#it finally stopped hurting

[sandushengshou]

to defeat monsters: become the greater monster | m.a.w

(requested by @highwarlockkareena for my 1 follower celebration)

[s0fter-sin]

something happening on a mission, something personal that has soap spiralling; panic and rage making him reckless, thoughtless, and ghost has to draw the line

“you’re compromised johnny; you know what that means?”

“you’re not pulling me out,” soap immediately snarls. he turns on him and ghost barely recognises him; venomous fear turning his eyes to unyielding ice. "you're not sidelining me; i need to be in this-!"

but ghost has never been afraid of venom; spat or dripped straight from bared fangs.

he snakes out a hand grip the back of his neck, jerking him in a rough shake. "if you can't think, you can't be a soldier," he growls and he flinches like he's been struck.

his lips quiver as they twist in a sneer and he wrenches, trying to free himself of his hold.

ghost doesn't let him.

"it means you give your body to me because your head ain't fucking attached to it anymore."

soap stills, body trembling beneath his hand as he sucks in shaking breaths.

he tightens his grip, pulling him closer and digs his forehead hard into his. “it means you give yourself to me so i can have the weapon that you are and use you the way you're meant to be used."

the ice in soap's eyes fractures.

ghost’s voice drops to a whisper, spoken only to johnny, not this facade of vengeance and pain, and wills it to reach him through the glaciers.

“so i can keep you safe ‘til it’s done and i can bring you back.”

[justaz]

"you're not a sorcerer. i would know" oh fuck oh fuick of uvkkk he fully believed he and merlin were equals, they were friends, they had no secrets, they knew each other completely and utterly, the good and the bad. arthur finding out his best friend has been lying and hiding for years and nothing he knew was true. god fuck ogoofu fukckkk

[yorshie]

Safe With Leo

bayverse leo x female reader

SFW, reader in peril off screen, injured reader, Leo pining like a TREE, new nickname acquired, reader is not coping well after violence.

(I think the backstory me and @fuckedupcleric decided to go with was reader got carjacked then Leo did his own carjacking to get her back, but it's up for reader interpretation)

“Where do you think you’re going?”

His voice was low and even, at odds with the way his hands were clenched tightly into fists at his sides. Your gaze lingered on where the right was freshly bandaged, the strips of linen tight, the smell of ointment heavy in the air surrounding him.

The hallway where Leo caught you skulking wasn’t very wide. His shell blocked most of the light from the arcade around the corner. You tried, and failed, not to shrink in on yourself, despite the little voice screaming at you that it was Leo, the one person you always felt safe with. Should always feel safe with.

“Can’t sleep.” You told him, finally, honestly, too tired and too jittery to be able to stand the beeping and sterile cleanliness of the needle room. Your voice was a croaky thing, raw from screaming and sobbing yourself hoarse. Your ears rang, where you had deafened yourself in the enclosed space. Your palms and feet were raw, bruised from the concrete and trying to scratch yourself free. Your arms stung underneath where you were gripping onto your biceps in an attempt to hold yourself together. You could feel the deep cuts littered there, even through the bandages underneath the soft sleep shirt covering you. Covering you, you reminded yourself.

Safe with Leo, you told yourself again.

He let out a slow, heavy breath, the kind you were used to hearing directed at Raph, or Mikey, when either was being particularly annoying. It twisted something deep inside your gut, soured the saliva in the back of your mouth. The feeling of being trapped settled back in your gut when he swayed to the side, creating a space for you to slip past him.

He followed you, like a hound shadowing your footsteps, raising the hair along the nape of your neck. You heard him huff, the noise quiet, before he dropped back another step.

His voice was soft, but firm, when you reached the atrium, “Turn left, head to my room.”

You stalled, foot catching on the cold floor, a wince pulling at your mouth before you could hide the pain, “But-”

Leo shook his head, closing his eyes to dismiss your protest, “There’s no way you’re going to sleep on that couch, blossom.”

Blossom.

That was a new nickname. Before tonight, he’d always used your name, formal and polite, or on the rare occasion, if you were being especially sassy, he’d drop ‘princess’ in a smooth and silky voice that never failed to shut you up in a way Raph couldn’t when he teased you.

Tonight, however, Leo hadn’t whispered your name when he’d scooped you out of the trunk of the car hours before. No, it’d been blossom he’d pressed against your bloodied hair, voice wrecked and shaking as he’d cradled you in his arms and bared his teeth at Donnie when his brother had tried to take you away. It had been blossom he’d cooed at you while holding you still so Donnie could bandage the cuts on your arms, back and legs while you cried.

It’d been blossom he’d whispered when everything had become too much and you’d curled up into a little ball, the last word you’d heard when Donnie had ushered everyone out of the needle room.

Hearing it now, your feet resumed automatically, not ready to press and ask questions, not liking the newfound uncertainty that surrounded your feelings where Leonardo was concerned. 

He shadowed you all the way to his room, his normal, soothing demeanor gone, feeling more like a caged animal at your back than the friend you had grown to know these past two years. 

You stalled just inside the door, taking in the neat and orderly room that you’d only seen in passing before. “I don’t… think I should be here.” 

It felt sacrilegious. A privilege you hadn’t earned. An insight to Leo that made your palms sweaty and itchy and your stomach feel like lead. You wanted to be here…

You feared it.

He was watching you with an unreadable expression when you turned. “Do you want to go back to the needle room?”

Needle Room. Just the name sent a shiver down your spine, goosebumps and chills breaking out as you recalled the phantom smell of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.

“No,” you whispered, too tired to keep the petulant edge from your voice despite the fact you knew he hated it.

Leo sighed again, his shoulders moving with the motion, and you idly realized his hands had yet to move, or unclench, from the rigid way he kept them at his sides. “Then, you,” He tipped his beak towards you, then to a point across the room, “bed.” 

He waited, patient as the moon, for you to cross the room, silent as you pulled back the covers and slipped between the sheets. You weren’t sure what to make of the way his eyes lingered for a moment, or of the way tension seemed to bleed out from his frame.

“Get some sleep.” He offered, voice noticeably softer, closer to that rumble you remember from the nightmare of your rescue. “If you need me, I’ll be just down the hall.”

You watched, unblinking, as he turned and disappeared from the doorway, not even a scuff of his feet to announce his departure. 

Maybe you were dreaming, maybe it had been a fictitious Leonardo that had offered the one thing you’d dreamt of, the one thing that you were sure you’d never get to experience. The one wish you’d squashed and squeezed, hoping one day it would disappear completely.

You were in his space. You looked slowly around the room, taking in the little pieces of decor, and the way everything was set just so. It screamed Leo, down to the soft blue blankets you were curled up under. 

Safe. The room told you. Safe from prying eyes, from staticy emotion boiling off other’s bodies, from questions you weren’t in any state to answer.

Safe with Leo.

Your eyelids fluttered, tension bleeding out of your spine with every deep inhale, letting the stale scent of teakwood and jasmine on the sheets, the incense from across the room, the tea on the little table beside your head, swirl together, lulling you to sleep with the scent of Leo.

Safe with Leo.

[beastwhimsy]

I think if he's an immortal cosmic deity he should get cool as flarp powers. to be honest.

[crunchchute]

[deadliestpieceontheboard]

"When he started thinking about rings he put himself on a plane home"

DAVID WYMACK I WOULD DIE FOR YOU

[thespoonisvictory]

me when god finally brings me a clone of you as but I have to take a month off work to sit with her in the kitchen and explain all our inside jokes and watch our favorite movies and teach her the world we made up and then I still fucking miss you anyway and then it hits me that I was the problem. and I still can't wake up and talk to you. anyway.

[lesbianleonardo]

sooo normal about this (lying)

[amiharana]

just so obsessed with the idea of revali silently loving link and pining so much for him, but holding back because he's already created this facade that he despises link, because zelda and mipha already loved him first, because why would link ever choose him? so revali keeps it all inside and tries to display his bitterness at unreciprocated love as jealousy and arrogance at the imbalance of their roles, and tries desperately to fall out of love with link.

but it's as though the little hylian won't let him.

link, who practically insists on staying by revali during battle, who stares at revali with that wide blue-eyed gaze, who naps peacefully with his head in revali's lap when they're alone. and revali should be ecstatic at how close they are, but it hurts more than anything. this isn't fair to him, to be so tantalizingly close to link but to never be able to have him more than this. it's so suffocating, revali doesn't think he can stand to do this any longer, or else it might kill him.

but he continues to let link do whatever he pleases; silently tagging along after revali to the archery range, sitting beside him at mealtimes and letting him sneak more bites from revali's plate as though revali doesn't see him, even going as far as to let link sleep with him in his hammock after what revali assumed to have been a very bad nightmare. no one says a single word when revali and link arrive late to breakfast, with link clinging sleepily to revali's wing and revali looking strangely peaceful.

try as he might (he's not trying at all), revali can't say no to link (and neither does he want to), so he supposes he might as well endure this suffering a little longer.

"why do you let me do all this?" link whispers to him once, in the dead of the night, wrapped around revali in his hammock. and revali is silent for a moment, trying to come up with some sort of answer that could defend his actions. but he can't.

"i don't know," he says simply. he can't tell link the truth.

"does it bother you?"

"do you think you'd still be in my bed practically choking me to death with how tightly you're wrapped around me if it did?" revali winces at how biting his words are, but link just hums and snuggles deeper into revali's neck. he doesn't stop link.

"if it bothered you, you'd tell me, right?" the little hylian murmurs.

revali thinks about it for a moment. and he decides, no, i wouldn't. if you wished to be warm, i'd let you use my body as fuel for a campfire.

"go to sleep," he says aloud instead, softly, gently. he couldn't tell link that either, and he probably never would be able to. he wouldn't ever have the chance. "we have battles to prepare for in the morning."

revali wraps his wings snug around the blond, and link practically purrs in content, dozing off immediately into the warmth. like this, the rito almost smiles. if burning himself alive was the only way to have link, even for just a moment that couldn't always be guaranteed, then revali would just have to make sure he stayed alight; to be the bonfire keeping link warm throughout the night.

[doctorbeans]

once again thinking about cloud “there’s someone in me that isn’t me,” “i have to leave, i’m afraid I won’t be able to stop him next time,” “i’m sorry i couldn’t be your cloud,” “maybe one day you’ll get to meet the ‘real cloud,’” “i was never hunting sephiroth, he was always calling me,” “please give me a number professor,” “tell him that when you see him again, it’ll mean the world to him, okay?” “back then we got by with scraped knees,” “hey, tifa” strife.

[hitlikehammers]

nowhere without you

rating: t ♥️ cw: post-final battle, hurt/comfort ♥️ tags: established relationship, hurt/comfort, BIG emotions, even BIGGER love, as in: soul-deep love, softness; happy endings always ♥️

for @steddielovemonth day eight: Love is the heartbeat I can feel when I hug him

(also probably the humble love-soaked endlessly-devoted beginnings of the rockstar!husbands in je ne regrette rien)

The weirdest part is how, in the aftermath, Eddie doesn’t speak. Like, at all.

Scratch that: it’s the weirdest and the most concerning part. Eddie makes noise, mostly pained kinda moans that make Steve’s chest clench, ache more the admittedly-decently-deep wounds slowly—but reliably, like, consistently—stitching themselves together, and Steve begs him to get looked at again, because something has to be wrong to cause those kinds of sounds but Eddie doesn’t even shake his head, doesn’t really move at all save that sometimes he trembles, and it’s…

It fucking breaks Steve’s heart.

He’s almost gotten used to stroking Eddie’s hair in silence—so wrong; worthy Eddie that’s just so wrong—and working any tangles out so, much as it’s getting a limp and greasy with days of neglect, at least it’s smooth; but he’s almost resigned to this for the long haul because he’ll weather anything he has to for Eddie and they’ll work through this, whatever this is, they’ll worth through it together and—

“How did you stand you it?”

The sound is more a scratch than anything, glass on sandpaper, and it’s down to Eddie lying where he hasn’t left for the last four, going on five days—as in, not once while Steve’s been awake has he existed without Eddie’s weight situated just so against his chest, sinuous and deliberate in where he presses against, careful as a rule of Steve’s worst injuries and delicate about how he rests against Steve’s body, but not…hesitant.

More, kinda…kinda desperate.

So it’s down to him being pressed so close and sure and unwavering that Steve feels him speak more than anything, matches the motion of his lips against Steve’s gown to words rather than the wind, or something outside his door to the halls of the hospital beyond; it’s down to the tension in the whole of him, the all-too-present shaking that Steve matches the scrape of the question to a hurt that’s…that maybe Steve doesn’t wholly understand just yet, but that really and truly does cut him deeper and closer and more critical at the core of him than the Upside Down ever could have clawed in: Eddie lives in him, nothing else can really…ever hope to be deeper.

“How are you,” Eddie rolls gravel across more words, and Steve’s missed his voice so fucking much, he didn’t realize how much until it’s here again for him to hear and hold but, Jesus fuck, it’s like…it’s like it’s drowning; like Eddie is drowning and then his breath is hitching, and oh, god, that voice is cracking around the edge of a sob, watery and wavering as he damn-near close to begs:

“How did you survive it?”

Steve feels it clench in his ribs, because he thinks he…he thinks he’s putting it together. The strain, the agony in that voice, that voice he loves so fucking much, from this man he loves with everything, but then—the way Eddie presses into him. The force, and the position, and the pattern. The way he’s been quiet, unfailing, but never…never seems distant, seems the opposite: seems focused; intent. The way Dustin had come in and caught him upon the things he’d missed in one of the almost-nonexistent windows where Eddie sleeps, hand lines alongside his sternum and head curled in the most uncomfortable pretzel Steve can imagine, forehead all scrunched and eyes squeezed shut so goddamn hard, looking like any sleep he manages is nothing close to rest by any measure: but Dustin had came in and told him Eddie was the first to him; Eddie ran faster than he’d seen a person run; Eddie’d looked devastated, broken when they’d caught up, and they’d been so afraid, feared the worst, and—

Steve’s starting to fit the pieces together. Maybe.

“No,” Eddie whines, pitchy and fervent and almost ear-splitting, like a wail of sheer gut-wrenching pain that Steve can’t find the reason for in the here and now because it’s just them in a hospital room, they’re okay, and his hand presses heavy, gentle around his wounds still, always gentle and so, so careful and Steve doesn’t know what’s caused the reaction, but then—

Then he can feel his fucking heartbeat for how hard Eddie’s pressing. It’s weird, how it makes him feel…strangely alive, the sensation of it kept and held like that, specifically in Eddie’s hand. And he’s not paying attention to the monitors really, tuned them out as quick as he could but when he listens, okay. Okay, maybe faster than normal, but Steve’s fucking worried, okay, he’s—

“Fuck, no,” Eddie moans and twists his head, no, not just his head, his ear and leans harder into Steve’s chest, his breathing shallow and Steve hates it but he doesn’t know what to do, how to help, what to fix because he’ll fix it if he knows, he’ll climb out of this bed and crawl on the goddamn floors of he has to, but he doesn’t know where to go, what to find, what demon’s left to slay—

“I’m just, I’m grateful you did,” survive, Steve survived…

He survived, like, now?

“But grateful’s such a weak word, it doesn’t,” and Steve takes a breath, and reaches, rests his hand on Eddie’s wrist just to see: his heartbeat’s somuch faster, it’s like a flutter of a flutter felt strong enough to break through skin, it catches in Steve’s heart just to touch—

“You’re so much stronger than I could ever, like,” Eddie’s going on, still breathless and fuck, Steve can see why; “fucking hope to be.”

Shit, but that’s…he wasn’t stronger, fuck, Steve wasn’t stronger than Eddie, Eddie nearly got eaten alive, Steve nearly couldn’t staunch enough of the bleeding, he almost lost—

Eddie keens, horrible and hurting and Steve stills: the monitor. The thundering of his own pulse at the memory.

How did you survive it?

Losing. Almost losing. That’s…that’s what it is.

That’s why Eddie’s pressed against his chest, his his head and his hand have been a fucking frame, goddamn, like, parentheses surrounding Steve’s beating heart, proof of life, Jesus—

“But I need to be,” Eddie’s voice is quiet, but steadier, and his chin dips like a nod to himself; “I need to learn how,” he’s firm with it; “for you.”

Oh, god. Oh…oh Eddie.

“I can’t ever lose you, Steve,” Eddie presses trembling lips to Steve’s chest and then presses close again, so close and oh: he wasn’t just intent where he’s been silent so long.

He was listening.

“Never ever,” he breathes against Steve, hot and damp; almost kinda breathless again, or still: “never ever.”

“Eds,” Steve begins, not even entirely sure where he plans to go, just knows he needs to do something, say something, but Eddie’s turning Steve’s hand in his, where he’d circled Eddie’s wrist; he’s turning it and mirroring the hold, gripping Steve’s wrist in kind.

“I couldn’t find it,” he gasps, and the sound makes the sob clear before Steve feels the wetness soak through to his skin; “I couldn’t feel it at all, you were, it,” he presses his fingers in hard, squeezes so goddamn tight, and Steve can’t…he doesn’t want to imagine what Eddie had to do, what Eddie found and felt, he doesn’t but he can, because he remembers the mirror image so stark, it took him so long because he couldn’t find a pulse either, he’d had to press on Eddie’s heart at the source and even then—

“I couldn’t feel you.”

Oh. Fuck. He—

“Oh, baby,” Steve’s elevated enough at an angle that he can at least kiss Eddie’s hair, barely brush his scalp but it’s enough, for the breath that punches from Eddie against his chest it’s at least something; “that’s…”

“I won’t survive that again, Steve,” Eddie sucks in, unsteady and drenched with tears, with sorrow, but also…also more than anything else, they’re filled up with so much love.

A love big enough to hurt that hard.

“And I can’t…” Eddie gasps, breath catching; “I can’t handle not feeling it,” and his fingers tighten; his hand on Steve’s chest and his cheek across from it press down that extra little bit so Steve knows his own heartbeat in those moments full and deep.

“Have to feel it always,” Eddie whispers like he’s telling himself, and Steve, and Steve’s heart through flesh and bone, some cosmic secret no one else can know: too sacred. Too precious.

“You can feel it any time,” Steve lets his hand fall from Eddie’s to cover the hand Eddie’s got splayed ln his chest, counting time; holds him there almost protectively: “all the time,” and he slips his fingers between Eddie’s and shifts his palm close to the beating, so he can still feel what he needs as he murmurs with his heart literally in Eddie’s hands, with his entire goddamn soul:

“All of me. It’s yours.”

Unshakable fucking fact. He doesn’t even have to will it, or hope for it; his heartbeat knocks that heavier against their hands for those words like it knows.

It knows.

“Don’t leave me,” Eddie bursts out, begging; almost something primal, and Steve can feel the tremoring of his lips where they drag against him; “please. I’ll do anything, I swear it, just don’t—“

“Be you,” Steve braves the whimper that comes from untangling his hand from Eddie so that he can reach for Eddies cheek and cradle him in closer, and oh, fuck, thank god: something in him sighs out and loosens, ever so slightly—finally.

“Everything you are,” Steve presses on, runs his thumb back and forth through Eddie’s drooping curls; “let me love you, past living and dying,” and Eddie’s breath catches, for that, but Steve holds him tighter for it, drowns him as best he’s able in the proof he needs so bad; “don’t leave me,” and Eddie huffs a little for that, like it’s beyond believing, impossible, and Steve smiles to himself for it, tries to lean enough to press the grin to Eddie’s head, hopes he manages as he murmurs there close:

“That’s it, Eddie,” and he lets his fingers spread wider, cradle Eddie all the more: “that’s all I need.”

“That and more baby,” Eddie answers him between the double-beat of his pulse, immediate; “you’re the music and the rhythm,” he nuzzles a little against him, and Steve smiles a little wider for it; “you’re the reason my heart beats,” and Steve finds that heartbeat for himself at Eddie’s jaw, now; a little calmer. Not much. But: something.

It’s a start.

”I don’t have a reason without you,” Eddie exhales, vehement; “I don’t want a reason, without you.”

And Steve should maybe push on it, or be scared by it: but neither seem right, not for this.

Not for them.

Steve just holds Eddie’s pulse under the pressure of his touch, and holds Eddie’s cheek closer still into his chest as he breathes:

“You’re my whole heart, Eds,” and he lets a second pass, and then another, for that heart of Eddie’s to pump evidence unshakable against him, to play the song and rhythm straight into his waiting ear:

“Was never going anywhere without you.”

♥️ ao3 link here

tag list (comment to be added): @pearynice @hbyrde36 @slashify @finntheehumaneater @wxrmland @dreamwatch

♥️

divider credit here

[pklonginus]

i think way too much about Lucas' Palutena's Guidance convo

[spaciebabie]

Hiiiii Henry

[dykedvonte]

wanted to say I appreciate your nuanced takes on MW and especially Curly. i don't get the claim that the fandom is full of Curly apologists when majority (esp yt and tiktok) say he's worse than Jimmy. Yes there's commentary about bro culture defending people, he def messed up in trying to placate Jimmy (tbh "we'll fix this" sounded more like trying to keep someone prone to outbursts like Jim calm and not hurt Anya/himself) but I don't think he did nothing to help Anya, since she continued to confide in him and he had less than a week to resolve it before the crash (I also don't get everyone saying he knew for ages when it seems like Anya told him that same week). I get Jimmy's a pos but saying stuff like Curly should've known he'd crash the ship or that Jim had a criminal record he ignored, reducing them to obviously horrible villain and willfully ignorant sidekick feels like a disservice to the game. If your best friend turned out to be horrible, what would you do in a confined space in the span of a few days to respond? I'd say some of the horror comes from trying to do good but ultimately failing, Curly's state after the crash is meant to be tragic horror not revenge/punishment

Thank you and this is what I want to get across.

A lot of information we have to supplement when it comes to how long things have been happening on this current ship. I think people try to add on to the horror and negligence by making things more obvious so it can feel like it was easier to avoid when, true to life, its not. Jimmy clearly didn't deserve or appreciate what Curly did for him in getting him the job, but do you think if Jimmy was that big of a menace on Earth he would've given him a position where he could have that level of power over people's lives? There's something in the fact he specifically chose to pick a position so close to himself where he could watch Jimmy.

I hate the bro code argument because that is a whole can of worms people really don't get. That sort of mentality is born from the general respect and preference of male matter over female ones. Curly is clearly not that guy, he is absent minded about the issue and inadvertently dismissive but he clearly believes Anya, he just can't understand what she's going through. It's an onslaught of information that no one really reacts right to. Additonally, the entire discussion of her assualt plays to heavy into the idea that there is fault outside of the perpertratior when it comes to SA. It's too close if she only did this or if Curly had protected her better but the fact of the matter is Jimmy did what he did. He did it before any of the conversations with Anya about it and it's why her behavior seemed to change so drastically in those last two days.

He has other conflicting thought and while his role as a Captain should've taken over, people act like it's not a very human thing to have such a toxic presence cloud your judgement. It is never easy to separate friend from coworker once that connection is formed, you want to help them, especially if they were friend first and for a long while like in this case. It's not right, but people act like it would be easy when the game clearly points out that no choice is easy to make, especially when you have to make it for more than one person. You have the weigh the consequences, look at all the options and make a plan. People can headcanon and decide how long things where happening, but if we look at what we were presented through the characters eyes, the only person given time to do that was Jimmy.

He waited two months after the crash to appoint himself Captain. Every time a problem was brought up he immediately took action and refused to sit on it and find a better solution. I think it's important to look at the warped way Jimmy takes initiative where Curly didn't as it works as a good contrast of why you don't just run in to "fix" things. The quickest and easiest option may not be the safest or most beneficial. I think some thoughts on the game suffer from the black and white thinking the game doesn't operate on along with us being voyeurs. We see what exactly led to what but the characters don't. They don't have the hindsight and foresight we do and even ours is scrambled by the non-linear story telling.

Like it's hard to talk abuou those grey zones without sounding like an apologist because you're explaining why taking responsibility isn't easy. It's not and it's weird to act like it would be in a scenerio that led up to the events of the game knowing what we know. We see all these characters in such isolated moments with various things before, in between, after and even during we aren't privy too. The idea that Jimmy is worse than Curly heavily banks on the words Jimmy was saying to Jimmy before he crashed the ship. That whatever happened on the ship was his responsibility to bare, which is true due to his position. But, are they not still not responsible for taking the actions Curly then must bare?

Like i feel like people think that these are situation that become easier with age or when you are in a postion of authority and they aren't. You don't lose your biases or gain some sudden knowledge that makes it easier. It just becomes more tiring as you keep dealing with it. I would be first in line to say Curly fucked up and should've done more but the idea he knew how bad it could get or he really saw the worst in the people around him and ignored it pretty much ignores a huge aspect of his character and the game.