades right after the victorious fight against Thanos, their bodies both reeling with adrenaline, and Tony unable to think of anything that isn’t Steve, the way he moves, the way he commanded the team on the field.

Steve, to his credit, does try talking. He makes a valiant attempt to start a legitimate conversation while Tony is sucking on his neck, which means his results aren’t great – he’s too breathless and constantly interrupting himself with tiny gasps and noises that do nothing to convince Tony talking is the way to go. And he’s too—delicious, honestly, and Tony has missed him too much to let either one of them ruin this moment.

“Shh,” he whispers, when Steve stutters that they should talk. They’re not good at talking, and right now, for their luck, they don’t need it. Tony, at least, doesn’t – all he needs is Steve, one more time. Steve, alive, in his arms. Just one more time.

-

The epiphany – the obvious, glaring, ridiculous realization – hits Tony right after his orgasm.

That’s usually the moment where reality hits, where one comes back to earth, and the problem is that Tony doesn’t. Instead, he sinks his face on the curve of Steve’s neck, breathes in his sweat for a few moments, and then feels Steve’s strong hands stroking his back, as he whispers, “Maybe we should rest a little.”

Steve’s fingers are almost rough, still calloused and scarred from the early battle, and Tony wants to take his hand to his mouth, kiss each finger at least once. He spares both of them from this cheese fest by clinging to Steve’s waist and tilting his head upwards, brushing a kiss against his chin.

“Good idea,” Tony says, and Steve’s hands lower to Tony’s wrists, which is good, because Tony’s hands should be under the control of someone else right now, stopping him from writing I love you on the tender spot between Steve’s neck and shoulder.

Steve smiles as if he’s surprised Tony accepted the idea, and although Tony knows for a fact he spent two years without seeing that smile, he isn’t sure how, at this very moment.

He should be angry, shouldn’t he? Or maybe Steve should – Tony certainly thought he would have some leftover protective fury over Barnes. They should be apologizing to each other, or, hell, even fighting again.

Either way, Tony is pretty sure someone should be angry.

But, right now, climbing on the bed next to Steve, he doesn’t feel angry. He just—wants Steve to come closer.

“I missed you,” he says to Steve’s chest, in a whisper, so faint he almost hopes Steve can’t hear.

Steve, of course, does.

“You,” he stutters, and Tony raises his head. Steve is staring at him as if he said something unfathomable. “You—did?”

And Tony—see, this is why they should have talked. They should have talked, and they should have done it earlier, years ago, when they started out this thing without words, which, at surface level, made sense, because words would have made it real.

But, see, the thing is—Tony wanted it to be real. He still does.

And right now, looking at Steve’s face, he has the distinct, surreal feeling he’s not the only one.

“Yeah,” he says, his voice so faint he barely recognizes it. “Yeah, I—I did. Even. Even earlier, I did.”

He hopes Steve can tell what earlier means, because he doesn’t think he can actually explain it if asked. I missed you even as I pushed you away. I missed you even before you left.

“Tony,” Steve says, and—and it was resignation, what Tony saw all those years ago in his eyes, when Tony stepped inside a car and out of his life, wasn’t it? He had been… resigned. Tony never knew, and he knows he shouldn’t, because—they should have talked, the two of them. They’re not good at talking, but they should have. “I’m sorry I didn’t—”

“Yeah,” Tony interrupts, because he doesn’t want Steve to be sorry, now. He just wants him to be there. “I’m sorry, too, but.”

He doesn’t continue it, and the pause stretches, growing long enough to be absurd.

Steve gives him a sympathetic smile – does he get it? Is he feeling the same thing?

“But?” he asks, which—okay, so he doesn’t get it. That’s… fine, Tony thinks. They’re both fumbling their way through this. The thought is strangely comforting.

“But I want you to stay,” Tony replies, and right after the words come of his mouth he realizes that, yeah, this is it. This is what he should have said a long time ago.

Steve nods, and Tony smiles at his hurry, at his effort to agree very clearly. “I. I want that, too,” he says, voice very small.

“Okay.” Tony nods and shifts closer, body curling up against Steve’s, feeling the warmth of his large frame. “I guess we’re, uh, in agreement, then.”

“We are,” Steve agrees. This might be the most words they’ve said to each other after sex, ever, and it feels awkward but sweet, making little engines twirl in Tony’s stomach.

“We can talk more in the morning,” Tony suggests. In the suggestion there are a bunch of other words being said – I want to talk about what happened; I want there to be a morning, too, because the night is not enough. Tony isn’t sure if Steve hears them all, but it’s okay. He doesn’t have to.

“I’d like that,” Steve says, and, oh—there are probably other words behind this too, Tony thinks, and how much would he like to be able to grasp them.

But it’s also okay, because Steve is here – right next to him, eyes half-lidded, mouth curled in a peaceful smile as he starts to drift off to sleep.

Tony, by contrast, takes a little longer to start feeling his eyes getting heavy. He kills time by enjoying the contact of Steve’s body, the sound of his breath. He grazes his fingers over Steve’s bicep, up and down until his movements start spelling out letters and words he was afraid to say before.

Steve is sound asleep by now, so he probably doesn’t notice it, but it’s fine. Tony can tell him in the morning – and again later, in the future, as many times as Steve wants. Again and again.

[dear--charlie]

Dear Charlie,

I haven’t written to you in a long time, it’s been over a year. A lot of stuff has changed but I can’t really say for the better. I’ve written and rewritten this too many times and I don’t feel like telling you all the bad shit that’s happened because it would be too much. I don’t feel like explaining all of the things that got me to this point because nobody cares. I guess the gist of it, as it always is with me, is that I’m sad. I’m so fucking sick of having to say that but there’s nothing else. A lot of the time since I’ve first written to you, I’ve been sad. All the contents of the letters I’ve sent you have been about me being sad. I wish there was something else for me to tell you and I wish I wasn’t running out of ways to say the same thing. I guess I can give you the short version, if that’s possible, about what’s happened.

The last time I’d sent you a letter, I had stopped taking my medications. I didn’t like how I felt on them because they made me feel like a zombie, even though I’d been on them for almost four years (I’m angry it took me that long to figure it out, but that’s another story). I stopped taking them completely cold turkey — no weening or tapering — and hadn’t talked to my therapist in months because she closed her practice (another different story).

I was manic after they were out of my system, so I thought I felt better. When I went back to school in the fall, I ended up spiraling about a month into the semester and barely ended up passing my classes. I’d be too depressed to leave my dorm or really do anything that wasn’t lying on my bed and staring at nothing. It might’ve been the worst depressive episode I’ve ever had, but I can’t really say that because this time I didn’t go to the hospital for swallowing four bottles of pills (even if I’d been planning it). Either way, I dropped out of college.

At the time, I just thought I’d withdrawal for the spring semester. I told my family how shitty I was doing — well, just my brother because he was the one who talked to me most when he’d drive me back to campus after weekends home — and they said that I should do whatever I need to feel better. They didn’t say it, but I think my parents were angry.

I’ve been living at home since. I got a new therapist and I’ve been seeing her for about six months. Recently, she had me book an appointment with the psychiatrist she works with and, let me tell you, having a competent psychiatrist makes it all the more obvious of how incompetent my last one was. Seven years of therapy, medications, and hospitalizations but I could never get a solid diagnosis that felt right until now. It took him a thirty minute session and the notes my therapist gave him — he had a diagnosis by the time I finished explaining my history of mental health. He thinks I have Bipolar Type II — I didn’t even know there was different types but, after he explained, it made a lot of sense to me. I know it might take a while to find a medication or three that can even me out. We’ve already tried one prescription and that ended up making me feel worse, but at least he knows his shit.

There’s other stuff I’m leaving out, either because I forget or I don’t feel like going into it, but that’s the gist. I know the last letter I wrote talked about Jack. Rereading it now makes me feel stupid and talking about it makes me feel weird, but I don’t love him anymore. It’d be downplaying it and invalidating to myself if I said I never loved him at all, but I do feel that way. Things are good with him though, we’re still friends and nothing’s really changed. We kind of just pretend that the whole “I got high one night and confessed to being madly in love with you over text at 3 am” thing never happened and, I have to say, I’m glad.

Everything else is pretty much the same, so I guess this is gonna sound like every other letter I’ve sent. Except, this time, I don’t have the energy to make it sound beautiful. I did that a lot, I know. I would type out every ugly thought in my head and tried use words so beautiful that maybe people reading would forget how horrible what I said was (if people could even stomach to read such depressing shit). I wish I had the energy, I really do, and I’m still going to try; it might not work, but it’s entirely possible that it never did.

You ever talk to your siblings and find out they’re way less traumatized by the way your parents raised you than you are? Because I did recently. My sister and I tend not to talk about personal stuff, but the conversation sparked up anyway. It turns out that, of the three of us, I’m the only one who has a constant, underlying resentment for our parents. I already knew it was different for my brother because he only started living with us when he was sixteen, but I didn’t know that it was different for my sister.

She forgives them for way more and gives them the benefit of the doubt whenever she can. I’ve never been able to do that, at least not for about ten years. I know she has different experiences than I do too, but I thought that she was angrier than she is. That’s just me, I guess. Her relationship with them is good, if not great now; her and mom are the closest they’ve ever been and she’s in an alright place with dad since she was stuck in Virginia for a few months during quarantine. I feel like I’ve never been in such a bad place with them. Ever since I started talking to my new therapist, I’ve started realizing how fucked up the way they raised me was and that it still manifests itself in the things I do. How do I not resent them after that?

She suggested having the three of us sit down with my therapist and talk about it — and that’s just about the last thing I wanna do, but it’s gonna end up happening because I don’t want to hate them. They aren’t bad parents. It’s hard for me to say that, but they aren’t. Lately, since I’ve started thinking about all this, it’s been difficult. I have a really short temper with them now, the littlest things they do can piss me off and it’s next to impossible for me to be in a good mood around them. This didn’t used to happen. Who can say if they notice too? You’d think they would pick up on a sudden, negative change in their kid’s behavior but, then again, they were oblivious to the fact that I was depressed until I told my gym teacher I was going to kill myself.

It can go one of a few ways — either they surprise me by acknowledging what they’ve done is horrible and apologizing whether they remember doing it or not, they cry and make me feel guilty, or they defend what they’ve done and we’re left off in a worse place than before. Either way, they’ll know how I feel and I don’t care for that shit at all. She suggested I write a letter and is holding me to the fact that I wanna do this before the month ends (except I forgot that mom’s going on a week-long vacation starting Monday and then dad is going on a different vacation the same day she gets back, maybe I’ll just do it separately, it’ll probably be easier that way).

The thing is…I feel like, even if they did apologize, I wouldn’t stop being angry. They’ve traumatized me in ways I don’t know if I can heal from and I’ll never know what it’s like to not live like that. What makes it worse, at least to me, is knowing that I’m the only one. They didn’t treat either of my siblings the same way they treated me. I’m the only one they first started calling a slut at age ten. I’m the only one they accused of being pregnant each month  I’m the only one whose stuff they went through and journals they read. I’m the only one they accused of doing drugs for trivial shit like an empty ziplock bag under my bed or going to a costume party. I’m the only one whose messages they’d “sneakily” read. I’m the only one they instantly and consistently assumed was doing something wrong and then punished because of it. I’m the only one they shamed about their weight or humiliated after puberty started. I’m the only one whose interests got made fun of or invalidated when I got excited about them. I’m the only one who was (and still is) held to ridiculous standards for school, even after it was known that I was mentally ill. I’m the only one they’d complain about not having friends, but turn around and refuse to let go to a friend’s house when I’d ask. I’m the only one they’d get angry at for being depressed.

I’d still be angry if I knew they did that to my sister too, because that’s just a fucked up way to treat a child, but it makes me even more angry that it was just me. Because, what the fuck? I never gave them a reason to not trust me. Shit, the craziest thing I’d done as a kid was make a “potion” out of rainwater and berries in the backyard (and it’s not like that’s an exclusive thing, I know tons of people who did that too). The craziest thing I’d done as a teenager was want to die, but that was after all this had started — even if it wasn’t, that’s not an excuse, they shouldn’t be mad at me for having mental health issues.

But, I’m still dealing with the repercussions of all this. I can’t think about sex without feeling so guilty I want to hurt myself, I can’t see them near any my things without being paranoid they’re going to go through them, I can’t fucking do or say anything when I’m around them without being worried their reactions will be to humiliate or try to punish me. I’m twenty fucking years old and I still think like that.

So, I don’t want to talk to them. I know I’ll never stop being angry without an apology (if I can stop being angry at all), but that’s the thing about instilling communication issues in your child because they’re so afraid of how you’ll react that they decide never to share anything at all — they don’t wanna talk to you about anything! I don’t wanna talk to them but I know I have to, because my therapist said, eventually, I’ll hit a wall that will prevent me from ever moving forward with them. I already see it happening, but I’d be lying if I said that helps at all.

Love Always, The Reversed Star 07 | 24 | 20 P.S. yeah, I’m using a new pseudonym again

[statisticalimprobabilities]

I was called “an abomination” for being disabled

**ableism trigger warning**

Today I was scrolling through Instagram and I noticed that a girl I used to know back in elementary school had posted graphic photos of dying animals along with a caption that essentially said that anyone who eats any animal products is evil. Her intention, clearly, was to shame anyone who doesn’t make the same dietary choices as her. I’m always bothered when I see posts like this, because I recognize the ableism inherent in these sorts of broad shaming statements. They all rely on the idea that everyone is capable of becoming vegan, and often when people with these beliefs are questioned they will stand behind the idea that “anyone can find a vegan way to meet their nutritional needs.” But that simply isn’t true. There are a wide variety of disabilities, allergies, intolerances, etc., that can prevent a person from safely eating a vegan or vegetarian diet.

I myself am someone who, because of my disabilities, is unable to survive on a vegan or vegetarian diet. Not only do I have specific nutritional deficiencies due to poor stomach absorption, I also have a condition that severely limits the foods I can eat. This condition arose because back when I was an infant, my Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome caused severe acid reflux which made eating a painful experience. As a result, my brain formed negative associations with food, and these negative associations led to the development of Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder. ARFID is a condition in which people experience both mental and physical aversions to food, often lack a normal appetite, and can have their gag reflex activated simply by tasting or even smelling a food that isn’t on their “safe” list. The condition is largely subconscious, making it very difficult to control and not something a person could just “get over” or “push through.” We have very real physical reactions to foods outside of our usually tiny “safe” lists.

On another day I might not have bothered to comment on the post my acquaintance made, but today I was already feeling sensitive. My best friend in the world, who also has ARFID, is currently away at an event and is going through hell in part because she is faced with group meals comprised of foods she can’t eat. So knowing how much this wonderful, amazing friend of mine is suffering right now because of ARFID, I couldn’t stand to see someone ignorant of the condition imply that people, like my best friend and I, who eat meat and cheese are all terrible people. So I commented and politely told the person who made the post that she might want to avoid making broad shaming statements because they can be harmful to disabled people who have no choice but to consume animal products.

The next thing I knew, she was private messaging me and calling me a liar, saying that anyone could go vegan and demanding I provide sources stating the opposite. I complied and provided 9 separate scholarly sources discussing various issues like allergies, chronic illnesses which can cause zinc deficiencies (a deficiency which can be worsened by excessive vegetable consumption), studies that show that veganism worsens IBS, and of course I provided information on ARFID as well. The girl, who likely didn’t even read the sources, made it pretty clear she didn’t believe me. I’ll let the screenshots tell the next part of the story.

The things she said to me in this conversation were perhaps the cruelest and most dehumanizing things that I have ever had said directly to me. By calling me an abomination and telling me not to have kids so that I don’t pass on my “bad genes,” she essentially told me that she believed I am less than human and that people like me shouldn’t exist. The fact that in 2019 there are still people who think it is okay to say this sort of thing to disabled people is revolting. This faux-progressive girl would likely never say this sort of thing to a member of another minority group, would never imply that they were abominations, but she sees no issue in saying that same thing to a disabled person.

I’m lucky that this didn’t have too bad of an impact on my mental health because I’ve been a part of the disability activism community long enough to have grown to accept and embrace my disabilities. I understand that they are part of what makes me who I am, and while I still have days where I hate them and feel sad about them, overall I try to love them because if I didn’t have them then I wouldn’t be me. I try to remind myself every day that there is no “right way” to be a person, and that I don’t need to conform to arbitrary abled standards in order to be successful and happy.

But still, seeing this was a bit of a punch to the gut because it cut straight to the insecurities I had back before I began to love myself. I used to wonder if maybe I was too “broken” to exist, and used to think that my family would have been better off if I’d never been born. I know better now, but those thoughts still haunt me at times. I showed the girl’s messages to my parents a few hours after I got them, and it was heartbreaking to watch my mother tear up. “I feel the same as I did when you used to come home from school and ask me why kids were bullying you,” she said, “I want to have an explanation but I really don’t know. I really don’t understand how someone could say something this cruel to you.”

I really hope that anyone who sees this will reblog it, I really want this girl’s terrible words to be seen. Because ableism is not going to end until people are held accountable for it in the same way they are held accountable for other forms of discrimination.