#it’s okay if this world has a million saviors cause there’s so many things to be saved

[ambagelbraindump]

thinkin about how impossibly tender it is to be taken care of, how you’re still loved even when you’re not entertaining or useful

[password-door-lock]

You don't even ask. You're good at not even asking by now— it's second nature, after so many months in this strange place, to just accept things as they come to you. Which is to say that when Unknown throws himself into your bed and throws his arm around you, embracing you sloppily as you lay there on your stomach, you don't breathe a word to him about it. You've got questions, of course— you get the feeling that anybody would end up with those in a situation like this.

For starters, did he just abandon his work to come and lay with you? How did he know that he would find you in his perpetually vacant bedroom? Did he spend an hour looking around Magenta for you, only to discover you here? Or is this not about you at all? Does Unknown even know that you're beside him right now? Has he taken the elixir of salvation? Is he just embracing you for the sake of embracing you? Or is he simply exhausted, too tired to check the bed for another body before collapsing on top of the sheets?

But then again, you know that asking would be futile. For one thing, Unknown is almost definitely already asleep. You've never heard his breathing so even, and you've drifted off with him enough times to know exactly what he's like when he's tired. You don't know much about the world, it's true, but you like to think you know a lot about your boss. After all, your entire job is looking after him, right? So wouldn't it follow that you'd know how to do that job? But whatever. You'll digress, because for another thing,  you're glad that Unknown is here. 

You're glad that you don't have to fall asleep alone. The fact is that you've been laying awake in the dark for no reason, waiting up for him as you try your hardest to drift off. The fact is that now that you've got his arm around you, his protection, the smell of him surrounding you, you feel a lot better and a lot healthier and a lot readier to drift off. The fact is that nothing is what it seems when you're beside this man, and you know that, but sometimes, for your own peace of mind, you simply refuse to accept it. The fact is that he's everything, and you'll keep repeating that a million times over, or a billion times over— the fact is that you love him.

But that's just one more thing that you can never say to Unknown. You don't need him to tell you that he wouldn't take it well, that you're better off just keeping your feelings to yourself, just like you hang onto everything else. “I love you,” you whisper anyway, knowing that you're better off not saying it.

Unknown does not respond. You get the feeling that this is only because he is asleep— otherwise, you're fairly certain that he would be making fun of you like nobody's business. You suppose you wouldn't really be able to blame him for that.

You imagine him kissing you behind the ear. You imagine him pulling you closer. You imagine that even if he knew what you were telling him, even if he were fully present, he would have something sweet and relevant to say about it. You tell yourself that it's just you and Unknown against the world— because it is, because it so is, because Savior be damned, the world revolves around this man— and that everything is going to be okay. You're not sure if you believe that most of the time— when you're sitting on his lap staring at the screen, all you can really see is the pain that he is causing. The pain that this man is causing, this man that you love. And god, and fuck, you love him, you love him, you love him, you love him.

Your heart beats in that rhythm as you continue loving him silently, alone inside your head, even as you embrace him, and it truly does feel as though everything will be okay. You know you're probably wrong, but the scary thing is that you don't really care whether you're correct or not. Somebody could write a dissertation about these heavy, heavy feelings of yours, you suppose, but it's not going to be you— not as you pull Unknown close, not as you nuzzle your face into his neck, not as you love him, silently and intimately and privately and with everything you've got. Holy fucking shit.

[alelx2194]

This is gonna be some random rambling of me overthinking things too much for a gacha game that doesn't really deserve that much of my time. Okay so in the second arc of Fate Grand Order, seven bigass trees drop on the surface of the earth and simulate alternate paths of history, from freak ice ages to immortal rulers and superintelligent superhuman(superdino?) dinosaurs. Those trees have to be tended by a mage each so they can grow and establish that simulation as the next real thing™ but actually the plan is for a big surprise to pop up from the tree when it's done. Now, up to around LB5, it seemed like those bigass trees only "arrived" into those simulations alongside the aforementioned mages. Makes some sense, imagine leaving those bigass super magic trees hanging for the inhabitants to mess with. And we see what happens when they do, they're great powerups honestly. So at least two seperate cases the bigass tree is hidden so nobody can mess with it. But then. LB6 and LB7 happen. In those two the tree does exist in the "past" of the simulation and do get messed around with. Now, LB6 is a special case to end special cases with plenty of time fuckery to go around here, so maybe the tree is there cause of said time fuckery. But LB7 has no such time fuckery, and that tree arrived like 300 million years ago. Plenty of time for the authority over there to mess with it (big energy issues over there cause of reasons™) but it doesn't, instead a giant space spider arrived and ate it like 6 million years ago. Bummer for various reasons. Now granted the giant space spider is also super duper special in universe, so maybe it can ignore whatever told the simulated peoples of the first 5 stories not to mess with it. But I dunno. LB6 is a fun story overall, but the specialness of it does end up making me feel a little off. The queen bitch of the place is constantly praised for being absolutely amazing cause of the time travel and other stuff she did with her tree, but it feels like empty praise when the first 5 basically were forbidden from doing anything too different so the last two can be special. It'd be real funny though if they did. Sleepy mammoth probably isn't too good at messing around with the OS of the thing. Lonely goddess gets to maybe fix up her world more and remove a certain horny fire giant from the equation. Who knows what the hell the Chinese emperor would do with his. Indian catboy causes the planet to explode cause oops too many circles. Rich white boy with savior complex ready to thrust the problems of his big brave solutions to the people he forced them on finds that his winning card actually fucked off to space like 3k years ago oops?

[marsgolds]

i think this "lore" scene in foolishs stream yesterday is really important (transcript under cut)

it shows that c!tommy really tries to see the good in people and wants to believe that c!wilbur is a good person / he still has hope that wilbur is a good person deep inside

foolish directly told tommy that he's more mature than he thought he was, that he wasn't sure on other people's perspection wether tommy is the hero or the villain and meant all of this in a positive way, that him and tommy have more in common that they thought and there's more behind the loud child

how often has c!tommy always been defined by how other people viewed him?

dream’s toy. theseus. the hero. the loud kid. the person who died and came back.

when was the last time people saw him as just “tommy”?

from the way c!tommy fits the hero role and is always at the forefront of conflict and recklessly throws himself into danger to protect others, you'd think he'd be the typical protagonist who's very openly selfless and moral and wholesome, and is doing all of that because he wants to heroically better the world, but no, he's actually just a kid who gets unfairly targeted, and he's tired and worn, and he isn't even the moral paragon of the story, and he'd much rather just live a normal life and vibe with his friends, but just because he and his family and home are constantly threatened and he refuses to give in, he has no other option than to be molded into that role.

and from his reckless attitude and carelessness and love for mischief, you'd think he'd be destructive and more prone to tear down rather than build, but no, he wants to build, he repeatedly refuses to destroy and tear down and give up on things, he wants to keep working and preserving and help the environment around him flourish, not burn, it's just that, with being raised fighting as he was, he's still waiting for his hands to loose their calluses.

tommy also admitted that he's a morally grey person, he's weaker than he was earlier and told foolish that it's up to him what he wants to think of tommy

and that proves that c!foolish is a good adult. he listened to tommy talk about wilbur and a small bit of his trauma, the healthiest c!tommy got to talking himself out

edit: this aged poorly.

-

tommy: (he sighs) honestly, sometimes i don’t know myself. but this block here… (points to tnt) he used this and he blew up l’manburg and shattered it into a million pieces. now wilbur, he was a good man, he is a good man, deep inside him, alright? but he-

foolish: so you’re saying there’s still redemption for him?

tommy: well he’s been a good man deep inside him. but he’s been a bad guy for a very very long time. and i know that there’s still good in him, there’s still good in everyone, really, foolish. even if they are all arseholes and wankers, but-

foolish: you believe in second chances?

tommy: no i don’t. i don’t really believe- i don’t- i- that’s not a thing for me, foolish, it’s just that… (he sighs) i believe everyone’s got a little bit of good in them. and i know that wilbur had good in him, alright? so i won’t-

foolish: you said “had”?

tommy: yeah, he did ‘cause when we made this nation, although now he seems to clai- he claimed to me, foolish, that the nation we built together… he claimed that it was all just a ruse for power. now i think wilbur’s just being a bad guy, alright? and that’s okay, we’re all bad guys. everyone messes up, it’s- you learn the most from your mistakes.

foolish: oh yeah.

tommy: he’s made so many mistakes. so many that have hurt so many people, but… what this is gonna be about isn’t giving him a second chance, isn’t giving him a third chance, it’s not about chances, foolish. it’s about making sure you don’t give up on the people you care about. so i know you’re still really new to this server-

foolish: yeah.

tommy: -and i know you’ve built lots of things. so if you ever care about someone, do not give up on them, foolish. don’t give up on people, right?

foolish: you know what, tommy? i think i had you-

tommy: because that’s how you lose.

foolish: i think i had you wrong.

tommy: oh, i don’t know what that means.

foolish: well i just- you know? you’re a little bit more mature than i thought you would be. i thought you were just a loud, obnoxious- you know what i mean? do what you want, you know, couple muggings here and there, but maybe there’s more to you than meets the eye.

tommy: i still do that, obviously, because it’s funny and it-

foolish: (he laughs) well then- no, i understand. maybe there’s more to you. maybe there’s more to you, tommy, than i thought.

tommy: …thanks, i guess, maybe there’s more to you too.

foolish: oh, there’s so much… do you consider yourself to be the good guy or the bad guy?

tommy: that really depends who you ask, doesn’t it, you know? if you ask dream, he’d say i’m- he’d say i’m his little- i’m his little play- his little toy that he plays with, you know? it doesn’t… foolish honestly i used to- i used to consider myself the good guy. you know the fucking second-in-command going round going “yeah let’s do this!”, but i’m- recently… these past… (he sighs) these past, like, six months or so, foolish. everything got so much harder than it was before. because before it was us fighting the bad guys and it was all so clear, you know? it was all so clear.

foolish: yeah-

tommy: but it’s not been clear for so long, alright? it wasn’t “these are the bad guys, these are the good guys.” now it’s “he’s doing this, that makes him a bit worse, that makes him-” it all got so fucking complicated, so… i don’t know. it depends who you ask, but…

foolish: i don’t know, it just all seems strange because just from, you know, hearing from others and you know, learning a little bit, it seems like you’ve been… the hero, you’ve been… the villain, the conqueror, the savior and even now i still have no idea what you exactly are.

tommy: that’s up to you to decide, isn’t it? i’m just a… i dunno, these days, foolish, i’m a little weaker than i used to be. i’m not who i- i’m not who i want to be, but… (he sighs)

[stickynotestoletters]

Yandere BNHA Boys pt 2

Okay, this is a continuation of the first yandere ones I did because I wrote that in basically a night and was too tired to do more, I'm probably gonna post some after for the pro heroes and villains if I have time, I might finish those on the weekend then post it.

This is just a bunch of headcanons I have about the boys in BNHA and what they’d be like as yanderes. Only the really fluffy or good things about them listed here. Neither of these works are a good depictions of a real yandere and make sure to be careful to identify yandere traits in real people around you. It’s a very dangerous world and stay safe!

sorry if you were waiting for me to come out with these and I literally took forever lol, link to the first one is here. It's basically just me comforting myself with the sweet things that I think they would do as yanderes.

Warnings: Brainwashing, blood, gore, death, trans headcanons, body dysmorphia, nonbinary they/he Sero, they/them pronouns + nonbinary headcanons for Tokoyami, he/they nonbinary headcanons with Shinsou, a little NSFW because if I don't specify then they are aged up (around 20-25 is where I imagine the timeline that they actually captured you and have a hero carrier going for them already), manipulation, regular yandere things, kinda just turns into dumbass horknee headcanons at some point after Shinsou (sorry lmfao), objectification

Sero Hanata

so basically the first time they saw you they immediately wanted to come up to you

they love to give you back hugs because once you stop trying to fight them he's gonna be so honored you finally trust him

Big time slut [non-derogetory] for you

Likes to have an apartment that's high up, probably a secured penthouse with lots of windows

If you're afraid of heights they will get a ground bed for you two, they would also vibe with a low hanging hammock if you allow it

they really really like just putting you on a custom made leash, not inherently in a sexual way just in general likes to have it look like that with their tape on you at all times

they really really like it when you come to them for hugs and comfort

If you're a trans reader, if you want a binder he will get you one as soon as you ask, cried when you told him about it.

they cried way more than you though...

Was very accepting as an nb person as well

they custom made you a tape binder of his

Kinda as a joke but high key felt like they were gonna combust at the thought of you wearing that for them

Takes you to pride but you cannot speak

only takes you to pride after they are 1000% sure that you're not gonna speak to anyone but them

Takes you to it as a part of their float because they'd been invited onto the Hero Float

You are in a costume that's exactly like his, helmet and everything, you aren't allowed to be looked at

After that though, it's gonna be your choice to go or not to go

they trust you a little more after you run away from some assholes though and after that sometimes lets you take your helmet off during pride, you have to give them a lot of kisses though

When/if you ever consider any type of surgery he is 110% on board

they demand that you have to have it performed by someone who has done this a million times before, trusts no one else

If there's a way for you to go through it without the surgery they're excited but he's more excited if there is surgery because they love the idea of you being so cuddly and clinging to them for their comfort

Tokoyami Fumikage

haha they're in love with you

like, intensely in love with you the moment they first meet you

Dark shadow thinks you're adorable but says nothing more about their obsession with you

when you met them before UA they absolutely cannot handle being around you in a 10-foot radius

Eventually, though they do try and become a friend of yours

After that, it's a hop on the manipulation train, my dude

they basically make you see them as your savior from a mean uncaring world

they love talking to you about things that make you happy and loving you in little ways

hugs, hand holding, a lot of time it's just a little peck (haha) on the cheek

they love living with you though, like really love it

they like baking and making dinner for you

but especially baking

like really, baking

the manipulation they use makes it seem like everything is okay when you only talk to them so that's what you do and to you, it seems so much better than anything you could do

they haven't come out to you by the time you come out to them so your trans journey really helps them figure things like that out as well

The first time you explain that gender is a made-up construct they're like "yeah......isn't that how everyone feels? Like, not a gender????" we love this for them

you both kind of heal each other through this process

they like seeing you when you're most comfortable so they get you as many binders as you need

also gets you a custom binder like Sero but with feather designs, not like stupid printable patterns but something that is soft and the softness isn't feathers it's regular fluffy cloth

idk I'm not a designer that's why I gave up and became a writer lmao

they also get you a compression corset because they're emo

if there is surgery it takes a lot of time to convince them

they don't ever want you to regret anything they helped you with so it takes a lot of long-winded conversations about it

there was a lot of nervousness on their part because (this is just my headcanon) they were almost convinced to get surgery to construct their face to look human-like

they had a lot of their family tell them that, because of the way they looked, they had less of a chance to become a hero, they were immensely traumatized by this and thus wants to make absolutely sure you were okay with this

but when they finally find themself comforted by you about it it happens quickly and in the safest way you could possibly imagine

Shinso Hitoshi

Shinsou didn't want to approach you at all, he was so scared you'd run away or tell him he's a villain

they always thought that they weren't good enough for you

he loved you but you needed to say hi first

and you did

so he whisked you away

they like to just brainwash you into tasting certain types of food when you're craving them instead of just getting you food

he likes to talk to you in a voice like he would talk to a kitten, not like husky or anything sexy, but something cute and adorable

especially when you're brainwashed and can't say anything to him

He likes to give you lots of soft stuff like I'm talking pillows upon pillows and squishmallows

once he gets his own house they get it in a place that's more comforting in the dark than in the light

they really like the dark and outdoorsy vibe anyway so if they choose a place somewhere in the forest to keep you what's the added bonus if no one can hear you scream?

a little bit of spice; he has this whole a/b/o fantasy (idk it's his vibes that he'd read that fanfic and stuff lmao) and kinda treats you like you were an omega

sometimes if you guys do have sex they'll brainwash you to act like an omega or once he's more experienced with bodily manipulation involving their quirk they'll make you do all of the......omega things

when you come out to them, if you're trans, they're definitely gonna not care

like if you need comfort and stuff about it they will not make a big deal about it

he legit is like "okay .....can I still fuck you or?????"

HE JUST GIVES OFF REALLY HORKNEE VIBES OKAY?????

definitely brainwashes you into not feeling dysphoric anymore though

like loves it when you come up all sad to him and uncomfy just to ask them to brainwash you

he melts over you cuddling them after those times though

if you want surgery they're gonna make sure that it's between him and the doctors that y'all are there

like no one knows you're there, completely off radius, in and out like nothing (he's basically a cryptid in the woods by the time you guys have the surgery, so they wanna make sure no one questions it)

Monoma Neito

bold of you to assume that man can express literally anything when he wants to just sit you on his lap and look at your pretty face

love at first sight taken literally but not in a shallow way

he loves just having you around him

kinda treats you as an accessory at times, talks like you're a purse or something and people don't really comment but it's really freaking them out sometimes when you don't speak up on it

likes to say he's the only one to understand you cause he's afraid you'd leave him

a hardcore fan of collars though

definitely has lots of jewelry that represents him even though you don't go out he still loves the idea of it

big time cook

loves providing for you, never lets you do a damn thing other than watching pre-approved cartoons and hobbies

absolute fucking disaster about hugging you

always has to be touching you

he thinks you're so fucking gorgeous and body worships you even out of the bedroom

if you're trans he will definitely be weird about it at first

he's just diet transphobic

he's not denying it but sometimes he's like "Are you sure???" and stuff

he clears this up with the help of you being pissed enough to not eat or talk to him until he apologizes

he then educates himself on it and comes to the conclusion that he was in fact being an asshole

talks to you about binders and stuff like that

doesn't really believe in surgery, he would never allow you to do that just because it would be too painful for him to see you go through

he instead literally searches the whole fucking globe for a person with a body-altering quirk to make sure you don't get hurt

he seeks out homophobes, transphobes, and other dumbasses on the regular just to kill them like literally it just started out for your approval but now it's just for fun

Anyway, the villain one (if I do it) will probably become just horknee brain rot cause I am a slut. Request some stuff and I'll try to put up some works if y'all want ig.

[cblgblog]

Sorry I’m advance but one of my other favorite accounts just reblogged a Tony scene and people are talking about Civil War and how it made them Stan Tony, and how when they watch that movie they hate team cap👀 Then someone was all about how he was sleep deprived and how much pressure he was under and couldn’t understand how people didn’t like Tony because. Someone literally said that when someone says they don’t like Tony in Civil War they say “did you watch the same movie as me.” I’m baffled. Oddly enough someone else said, “he just wants to help everyone.” Sorry for the rant but I think people forget about what the accords are and what it would mean for people. Side note, I hope you’re having a great day/night 😀

No sorry needed!

I feel you man, I do. Honestly, I’ve unfollowed people based on similar posts when I was in especially Done moods, so.

Look on the one hand, the movie would’ve been a narrative failure if everyone was in favor of one side or the other, right? The whole point of the damn thing—besides giving the Mouse overlords more money—was to spark discussion, debate. Which, yeah, we’ll call that the tame description for what actually happened. But just, the thing was meant to split the fanbase so in that regard…winning? Thanks, I guess?

Film is also very obviously subjective, different strokes for different folks, so yeah, ten people can watch a movie and none of them are gonna see the exact same film. Let’s try to remember that this is, in theory anyway, a good thing. I just read a professional film review yesterday where I had the same reaction. What film were you watching, dude? Incidentally his reviewing partner said the same thing.

So honestly, no, they weren’t watching the same film as you or I or anyone else, because everyone brings their own biases and experiences and knowledge and interests into a thing, and that’s always going to flavor how it’s viewed. Again, let’s try to remember that this is good. In theory. Heavy on the theory.

That out of the way? Let’s get into Tony specifically so his uber stans can find this and scream at me on anon as though I just shot RDJ with a nuke.

Oh yeah, he was stressed. Oh, he was sleep deprived. Yeah, I’ve heard that. And that it’s Pepper’s fault, if she hadn’t left the poor baby, if she was there to rein him in, he’d be fine dammit, leave the baby alone!

Here’s the thing. You know who gets a pass on their shit behavior when they’re upset or tired? Actual babies. Actual babies and toddlers, and children, up to a point. Because they actually cannot always help themselves. Their bodies and brains are different, they have not learned better.

When you’re a 50-year-old man who’s supposedly the world’s bestest superhero, who wants, wants to be in charge of protecting the whole world? You need a little more self-control than that. The sleep deprived excuse works if you snap at someone before you’ve had your coffee, not for this. Roseanne Barr didn’t get to blame Ambien for her racism, Tony doesn’t get to handwave CW away because oops, I was tired.

Really? You’re a superhero, dude. Most of your teammates are tired too, that’s part of the gig. If you crash and burn this badly without your afternoon nap, fucking hang up the armor and go back to your billionaire playboy lifestyle.

Speaking of that, sure, right. It’s Pepper’s fault because she left him. Put aside the argument on whether that was justified or not (cough, it was and she should’ve stayed away even though they are adorable together). It’s not Pepper’s job to keep Tony sane. It’s not any partner’s job to do that for anyone. If she wants out, she has a right to that, without Tony going off the rails and blaming it on her. Seriously, he says part of the reason he backed the Accords was to “split the difference” with Pepper.

Dude. You were an asshole and you lost your girl. You destroyed all your suits, turned an emotional and mental corner in IM 3…and then relapsed 4 minutes later I guess because Whedon. Either way, Tony admits himself that he does not want to stop. So instead of doing that, or finding another partner who can accept that, you back an unjust international law that pits you against your team, your supposed friends? Go to therapy, have a pint of ice cream, cry into your pillow, send her more of those strawberries you sent her in IM 2 that she’s allergic to. You don’t go trying to change international law in ways that could ultimately affect millions of people because your girl left you.

Honestly—and thank God they didn’t do this but—the only way the Pepper excuse works in excusing his behavior in any way is if she’d died. Or been severely injured like Happy in IM 3. Still wouldn’t be okay, but, like Quill messing up their chance to stop Thanos because Gamora died, it would’ve been more understandable. Understandable, not excusable, and the way the MCU treats their women as manpain fodder, we’re probably legit lucky we didn’t get this.

As for him wanting to help everyone. He does in fact want that, I think. The problem is that his need to feel like he’s doing that is stronger than his rational mind, or his want to actually help in a constructive way.

Tony is too smart. He’s dumb as hell in many instances, mostly involving people and relationships, but he’s also too smart, and he’s been told for too long that he’s smart, and he’s bought into it. Ultron. Suit of armor around the world, protects the world, no more alien threats. It’s a simple concept on paper that fails in execution. So there are people with dangerous powers. Okay, we’ll make a set of laws to keep them from being dangerous, problem solved. But again, it isn’t.

Tony is not used to problems he cannot solve. He’s a genius, right? He can fix anything. He should be able to fix anything. That’s how he feels. But not everything is zeros and ones and circuits, things that can be fixed mechanically like his armors can. The people he wants to protect are not built that way. But he needs to feel like he’s doing something, because he’s terrified of what happens to the world if he doesn’t. So he creates these simple solutions to complex problems. The suit of armor, the Accords. They sound good in theory, but the problems they’re trying to solve are bigger than they are. And Tony, way back in IM 1, he sat back for years, clueless that his weapons were being used for bad things. He says it to Cap in CW. When he found out what his weapons were being used for, he went in and stopped it. Whether or not he should’ve known that already is a separate issue here. The point here is that when he found out, too late or not, he went in and did something about it.

Tony needs to do something about it. Again, go back to Cap in AoU, Tony’s nightmare sequence. Steve asks Tony why he didn’t save them. Tony’s ultimate nightmare is that he sits back and does nothing, and his inaction causes everyone to die. Which is where you get Ultron. Something he came up with because of what he saw in space in Avengers 1, then doubled down on in AoU. It’s where you get the Accords. Oops, he caused someone to die, he killed Charles Spencer. Must do something about that right now so it doesn’t happen again, and he won’t have to feel this guilt. He should be collaborating with others to come up with solutions (no Bruce in AoU doesn’t count because Bruce was dumb there), or at the very least, taking more time to think through the repercussions of the things he puts out there. But he doesn’t, because he’s got his savior complex that tells him that he alone can and must fix this, and because he’s too dumb to realize how not-smart he is in certain areas.

“We need to be put in check. Whatever form that takes, I’m game.”

Isn’t that what he says in CW, or something very close to it? Whatever form that takes. That’s the issue, right there, whatever form that takes. Realistically, yes, there should be laws regarding people with powers, the same way there are special laws pertaining to people who carry guns, or people who are licensed to fly planes. You have a thing/can do a thing that not everyone else does, so there are regulations pertaining to that thing. Laws change with the times, they always have. Some new technology comes up, eventually there will be laws that regulate it. As there should be, honestly. The issue with the Accords, Steve’s issue with the Accords, was not the basic idea. He says as much. He says that it could work, but there would have to be safeguards. Safeguards that are not in the Accords that Tony wants him to sign.

It's not a matter of oh, fuck the law, there should be no law governing these people, they’re above it. The problem is that the law as it’s presented here is unjust. There’s what, a month between Lagos and Ross coming by to tell them about the Accords? A month is not enough time to properly analyze such a big issue, Especially when you’re reacting out of fear, which is what happened with Lagos. People died because of an Enhanced person, an Avenger, in this case. Lawmakers don’t want that to happen again, they especially don’t want the political shit storm that comes with it. Damn, we look like we were asleep at the switch here, not having anything to throw at this problem earlier. Quick, let’s throw together this thing so no one can say we’re not addressing the problem.

Patriot Act of 2001, anyone? 9/11 happened, the public were rightfully terrified, the US said oh man, these are unprecedented circumstances, we’ve never had this before. Don’t worry though, we’re on this, we’re protecting you. The reality being that that bill simply gave the government too much power, most of it being used against people who were not actually threats, and it’s debatable, to say the very least, whether or not that law helped more than it hurt.

No law is perfect. No law ever will be. It’s not possible. We still have to strive for perfection though, have to aim there so that the laws we get are as close to fair as possible. Tony’s a big deal. If not for his “whatever form that takes” attitude, he might’ve been able to use his influence to pressure lawmakers into coming up with a fairer bill. Hey, I’m me, the public loves me, I will endorse this bill publicly and work on getting the rest of the team to sign, but you need to change this and this and this first, or no deal. Instead, he took the easy way out, the quickest, easiest way for him to feel like he’s atoned for his sins without actually doing anything. Whatever form that takes.

Tony’s not wrong because he backs the creation of a law that addresses these things. He’s wrong because he says himself that he does not care what that law does, specifically, so long as it exists. He’s wrong because he violates said law upteen times during the movie, while preaching to team Cap about what assholes they are for not backing it. He’s wrong because he cares more about feeling as though he’s tackled a problem than he does about taking the time to make sure that the thing he’s proposing is actually a good idea. He’s wrong because of what he does with Bucky, though that’s honestly a separate issue, for the purposes of this discussion.

Anyway, that was longer than I ever wanted it to be. Damn. Next time you see a comment about CW being the reason people stan Tony, just remember there are other people out there who stopped stanning Tony because of that movie. Everyone’s entitled to see a piece of media however they see it, and although the Tony stans are often the loudest, there are plenty of like-minded people out there who share your take on events. Block who you need to, unfollow who you need to, blacklist what you need to, and don’t let them get you down.

Hang in there, and have an awesome day :)

[animeloversworldsblog]

Rant about shikama doji and hiragis-clan

I don't understand why people say that hiragis are victims from shikama, yes sure they were created from this bastard but still are the same shit as him.

Even if kagami say that are not good or bad characters we should realized that are ones because if that the case then we should justify every damn evil character in anime, manga, novel, movie, serie etc, for the simple fact "it's must be a reason or was for one reason". But kamagi want to redeem hiragis family so bad with mahiru shit and even kureto shit and even (for christ's sake) tenri, that fails completely (don't you think kagami that i didn't see it bcs you always try to portrait mahiru and kureto like poor angels and victim, and that apply to tenri and sheishiro, especially when it cames from mahiru bitch, (and yeah whatever, she is it, i just don’t care anymore)

It's simple hiragis are bad people they have nothing good at all. How they can be victims? What about all the people was in their hands? What are they?

They are incredible selfish people that think are the only ones that have right no matter what. If we are gonna justify that killing people all over again for the reason "is for humankind" is bullshit. It is only to satiate their thirst for power, and that has been seen both in the novel and in the manga, to be more and more powerful.

If the case is "justification" then we can justify shikama doji here too (extreme sarcasm). Shikama lost his precious son right (more sarcasm) so in this case would be..

Shikama doji lost his son so he is doing all of this to revive his death son, so he destroyed the world for that, and killed millions for his selfish goal, poor shikama (bullshit as hell, evil shit). Not evil character bcs he has a reason.

Mahiru she did all what she did to protect shinoa, she didn't have choice to became in demon to the purpose to save the world, used guren and destroyed him in so many possibles ways bcs she loved him so deeply and want to be her strength so he could save the world and killed shinya and the rest was a purpose to save the world, poor mahiru (god more bullshit) (and for let it clear I'm being sarcastic especially with this evil bitch). Not evil character bcs she had a reason.

Kureto he is a man that care for his subordinates and wants to created a world were they live in piece, then he killed them if they disobey him or for experimention and laugh about it, he see guren like a comrade, yet he tortured for days and his father, he care for shinoa, yet he tortured her and then threat her to killed her, kids that he brainwashed them to became soldiers, used in experimentation and like spies with vampires, and say that experiments don't have right, and all of this is just like mahiru is for save the world, poor kureto (don't let me start it again is more bullshit). Not evil character bcs he has a reason.

Shikama doji, Mahiru, Kureto = shitty evil disgusting piece of crap.

And of course I don't forget tenri hiragi and sheishiro are others shit evil disgusting piece of crap as much hiragis's clan is being do it since 1200 years.

Mahiru is not a damn savior, she made genocide and still does, to the simple reason is to "save the world"?, bcs was possessed by two demon Is the excuse? Vampire crap? All of that was just adhere to her thirst for power. Shinoa? She didn't give a crap about her, shinoa is a damn victim from both hiragis (especially from mahiru and shikama doji) and always put her in dangerous situation guren? Where? Bcs she goes just to tortured him knowing that would be trouble from him, even so she didn't care and was manipulating him since 5 and after ten years and more having now 24 to save the damn world? (And this is the most abusive and destructive relationship i've ever seen and without love from both parts, don't talk to me about guren love her is no more than emotional abuse) Shinya that she cared from him, after massacred him bcs she hated him so bad, and the rest even that was a purpose to save the world? ( i dont know at this point if I have to laugh or cry for all the things I've been reading and I can continue, even if kagami in the end put that like a reason, and i wouldn't be surprise if he try to revive mahiru, bcs she was the most innocent victim and the most perfect girl ever).

Like she loved guren the most so she pushed him to become more powerful, even if that means eliminate, his followers, his family and his most precious friends,("elimate your weakness your pathetic attachments bcs that doesn't let you be strong", but he has to be attachment to her lol psycho bitch) which actually was her plan and that not apply in save the world, was just eliminated all what guren loved to have her for herself, (psycho bitch that enjoy the pain she caused to her "most beloved man", don't get me started in how she laughed and enjoyed when his father died and his friends and all was things she hated) because that was her great love for him, to be her strength to face everything that would come and that want of the good things guren had was met her when she was a child, even so she saw all ichinose clan like trash, even guren, people forget that she wants her father goes to them to piss him off (which that means dead flag to them, the worst that could happened to guren was met her like seriously even if saito planned it and helped her to get her revenge still was the worst to guren and goes after someone else for being an insane girl to hurt a sweet child, yeah so sweet and innocent cute girl) And even using shinoa to manipulate others by making them believe that she was always a poor innocent and sweet girl who suffered a lot, and as long as she used shinoa in that it gave her the right to commit genocide and so much garbage that she has done, with the purpose is for a good reason and it is justifiable, such as reading that it was okay to kill Shinya and the others because otherwise tenri would have done it, or that she has a good humanity in her that has done everything she has done to save the world, or that her demonic self was still mess up with her when she turned on in vampire (lmao mahiru always was her true self, she just love power more than anything in the world) and again she is not a savior or is helping guren to keep him alive to give him a reason to live, because guren is not free to live under his terms, but under her terms, is always being like that since the moment he met her; everything in Mahiru is nothing but false in her, false emotions, false feelings, the human mahiru is nothing but a hideous monster, A human monster that want to surprass god but she can't even do every single shit without making every single life misery. (And used saito helps, he gave her what she wanted and even so this other shit said she was crazy since the beginning and was terrible person, so a great genius that made all by herself is not true). kagami doesn't more than blame all in her demons, which in reality she was a rotten child, and a teenager one, she always was greedy and always was about herself no other one, not even guren, or her sister

Kureto is the same as her, he thinks bcs he had a high status can make with people and children whatever he wants, maybe has some sanity,(and has sanity doesn't make someone weak for god's sake and i talk here for guren not kureto) and is not vengative since child like mahiru that was a damn vengative monster since child with the idea to make kill all ichinose clan and a sweet innocent boy where she started to abused and destroy him mentally, emotionally, psychologically and Physically she was and is a psycho. And i understand that no everybody can survive in the world, and are difficult choices to make but killing people to created weapons using children to overpower hiragis that is not even an option, he is an abusive and a tortured bastard still is the same shit and a terrible person.("those who killed without a reason are evil", yeah to overpower you, bcs you are an angel. "Kill me or save me", pathetic bastard)

Hiragis especially mahiru, kureto say that want to make a better world but humans can't do it without breaking any taboo; there must be a price to human to pay, hiragis who is in control, desire for more power to become the greatest.. Doesn't care about destroying the world. How egoistic. Hiragis like demon- self centric. They don't care enough about people around them that is why they say that love, family and friendship is weakness.

That is why all of hiragis are all the same. They seek for power--true power, they want to dominate everything even it if was humankind. They don't really care about human in general, if they can gain more power just from destroying japan, then why not? They can just rebuild it by the power of seraph and make it a better place, with more powerfull human being etc. If its cursed then why they're so greedy, abusive, and manipulative towards others? If they know it was their sins why they don't even try to change your own destiny, but you just follow your own selfish desire and make everyone lifes miserable. How can you rebuild your own idealism about world when you can't even control your greedines for power? I get it ONS world are more like gray area that you can't even know what is right or wrong--but doesnt mean humanity never exist you know. People always blaming guren for everything because he is selfish prick that doesn't want his family to be gone forever, he still a child in heart that never tried to move on from grieving his own family, and destroyed humanity just for his selfishness. Dude, aren't Mika and Yuu are the same? They want their family to still alive, and they want to take revenge for people who have killed their family, while guren? Did he ever tried to seek any revenge on hiiragi's family? He was, but never actually do it in the end and still pitied THEM. @lottenoir

Is incredible how hiragis selfishness can be easy justifies and be poor victims in all of this just because they were created to be used for bastard shikama doji, but I think is so much hipocrasy. (kagami just want to portrait hiragis like victims and it's look like it works at least on the fandom for shikama but their creator is as shitty as mahiru, kureto, tenri and sheishiro and fails so bad in that, he can't even make a descent plot and ruins good characters thank to deal to hiragis shit)

Shikamadoji, mahiru, kureto,tenri, sheishiro= disgusting piece of shit that must be eliminate for good.

Victims (real ones) guren, shinya, shinoa, mito, goshi, sayuri, shigure, and all the people that suffered and died in their hands. (i don't even gonna mention yuu and mika like victims here bcs honestly they aren't either at this point, are the same has hiragis in greedy selfishnes and don't give a crap about the world and people in general)

The hiragis do not have an ideology to protect, nor allies to trust, they see fraternal and family ties as mere tools, hiragis like shikama are pathetic. For them, to survive in that cruel world, nothing is needed but power. Ideals and ideology are just worthless talk.

That is why I see characters (guren, shinya guren's squad) that despite living in a cruel world, know why living, even in a dark world, life goes on, it is not always about becoming the most powerful, and killing to give themselves power, it is about survive, live, is about that they have a mission, things to protect, the ideals of each one, their hopes, those are the ones that make their ideals come true, they sacrifice their lives for others, knowing that many will die on the way, nobody can turn off that last light, in the that those characters believe. (Schwarzesmarken words).

Ons has a Gray Area, they are character that get in there but those characters goes more to be good person with mistakes and flaws. And those characters have belief, values, try to get better and have feels and emotions towards others.

Hiragis and others one (like yuu, mika, shikama, saito,ferid, krul, etc) goes to the area of being bad or evil characters no matter how much kagami try to portrait them or redeem them and is just like that, most of those characters just focus in their damn selfishness crap not other people or the world, and most of the vampires are as shit as hiragis. (don't you think kagami that i don't see how you continue to try so bad to redeem shitty hiragis, with that crap about "the hiragis are not to blame bcs they were created to be used" bulshit as hell, put yourself together man, your plot about them and others characters is horrible, with so many holes and incongruities, but oh well keep going with your poor mahiru, kureto, hiragi family and others, instead to give them justice to the only decent characters that you still have and still ruin, no so many bullshit about "there aren't good or bad characters" keep going to show the bad characters like good ones, and good characters like evil shit lol, what a lie, and you say guren is your fave? Lol poor guren, you not even give justice to him nor shinya, I couldn't even with catastrophe at 16 and your bullshit with mahiru and the others like no one was better than her, not even the other girls, the perfect one and the insignificant others girl,poor the other girls, that can't be as godnees as her, and people in general, oh and your bullshit about guren was weak when actually is not, and has to be in the most destructive and abusive relationship, actually not even was one at all, just emotional abuse, not love, not exs, and it sickness even think about their love with mahiru than didn't do more than abuse a DAMN GOOD MAN like guren and others people and make guren look to everyone like the evil character thanks to her, the most horrible murder, genocide bastard, but no one blame her instead blame guren for all her shit and one can't see guren is being abused from her since child, where is the love? Please give me a break, and thanks to you that keep going with her bullshit guren is the most hate one, and whatever at this point I just don't care anymore is so many stupid things about it and is just sickness and no funny at all)

To hiragis being weak don't let you became strong but can we appreciate this instead all their bullshit..

You're going to meet many people with domineering personalities: the loud, the obnoxious, those that noisily stake their claims in your territory and everywhere else they set foot on. This is the blueprint of a predator. Predators prey on gentleness, peace, calmness, sweetness and any positivity that they sniff out as weakness. Anything that is happy and at peace they mistake for weakness. It's not your job to change these people, but it's your job to show them that your peace and gentleness do not equate to weakness. I have always appeared to be fragile and delicate but the thing is, I am not fragile and I am not delicate. I am very gentle but I can show you that the gentle also possess a poison. I compare myself to silk. People mistake silk to be weak but a silk handkerchief can protect the wearer from a gunshot. There are many people who will want to befriend you if you fit the description of what they think is weak; predators want to have friends that they can dominate over because that makes them feel strong and important. The truth is that predators have no strength and no courage. It is you who are strong, and it is you who has courage. I have lost many a friend over the fact that when they attempt to rip me, they can't. They accuse me of being deceiving; I am not deceiving, I am just made of silk. It is they who are stupid and wrongly take gentleness and fairness for weakness. There are many more predators in this world, so I want you to be made of silk. You are silk. C. JoyBell C. (To guren ichinose and shinya hiragi)

[hello-that-happened]

Noelle Stevenson’s She-Ra, Vanguard of a Postchristian Era

Plenty of She-Ra fans have written insightful posts about how the show criticizes the brainwashing, trauma, set-in-stone “destiny,” desire suppression, imperialism, and blind obedience of (toxic) Christianity. I wrote one a little while ago about how She-Ra challenges fundamentalist Christian values by accepting existential humanism instead. I want to situate these discussions in a larger cultural context, because Noelle and her fantastic show are the face of a massive sociocultural shift in the United States.

Before I start generalizing to tell the story of past and future American history, I need to say a few caveats: (1) there are plenty of kind, progressive, and/or LGBT+ people who are Christians; (2) it is okay to be Christian; (3) She-Ra does not necessarily criticize every form of Christianity, because some forms are not necessarily toxic; (4) Christians deserve the same respect as everyone else; and (5) as long as there is a United States, it will probably have millions of Christians among its citizens. I hope that covers all my bases.

With that said, let’s talk about the history of American Christianity. 

Background: The Rise of the Christian Right

Main source and further reading: “Secularization Strikes Back: The End of American Religion?” in Providence Magazine

Americans are living through a sociocultural transition unprecedented in our history. For many years, the United States has bucked a global trend of secularization. As countries industrialize and become wealthy, their citizens care less about religion – except for Americans.

The U.S. has stayed so religious for so long for many reasons, but one of the most important has been American religion’s historical distance from politics. Decisions by the “founding fathers” deserve plenty of criticism, but one of their best decisions was to oppose a national church. 

“The famous Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville, who visited the United States in the 1830s,” explained why European Christianity lost its influence then and American Christianity is losing its own: “Famously, he attributed the strength of American religion to its distance from politics.” The further religion stayed away from politics, the stronger it remained. European religion lost power, per Tocqueville, because “religion allied with power was inevitably tainted by factional political interests.”

Let’s fast-forward to modern times. In the late 20th century, the Republican Party realized that it could gain political power by whipping up Christian evangelicals’ hatred of (among other things, like racial integration) the rising social tolerance of sexual freedom. Opposition to these changes catapulted Ronald Reagan to power in 1981 on a wave of the new “Moral Majority,” a coalition of reactionary Christians who wanted the government to legally enforce conservative Christian values on the nation. Since then, the “Christian Right” has remained the most powerful force in the Republican Party. 

Background pt. 2: The Future Strikes Back

Main source and further reading: “The Christian Right Is Helping Drive Liberals Away From Religion” from FiveThirtyEight

For the last 30 years, non-Republican Americans have grown increasingly disgusted with how Christianity merged with Republican politics. Moderates, liberals, and progressives have fled Christianity in record numbers, leading to the highest level of nonreligious Americans in history. 

The straw which broke the camel’s back was marriage equality. In states where Christian conservatives caused more public controversy over gay marriage, nonreligion rose faster. Younger generations, the Millennials (born ‘81-‘96) and Gen Z (born ‘97-‘12), overwhelmingly approve of marriage equality – partly because an unprecedented percentage of us identify as LGBT+, and partly because most of us who don’t at least know a friend or family member who is LGBT+.

“The younger generation, Americans under the age of 30 — more than eight in 10 of them support same-sex marriage…[It's] a litmus test issue for many millennials in the country. It’s not just that conservative white Christians have lost this argument with a broader liberal culture. It’s that they’ve lost it with their own kids and grandchildren.” –Robert P. Jones

Generational warfare strongly shapes American political discourse, where young Americans are much more likely to be secular progressives who support LGBT+ rights, and older Americans are much more likely to be conservative Christians who do not.

That brings us, finally, to Noelle Stevenson and She-Ra.

Noelle Stevenson Tells the Ex-Christian Story

I couldn’t exclude this absolutely amazing image by @horde-princess​:

Noelle Stevenson was raised in a fundamentalist Christian household. Her family taught her that homosexuality conflicts with “God’s plan” for people’s lives, and that some people are born destined to suffer in hell. At her fundamentalist Christian high school, Noelle took a class in apologetics learning how to argue in defense of evangelical Christianity. One of the “facts” she learned is that listening to "Stairway to Heaven” causes demonic possession. Yes, really.

As Noelle grew up, her family’s religion’s strict control over her mind began to crumble. To quote the goddess of she-ra religion posts @horde-princess​, “Noelle describes herself going off to college and having her eyes opened, meeting gay people for the first time in her life, and realizing that they weren’t amoral devil worshippers like she was raised to believe.” Struggling with her own gay feelings, she eventually came to accept them and marry the woman she loved.

In a recent Q&A (and many other times), Noelle has described projecting herself into her characters so much that fan analysis reveals aspects of herself she never realized. She poured her experience into She-Ra, and thousands of (especially LGBT+) fans who grew up in strict Christian households saw their own struggles playing out on the screen. I suspect this relatable quality drove part of the show’s popularity and its staying power.

She-Ra is becoming a cultural phenomenon, building on the success of other LGBT+ friendly family cartoons like Steven Universe to spread its messages around the U.S. and the rest of the world. Netflix does not release viewership numbers, which makes it difficult to judge She-Ra’s popularity. But an unpopular show would not have enough fans to trend again and again on Twitter demanding a sixth season and/or a movie. She-Ra is not going away – but Christian hegemony is.

Save the Future

We can overcome the Christian Right Horde.

The more that people watch She-Ra, the more they are exposed to its message that LGBT+ love is a positive good against the evil forces of self-shaming religious imperialism. Kids who grow up with She-Ra will hear Christians using Horde Prime’s language to oppose LGBT+ rights, and will learn to fight the Horde in their own country: the Christian Right.

After selling their proverbial souls to the Christian Right decades ago, Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation are waking up in an America that they do not own anymore. This panic led them to hide behind Trump, hoping that he could fight back against the cultural tide. But Trump has only alienated moderates, liberals, and progressives further from Christianity. His divisive, hateful, reactionary rhetoric can only accelerate the already-exponential rise of nonreligion in the United States. When the Christian Right accepted Trump as their savior, they surrendered their future.

By turning the United States against itself and giving the fossil fuel industry free reign to wreck our environment, Trump and his worshippers are determined to destroy the future before the post-Christian generation can claim it for ourselves. Noelle Stevenson and her masterpiece show She-Ra are a near-perfect figurehead for our generation’s resistance against rising suicide-cult tendencies of the Christian Right. We can fight back, and She-Ra shows us how: with love and forgiveness to those who are willing to change, but with strength and bravery against those who want to force us back into the closet and back into the strictly-controlled dogmatic cult of American evangelical Christianity.

[all-hail-the-witcher]

really funny and stupid soulmate au request: whatever your soulmate is singing, you automatically join them in a duet wherever you are (any ship is good)

okay full disclaimer, I have n o i d e a what this is, the words just kinda happened and its really memey but somehow works ??

_______

ship: ralbert

genere: meme floof with a side of theater nerds

warnings: mikeys dog, too many bill wurtz references, comrades, an obscene amount of winking, Albert is a disaster lighting technician and race has no respect for lighting gels, high school musical

words: 1832 wat

editing: nah comrade

_______

If anyone knew anything about Albert it was that he always carried a packet of rosemary in his left pocket “in case he ran out of weed,” that he was trying to get excommunicated from the catholic church “just for lols,” and that he hated high school musical. The last one was particularly damning because all of his friends were theater nerds. (Albert prefered to yell at all of them from the lighting booth and assert his dominance by randomly having people shine the spotlight into the wings where people made out during rehearsal.) He had even gone as far to ban the soundtrack from ever being sang in his presence. Spot said his unrequited hatred for the movies were directly related to the fact that he had not yet found his soulmate and he didn’t like them because it portrayed love he had not yet found, but Albert loudly disagreed saying that the plots were merely just “shit on a stick.”

Cue Racetrack Higgins, the hot new kid in town.

When he showed up to the audition for the school musical, some dumb title that Albert hadn’t taken the time to note (he only had two brain cells and one of them was reserved for figuring out where he was gonna get his weed from and the other was reserved for coming up with new ways to get excommunicated), he had not expected to see a literal angel.

Alright so maybe it wasn’t an angel. Rather, a blonde kid who looked kinda vaguely like a beanpole. And quoting Bill Wurtz. Couldn’t forget that.

The ethereal beanpole had introduced himself after a particularly memorable incident about ten minutes before the audition started. Somehow, he had ended up on the catwalk holding a stack of painstakingly organized gels over the edge as if he were about to drop them.

Now, Albert was not the most organized lighting technician and he did enjoy a bit of mischief every now and then, but only if he was the one pulling the mischief. Plus, he had just organized all the gels and didn’t want to do that again. He’d much rather hide Spot’s keys in the janitor’s closet. So he did the natural thing.

“HEY BEANPOLE! IF YOU DROP THOSE I WILL CUT OFF YOUR HAIR AND FEED IT TO THE SPIDER IN THE BROOM CLOSET!”

The kid’s head snapped up. But, instead of looking like a squirrel about to be chased by a hungry seal shaped pitbull that smelled vaguely of thai food and cheese like the freshman did, the boy winked mischievously and let the gels dangel further over the edge. Then, in a singsong voice that Albert could only describe as the one belonging to his true Lord and Savior, Bill Wurtz (take that catholic church), said: “how bout I do anyway?”

Albert’s next insult died on his lips and he settled instead for glaring at the sexy beanpole with all the power of a pissed off techie.

“What?” The boy pouted, “can’t think of a good comeback?”

“Listen beanpole-”

“It’s Race.”

“Whatever.” Albert stomped down the catwalk in his black timbs, being sure to make as much noise as possible in order to attract the scattered actors below them. “Let it be known that while I did appreciate your history of japan quote, I do not appreciate your presence on my cat walk. And, if you to continue to dangle my gels over the edge like that, I will make sure you never get cast in Wanda’s World-”

“Its Animal Farm.”

“-and that you never get your clammy little paws on a single ounce of weed during your time in this hellhole. Capisce?”

“Weed is for losers,” Race said, thwacking the pile of gels on the catwalk with a muffled bang, scattering the top ones, much to Albert’s dismay. “I prefer vape myself, much more sleek and trendy.” Then, much to Albert’s surprise, he winked, turned on his heel, and exited the catwalk, tipping an imaginary hat before descending the stairs back down into the auditorium.

“Well fuck him right in the nipple,” Albert cursed to himself as he scooped up the pile of gels and stalked back to the lighting booth where he threw them unceremoniously on the ground - he’d sort back through them later. Instead, he sat on his beloved spinny chair that he had stolen from his history teacher back in 9th grade, wrapped the blue fuzzy blacket around himself he’d stolen from Spot last year, threw his feet up on the lightboard, and resolved himself to watching the auditions.

Race, apparently, had been correct, the musical was a rendition of Animal Farm. Although, why someone would write a musical version of a book about a bunch of patronizing pigs making everyone call each other comrade was beyond him.

Albert gradually began to tune out the auditions eventually pulling his beats from around his neck onto his ears and playing random indie songs instead of listening to the screeching below him.

However, once Race took the stage he paused his music out of curiosity. If he was going to have to deal with this kid all year, he might as well see if he had any talent. However, when he heard the opening chords of what was unmistakably a High School Musical song, he groaned and pulled his beats back on, cranking up the volume to drown out the atrocities of the shitty song.

This plan, however, was foiled when he found himself somehow singing a song that was not the one that was playing through his headphones. Initially, Albert ignored it, too dead set on his own blocking out of Race’s singing to care what his mouth was saying. But as it got progressively louder he ripped his beats off in frustration to see what exactly was going on.

To his utmost horror he realized that he was singing a duet with Race.

Albert’s stomach dropped. He knew exactly what this meant. And there was no way that it could be tue. It had to be a glitch. There was no way in hell that his soulmate was the same kid who had tantalized him on his very own catwalk with his precious lighting gels and a horrendous yet perfectly wonderful Bill Wurtz quote not a half hour before.

And there was absolutely no way that he was going to discover his soulmate by singing a high school musical song infront of all of his friends. No fucking way.

In a panic, Albert clapped his hand over his mouth to muffle the sounds coming from it. That way he could play it off as if it had never happened and continue living his perfectly happy soulmate-less life.

Much to his relief, Race stopped singing mere moments later and he pulled his hand away from his mouth, taking a deep breath of relief. However, this was immediately converted back to anxiety as he began to sing the second verse of the song against his will.

“Take my hand, I’ll take the lead

And every turn, you’ll be safe with me

Don’t be afraid, afraid to fall,

You know I’ll catch you through it all”

Race’s head snapped up and a bright smile formed on his face as he continued to sing, heading toward the steps to the lighting booth. A hush had fallen over the auditorium. Albert briefly wished that he had not tried so hard to get excommunicated because maybe some divine power would have been able to save him from the embarrassment that he was about to experience.

“And you can’t keep-”

“Even a thousand miles can’t keep us apart

“Us apart, cause my heart is-”

“Cause my heart is wherever you are”

Vaguely, Albert heard the familiar clang of someone slowly mounting the steps to the catwalk and he attempted to duck his head further into his black sweatshirt to no avail.

“It’s like catching lightning, the chances of finding someone like you

It’s one in a million the chances of feeling the way we do

And with every step together, we just keep on gettin better

So i can i have this dance, can i have this dance?

Can i have this dance?”

Then, as if being in such close proximity to Rae had some profound influence on him, Albert felt his legs begin to carry him toward the catwalk and, subsequently, the annoying beanpole himself.

“Oh, no mountains too high and no oceans too wide

Cause together or not, our dance won’t stop

Let it rain, let it pour

What we have is worth fighting for

You know I believe that we were meant to be, yeah”

And then, somehow, it was one of those Dramatic Theater Scenes™ that Albert usually hated so much, but somehow he didn’t mind this time. This must have been the feeling that his friends had so often described to them upon finding their soulmates: complete euphoria, as if nothing in the world existed except for them.

Albert found himself getting closer and closer to Race until they were practically ontop of eachother, his hands clutching at Race’s green minecraft shirt as they continued to sing, oblivious to the audience that they had accumulated.

“It’s like catching lightning the chances of finding someone like you

Like you

It’s one in a million the chances of feeling the way, the way we, we do

And with every step together, we just keep on gettin better

So can I have this dance, can I have this dance?

Can I have this dance?

Can I have this dance?

Can I have this dance?”

The auditorium below them erupted in a chorus of cheers and Albert felt his face blush bright red under his black beanie, causing him to pull away from Race as he returned to reality. Startled, Race looked at him, but then his face transformed into the mischievous smirk that Albert was beginning to suspect was customary for him.

“Guess you wanna save face in front of all your friends, huh? A badass like you can’t have feelings and all that.” He winked and Albert rolled his eyes. “That’s okay, you don’t have to kiss me now if you’re uncomfortable with it.”

Now it was Albert’s turn to roll his eyes as he hovered his lips mere inches from Race’s and said the same thing that he had been told not too long ago: “how bout I do anyway?” and smashed their lips together, earning a loud round of applause from the crown below and one lone whoop from Spot.

As Albert was passionately mushing his lips against his soulmate, he couldn’t help but think to himself, maybe high school musical wasn’t so bad after all.

_______

im actually low key proud of this like maybe I still know how to write lol

feedback is always appreciated, hmu to be on the tag list

tag list

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@nico-nat

[magiesheartlove]

The Greatest Show (a love letter to MLP:FiM

Okay, so I was planing on writing this down sometime after the season ended but, I’m just feeling a lot of...feels, at the moment that, I just needed to get this written down.

I’m going to be frank, I am sad MLP is ending but, at the same time, I’m glad it won’t become one of those series that just keeps going and going to the point at which it overstayed it’s welcome. I have long since accepted that season 9 would be the end of MLP. When a show ends, I always accept it. If it ends on a high note, even better.

Out of all the shows I have watched in the early 2010s, MLP was one I never, in a millions years, would have imagined would gain not only such a huge and devoted following that stretched far from its intended demographic, but also was a series that, in my eyes, reflected everything I loved about storytelling and why I wanted to tell stories to begin with.

I will never forget the first time I was introduced to the series. I was watching television on an ordinary Saturday, and one day on the Hub Channel in the channel guide I read My Little Pony was on. I simply shrugged and decided to just watch a little snippet of my childhood, so “what the heck”.

I had since grown out of the MLP phase, and while I still love magically colorful equines, the cutesy, baby talking cartoon horses didn’t appeal to a high school senior like myself. Instead of seeing either some old nineties rerun of an old episode, or something meant for a pre-school audience, I saw... cute, funny, not-cheesy, modernized ponies in a stylized flash animation...and they were taking on a flipping DRAGON!

It was the episode “Dragonshy”, and when I saw Fluttershy stand up to that dragon, no joke, my jaw dropped. I’ve seen the typical “shy person gets over their fear” plot done before, but the way it was handled, and the way they portrayed the ponies (including Rainbow Dash, who I remembered being a fashionable pony who said “darling” every other word), as a rough and tumble tomboy was awesome! It had a fashionista unicorn with sass, a Pinkie Pie who was actually funny, a country pony with muscle, and a unicorn who took charge.

This... this wasn’t the MLP I grew up with. This was... modern and, updated and stylized and, thought out more.... and... I... was.... HOOKED! I couldn’t stop gushing about it to my Mom, and she was staring at me like “it’s My Little Pony”, and I was all “I know!”

Of course, when I watched “Winter Wrap up” and I saw that they were about to sing, I thought, “Oh, a cutesy song. Okay.” And then the song played.... it wasn’t annoying, the lyrics weren’t babyish, and the ponies sounded.... good. Like, star quality, Broadway good. The music, the animation, the way the song fit into the episode it.... it was..... I loved it. My jaw was to the floor at how it completely blew away my expectations. This was definitely NOT the my little pony I remember, and I just fell harder and harder for it.

I fell for the characters in a heartbeat, the world building was colorful and beautiful, and the morals. Let me tell ya, the morals sold it for me. While I had seen other educational shows that practically shove the message in your face, this one did it in a way that was tailored into each episode without feeling like it was bashing you over the head with it. Sure, there were a few times near the end, but they were minor nitpicks in my opinion.

This, this was the kind of show, the kind of story, the kind of world, the kind of characters I always dreamed of making myself. Stories about love, and friendship, and family, characters with bonds that you could feel radiating off of the screen, a world so vast and endless you wished you could enter it and live every day exploring the horizons and uncovering new mysteries within it, and all alongside the ones who would wrestle a hydra or jump from a crystal palace for you.

As I grew older, finding good quality shows I could enjoy was difficult. Shows now a days either try to be “edgy” or “mature” that they just came across as trying too hard. As much as I adore overarching stories, it was refreshing to go back to that slice of life, villain of the week format that is feels like it’s being rejected now a days in animation. Again, I don’t have a problem with overarching plots, but slice of life stories can be just as fun, and open up a lot of doors for character interactions and enough wiggle room for the morals to shine through more.

MLP continued to surprise me over the years. As I grew, so did the show. I mean, Twilight went from an awkward student who didn’t care about friends, into the flipping PRINCESS of Friendship! Rarity expanded her business, Rainbow Dash learned humility and became a Wonder Bolt. Fluttershy became more and more confident, Applejack learned to ask for help, and Pinkie Pie had her ups and down, but at the end of the day, all she really cared about was making her friends happy. Even the Cutie Mark Crusaders finally found their calling, and it completely blew me away. Like a lot of people, I cried.

Speaking of tears, I know the whole villains reforming thing has caused some controversy over the years, and while I do empathize with a lot of the criticism, I can’t not love seeing these villains change for the better. Call me a compete and total sap, but if a man who persecuted and murdered people for believing in a Savior, only to have the most earth shattering revelation and transform into a messenger of the Gospel, even at the risk of his own life, and if a man from my Church can go from a man with the heart of a murder, into a devoted and kindhearted man who sung songs to The Lord every Sunday, then yes. If someone is willing, if they WANT it enough, I believe a heart of stone can become a heart of flesh. I know, a lot of people don’t believe it, and I understand why. But like Jesus, I want those lost lambs to find their way back.

As a President Lincoln once said: If I make my enemy my friend, have I not defeated my enemy?

I love when a villain changes for the better. Even if, story wise, it can be rushed, the meaning is still there. For me, that’s enough. I know not everybody changes, but that doesn’t mean nobody will. We live in a fallen world, but there is a Light that chases away the dark, gives us His hand, and shows us there is a better way. Just like Twilight did for Sunset Shimmer, and Sunset Shimmer did for Human Twilight.

Aside from introducing me to an amazing fandom, meeting so many wonderful people, and even being the show that coaxed me into the fanfiction world which led me to discover my love fo writing, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has and will forever be my all time favorite show, surpassing all others from my childhood. It came during my transition from a child to an adult. It sparked my imagination, made me smile, made me laugh and made me cry.

This series, this world, and its characters carried something that made it stand out amongst so many other shows in my eyes, and in my heart I always knew why. To quote the minister of Shady Oak ministries on YouTube; “They took the love of God, and put it on ponies.” Yes, when I watched MLP, when I heard the messages and witnessed the strong relationships, I saw Jesus manifested in each of them. I wasn’t even trying to find it, I just... felt it in my heart.

The Magic Of Friendship brought out the best in the Mane Six, brought out the best in those around them, and came through for them even when it seemed as if all was lost. And, it didn’t just go by the motions. The characters grew and learned, but that spark, that special little something that made them who they were, it didn’t fade, it only became stronger. They became the best versions of themselves, and though they still tumble and fall, they keep getting back up, because one way or another, there will ways be somepony there to reach out their hoof and help them back up.

I am so grateful for this show, and for all the wonderful things that came with it. The good, the bad, the weird, the funny, all of it.

Twilight, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Spike, Celestia, Luna, Sunset Shimmer, Discord, everypony, Thank you all for these wonderful nine years, and for teaching us that Friendship truly is the most powerful magic of all. But most importantly, Thank You Jesus, for having revealed this series to me, and for speaking to me through these ponies, reminding me of Your love, Your mercy, and most of all, Your friendship.

Nothing stays the same for long, but when it changes doesn't mean it's gone. Things may come and things may go. Some go fast and some go slow. Few things last, that's all I know. But Friendship, carries on through the ages.

[scarbladed-archive]

❛ it’s okay to be scared. it means your about to do something brave. ❜

various starters / accepting . 

THE STEADFAST GAZE; the willingness to accept all hatred, reverence, the weight of sin and punishment - the heavy and not necessarily merciful road of atonement and guardianship to life .

 It was enough to make any soul afraid; to quake at the sheer magnitude of what they had chosen for themselves for what rational soul would be willing to stare their stains straight in the eye; the sinner’s cross on their cheek and find a ray of light from their heart that promised a straighter path to a soul that had been ever pure,  but once almost lost to war’s  madness? 

❝ It is.❞ 

Brief; soft, the tenderly low voice steeped in honey and distance. Quiet appreciation for her softness; a strength many neglected to acknowledge in times where change was ever present to the era.

 He wondered many things in a nanosecond . If she had ever killed with her unassuming stance; if she had ever known heartbreak and he nearly chuckled for a man so serious - that of course. It would take one with some level of experience to approach him, either ignorant of his scar or blissfully unaware of the magnitude it brought to human hearts and gently encourage him . 

Kenshin does not tell her he who values not his own life, would not fear death. He does not tell her that his bloodied hands fear touching anything he comes close to nigh loving; despite having the patience and virtues of a truly honorable man.

 He does not see a hero; he sees a monster in his reflection, and wonders if that reflection will cause ruin to those who house him, who bear him as ‘friend’ and to those that may yet eye him with an emotion he dare not hope as ‘love’. 

❝ The bravest actions are often in a moment of fear . To not acknowledge the human heart is a bit silly, that it certainly is, miss. We are all afraid of something, and your eyes speak of having seen your share of acting on that fear . ❞ 

A lopsided smile that turns into something kinder, if possible, benevolence personified on his scarred yet comely face .  

 ❝ Though this humble self is not one nor has any right to pry, he perhaps may not be wrong yes? You have seen the same in this one because you know the same feeling. The same adrenaline. It is this one’s wish … ❞ 

A pause, thinking of a million things in a beat; but saying nothing, a man so close in overpowering tenderness yet so far from a person’s touch. As he willed it. As it should be. As was penance. 

Or maybe that too, was something he feared, who could know, this violet-eyed wanderer? This swordsman of legend unbent by his foes; but ravaged by the gateway of his cross-shaped scar into wounds tearing apart the skin? 

Who could say of her either, doe-eyed woman, vibrant foreigner’s hair and smiling mien that could hide a million stories.  

 ❝ One day if you choose such a way of living, surely you know without this unworthy one stating so …that there will come a point where one’s reason to act will be upon you again and you will remember that your heart beats fiercely. In such a time . . though we may never meet again, and we know nothing of one another…..❞

A beat, that smile, those eyes, fully kind with that faint tinge of sorrow; that helplessly protective gaze to all living things as their quiet, unassuming keeper.

❝ Be careful. You are strong to recognize you can be afraid. Not everyone can. Nor do people think the people who seem fearless have fears at all.

 For those reasons…and because he sees the fire in your eyes, be careful. You cannot protect others if you fail to protect yourself. That is something this humble self will also take to heart. ❞

Even if her life ultimately held so much more value and promise than the life of a broken man, legend, terror, savior or all. 

❝ He will always remember your words long after our parting has passed. Perhaps he needed reminding, yes? That..he most certainly did. ❞ 

With those distant eyes, smiling, and a more light, rapidly natural switch to a casual, easy-going smile, Kenshin bowed humbly once, tangles of fire creeping over his shoulder.

❝ This one hopes you need not ever be afraid though, if he might say as much. In this new world, times will remain dark; but there is hope in the winds of a changing future - one of peace, not fear. Not anymore. He would see you live in it . . take care.❞

Like that, as ephemeral as a gentle breeze, the rurouni parted from her; the soft clopping of his sandals the only sign he had been with her at all.

[write-havoc]

This Is How I Disappear Ch. 5

Summary: A girl named Chuck finds herself in the exact place she doesn't want to be, living with violent men in a desolate nursing home. After her former gym teacher finds her, will he be the savior she was looking for?

Fandom: The Walking Dead AU

Pairing: Negan/Original Female Character

Status: Completed (story continues in The Flame Is Gone, The Fire Remains)

Contains: swearing, violence, sexual assault, blood, smut

Readers 18+ of age only

Masterlists in my bio

“Uh… Sure.” Chuck sets the guitar down on the bed and follows Sherry into a room with double doors down the hall. The large room is, of course, beautiful. The front of the room is a large sitting area featuring several ornate couches and chairs in black and navy blue, along with a bar off to the side. To the back on the right is a kitchen area with black granite counters complete with a dining area. Along the back wall is a partially opened door leading to what looks like a large bathroom. To the left of the kitchen, behind the sitting area is a beautiful black grand piano. Chuck stares at the instrument, thoughts of all the songs she could play fluttering in her mind. Her thoughts are interrupted by Sherry.

“What's your name?” Sherry’s polite voice brings Chuck's attention to the five women sitting around the room. “That's Amber.” The young blonde one. “Tonya.” The one with black hair and a smirk. “Frankie.” The tall redhead. “And Kayla.” The curvy brunette. Sherry points each of them out as she says their names.

“Um, I'm uh… Charlotte. But you can call me Chuck. Nice to meet you… all.”

“Charlotte is such a beautiful name. Why would you want to go by Chuck?” Tonya says jokingly.

“Hey, I like it!” Frankie chimes in. “Boys names for girls are cute.”

“I suppose you would think that, Francis,” Tonya playfully mocks.

“Ugh. Don't call me that!” the redhead responds.

  Okay. Everything is going well so far. They seem nice. And they don't seem mad at me. So... that’s a plus.

 “Are you joining us?” Kayla asks.

“Joining you for what?”

“The wives. Are you becoming one?” Kayla clarifies.

“Oh, no! God, no.” Chuck blurts out, flustered. “I'm not… It's not like like that. I'm up here because Negan just, uh, feels bad for me.”

  Really, Chuck? He feels bad? Just make yourself look super pathetic in front of these women, why don't you? Stupid.

 “Negan doesn't feel bad for people,” Amber interjects almost sadly.

“Amber.” Sherry chides.

“Well, he doesn't, does he?”

“That's not exactly true and you know it, Amber. Don't scare the girl.” Sherry’s voice sounds like a scolding mother’s.

“Don't mind Amber,” Tonya says. “She's just a little… moody lately.”

“So Negan didn't ask you to be a wife?” Frankie asks quickly, sharing looks with all the other wives.

“Oh no. I mean, yeah. He kinda did. But it was just because he thinks it would be easier on me here instead of... working. He doesn't… want me, though. I’m not exactly his type, obviously.” Chuck laughs nervously as she motions to herself.

“ Every woman is Negan’s type. If you have a pussy, he’ll want to put his dick in it,” Tonya replies making everyone laugh.

Chuck shrugs her shoulders and blushes furiously.

“Well, he must think you're pretty special if he let you stay in his room all night. We don't even do that.” Frankie adds.

  What should I say? I don't think Negan wants people to know that we knew each other before. How do I explain why he brought me up here?

Wait... Why don't his wives stay in his room?

 “Were you hurt yesterday?” Sherry interrupts Chuck’s thoughts. “You didn’t look too good last night.”

“Um. I’m okay. Negan, uh… He took me away… from a bad situation out there. He brought me here about a week ago. I, um, had a bit of a hard time adjusting, I guess…” Chuck says quietly, failing to keep her voice from cracking. She clears her throat before continuing, “Negan is trying to- he wants to help me. Get me healthy.”

“Well, we're glad you're here. Hopefully, Negan will let you come up here more often. We don't get many visitors on this floor, so it’s nice to talk with a new person.” Kayla’s voice is friendly.

  Okay. I don't know how to respond to that. They're being so nice to me. I always feel so awkward when people give me attention.

Should I say something? No one is saying anything else and everyone is staring at me. Don't be awkward, Chuck. Say something!

 “How did they get that in here?” Chuck blurts out, pointing to the piano.

“Oh. There's a big freight elevator on the other side of the building. They got it working just for that.” Tonya explains.

“Oh. So you guys play?” Chuck asks.

The women shook their heads. “Nope. None of us do. Actually the only person that plays it is Mr. Emerson. He was a piano tuner before the world got shitty. I think that's the only reason Negan brought that thing up here. He likes Mr. Emerson and the stories the old guy tells as he works on the piano.” Frankie adds.

“Do you play? We heard you singing in Negan's room. It was really beautiful.” Sherry smiles as she speaks.

Chuck lets out a nervous laugh. “It's been years. I'm sure I'm really rusty.”

“Please play us something.” Amber pleads with her.

“Go on. We want to hear anything but the same little practice song that Mr. Emerson plays.” Tonya says as she pushes Chuck toward the piano. “Or Kayla playing Heart and Soul.”

Chuck sits at the bench and pushes it forward. She lightly presses her fingers on the keys, getting a feel for them. It’s a bit too much for her, having spent the morning playing the guitar. She never thought that music would be a part of her life again. But now she’s sat in front of the nicest piano she's ever seen with people just waiting for her to play.

“Okay, don't judge if I don't sound good.” She giggles nervously as her cheeks turn red. Chuck clears her throat and allows her fingers to dance across the keys, playing a song she had played a million times before.

 “There's no living in my life anymore

The seas have gone dry

And the rain's stopped falling

Please don't you cry any more

Can't you see

Listen to the breeze

Whisper to me please

Don't send me to the path of nevermore

Even the valleys below

Where the rays of the sun

Were so warm and tender

Now haven't anything to grow

Can't you see?

Why did you have to leave me?

Why did you deceive me?

You sent me to the path of nevermore

When you say you didn't love me anymore

Nevermore

Nevermore”

 Chuck is startled by the sound of clapping coming from the doorway.

“Jesus Christ, Chuck! I think you made some of the wives cry with that shit. It was goddamn beautiful as fuck!” Negan calls out with a laugh as he walks into the room.

“Did you write that?” Amber asks, wiping a tear from her cheek.

  Jeez. I didn't mean to make anyone cry. I mean, they asked me to play…

 “No-“

“That's fuckin' Queen.” Negan interrupts. “You don't know Queen?” Amber shakes her head. “Shit. I'm gonna have to get a record player or some shit up here. Fuck, Chuck. I didn't realize how much I missed music until now,” Negan says while making eye contact with Chuck.

Chuck says to the wives, “If you liked that, you should hear Freddie Mercury sing it. I can't hold a candle to him.” She lets out a nervous laugh.

“Will you play us another song?” Kayla asks hopefully.

“Sorry, ladies. Chuck has an appointment she needs to keep.” Negan gestures to the door.

“Oh, okay.” Chuck stands from the bench. “It was nice meeting you guys.” She waves to the wives as they say their goodbyes to her.

Upon entering Negan's bedroom, he asks, “What were you doing with them?” His tone is a bit annoyed for some reason.

“Nothing. Sherry came in here and told me that the wives wanted to talk to me. So… that's what I did.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Nothing important. I wasn't really in there that long.”

He lets out a heavy breath. “I know we haven't really fuckin’ talked about them. The wives…”

“I understand why you have them, Negan,” Chuck interjects. “They separate you from everyone else. Elevate you. That's how this all works, right? You're, you know…” She extends her arms out wide, not being able to think of the right words.

“I'm big?” He chuckles with raised brows.

“Yeah. I mean, kinda. This place works because everyone has one thing to follow.” She points to him. “You. And they follow you because you're above everyone else. Everything you do exerts power over them. The way you act. Everything you say. The wives are part of that. I'm not gonna say that I think it's awesome, ‘cause I don’t. But I get it.”

“Hmm.” He makes the “I’m impressed” face. “You are smart as fuck, you know that? I didn't think you'd take it that well. Or look at it that logically. I thought you'd call me a disgusting fuckin’ misogynist pig or some shit. I remember when you went off on Scott Howe for telling you to get back in the kitchen or what-the-fuck-ever he said. That was some funny shit.”

“You saw that?” Chuck giggles at the memory then gets back on subject. “I mean, the whole wives thing is weird. If this were a completely polygamist society where all men had multiple wives, I would want nothing to do with being here. But since you’re the only one with multiple wives, it’s... not so bad, I guess.” She shrugs. “But I don't think you're a misogynist. You're just… egocentric?” She laughs a bit nervously, not knowing if Negan would be offended. She’s relieved when he starts to laugh genuinely.

“Yeah.” He laughs more. “I suppose you're right.”

The door to the office opens and closes. “Sir? I got your food out here,” a voice calls out from Negan’s office.

“Good. Dinner’s here, sweetheart. I'm fuckin’ starving,” he says and they make their way to the kitchen. They both sit down with the food that the kitchen had prepared and start to eat.

“What did you have for lunch?” Negan asks.

She swallows her bite before speaking. “Uh. Actually I didn't really… eat anything. I got caught up with the guitar. I had too much fun playing, I guess.” She chuckles nervously, avoiding his gaze. When she finally does look up at him, she sees that he has a disapproving look on his face. “I know, I know. I won't forget to eat tomorrow.”

“No, you won't. I told the doc not to let you fuckin’ skip lunch when you go back to work. He's probably going to talk to you about it, too.”

Chuck scrunches up her face upon hearing that. “Great,” she says sarcastically.

“Sorry about your luck, baby girl, but we need to get some fuckin’ meat on those bones,” he says with a full mouth as he points at her with his fork.

“Are you trying to make me chubby again?” she giggles. She always found it easier to be self deprecating when people gave her attention.

“When were you fuckin’ chubby?”

“Ages 12 to 22,” she jokes.

He gives her a disapproving face, then says, “Well you need to gain a fuckton of weight before you get ‘chubby’ now.”

They finish dinner and move on to Negan's room to play chess.

“Did you know Simon, before all this?” she asks after Negan makes his move.

“Yeah, why the fuck you asking? You got the hots for him, or something?”

She throws her head back and laughs. “No! Not at all!” She stifles more laughs as Negan chuckles to himself. “I'm just curious! It seems like you guys are close.” She makes her move and looks back to Negan.

“We're old friends. I ran into him some time after the dead fuckin’ reanimated. He's been my right hand man the whole time I was building this fuckin’ place.”

“So you built all this right after getting back with Simon?”

“Pretty much. I mean, it took a little while to get this place to where it fuckin’ is now.” He scratches his beard and continues. “Simon worked here at the factory. Before. When I met back up with him, he thought it might be a good place to fuckin’ hole up. He was right. We cleared it, found some more people. The Sanctuary was born.”

“Simon didn't want to be the leader? You know, since he knew of the place.”

“He didn't want all the fuckin’ responsibility of running a place. Also, he’s not exactly an idea man. He's a fuckin’ great second in command, though. Gets all my shit done.”

“Do you call him ‘Number One’?” Chuck says in her best Patrick Stewart voice. “Please tell me you do!”

He laughs. “No. But I should.”

“Would he get the reference?”

“Fuck no. He's not a Star Trek kinda guy. He watched shit like Rizzoli & Isles.”

“Really?! That seems not true! Are you lying?”

“Nope. I shit you not. He watched the fuck outta that show. Talked about it all the fuckin' time.”

Chuck laughs. “Simon’s kind of a weird dude. He makes me laugh, though.” She giggles.

“Oh, you don't know the fuckin’ half of it. I've known that fucker since middle school and I could tell you some fuckin’ stories.” They both laugh.

“Have you ever run into any people from high school? My high school, I mean.”

“They were all dumbasses, so I'm sure they're all fuckin’ dead.”

“That's kinda defeatist.”

“It's just realistic, sweetheart.”

“I suppose. Did you go back there? The school, I mean. It probably has a ton of supplies.”

“Yeah. A lot of people thought of that. It was picked fuckin’ clean when we got there.”

“Oh, yeah. I guess that's a pretty obvious place to go.” She pauses as a thought occurs to her. “I still dream about high school every once in a while, for some reason.” She laughs. “Like I'm late for a test or I didn't do a big project or something. How silly is that? Society literally ended and my mind is still preoccupied with high school.”

Negan’s face is suddenly set in a frown. “I had a fucking dream about that fucker Drew Hanson the first night you came here.” He lets out a sigh. “I beat the shit out of him in it, just like I did in real life. I hadn't thought about him in fuckin’ years,” he trails off.

“Who's that?” Chuck asks with a confused look on her face. “Oh, wait. Mr. Hanson, the wood shop teacher? Why'd you beat him up?!” she exclaims excitedly. She loves to hear gossip. Even if it is ten years old.

“Your mom never fuckin’ told you?” He looks surprised as Chuck shakes her head, confused. “Shit.” He takes his glasses off and sets them on the coffee table before continuing. “That motherfucker Brendon -remember that douche?- started to spread around that I was fucking you because I cut him from the baseball team for being late all the time. That little dickhole thought he'd get me fired with that shit. I shut that shit down quick, but fuckin’ Drew Hanson must've overheard him or something. He had the fuckin’ audacity to come up to me in a goddamn bar and start talking about all the female students he wanted to fuck, like we were kindred fuckin’ spirits and shit. Fuckin’ pedo prick. Then he started saying some real fuckin’ disgusting shit about you, wanted me to give him nudie pics of you and shit. Tell him stories about us fucking… Videotape you...” He shakes his head. “I dragged him out into the alley and beat the fucking fuck out of him. Told him if he ever even so much as fuckin’ looked at you again, I'd fuckin’ kill him. And I meant it. Put the fuckin’ fear of God in him. He quit his job the next day. I told your mom about it after she had us over for dinner that one time. It didn't feel right fuckin’ keeping it from her. She said she didn't want you to fuckin’ know about it. Said you'd be freaked out, so I never brought it up. I figured she'd’ve told you when you got older. Guess she never fuckin’ did.”

Chuck’s mouth is agape for a moment; she doesn’t know what to say. “That really happened? God, that's horrible. Why would he say that stuff about me? I never even took that guy’s class. Guess I'm glad I didn't…” Chuck’s not sure how to process the information Negan has just told her.

“Yeah. I hope that dick is good and fuckin’ dead now. Wish I could've killed him myself.”

Chuck is taken aback by Negan’s visceral reaction to the years old memories. “That explains some things, I guess. Why we started to meet in the library instead of your office, right?”

“I didn't want people to fuckin’ gossip about you. I couldn't care less what those fuckers said about me, but I didn't want them dragging your name through the fuckin’ mud when you did nothing wrong.”

“I never knew any of that. I guess you were always looking out for me, huh? You're a good man, Negan.” Her voice is soft and genuine.

“I have my fuckin’ moments, I guess.”

It’s silent for a few moments before Chuck says, “You know, my mom had such a big crush on you. She thought you were soooo hot.” Chuck laughs, trying to lighten the mood. “She said you looked like a more rugged Denny from Grey’s Anatomy. And she absolutely loved him.”

“Really? Shit, your mom was a goodlookin’ woman. You mean I could've had a piece of that?”

“Gross, Negan.” She pauses. “But, probably.” They both laugh hard.

“So you could've called me ‘Stepdaddy Negan’?”

“Ah, no!” Chuck exclaims, trying to stifle her laughs. “Too far! You just took it too far! That's super gross!” she yells as she waves her hands in front of her.

“Hey! You know, I have fuckin’ feelings, too, sweetheart. And you calling me gross just hurts every fuckin’ one of them,” he jokes.

“Oh, I'm sure your ego is just so bruised.” She smirks, sarcasm lacing her words.

“Well, there’s only fuckin’ thing I have to say to that. Check-muthafuckin’-mate!” He makes his final move as he smiles his huge grin at Chuck.

“Good game, Coach.” Chuck is still giggling as she holds out her hand for him to shake.

“So, are you sleeping over again?” he says as he shakes her hand.

“What?” Chuck just assumed that that was a one time thing. Especially after what the wives had said.

“Do you want to sleep here tonight?” He asks matter-of-factly as he keeps eye contact with Chuck.

“Uh, no. I mean, why would I… sleep with you? Well not sleep with you. Right?” She laughs nervously.

“Calm down, Chuck,” he says with a chuckle. “I'm not fuckin’ propositioning you. You can sleep here if it helps with your fuckin’ nightmares. That's all I meant.”

“Oh, yeah. I knew that. Of course. I, uh, I think I can manage by myself. Probably. I mean, I should manage it… myself.” she says meekly. “Right?”

“Well, I'll be here if you fuckin’ need me. I mean it, Chuck. If you need fuckin’ help, I'll help you.”

“Okay. I'll remember that,” she giggles in nervousness as she makes her way to the door after grabbing her new guitar. “Thanks for the guitar.”

“You’re welcome. Good night, baby girl,” he says as he opens the door for her.

“Good night, Negan.” She exits and makes her way to her own room.

  I slept okay last night. I think I'll be fine tonight. I mean, it's probably not that I was physically close to Negan that got rid of the nightmares, right? It was just that I know he's here and I'm safe, so I should sleep fine in my own room. By myself. Probably.

 Chuck gets herself ready and cozies up in her bed. She writes a lengthy entry into her diary about Andy and being put in the cells, then about having dinner and spending the night with Negan, and finally about meeting the wives and playing music again. She stashes her diary and climbs back into bed, tossing and turning for a few minutes, before eventually falling asleep.

She’s awoken some time later by one of the recurring nightmares that had become familiar to her over the last few days. She tosses and turns again for several more minutes, trying to fall back asleep to no avail. She decides to take Negan up on his offer and leaves her room, with an outfit ready for tomorrow in her hands.

  Am I this pathetic? Running to “daddy’s” room because I had a nightmare.

Ugh. That sounded weird even in my own head. What's wrong with you, Chuck? Do not refer to Negan as “daddy”. I'm sure he’d be into that sorta thing…

 Chuck opens the door to Negan's floor and is met by his guard, a large Hispanic man probably in his late twenties.

“Could I see Negan, please?”

“Name?” the man asks gruffly.

“Chuck.”

“Go on in. He's expecting you.”

“Oh, uh… thank you.”

  Thanks for having so much faith in me, Negan.

I guess he was right, though. I am here…

 Chuck opens the door to Negan's office and walks through to his bedroom door. She knocks three times, then waits. After a moment, the door opens, revealing Negan standing there in his underwear.

“You should've just stayed.” Negan's voice is raspy with sleep.

“Yeah. Sorry…” she says, embarrassed. He moves off to the side to allow her to enter his room. She sets her clothes on his couch as he closes the door and gets back into bed. She tucks herself into his blankets and he moves in behind her, draping his arm over her just as he had done the night before. He falls asleep almost immediately, the sound of his deep breathing lulling Chuck into her own slumber.

[onceuponaprincessworld]

CaptainSwan Soulmate AU Recs

Hello CS Fandom and Happy New Year! I ‘ve decided to start this year with a list of some wonderful Soulmate fics. Hope you enjoy!

If you are intrested you can find my other lists here.

Mutlichapter

Complete

Countdown,  @paranoiaqueen

What if you could have a countdown until you met your soulmate? Emma Swan thinks it's all b.s. and that she doesn't need some guy in a lab coat to tell her who to love but then she meet a dashing Brit in a pub. He has a messed up timer, one with no match. Killian Jones was a man with no countdown until he'd leave her. But can she open herself up to love?

The Music of the Heart Soulmate Finder, @whimsicallyenchantedrose

Emma Swan is skeptical of the newest rage in the dating world--The Music of the Heart Soulmate finder. When Mary Margaret convinces her to get one for herself, will it point her to her own soulmate? Will she have the courage to open her heart to the possibility of True Love?

foxtrot uniform charlie kilo, @swanisms

In order to get into the soulmates exclusive apartments outside of uni and escape their shitty roommates, Killian and Emma pretend to be soulmates.

My Thoughts Are With You,  Shut_up_im_reading

Emma never thought she would need or even want a soulmate. She was happy with what she had… until it was gone. Neal left her, taking all she had and leaving her with nothing so when she meets her soulmate she’s not interested. But when she can hear him in her mind it’s hard to ignore one plan and simple fact. Emma Swan and Killian Jones are meant to be together.

Amaranthine, @caprelloidea

In which soulmates are rare, and those that have them stop aging at adulthood. Rarer still – and dangerously conspicuous – are those that have special abilities. Immortality and powers alike fade when soulmates come in close proximity with their other half. In which Emma’s touch heals, and Killian’s kills.

More Than All the Stars, @cutieodonoghue

In a world full of soulmates, Emma Nolan doesn’t know who hers is. Enter Killian Jones, attempting to stop his brother from proposing to his soulmate, only to be thrown a curveball when he’s sent to spend Christmas on a farm with a bunch of strangers. (soulmate modern au)

Wip

I See The Light (Now That I See You), @bisexual-killian-jones

Emma was twenty-six when she could finally see colors, after she had lost faith in it ever happening to her. She just wasn't quite expecting it to be him. AU where you only see black and white until you meet your soulmate.

One-shots

Soulmarked, @phiralovesloki

Emma Swan just wants to be loved for who she is, and not because someone feels obligated to love her. It's just her luck that she has a soulmate somewhere out there, while she's already in love with someone else.

You’re the Tune that Stuck, @lifeinahole27

A soulmates au where you can have any number of things happen to reveal you have a soulmate. In this one, Emma suddenly hears the songs that her soulmate are either listening to or have stuck in their head.

first day of my life, @piratesails

Killian has never been one to give in. No matter how shitty the hand he’s been dealt. Because, really, Times Square on New Year’s Eve just as the ball’s about to drop? Bloody hell, you’ve got to be kidding him.

Soulmate AU where you get a tattoo telling you the time and place you’ll meet them.

Forget-me-nots on my Skin (Forevermore), @lirapheus

Soulmate!AU in which you see the world in black and white until your soulmate comes into your life, a burst of colour among the dull crowds. And once you touch your soulmate, the whole world comes alive.

Killian Jones is an English tattoo artist who moves to New York after his brother's death. Emma Swan is helping Mary Margaret with her flower shop in The Big City. (She has never been a flower person, but she needs to pay the rent.)

Missed Connections, @captainswanluver

Emma Swan doesn’t think she’ll ever see the handsome stranger she spilled coffee all over again. Killian Jones doesn’t believe he’ll ever see the beautiful blonde who ruined his shirt. So they couldn’t be more surprised when their paths keep crossing, only to find that something keeps standing in the way of them making a lasting connection. But when you keep meeting the same person over and over again in a city of 8 million people, is it mere coincidence or fate?

Zemblanity, @lenfaz

William Boyd coined the term zemblanity to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". A zemblanity is, effectively, an "unpleasant unsurprise". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip).

The Time Tattoo, @onceuponabadass

What would you do if you knew when the most important moment in your life was going to happen? For Emma Swan that moment was 23 years 22 days 8 minutes and 15 seconds away... and it was only getting closer.

Dumbledore Guy, @seeknot2alterme

When Emma was born she was marked with, in her opinion, the worst soulmate mark anyone could ever have. People are born marked with the first words their true love would ever say to them, and Emma's happened to spoil one of the greatest plot twists of all time.

Scar of the Heart, @curiousthingdarkness

Emma Swan hunts alone. Except on nights when Killian Jones, fellow demon hunter and pain in her ass, insists on joining her. When dealing with a particularly troublesome beast, they discover that perhaps there is more to each other than meets the eye.

Like Rum On The Fire, @nightships

Emma Swan grows up learning to never expect the spark of true love on her skin and lives in Boston as a bail bondsperson. Killian Jones never expects to feel love again after he loses Milah, but finds his revenge may lie in the hands of the Savior. Both of them are surprised when he breaks into her home on the night of her birthday.

how close is close enough, @swanisms

There’s something to be said for the way a soulmate fucks.

The movies, the novels, the articles, the “Soulmates Are Great, Get Yours Now!” sales pitch is that love-making isn’t truly love-making until it’s your One True Love. Too optimistic, “Once Upon a Time” to consider that making love to your soulmate could be the last thing you want.

Fucking them, however, has its perks.

Skin Deep, @captainodonewithyou

There is a soulmate tattoo headcanon popping around on tumblr about soulmates having tattoos of the last words their love will say to them. My friend told me to write it, and I did. Captain Swan angst ahead. (pirate)

Spoilers, @thejacketandthehook

Emma Swan has a soulmate tattoo on her ribcage that gives her pretty big spoilers for the Harry Potter universe.

and you’re mine, @belovedcreation

soulmate au where instead of your soulmates first words to you written on your skin it’s their last words you ever hear them say so you don’t know who your soulmate is until you lose them.

Is There Anyone Out There ('Cause it's Getting Harder and Harder to Breathe)?,  LovingCSFanfiction

Not everyone finds a soul mate, but those lucky enough can see color. It’s not a terrible life if you never find a soul mate. You can still fall in love and live a happy and healthy life. You can still have a family and want nothing more than to have them be the last person you see at night and the first person in the morning. You can still have an unexplainable bond with them. Having a soul mate is just the little extra oomph to the relationship, and you don’t know the oomph if you’ve never had it. So, you’ll find someone you love and not know what’s missing, and everything will be okay. That is exactly what Emma Swan did when she married Neal Cassidy at 18, and exactly why it became a problem when she met her real soul mate, Killian Jones, 10 years later. CS Soul Mates AU.

like the sun, kathleenfergie

“What gave me away this time?” he asked.

“Well, you’re always English and your eyes never change. It gets easier every century,” she explained.

True Love Leaves a Mark, @sotheylived

Emma learns that the tattoo she’s had written directly above her heart for more than ten years may have come from something other than a long night of drinking.

danced in the dark (under september stars), @thejollypirate

For a person to have a soulmate, their compass needs to point toward them. That sounds simple enough, right? Yeah, well it's not so simple when it comes to Emma Swan's life. Between feeling she doesn't deserve a soulmate to perhaps finding a man who could fill in that gap of missing love, there's just one little thing that's a problem. Her compass only points north - broken.

(the one for you and me), @swanisms

And, most importantly, she’s praying to whatever gods there are that might hear her plea - even though they’ve never listened before, not when she needed them most - that this is not the time of the year that her soul mate decides to come out as a closeted Christmas nut and start blasting it in her head, where she won’t be able to find any escape. (Holiday Soulmates AU).

Stardust in Your Skin, midwestwind

Emma Swan may believe in magic and curses and fairy tales but she absolutely does not believe in soulmates.

marked,  lantanapetals

captain swan; soulmate tattoo au.

give me a shot at the night, birdbox (Bella_Barbaric)

Emma stares at her wrist in her lap, her breathing getting shallow; she even tries, stupidly, to scrub the letters off but like David's and Mary Margaret's they're stuck fast. Forever. She has a soulmate. Somewhere in London, her soulmate is walking around—and probably just found her own initials tattooed onto their wrist. She might be within days of meeting them.

Only One Way This Could Go, @wingedlioness

I need a fic where Emma and Killian are soul mates and everyone knows (because their soul mate identifying symbols are like super visual), but they act like rivals and say they “don’t want to be forced together”, but are actually secretly dating after a drunk hook up.

Written in the Stars, @herfairy

Emma Swan wasn't an expert on love – mainly because she didn't believe in it and no soulmate was going to change her mind.

Two-Shots

I Will Learn to Let You Go, @lifeinahole27

Killian Jones, having lost his own soulmate years before, spends his free time finding the soulmates of other people. It’s what he’s good at, and he gets paid well to do it. Finding the soulmate of his latest client may prove to be the worst job he’s ever taken on, though. It’s not because Emma Swan is hard to find, but because he finds himself falling in love with her.

[andorseries]

To my only one love,

I woke up exactly 12h00. I was trembling and I didn’t know why; when you wake up you don’t know what day this is. When I took my phone and saw what time was it, I didn’t knew the date. I thought “Well, it’s his birthday again. And what the hell am I gonna do?”

I wrote you a little text, I was still laid down and then I saw this picture I’m wearing on my profile, started crying and now my chest hurts and I can’t breathe. All of that because every year, every March 26th, I feel like I should do something that I can’t.

I really never did anything like this - post online something that I wrote on your birthday. March has always been a desperate month for me, every since I met you. It’s because of me. Because when the 26th arrives, I don’t know what to do.

Each and every part of me screams to be near you, to do more than tweet “happy birthday thread”, ‘cause I’ve always wanted to show you how precious you are to me and to the world, and make you see that every birthday is an acchievent. Every year you become more mature than you already are. But yeah, this is the day of the year when I spend the whole day crying, just because you’re not around. I don’t know what you’re doing or if you’re 100% happy, if everyone is giving you the love that you deserve - and I feel so desperate to make you feel loved. Even if millions of people are live tweeting now, showing their love. I’m sorry if I can’t let this feeling go.

You just… You deserve. You deserve to be loved at fullest. As the years go by, things become harder for me and my life is just full of crap. But you’re always on the other side, the bright side. You pull me off the cliff, and no one else could do that. Maybe they wouldn’t even want to.

When I think about life itself - breathing, being human, following the curse of the human nature and hold on no matter what happens, it’s scary. But I do, because you’re out there; ‘cause you’re the love of my life.

I always believed I was born to die, that I didn’t fit and I shouldn’t be here - that I had no home, but your smile became this home of mine. I find comfort in you. Whenever I look at the sky and take a deep breath and think of you, I’m okay. I feel like I fit in you, like I have a purpose to live and that’s damn enough to keep me here. The love I feel for you keeps me here.

Many times I handled hard suicidal crisis because my blurry mind suddenly reminded me that you’re here. That you exist and I love every detail of you and I want to live to be here with you forever, be with you even when the whole world vanishes. I’ll be here, I won’t go. You were always there for me when I was alone, when I wanted to die and part of me was, already, dead. You brought me back, you still bring me back, just by being yourself, the person I love the most.

So yeah, it’s worth living because I love you. I’ve never cried so hard for someone  like I do for you, never felt my heart burning like I needed somebody like I need you, never saw my whole future in someone’s eyes like I see in yours; for whatever that truly means.

When I cry, it’s because I miss you. ‘Cause I love you so much that this distance breaks me into a half, because you look so beautiful in the airport holding your passport with your tiny hands and crooked little fingers, because I love the way you choose your clothes and how they fit in you, because I see a whole universe inside your eyes, inside of you. Because I want so bad to hug you and feel safe, keep you safe and never let go. Because I feel alive. I guess crying is just the way that these words I keep on my chest find a way to come out.

You don’t even need to show up at the airport, make a comeback, none of that. I just need to think of you and suddenly my life is beautiful again and blessed no matter how much weight I carry on my shoulders, how many bad stuff I’ve been through. They don’t matter. Past becomes only a blurry memory with you. Depression becomes bearable, easy to fight, when it’s for you. And it’s always for you. I keep you in my mind, 24/7, and that’s how everything gets a meaning and I’m not only breathing, but actually living.

And babe, I’m such a broken person that I really can’t move on if it’s not for you. Every letter I write, even the secret ones in my journal that I write to ‘let you know’ that I’m sad, the tweets about my day in a protected account - they all have a purpose. They all show how much I’m hanging on just to look once into your eyes, your pretty eyes, and tell you that I love you. Maybe I can give you those letters, I have plenty of them. Not that you’re gonna read or anything like that, but seeing you in person, look into your eyes, say that I love you and deliver those letters have become my dream. My biggest dream, and the only one I’m urging to achieve, is to make you feel loved. Let you know that this world would be pure trash if you weren’t here, and this universe wouldn’t make sense without you.

I’m blessed for having you, and I shouldn’t cry today, I know. But the fact that the person I love the most is on the other side of the world hurts more today. On the other days, I can clear my mind and I know that no matter where you are, you’re already a reason to be happy and this distance doesn’t make my love for you less infinite. You’re everything I need to live. Just you, no matter on what circumstances.

It’s okay. Maybe one day you’ll hear me crying my heart out - in a good way, of course. Maybe you’ll understand. You deserve to know that every good feeling I have belongs to you. You have to know that you’re my savior, that I’ll love you till the end of times and you’ll always have me, even if I don’t matter. You’ll always have someone here.

Last week I wrote while on the bus that, “even in the end of this afternoon, while I’m writing this, I feel you, so you’re always here too. When I looked at the blue sky and the sun was (still is) shining, your image just came to my mind. I felt good. Really good, and I could breathe. I felt like I wasn’t alone no matter how far you are; I still feel it. This feeling doesn’t really go away, but sometimes I’m so heavy that I forget to pay attention. I even feel like I could speak and you’d hear.”

Thank you. Thank you for being you. I feel so glad and happy to be able to love someone like I love you, and this is the best thing that ever happened to me, nothing compares. I can’t even explain. It’s like some kind of magic trapped to my soul - even in the darkest moments you’re here holding my hand. I can’t give up no matter what. You take everything bad  and make them worth it, make them feel less heavy. I can live well as long as you do, I can smile as long as you smile, I can be happy as long as you are.

And look, even if we’re possibly both not 100% happy right now, we’ll be. We’ll find our ways. I trust you like I never trusted anyone and I know that you can do amazing, incredible things. You’re the most talented, kind-hearted, beautiful person I’ve ever met. Hell, if everyone could see you the way I do, this world would be changed in a blink of an eye and finally find peace. This universe reached perfection when you were born. You’re here to change everything; at least for me. And that’s hella enough, ‘cause I thought I was past saving.

“Questions and answers, they’re all in you.”

Happy, very happy birthday, my love.

Nari.

[itsfinancethings]

New world news from Time: ‘This Is Our Last Chance.’ A Photographer Captures the Energy for Change in Beirut After the Explosion

For the last three decades, the most reliable feature of Lebanon’s government has been its relentless decline.

Here was a country so brazenly corrupt the World Bank abandoned its usual diplomatic language in 2015, declaring the country “increasingly governed by bribery and nepotism practices, failing to deliver basic human services.” Among ordinary people, the lived reality of Lebanese politics produced a gall that rose like the stench of the garbage that has accumulated on the capital’s streets because officials cannot figure out where to put it. In October, the announcement of higher taxes triggered gigantic daily protests across the country. But they have not yet led to any substantial change.

Myriam Boulos for TIMERiad Hussein Al Hussein and his wife Fatima Al Abid in the Mar Mikhael neighborhood of Beirut on Aug. 7. He was buying vegetables there three days earlier when he heard a small explosion. He asked the seller whether he thought it was a shell or a bomb, and where it had landed. “Our discussion lasted approximately one minute and was interrupted by another sound of explosion, one way louder,” he recalls. “I shouted and said we needed to hurry inside the shop, and that is when I was hit by the glass.” He later went back to the building where he was injured to assist with cleaning up. “I wanted to help like I had been helped,” he said. “I wanted to pay it forward.”

Myriam BoulosA volunteer named Ahmad, who works with a Palestinian organization helping victims, prays amid rubble in Beirut on Aug. 5.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEKevin Obeid cuts Jad Estephan’s hair in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut on Aug. 7, three days after the deadly port explosion. “Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further,” says Estephan, who lost his eye at the beginning of the revolution last year, “but rather gives us a much needed strength.” Obeid says he went to Mar Mikhael that day for two reasons: “First, to help the people that lost their houses. As my family and myself have not been directly affected by the explosion, I consider it natural to help those that were affected. It is the least I can do. The second reason was that I wanted to use my skills to help people around me. I wanted to use my skills to fix them.”

The question now is whether the catastrophic explosion of Aug. 4, which wiped away more than 220 lives and the homes of 300,000 people in Beirut, will ultimately take down Lebanon’s unique political system. The country’s constitution — which guarantees government positions to 18 separate religious sects — was intended to balance the interests and needs of a diverse, cosmopolitan nation. In reality, it provides semi-permanent employment for self-dealing elites in political parties that look after themselves, rather than a greater good.

Which is how 2,750 metric tons of ammonium nitrate languished in a port warehouse in the center of a city of 2.4 million people since 2013.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEBranches rest on a sedan. The blast, estimated at one tenth the size of the atomic explosion at Hiroshima, sent a wave of destruction six miles across a city already reeling from shortages of food, water and electricity.

Myriam Boulos for TIME“I felt like I went to hell for seven hours and then I came out of it,” recalls Andrea, a drag performer in Beirut who was injured in the port explosion. “I didn’t know what to think. Did I lose my house? Did I lose my life? Did I lose my beautiful city? It was a war zone.” Since then, Andrea, whose home sustained significant damage, has helped with a relief fund that offers shelter, food and first aid to members of the city’s LGBTQ community who were impacted by the disaster. “If we didn’t have our rights before,” he adds, referring to the fact that same-sex relations in Lebanon can be punishable by up to one year in prison, “now what we have left is very little.”

“We have been living next to an atomic bomb for six years. We stroll around, we walk by it, but we know nothing about it,” says resident Jad Estephan, of what produced one of the largest man-made (non-nuclear) explosions in global history. “How can the people in charge be this conscienceless?”

For a week after the blast, photographer Myriam Boulos moved through the wreckage of her native city, documenting an aftermath nearly as extraordinary as the explosion: Soldiers and police stood idle while ordinary people bent to the task of clearing debris. (“They carry guns,” says Boulos. “They don’t help with anything.”) As she photographed, she also asked questions. “It’s important that we tell our own stories,” she says. “It’s so important to listen to people, because at the end of the day the country is people.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEAngelique Sabounjian and Cherif Kanaan on Aug. 10. Six days earlier, she was hit in the face with a piece of glass as the blast wave tore through the coffee shop where she was working in Beirut’s Gemmayze neighborhood. Sabounjian walked to the “completely demolished” St. George Hospital, where she would meet Kanaan. She was in “bad shape,” he recalls. “I decided to stick with her and introduced myself.” At one point, with her phone receiving so many calls, “she gave me the password so I could manage the calls from her family.” As Sabounjian tells it, “the experience I lived until Cherif found me was a nightmare.” He stayed by her side, and worked to find her an ambulance, until she received treatment at the Hôtel-Dieu de France hospital. “When I was confident that she was in good hands,” Kanaan remembers, “I wished Angelique a fast recovery and left the room.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMECDs are scattered on the floor of music producer Jana Saleh’s apartment, which was heavily damaged by the port explosion and blast wave. “I Google-mapped the distance between the blast and my home. It’s approximately two kilometers (1.24 mi.). We managed to hide in the glassless bathroom right on time and survived it,” says Saleh. “The concept is a thing of the 80s, during the civil war. The kids and the valuables were hidden in the bathroom. My brother and I spent a lot of time in it. On Aug. 4, I dragged my girlfriend to it. She’s the valuable in this story.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEJoseph Sfeir, 88, a journalist for six decades, was born in this house in the Mar Mikhael area of Beirut. He lived through Lebanon’s 15-year civil war there, too. When the massive explosion occurred, Sfeir recalls, his reflex was to save his grandchildren—the reasons he came back years ago from France. They were with him in the house that day, but were not injured. His wife, who was on the second floor when the blast shook the city, was wounded. Sfeir is pictured with his sister, Mona.

Citizens complain about their government in every country, but few have better cause than the Lebanese. In a country that made its national symbol a tree, “the Lebanese people had to put out fires that were devastating our forests because our government was unable to do its job,” Nour Saliba noted, recalling a series of forest fires last October. It was the month daily demonstrations erupted in the capital. Protesters demanded an end to corruption and a new constitution.

The pandemic was still months away, but misrule had already sent the country’s economy into free fall, and almost half the 6.8 million residents (including 1.5 million Syrian refugees) lived in poverty. After two weeks of protests in October, Prime Minister Saad Hariri resigned. His replacement lasted mere months, stepping down on Aug. 10 after the protests, which had dwindled during the pandemic, resumed with a seething new anger. “The explosion, it cannot not define us, in a way,” says Boulos. “Of course it’s a turning point.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMESmoke billows from a tear gas canister during an antigovernment demonstration in Beirut on Aug. 8, four days after the blast.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEPeople gather on balconies during the demonstration. Protesters say negligence and corruption across Lebanon’s political system contributed to the disaster.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA young protester near Beirut’s Martyrs’ Square during the Aug. 8 demonstration.

Riad Hussein Al Hussein was buying vegetables in the city’s Mar Mikhael neighborhood when he was knocked to the ground by the blast wave. He noticed he was bleeding from his head. Someone came to help him. “He used a cotton compress and pressed on my wounds for what seemed like a long time. He said that I had to endure the pain. And I endured.” That lasted about 20 minutes. “I really thought I was dying. I held my savior’s hand while he was helping me and I asked him to say my goodbyes to my family.”

Nothing binds people to one another like a trauma endured together. The explosion devastated three neighborhoods — a poor district east of the port; an enclave of Armenian Christians; and a gentrifying zone of older residents and young, artsy people. But with a damage radius of six miles, the entire city came apart. And then, came together.

Cherif Kanaan told Boulos he was at home when he heard the explosion. “My mum, my brother and I ran towards each other very scared. A few seconds later the whole building started shaking like crazy and the massive blast hit us,” he says. “The look in their eyes will forever haunt me. We really thought we were gonna die.” He left the apartment and sprinted first to the home of his uncle, where everyone was okay. From there, he ran from hospital to hospital, looking for people to help.

Myriam Boulos for TIMESome protesters on Aug. 8 reportedly threw stones and debris at officers or jumped over barricades that had closed off access to parliament, while others entered government ministries. Officers responded with heavy volleys of tear gas and rubber bullets.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA group of women inside a van avoid thick clouds of tear gas in Beirut on Aug. 8.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA man who was wounded during a demonstration on Aug. 11. At protests since the blast, researchers with Human Rights Watch have observed birdshot pellets being fired “indiscriminately” at protesters by security forces. After attacks on members of the press at various demonstrations, the Committee to Protect Journalists urged Lebanese authorities to investigate and hold accountable those found to be responsible. On Aug. 13, in a move that concerned rights groups, the parliament approved a state of emergency in Beirut that grants sweeping powers to the military as popular criticism mounts.

He found them everywhere. He held a compress to a wounded nurse outside a destroyed hospital, then cut his own hand lifting a metal pole out of the road. He helped an old man struggling with a bandage, and took off his shirt for a woman carrying two babies from a destroyed hospital. Another passerby gave his shirt for a third baby. Back at the ruined hospital, he spotted a woman with a terrible wound on her face. Her name was Angelique. “I couldn’t quite get her family name at first because of her numb lips,” he says.

Kanaan took her phone, reassuring relatives who were calling constantly. In the mayhem, an ambulance appeared. He bundled Angelique into a scene that would stay with him: On a stretcher was a young girl named Alexandra, struggling to breathe, “her grandpa at the back, a lady doctor next to him, insufflating Alexandra, her dad with a broken left cheekbone, Angelique next to him, myself, a wounded old lady in front of me, a wounded old man next to her behind the driver and a rescuer, I believe,” Kanaan says. In the end, Alexandra passed away.

Myriam Boulos for TIMEHatem Imam and Maya Moumne of Studio Safar, a design and communications agency, photographed on Aug. 10. The explosion “effectively eradicated any semblance of normalcy, and with it any remnant of decency,” the pair said. “The obscenity of the negligence of a state that knowingly stores 2,750 tons of highly explosive materials in its capital’s port is only multiplied by this state’s sickening lack of recourse in the aftermath.”

Myriam Boulos for TIMEA cactus rests on broken glass. Cleanup efforts have been left to volunteers, with authorities all but invisible.

It was six days after the blast that Prime Minister Hassan Diab resigned, saying he wanted to stand with the people “and fight the battle for change alongside them.” The next day, one week to the minute after the explosion, citizens gathered in the wreckage of their capital At 6:08 p.m., what moved through the air was not a blast wave but the Muslim call to prayer, and the peal of church bells.

“Let us hope that this catastrophe doesn’t destroy us even further but rather gives us a much needed strength,” says Estephan. “Because this is our last chance. We must change today, or never.”

—With reporting by Myriam Boulos/Beirut and Madeline Roache/London

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[egoiistas]

at the center of the world

|tag || ao3 ||  ffn 

Amestris becomes a harrowingly silent place on the afternoon of the Promised Day and only the survivors at the center are left to tread over it. Within a few hours, they won’t be the only ones wandering. 

10.6 edit: @thenerdyalchemist‘s wonderful art!

Rated: M. it’s a horror/zombie au fic. - or it tries to be warnings: this chapter has major character deaths, blood, violence, ptsd.

Chapter 1/11

May

If she concentrated she could sense the distortion. The natural ebb and flow of the world warped or razed, carried off by a torrential flood. It was worse than the aberrant crawling underfoot. It was unholy to the religious man. She wasn’t sure she wanted to feel the absence of fifty million souls. It was silence made tangible, void and emptiness.

She shuddered from the chill, pulling herself closer together.

The world felt as cold as the transmuted stone she sat on. Unfocused, she stared at the transmutation marks, tracing shivering lines with her finger. The fast climb from Central’s depths added to the chill with a cool, whipping breeze that parted the short bangs on her forehead, braids snapping behind her. Tried as she might, the feeling of defeat wouldn’t settle. It didn’t seem real.

Over and over, the events replayed like a looping film reel in her mind, trying to pinpoint where they went wrong. They had plans, countermeasures. They were the heroes. The type of heroes in her tales where the good always prevailed. They triumphed through the hurdles, the obstacles. It always worked out in the end. Together. The books never explained the consequences when the battle swayed in the villain’s favor. There were no lessons to be learned worth the cost; only that evil had decidedly won that day.

She clung to these beliefs, naive and optimistic as they were, because they brought color and imagination and heart to a life that had been cold and disappointing. An undeniable frustration her clan, to be sure. May didn’t want to be the princess waiting to be saved. From a very young age she knew she was never going to be. She wanted to prove her worth as the Dragon’s daughter hailing a low ranking clan and to release them from poverty. To be lauded as the savior of her family was one of her many childlike daydreams. So she turned her sights to Amestris.

In some part of her mind, May acted out her alternative should she come up empty-handed. Upon her return, she would be simultaneously praised crossing the desert and admonished for her recklessness. But that would be all. She’d carry on and find another way out of her socio-economical rut.

However… May didn’t expect this.

The Yao Clan lost their heir.  The Elrics lost their father. Amestris lost its populace.

The rock slowed to a stop. She blinked out the blood and sweat trickling into her eyes. A source of light brightened the decimated chamber, spilling in from the crumbling opening above. She remembered it ominously dark and blood splattered from a battle between humans and… humans that weren’t.

She stood and Xiao May climbed onto her shoulder. The sunlight was soft, welcoming, and warm, creating glimmering sparkles out of the concrete slabs. Squinting, her vision narrowed on a pair of dark silhouettes lying in the light’s circumference. With the pace of her pulse quickening she dashed in between limbs.

The Ishvalan was warm to the touch. The corner of his eyes were wrinkled, brows knitted together. The blood sharply contrasted between the white of his hair, the dark ink of his sleeve, and the tan of his scarred skin. Sensing the faint flow of chi she gasped. He was unconscious and short, shallow breaths hardly counted as breathing, but he was alive. Frantically, May inked the five points of Alkahestry onto the concrete and shut his wounds.

Seconds ticked felt like hours until he stirred. She pressed her palms down lightly on his shoulders, “Don’t move, Mr. Scar.” Her voice sounded foreign to her as if her ears had been cotton-stuffed this entire time. “I’ve only managed to stop the bleeding, but we’ll need to get you to a- ” she froze “-a doctor,” she finished quietly, considering the suddenly short supply of medical professionals in the vicinity. She slumped, sitting on her feet and watching the man struggle with labored breath.

Scar grunted from the pressure she’d place on his forearm and Xiao May nudged her.

“S-sorry!” May’s palms fell back and she shook her head, trying to uproot herself from this daze. Slapping her cheeks, she refocused and spotted the bend in his chi where his arm was broken and she cursed her melancholy thoughts for not noticing earlier. She glanced around her for scraps of cloth to brace his fracture, selfishly unwilling to rip her own Xingese garb.

May searched for a cloth and realized the forgotten man behind her. She approached him with light footsteps, scrutinizing him. He had aged from the last time she saw him, as if he had been wrung of the life that sustained him. His arms were severed at the joint of his elbows. His white shirt textured by miniscule wrinkles from drying in the sun. A smile slightly curved his mouth. He died in peace, May figured, without any remorse or unspoken words. He died in battle and not for his love or his country or even in the uniform of the military he led. Just an ordinary man cut down at last by a survivor of the people he saw to extermination even with the power of a Philosopher’s stone.

The indignation crept back again, huffing at the cloth was about to rip and pilfer. She had it, she had immortality in her hands. She angrily ripped the cloth. The instructions were clear: Go.  Home. It wasn’t in her place to meddle with foreign affairs. She let the homunculus manipulate her. She could have been quarterway across the desert if she just had…

May sighed and Xiao May quirked. Truth be told, at the time, she didn’t know how taking back a dilapidated, mutant lizard would have helped her cause. She was already second guessing herself and Youswell was the right kind of excuse to help her find reason. Foreign affairs or not, she was already involved.

Roy Mustang stumbled over the girth of a pipe he couldn’t see. The woman May saved caught him by the arms. She watched them, him and his blonde companion; her face troubled with concerns and his, trying to reassure her. A satisfying warmth settled in her tummy knowing she did at least that succeeded in salvaging her life.

Distantly, a pool of blood darkened with the lapsed time. May managed to save her. She turned away from the red elixir when it was within her grasp once more and, for a second time, she let her prize slip from her fingers for the lives of others, for people who shared no blood relation - something so devastatingly important in Xing.

Perhaps it was the way he held her as if clinging on tighter to her body would keep her with him. Or how called out to her with a subtle break in his voice full worry and desperation. His white gloves stained vibrant red from her blood. It saturated her hair to her clothing to the hard surface underneath her. An unmistakable fear pierced through his features and she could still see his overwhelming relief when her breath was no longer ragged and her consciousness resurfaced.  He hugged the Lieutenant so tight May thought he would squeeze the remaining life out of her. The same thing happened in Youswell. She couldn’t help herself from saving others.

  They had a moment when May glanced over. It felt like peeking into a private room. The Lieutenant looked exhausted. Her hand trembled, cupping his face. Her eyes looked like the small, white dishes back at home for deonjang, but her relief was as vibrant as refractions off a water’s surface. She pecked him on the lips, like older adults do to greet each other.   “Lieutenant,” Colonel Mustang murmured.

Guilt befell the woman’s features, as if she was suddenly aware of the room. May refocused back to her task.

A deep breath filled her lungs for recentering, but she subsequently took a step back when the hum of life flowing inside the Fuhrer triggered her senses. Her eyes narrowed, realizing the difference. She concentrated harder and cautiously dipped a hand into the dead man’s pocket.  

It was colder than she imagined. The vial reflected the brilliant color of red, brighter than oxidized blood and it flowed back and forth inside the glass with the tilt of her hand. The energy inside was standalone, detached from the flow. It was tiny and encapsulated by something so fragile, but she already knew it was far from it. A power so sinister and evil. She curved her fingers around it.

“May.”

The voice behind her sent a shock throughout the surface of her skin. May turned around and looked up. Alphonse stood, or rather was propped up, with his brother’s assist. The Amestrian military jacket he wore swallowed him, yet he still smiled at her - despite everything. It made her want to cry.

“So that’s Bradley, huh?” Ed commented on the man behind her. “Pretty smug way to go, don’t you think?”

“Brother…” Alphonse looked like he lacked the energy to even furrow his eyebrows together.

Ed didn’t answer to Alphonse’s reproach. “The plan is to head to the hospital as soon as possible. It’ll have the materials we need for now and then…” The pause spoke volumes to her, but the weight of it never crossed his face.  “Then, we can talk about our next plan of action.”

May nodded, curling her fingers tighter.

“Are you okay? Can you walk?”

She smiled at his absurd question, “Of course. You don’t need to worry about me - worry about yourself. You’re skin and bones.”

He beamed at her and it took her that much time to realize that the real Alphonse stood in front of her now, not an empty suit of armor. The heavy jacket bustled from a shrug, “I guess I am.”

“Okay, okay. Let’s get you to the hospital before you pass out from the blood rushing to your cheeks.” Ed turned them both, ending that conversation.

“Brother!”

May stood, brushing off the dust off her and preparing for her yelling fit of the hour. She stopped at the sight of Scar. “Wait a moment! I do need help with Scar.”

“He’s alive?” Their golden heads turned towards the Ishvalan.

“Yes, and I’ve managed to aid him with surface wounds and-”

“Hey, Mr. Gorilla!”

“Brother, please, I’m still not used to the loud sounds.”

“Sorry, Al. Can we get you to help us with something?”

She tucked away her secret inside the folds her of clothes. She heard the banter Ed initiated with the gorilla-fused chimera over the rustling behind her. Later on, she would wonder if she ignored it out of the grasp of normalcy she knew would not exist outside of the this crumbling room.

Before the chimera spoke, before his expression altered from adrenaline and twisted from animalistic instinct, the hairs at her neck stood  and her skin prickled from

“Little girl, look out!”

In hindsight, it was distance that made the difference. A little bit further and his blood wouldn’t have stained her face. A little bit closer and it would have been her life. Instead, the dead eyes of King Bradley haunted her as he lost what life she stole away. The kunai glinted sharply against the light, nestled cleanly at the center of his forehead.

She reacted. That’s all it was. May tried consoled herself, but the blood that smeared on her cheek denied her any comfort.

Bradley slumped sideways and the air suddenly felt suffocating and tense.

May jumped as a hand touched her shoulder. She lifted her head warily, trying to remember the moment her knees gave out.

The lieutenant lady looked at her, concerned. Colonel Mustang stared into the distance behind her and the alchemy teacher beside him. She stared at May worryingly too. She didn’t need to hear the words. The eyes of the others were on her too and it made her feel ill at ease.

“I’m okay! Everything is ok.” She freed the blade and the gurgling noise unsettled her imperceptibly. “It was just- it just happened so quick.”

The blonde didn’t say much. Her pale face stared and many noticed her injury would need tending to. Her hand let go after a gentle squeeze of affirmation and stood up.

May found her feet. She overhead the lieutenant relate information back with militaristic style, sparing no details. The alchemy teacher disappeared next to the Elrics and she spoke to no one in particular. “I’ll go on ahead to make sure no more surprises happen!” She heard the protests behind her, urging her to come back, but the walls of the room felt closer around her and the light suddenly seemed to darken.

Through the opening overhead, her feet landed softly onto what looked like courtyard Central’s military headquarters. Xiao May quivered from death decorating the a parade grounds, but it didn’t bother May It bothered her that it didn’t. She spent a few moments with Dr. Marcoh, silently wishing for his passing in peace.

She looked around the military compound. Headquarters at her back, strong walls surrounded her except for one. It was decimated by some catastrophic force, cleaning carving a hole into the streets of Central.

People frozen in time. Stopped in their daily lives as their spirits were severed and their souls escaped them.   Her fingers wrapped around a tossed vial, feeling the impact of true emptiness. 

note: fmabb fic is here!! and I’m lucky to be doing this alongside @thenerdyalchemist who got me into the Last of Us while writing this and I am now a lifelong fan. 

oh god. AFTER LONG MONTHS ANGUISH. this is my first longfic, as some of you know i prefer short ones or oneshots ;__; any feedback is appreciated. i only ask to be objective for the constructive ones.it is 95% done and this is one third of what the original was. so i may or may not continue the rest. excuse me while i go breathe in a bag.