#like. they have so many shared experiences

[boopsiesdaisies]

being near each other

bob reynolds/sentry x reader | 2,130 words | angst&fluff | gn!reader

THUNDERBOLTS* SPOILERS

tw: panic attacks, swearing

bob and you are both so bad at feelings, but maybe you'll find a way to make it work?

a/n: i'm down bad crying at the gym, why does he look like a kitten in a storm drain, but ripped as shit??

____

Living with the New Avengers was the most difficult task that you had encountered in your life. Sure, you had defeated your fair share of villains, but living with roommates was arguably the worst experience of your life. Not just any roommates, these roommates specifically. All of you had tried to establish a chore chart, but after Walker’s week of hell, it was a collective decision to abandon that. You had no idea how that man had survived life to this point, since he somehow made chloroform to clean the communal kitchen and knocked out every member of the team, you had decided that he was never to be allowed near bleach or rubbing alcohol again. If cleaning the base didn’t stress you out enough, the bass on Alexei’s speakers that played nearly 24/7, or the constant lack of personal space from working and living together was going to drive you mad. But cleaning, noise, or personal space weren’t the issues that worried you the most. The worst issue was Bob. 

You had hoped that after living with the team that you would be able to shove any emotional feelings for Bob deep, deep down. It hadn’t worked. Instead, you spent everyday attempting to hide any upturn of your lips and softness for the man as the feeling in your chest continued to grow. It only grew worse with every single interaction. From sitting next to him in meetings to watching him quietly hum to himself while he washed the dishes. Alright, so maybe you watched him a lot, but that wasn’t your fault! It had to have been Bob’s fault with his dumb stupid hair, and dumb stupid smile, and dumb stupid laugh, and dumb stupid abs that you would  have never expected on him– 

Woah. You were getting ahead of yourself. The blush began to creep higher on your cheeks as you tried to will yourself to focus on the moment. 

“Okay, who's sitting out of the mission tonight?” Yelena’s voice pulled you back to the present. 

“None of you look at me, I’ve done it so many times it’s not even fair,” Alexei said.

“Who’s turn is it anyway?” Walker turned to look at the chart in the meeting room.

“No, no way, you didn’t like the chart so don’t go looking for it to save you now,” you laughed. 

“Actually,” Walker’s tone increased in pitch, elevating the level of cockiness to him. “It’s your turn.”

“My turn?” You clarified, fear beginning to pull at you.

You wanted nothing more than to get out tonight, the heat of your blush was beginning to go to your head, and the idea of sitting with Bob tonight was not going to cure it. 

“Yep, your turn,” Walker solidified and turned back to Yelena. “Do we want to wheels up at 0800?” 

“Oh my God we get it you were in the military John, get a hobby,” Ava spat as she began to stand.

As she stood, it cued everyone else to stand, as you were left reeling. Panic began to set in as you realized you couldn’t be left alone with Bob today, your heart might explode in an ungraceful love confession at this rate. 

“Wait, wait, wait, I can’t stay behind this time guys.” You said as you tried to stop everyone from leaving the table.

“It’s your turn,” Walker said.

“Okay, so it’s my turn because the chart said so, but if the chart said it was your turn you would fight it, how is that fair?” You pushed.

“Because it is convenient for him now, it’s no big deal, we each take turns staying home with Bob,” Yelena pushed back, as everyone left the room, except for you.

“Guys, c’mon,” you groaned and turned your back to face the wall, only to see the face of Bob staring back at you. There was a softness in his eyes despite the childish display you just put on.

He cleared his throat and looked down, “sorry you got stuck with me.”

“I didn’t get stuck with you, I just didn’t–” you started, quick to stop yourself. Shit, this was going to go poorly. 

“It’s fine, I’m used to it. Well not used to my powers, which is why you’re stuck here, but I mean, used to being left behind.” The small smile that graced his lips made everything worse.

“You’re not left behind, it’s just not safe for you until you know what you’re doing, which is why we probably shouldn’t let Walker anywhere out of the house.” You laughed softly to yourself. “I just wanted to go today, that's all.” 

You were lying through the skin of your teeth and you were hoping that the seemingly every permanent blush on your face wasn’t going to give you away. 

“So, since we have a few hours to ourselves, do you want to make dinner or something?”

“Sure!” Bob bounced up, seemingly recovered from your persistence to leave earlier and bounded over to the kitchen.

If you were never letting Walker in the kitchen again, you weren’t going to let Bob near it again with a ten foot pole. You had never encountered someone who truly could not find anything or do anything in the kitchen. At every step, you guided his lost eyes to where he needed them and while the love of him was rising in your chest, you could feel the energy beginning to shift around him. 

“Hey, it’s no big deal, why don’t you just taste test for me and you can help me clean up after we’re done?” You asked.

“I just want to be useful,” Bob said. 

The tremble of Bob’s lower lip made you reach for him, the worst idea you had in a while. Your fingers lightly brushed against his hairline as tucked the ever persistent piece behind his ear.

“I think you’re useful, just maybe not at cooking,” you replied.

Bob’s hand covered your wrist and suddenly everything went dark as you relived the very worst moments of your life. 

___

When you finally came to, the smell of burning food overpowered your sense as you gasped for breath over and over. The tears that pricked the edge of your eyes overflowed as you pushed yourself to sit up. The panic in your body began to rescind but the pain from falling to the floor seemed to dull any other sensation or cohesive thought. As you tried to reorganize your thoughts, and catch your breath, the only thought that came to your mind was Bob. He was here when you fell and now he’s gone. The panic refilled your lungs again, although it wasn’t about you anymore, it was entirely for Bob. Every fiber of muscle pushed you forward as you searched for his figure around the kitchen. Seemingly absent from the kitchen, you pulled the food of the burner worrying about turning the stove off later, as your feet began to run to the hallway of shared rooms. Your voice carried his name over and over as you prayed that you were going to be able to find him before the Void took over. You cursed yourself, feeling entirely at fault since it was your inability to come to terms with care for another person that put him in this mess. As you approached the hallway, the level of destruction increased. Overturned furniture, picture frames torn off the wall, and blocking the path, crowded you as you pushed through the mess to find him. 

You heard him before you saw him. Loud sobs coming from behind the door to his room, only halfway on its hinges. Slowing, you peek through the door to see him. Balled against the furthest corner of his room, with hands pressed over his ears, gasping for air just as you were only moments ago. You were so focused on him you couldn’t tell if your breathing was still ragged. 

“Bob?” You asked softly, praying the human part of him was still winning the fight.

He didn’t respond to you as you pushed through his room. The broken wood and glass fragments crunched under your shoes as you stepped closer to him. The darkness pulled away any of the light near him or of the setting sun in the window, covering the edges of his arms. You crouched down, and sat next to him.

“I’m going to touch you okay?” You asked as you reached to rub his back.

“No!” He pulled away, “you can’t, it’ll happen again.”

“I don’t think it will, it’s okay, I’m just going to rub your back.” You lightly placed your hand on his back, and began to rub small circles on his upper back.

Bob began to speak again, but stuttered over his words as the sob racked through his body.

“Hey, it’s fine, take a deep breath, I can’t help you if I don’t know what's wrong.” You leaned closer to him as looked up to you.

Bob’s eyes scanned the room, he seemed so afraid. “What does it matter, you don’t care.”

“Of course, I care,” your hand fell off his back. “I care about you a lot.”

“You wanted to leave,” he said, quoting the moment from earlier and part of your heart ached.

“I did,” you agreed. 

There was no point in denying the moment, but you weren’t quite sure how to vocalize why that would make sense.

“I don’t–” you began only for Bob to interrupt you.

“I don’t even know what I was thinking, rigging that stupid chart like they all suggested to get you to talk to me, why would you even want to talk to me?” He fully turned away from you in that moment.

The irony of the moment made you laugh. 

“See now you’re laughing at me and –” He started.

“No, I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing at how bad we are at…this.” You gestured to the invisible this, and noticed Bob’s breathing, while still quick, seemed to had slowed down enough for conversation. In a moment of bravery, you pulled Bob’s face back to look at you.

From this distance you could see the details in his eyes. The brightness that pulled into them as his powers grew in intensity was overwhelming. The eye contact was going to kill you as if you didn’t already want to crawl into a hole and die. Your communication skills were going to shit the longer you looked at him. The constant blush that accompanied your face when you were near him seemed to worsen, as you hoped the tightness in your chest was from the fear of sharing your feelings over another run in the Void. 

“I wanted to leave because I’m afraid of talking to you,” you started. 

The hurt that flashed across his face in that moment seemed to make everything worse for a moment. “Shit, not like that, not in the ‘I think you’re scary’ or ‘I don’t like you’ kinda way, but in the ‘I like you a lot and I’m afraid of real feelings’ kinda way.”

Still getting no response from Bob you kept going, “I had hoped that if I kept avoiding talking about it that it would get better. But everything you do makes me feel whole and like there's this warmth in my chest whenever I’m near you, and I’m blushing like I’m some high schooler, and it’s weird and I don’t hate it but I don’t know how to deal with it.” 

“What?” The starkness of the question pulled you out of your tangent.

“I like being around you,” you said softly. “I really do.”

“You’re not mad at me?” The tears began to well in his eyes again.

“No, why would I be mad at you?” You asked.

“Because of the kitchen?” He looked down at his shoes, apparently finding something interesting in the chaos of the room.

“Did you do it on purpose?” You asked.

“No!” Bob started, before you stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Then I would never be mad at you.” You did your best to sound reassuring.

After a few moments of silence, Bob spoke. “I don’t know how to talk to you either, but I like being around you.”

“Okay, so we’ll work with that.” You smiled. “We’ll just start with being near each other.”

Bob’s eyes met your eyes again. “Okay.”

“Okay,” you replied as you brushed the piece of hair out of his face again. This time, his eyes were back, the blue looking almost gray in the low lighting of the room.

“What the fuck did you two do?” Yelena’s voice pulled the two of you out of the moment. 

You really hated your roommates at that minute.

[jehadkhaled]

Help my family in Gaza, I'm begging you 💔‼️🙏

✅️Vetted by @gazavetters , my number verified on the list is ( #523)

✅️ Vetted by @90-ghost here

Dear merciful souls before everything I'm now writing to you and my kids are so hungry we don't know what to eat because everything running out and the cross borders were closed for three months so please read my story to the end 🥺🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏

Hello, I am full of hope and hope that you will read my message with love and that you will enjoy abundant health and well-being.

I come to you with an appeal that is heavy on my heart and that I had never imagined.

I look at you from under the war and the constant bombing of us in all its forms that the human or animal soul cannot comprehend

I am Jehad Kassab , a lawyer and legal consultant from Gaza City - Palestine. I hold a bachelor’s degree in law and many legal experiences. I have been working in the legal profession for a long time and I had a good work , which have become meaningless before this world, to stop the machine of war and destruction that has befallen us ،I had a private law office after the Israeli planes completely destroyed it and everything in it, after I built it with all its beauty after many years of toil, and it is my only source of livelihood.

I have a beautiful family that loves life as you love it and lives it in all its details. My family consists of (my wife, a nurse, and my son Khaled, a year and a half old, who has not seen life in all its details and does not know what it is yet, and my second daughter is now 11 months her age as the age of this bad war.

Our house was completely destroyed at the beginning of the war on Gaza with everything, and we did not even take anything out of it, not even the clothes, in the hope that we would return to it before it was bombed by Israeli warplanes

We were briefly displaced to southern Gaza and stayed in tents until this moment. We lived and are still living the harshest types of genocide in the full sense of the word: displacement, destruction, coming out from under bombardment, pollution, epidemics, and the difficulty of sleeping due to the sound of planes and the bombing that did not leave for a single second. Has the world become desolate or are we not fit to improve? For life or what? We do not know Khaled who started pronouncing the word bombing, and I am afraid.

I am not begging you or listing all the details, because an entire newspaper will not be enough. Television screens and social networking sites are enough to tell you about us, and no matter how much you try to say, what we feel will not reach you because we do not wish anyone to live as we live.

We are victims of conflicts and conflicts. We love life as long as we can. We do not like any form of war. We want a future like the rest of humanity for ourselves and our children.

In this moment of despair, I reach out to you, not just as a stranger, but as a human being, connected by our common humanity and the belief that compassion knows no bounds. Your support, no matter how small, can make an immeasurable difference in the lives of those struggling to find hope amidst the rubble.

We desperately need your support to rebuild my family's life that was destroyed by the war on Gaza and there is literally nothing left ، provide us with a glimmer of hope for a better life after we were fine before October 7th last year. Your support could mean everything to us ، If you are unable to support, please consider sharing our case. Every bit of support helps.

We also evacuated many times and the two baby were sick alot because of the bad environment

and you know there's no hospitals or medicin or even healthy food

and the rest of the.money will be used for the living expenses

We appreciate your help, even if it is just a little

Thank you all

You can share or donate this ‼️🙏🥺

[beholdthelastparagraph]

Thinking about how Palamedes tells Pash that they "are conversant with the concept of family in the Houses" in Nona....because, like, are they? Are they really?

Palamedes calls his own mother by her full name or job title more than he calls her 'mother'. Their relationship is COLLEGIAL at best. The Sixth raise their children in some kind of communal academic system, from what we can see in canon. Meanwhile, on the Second, it's all about that sweet sweet military command structure. On the Seventh, your parents literally try to pass super cancer onto you, and probably die of it themselves before you reach puberty. The Eighth is a monastic order where EVERYONE calls each other 'brother' or 'sister', regardless of family relationship. From everything we hear, the Tridentarius' parents are fucked-up in some way. The Ninth is....the Ninth, and on the Fourth, parents just tend to be dead.

So, like, are they really 'conversant with the idea of family'? Everything about the system John has set up discourages real family relationships. There is no socially acceptable way to share a family name with your spouse, parent, or sibling - the arithmonyms encourage you to identify with your HOUSE, not your family, and every time characters share an arithmonym, that is considered 'weird' (see the Tridentarii). John's system demands allegiance to the EMPIRE, not any individual family units.

This dissolution of family has the side effect of also dissolving (unjust) gendered roles, but it is also VERY effective at creating the existential, deep loneliness that so many of these characters experience and that John's system then uses to fuel their loyalty to him as God. It's this dissolution of family that creates the codependent structures you see in so many cav-necro relationships (Cam and Pal above all else), because WHERE ELSE but in this (fundamentally militaristic) relationship that was originally intended to serve the Empire could you find the closeness family often provides.

And, like, every time characters prioritise their chosen or blood family over the values of the Empire, it's transgressive. Any relationship that emphasises the individual - as a spouse, friend, lover, sibling, child, parent - over the 'imperial role' of cav, necro, soldier, or servant, is transgressive in the world of TLT. Magnus and Abigail are transgressive for that. Gideon and Harrow are. Even the Tridentarii have something going on that seems to go against imperial power structures, even if it's a different kind of fucked-up. Cam and Pal are such a complex case because they DO earnestly love each other outside of their role as necro and cav, but are so fundamentally alienated from healthy relationship dynamics because of their absurd upbringing that they immediately become *like that*, to the point of doing ye olde soul-merger. Still - they fundamentally hold allegiance to each other as family of some sort, whether romantic or platonic.

Which, I think, is why it's so perfect and messed-up and appropriate that Juno Zeta, Palamedes' literal mother, spends the last few minutes of her son's earthly existence as an individual quizzing We Suffer about her family structure. Rather than. Y'know. Talking to her son. Who is about to eradicate himself as an individual within the one relationship that ever transgressed that enforced, non-familial distance.

Camilla, meanwhile, does not let her fathers watch her death/ascension at all.

[enjakey]

HYBE-boy

Pairing: Niki x Solo-idol!Fem!Reader

(5k) Definitely the shittiest thing I’ve written but I needed to get it out of my head. I have a habit of starting fics off strong but loosing interest near the end. Gotta fix that. Anyways, enjoy! Also I just copy paste my tags and I’m way too lazy to change it like tags are so annoying and my spelling errors every time are insane.

Summary: you debuted as a solo idol in HYBE not long ago, quickly rising to fame. And soon, you’d started a variety show where many other idols joined as guests. On one episode, a few members of ENHYPEN join you, including Niki. And that, you suppose, is when everything started.

There were rumours being whispered in the halls of the HYBE building- rumours, these days, amongst all the idol groups that had debuted, became common. The staff assumed it was a way of entertainment. With everyone’s schedules being so busy, not being able to interact between groups and time being lost in either practice or sleep, gossip inevitably became the most interesting thing that idols could giggle about. 

It was like high school, really.

You debuted as a solo-artist in HYBE recently. It was a rare event, almost unheard of. But HYBE had been experimenting lately, with their international groups, various concepts for each group and even starting variety shows on Youtube. And when the other idols heard of your debut, a lot of them poured in support. The support was never direct though, as followed by the many rules and regulations placed by the company and staff. The support came through silent nods while passing each other in the hallways, during interviews when asked about the hot new singer and with the occasional like on an Instagram post.

You were young, really, but you weren’t the youngest debut in history or something. There were a lot more idols more capable than you, with a support system from their group member’s that you didn’t have access to. You were alone as a solo-artist and you had only your management and manager to lean on- always following you like a shadow, pointing cameras at you because they needed content to pump out.

You couldn’t remember the last time you had a break.

A few months into your debut, maybe close to a year, your management pitched an idea for a variety show on Youtube. It wasn’t very complicated- it was simple, cute and allowed you to interact with more people personally and that was something you’d been craving for a while. Every week, an idol or two would be invited as a guest. You would interview them for sometime before diving into the main event- they would pick out your outfit for whatever your next big event would be. And you had to wear it, without fail. And the clothes would come from all the brands that you’d signed brand deals with- it was safe to say that, by then, you'd become quite famous and desired by the industry.

Sometimes, the outfits were perfect, fitting to your tastes and the event. Other times, they were deliberately picked out to be embarrassing- and it wasn’t like these idols meant harm, it was all just fun and games. Some people did it out of love, showing the little friendship you shared and others did it just to get a laugh out of it.

But where had these rumours come from, the ones about Y/N that were being spread for the first time since her debut? She’d heard a bunch of rumours before, that some idol was mad at another idol from another group or that someone had stolen something that wasn’t there. But these were… petty rumours, really. Something people could laugh about because they weren’t even true most of the time.

But this rumor? If it reached the ears of tabloids and netizens? It could lead to scandals and idols being cancelled on the internet. And that wasn’t doing anyone’s career good. 

Every idol has had a dating rumour about them at least once. It was something their management would prepare for- disaster control of some sorts. And your manager had once joked about how it was surprising you’d never gotten a dating scandal yet, already so far into your debut.  It was the fact that you were always so shy and meek, so polite with everyone you met, always within boundaries and keeping your eyes to yourself.

Your manager’s joke would come back to bite everyone in the ass.

It started when ENHYPEN’s Niki, Jay and Sunghoon came onto your variety show. 

You’d filmed it on a rainy Thursday afternoon, squeezed between rehearsals and a sponsorship shoot. The energy had been light. Familiar. You’d run into ENHYPEN plenty of times before- award shows, shared green rooms, occasional company dinners- and though you weren’t close, there was a mutual comfort. Enough for laughs. Enough for easy conversation.

You talked about their recent comeback, their tour schedule, and the way the internet never seemed to stop talking about them. Standard questions, standard reactions. You joked about age, how Jay and Sunghoon were basically old men next to you and Niki. You asked about movies, and the answers were chaotic in the way that only idols with too little sleep and too much media training could be.

And then came the main event: the outfit.

Jay and Sunghoon had been on a mission to ruin you- stylistically, at least. Loud prints, absurd layering, glitter where glitter didn’t belong. All in good fun. The kind of bit that played well on camera and made the editors' jobs easier.

But Niki? He surprised everyone.

“No, no,” Niki said, voice firm but light as Jay waved around the feather blazer and Sunghoon insisted on pairing it with glitter boots. “She has a fansigning. Don’t you think she should feel confident?”

Jay blinked at him. “Since when do you care about confidence? Didn’t you make Jungwon wear socks with sandals once?”

“That was different,” Niki replied. “She’s alone. No group to back her up. She needs to own the room.”

The same Niki known for his pranks and deadpan sarcasm stood there calmly, adjusting hangers and suggesting neutral tones, subtle accessories, respectful silhouettes. It was odd. Not uncomfortable- just… unexpected. The usual culprit of chaos, the youngest prankster, was suddenly... sweet? Respectful? Calm?

No one laughed. Because no one quite knew what to make of it.

The management noticed first. Not just yours, others as well. The ones who stood behind the cameras and barely blinked, the ones who didn’t say much but noticed everything. And they didn’t miss the way Niki had looked at you- not flirtatiously, not overtly. Just… differently, focused, controlled; his tone low and even, his words deliberate.

And then, the whispering began.

It wasn’t malicious, at first. Just hallway noise- the kind that filled the space between rehearsals and late-night meal breaks. Idle speculation that came out of boredom more than belief. But it was enough to shift something. A few too many glances exchanged backstage. A few too many questions buried inside jokes.

The rumour was that maybe the youngest of ENHYPEN had taken a liking to you. That maybe something had sparked. That maybe, quietly, the two of you had started… something.

You hadn’t.

You hadn’t even seen him since the filming ended. There had been no texts, no run-ins. Just silence, like every other guest once the cameras stopped rolling.

But it didn’t matter.

The story had already formed. Not outside, not online- yet. But within, inside the walls of the building, passed between stylists and choreographers, echoed in shared elevators and passed notes. It was a story being crafted where there wasn’t one to begin with.

And if it ever left the building? If someone from the inside decided to push it forward?

It wouldn’t just be a rumor anymore. It would be damage control. For you. For him. For everyone in between.

But for now, it was still just noise. High school gossip in expensive clothing. Quiet enough to ignore. Loud enough to linger.

Nothing really changed.

No one treated you differently. No warnings from management. No tense meetings. No cryptic text from your label. The world kept spinning. You went to work. Filmed another pilot. Ate cafeteria tteokbokki with your team and nodded along in meetings where no one really listened. The rumour, whatever it was, stayed tucked behind other, louder things.

You almost forgot about it.

Almost.

Until you ran into Yuna from ITZY in the hallway one evening, both of you ducking out of practice rooms for water, bowing politely at each other. You’d known her a while- similar schedules, adjacent debut timelines. She was a kid, a familiar, older face.

“Hey Y/N,” she said lightly. “Didn’t know you and Niki were close.”

You blinked. “We’re not.”

“Oh.” She blinked back, all wide eyes and casual curiosity. “Oh, it’s just people were saying... never mind.”

She waved it off, already turning toward the self-checkout, but the question stayed with you like static. You barely remembered what you'd bought. You just kept replaying that moment over and over. Didn’t know you and Niki were close. Like it was a fact. Like you were the last person to hear it.

It didn’t mean anything. Not really.

But then came the elevator.

It was a rainy Monday, and you were late. Wet hair, damp hoodie, earbuds half-falling out as you rushed through the HYBE lobby. You hit the elevator button without thinking, checking your phone, trying to remember if you’d missed any rehearsals.

The doors opened.

Niki was already inside. His hair was damp, likely from practice, skin dewy and flushed. He wore a zip-up jacket with the ENHYPEN logo barely visible on the sleeve and headphones dangling around his neck. He blinked at you once, like even he hadn’t expected this timing. Then he nodded, quiet, and stepped in.

The elevator doors sealed shut.

Silence.

You were both good at this. Being quiet. Being still. The kind of stillness that idols learned to perfect in packed rooms, in interviews where every word was potential headline bait. You focused on the glowing numbers overhead. B3. B2. B1.

He pulled out one earbud. “You’ve been busy.”

You shrugged. “Kind of. You too?”

“Yeah.”

More silence. More air between you than the square footage allowed.

Then, he looked over.

“Did someone say something to you?”

You turned, slowly. “What?”

“About me,” he said. “Or... about us.”

Your stomach dropped, just slightly. “Someone mentioned it.”

He nodded like he already knew. “Yuna?”

You exhaled. “Yeah.”

Another beat. The elevator dinged. Floor 6.

Neither of you moved.

Niki leaned in slightly, hands in his pockets. “It’s weird,” he said, voice low. “People talk like they know things. Like eye contact means something.”

You didn’t respond. Because what could you say?

And then, as the doors opened again, he added, “For the record, I haven’t seen you since that episode because of my schedule. Not because of the rumour.”

You didn’t reply, and he didn’t wait for one. He stepped out and the doors started to close. He stared at you, the way your expression shifted at his words- that maybe you weren’t overthinking this. And you stared back, the way his hair fell over his face, the way his lips stretched into something mischievous, that sparkle in his eyes.

But just before the elevator shut completely, he chuckled again. “And maybe I did want you to notice.”

A week had passed. Rehearsals, fansigns, photoshoots- the usual blur of idol life. Everything was routine. But somewhere in between, your mind kept returning to that brief elevator conversation. The way he looked at you, the way his words hung in the air. You tried to push it aside, but it lingered, like an unfinished song.

Today, you were running late again. A tight schedule, another packed day. As you hurried through the halls of HYBE, eyes on the clock, you found yourself almost at the elevator before you realized- Niki was already inside.

The doors were halfway shut when you spotted him. You paused for just a second.

He looked... different. Not in a big way, but enough to make you notice. His usual headphones were absent, and his hoodie was replaced by a simple black jacket. No flashy logos or branding, just the unbothered, effortless cool he seemed to exude.

He looked up when he heard your footsteps. The second your eyes met, something shifted. It was subtle, but it was there- a shift in the air between you, something unspoken, but not unfamiliar.

You stepped forward, the doors now fully open.

"Running late?" Niki asked, his voice casual, but with a certain warmth you couldn’t quite place.

You nodded. "Yeah, it’s been a long day."

He gave a small, understanding smile. "Yeah, same. Can’t catch a break."

For a moment, there was that comfortable, almost too familiar silence. You stood beside him, both of you staring ahead as the elevator descended. The usual routine, except this time... it felt different.

Then, without warning, Niki glanced over. “You know,” he began, his voice quieter now, “I meant what I said the other day. About noticing you.”

Your heart skipped just a little. He said it so nonchalantly, but it was loaded with a kind of intent that made your breath catch in your throat.

You didn’t know how to respond. So you didn’t. Instead, you met his gaze again, searching for something.

Another moment of silence.

He didn’t seem to mind it, though. Instead, his lips curved slightly, and he leaned back against the elevator wall, giving you a relaxed, almost teasing look.

"You seem like you’re always in a hurry," he said after a beat, his eyes narrowing in thought. "Maybe we should slow down sometime. Talk outside of elevators."

The suggestion was casual, light, but there was an undeniable weight to it.

The elevator doors dinged open to the next floor, but neither of you moved.

Niki took a small step back, clearly ready to leave, but before he could turn, he shot you one last look- something warm, something more than just a glance.

"Think about it," he said, voice a little lower now, a little more sincere.

And then, with a nod, he was gone- his footsteps fading down the hallway, leaving you standing there, the air between you still heavy with something unspoken.

You didn’t expect to see him again so soon.

It was another hectic afternoon, and you were grabbing a quick snack before heading to your next rehearsal. As you walked through the cafeteria, scanning the crowded tables for an empty spot, you saw him. Niki, sitting alone, his usual relaxed air about him. He was playing with his phone, earbuds in, but the second he caught sight of you, his eyes lit up, and he lifted a hand in acknowledgment.

“Hey,” he said, his voice casual, but there was an edge to it- an eagerness you hadn’t expected. “You came.”

You hesitated for just a moment. It wasn’t that you’d forgotten about his suggestion, but something about being here, actually sitting across from him, made it all feel more real. You nodded, making your way over to his table.

You sat down slowly, feeling the weight of the moment, like it was one of those rare, unspoken decisions in life that changed things, even if you couldn’t quite put your finger on it.

“I didn’t think you’d actually show up,” Niki said, grinning. "But I’m glad you did."

You chuckled softly, adjusting your drink in front of you. “I wasn’t sure myself. But you seemed... serious.”

“I am.” His smile softened, and for a moment, he looked more... himself. The mask of idol life was gone, replaced by the guy who liked to play games, listen to music, and maybe- just maybe- wanted to see you more than as just a colleague.

You both took a few moments to settle into a quiet, but comfortable rhythm. The usual banter started up, but it was different this time- less forced. There was a strange kind of honesty in his words that made you wonder if he was starting to let his guard down, too.

“So,” Niki said, breaking the silence between bites of his food, “what’s the real reason you agreed to come sit with me?”

You raised an eyebrow. “You think I need a reason?”

He shrugged, looking like he was trying to figure you out. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just wondering what you’re thinking. You’re not exactly the type to go for small talk.”

You set your cup down, choosing your words carefully. “Maybe I’m just tired of running into you in elevators.”

His eyes twinkled at that. “So you came here to escape the elevators?”

“Maybe,” you replied, your lips curving into a smile. “Or maybe just to see if you’re as good at talking outside of them.”

His expression shifted for a moment, something unreadable crossing his face. Then, he chuckled softly. “I think you’ll find I’m better in person.”

You didn’t know why, but the way he said it felt... different. As if he wasn’t just making a joke, but giving you a glimpse of something beneath the surface.

Before you could reply, the sound of footsteps approached the table. Neither of you looked up immediately, but you both knew who it was. Someone from the team- probably coming to pull you back into the chaos of schedules and rehearsals.

But as they came closer, Niki glanced at you with a small grin, his eyes lingering for just a moment longer than necessary.

"Next time," he said, standing up as the person reached the table, “we can skip the cafeteria. Just you and me. Somewhere quieter.”

You watched him walk away, his words echoing in your head. You hadn’t expected this meeting to be anything more than casual, but now... you weren’t so sure.

A lot of people on the internet loved speculating about the idol life and you liked reading it as entertainment. There were netizens that were convinced that no way some of the most attractive people in the country are single, obviously they’re all dating, we just don’t know it. You laughed at it because, well… you didn’t exactly know the answer to it. And perhaps it was due to your introversion. 

You didn’t know if some of your friends were dating. And even if they were, it was definitely in secret because if the company found out, they were pretty much dead meat. And you yourself had never really experienced it. No one had ever approached you for a date or for any romantic interest.

Well, that is, not until Niki came along.

Nishimura Riki, he told you to call him that- Riki. Because Niki felt too fake, felt too impersonal. Behind closed doors, even his members called him Riki. 

“Is Niki meant to be a persona?” You’d asked him.

“What do you mean?” He asked with puzzled eyes. 

“Niki as in… the fake ass emo kid. And then there’s Riki with all the embarrassing pictures from pre-debut,” you couldn't help but laugh.

Niki rolled his eyes, hanging head low as he tutted. Then he looked at you, kicking your feet from under the table. “I forget how much you know about me… being a host for your own variety show and all.”

“I saw the interview with DOPE CLUB, by the way,” you continued laughing but Niki was annoyed that he couldn’t see your mouth behind the mask you wore. It was just your eyes he had access to. “The strawberry underwear…” you choked on your laughter.

Niki grinned but you probably couldn’t see. He was wearing a mask too. But the glint in his eyes didn’t go unnoticed. “Keeping tabs on me already, huh?”

And you looked to your side, gaze shying away from him.

This was the third time the pair of you met outside of the HYBE building, disguising yourselves in layers of clothes just to sit in a cafe somewhere and talk. And for the most part, you liked it- you liked the pace, the slowness and steadiness of it all. You liked that both of you knew exactly where this was going but chose to take it a day at a time, anyway. He said it was important for him to know you, and that it was important that you got to know him. 

And you did- for the most part, you did. You learnt about his hopes, his dreams, his worries and everything in between. And in his stories, you learnt more about the rest of his members. But a part of you hoped for more- it was a naive, childish wish. You wanted to be able to see his face, his expressions, his teeth when he smiled or the weight in his brows. But you could only see his eyes which were sometimes covered by his hat or his bangs. It was almost frustrating, that during work, all you could offer each other was a nod of acknowledgement and a glint of yearning and when you were alone, you could barely see him.

But you would never admit that to him. You were too scared, too shy and too wary of the predicament of it all.

Niki, on the other hand, was basking in the light of your company. And perhaps people around him noticed it- well, his members did, at least. They saw the way he’d sneak off to restaurants without telling them (which as unusual because he was always pestering one of them to buy him food), and they saw the way he was on his phone more often than usual, and the saw the way his eyes lit up when Sunoo would play one of your songs in the car.

It was obvious, too obvious. And it wasn’t that his Hyungs were against love… it was just that it was too risky.

“You’ve gotta be careful, Riki,” Jay said to him one night over dinner while everyones chopsticks moved awkwardly, hovering over the topic they all wanted to talk about.

“I am being careful,” he grumbled, hanging his head low and rolling his eyes.

“Do you realise what will happen if you get caught?” Jungwon said, voice almost threatening- he was the leader, afterall. It was his job to keep his members in check.

“This is dangerous. You’re so young… young love can be reckless,” Sunghoon chimed in as though he had all the experience on earth about love.

“Are you sure this is worth it?” Jake continued, pointing his chopsticks at him.

“Guys,” Heeseung sighed, clapping his hand over Niki’s back. “Cut him some slack. If you think about it, he’s really lucky he’s even found someone to feel this way over.”

Niki was surprised by the way his oldest Hyung was defending him- but he didn’t react. He simply fell quiet.

“It’s a bit harsh to say love isn’t worth it,” Sunoo said to Jake. “You’re gonna hurt his feelings.”

“It’s better than getting in trouble,” Jake defended.

And as his Hyungs found their way into an argument, Niki couldn’t help the anger and annoyance that bubbled in him. He knew they were just looking out for him and they knew they were only saying all this because they cared about him. And to be honest, if another member was in the same situation as him, Niki would probably tell them to be careful as well. But most of his Hyungs didn’t care much about feelings- it was always about the rules and logic and the best thing to do. 

It seemed criminal to Niki, to look at you like you were a decision to be made over logic

He simply wanted to follow his heart.

“But I really like her,” he whispered and his voice was almost inaudible, easily drowning in the others’ voices. 

But they all heard him. And the table ceased into silence.

It started with a joke.

A joke about how the two of you were basically spies- cloaked and masked, passing coded messages, scheduling rendezvous in tucked-away cafés and back entrances. You’d laughed about it, brushing the idea off like it wasn’t starting to wear on you. The secrecy was necessary, but exhausting. And somehow, the more time you spent with Niki, the more suffocating the masks felt.

So when he said, half-joking, “Let’s get a hotel room next time. Somewhere we can actually breathe,” you’d rolled your eyes and flicked his forehead- but you didn’t say no.

And that’s how you ended up here, hours later, in a dimly lit hotel room in the quiet part of town- no cameras, no curious eyes, no managers on call. Just you, Niki, and the slow humming silence between you.

You stood by the window first, arms crossed loosely over your chest as the city glowed outside. From this far up, it all looked gentle- like the world had quieted just for the two of you.

Behind you, he was taking off his hoodie, shaking out his hair.

You turned when you heard the soft thud of fabric hitting the floor, and for the first time, you saw him- really saw him. No cap tugged low, no mask, no layers of fabric hiding the sharp lines of his jaw or the soft curve of his mouth.

It was Niki. Just Riki.

And he was beautiful in a way that felt almost fragile in the quiet.

He blinked at you, unsure for a second, like maybe he was waiting for your reaction. You swallowed.

“Seeing you like this feels so different,” you said, voice almost a whisper.

He laughed, low and quiet, rubbing the back of his neck. “Do I look disappointing?”

You shook your head, stepping closer. “You look… like you.”

A beat. Then he looked up at you- really looked- and for a long moment, neither of you said anything. You just stared, like this was a kind of discovery. Like you’d uncovered something sacred.

“Your turn,” he said gently.

You hesitated, then peeled off your cap and tugged the mask down from your face. You suddenly felt bare, like being seen would split you open.

But Niki stepped closer.

He didn’t say anything dramatic or poetic. He just said, softly, “Hi.”

And you smiled. “Hi.”

You didn’t remember who leaned in first- maybe it was him, maybe it was you- but soon your foreheads were pressed together, breath mingling between you. There was no urgency, no rush. Just warmth.

His hand found yours.

“You make me nervous,” he murmured.

You looked up at him. “Why?”

He shrugged, thumb brushing your knuckles. “Because… this feels real. And I’m not used to real things lasting.”

You opened your mouth to respond but couldn’t find the right words. So instead, you stepped forward and hugged him.

He held you back like he’d been waiting to do it forever.

It was the kind of embrace that said everything your mouths were too shy to admit. The kind of closeness that made time stall. You could feel his heartbeat against your chest. 

And then he pulled back just enough to look at you again- and he kissed you.

It was soft at first, really gentle. A question more than a declaration. But when you didn’t pull away, his fingers found the side of your face, and he kissed you again- deeper this time.

It wasn’t just physical. It felt like trust.

Your hands moved on their own- sliding up to his shoulders, burying into the fabric of his shirt. He smiled against your mouth and leaned into you like gravity was tugging him forward.

And then you both started laughing. Quiet, breathless laughter against each other’s mouths.

“This is crazy,” you whispered.

“I know.”

“But I don’t want to stop.”

He looked at you like you’d given him permission to breathe.

“Neither do I.”

“We kissed,” Niki shut the door behind him faster than he’d pushed Jay into his room.

“What?” Jay blinked, struggling to comprehend.

“We kissed- like, solid, made out,” Niki breathed and carded his hands through his hair. Suddenly he couldn’t look at his Hyung anymore, a bit embarrassed. His cheeks turned red.

“You kissed?” Jay blinked again, mouth hanging agape. His thin lips curled into surprise, then disbelief, followed by confusion. “What?”

“We booked out a hotel room-”

“You what?”

Niki immediately regretted the way he phrased it, immediately letting his hands fly in front of him in defense. “No, no, it’s not like that-”

“Do you have absolutely any idea how inappropriate this is Nishimura Riki?” Jay started- and his scolding didn’t stop. He pointed his finger at Niki in a warning- he was actually scary this time. “Do you have any idea what will happen if the management finds out? Fuck that, when your parents find out this siw ho you’ve become, booking out hotel rooms for girls, they’re gonna whoop your ass-”

“It’s not like that!” Niki yelled, almost whined. “I’m not taking advantage of her here- I’m being serious, Hyung. I really like this girl.”

At that, Jay closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a ragged breath. “What’s your plan, Niki?”

Niki’s eyes lit up, hope building in his chest. Because, even if it was one Hyung, it meant there was some sort of support he was receiving right? And perhaps Jay could convince the rest of the members to help him out- take pity on him, the youngest, to maybe get the girl and keep her in secret.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m gonna do everything in my power to make this work.”

“Alright,” Jay sighed again.

Just then, Jake entered the room, unbeknownst to the conversation happening. He was holding a sweater in his hand, one that belonged to Niki. “You left this in my room- oh,” he looked between the two, wide eyed and surprised. “Am I disturbing something?”

Niki shook his head violently. “No-”

“It’s about Y/N, don’t worry,” Jay rolled his eyes. 

Niki groaned.

Jake’s eyes widened further. “What now?”

“They kissed,” Jay said.

“Hyung-”

“And he’s whipped.”

Jake chuckled. “You’re sure about this?” He asked, gaze fixed on Niki. Jake Hyung was usually the funny one, always light hearted but he had his moments where he took charge- made the decisions, weighed the pros and cons.

“Yes,” Niki raised his chin firmly.

“Alright.”

“Guess what?” Niki came running to you in excitement, finally catching sight of you near the cafe you agreed to visit. 

You google at his enthusiasm. “What?”

“I told my members.”

You froze, staring at the boy in front of you- the boy who was towering over you, bending his neck to hear you better, a smile spread behind his mask. “What?”

“I told them,” he said. “About us.”

You blinked. “What… what did they say?”

“A lot,” Niki nodded. “All their MBTI is type T except for Sunoo Hyung. They were all scared and concerned-”

“Very valid.”

“But I want you, Y/N,” he sighed, almost like it was prayer. “I want this- I think… I think this- you and I- it means something bigger.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

[lightseoul]

WARD OFF (THIS LONELINESS) (23.3k)

pairing. k. bakugou x reader

synopsis. love comes when you least expect it. or, in bakugou’s case, when he’s unceremoniously dumped into the psychiatric ward. (or: in which bakugou finds himself haunted by his war-torn past, rancid nightmares, and the pretty face of this girl he meets inside)

c.w. fem!reader, pro-hero!katsuki, aged-up (21 yrs old), minor manga spoilers (read at your own risk), lots of cussing (bkg-typical), graphic depictions of the ward setting, discussions of ptsd & insomnia, mentions of depression, anxiety, & suicidality, nsfw/mature themes, just a whole lotta emotions :,)

a/n. before anything else, i would like to thank my lovely therapist for saying the right words to me a little over a week ago that spurred me to finally get started on this fic idea, which, funnily enough, i ended up working on around the 2nd anniversary of my ward admission. this fic is—quite obviously—very personal to me, as i had to dig through the deep recesses of my mind and pluck out memories i didn’t even know still existed to conjure this into fruition. i worked very hard on this, mainly because i felt like it was important for me to write about this particular experience that not many have to go through, so that those who don’t somehow get an accurate glimpse of what actually happens behind the locked doors. and, perhaps—maybe—even feel empathy for those who do get admitted, you know? but also because i think this was a great opportunity for me to process the experience, which, as you’ll later find out by reading the fic, is exceptionally multi-layered and complex, and absolutely not emotionally charged :,) just a few disclaimers, though: firstly, i am /not/ a mental health professional. i am simply a psych major on an indefinite leave from college because of my severe depression, which also happened to put me in the psychiatric ward, equipping me with the lived experiences and thereby allowing me to write this fic. moreover, the ward experience depicted in this fic was purely based on my experience, and it is highly likely that many do not share my experience or my sentiments. lastly, i do not have war-induced ptsd nor do i have insomnia, but i did as much research as i could to portray it properly. still, if i missed anything, or if i made a mistake, i’d appreciate feedback, as long as you give it kindly and constructively. that’s about it. i sincerely, truly hope you enjoy this one. all the love <3

link. ao3 (you can only read it here. apparently this fic is too long for tumblr rip)

˖⁺‧₊ as always, reblogs, replies, and tags are appreciated <3 feel free to drop an ask, too—i'd love to chat with you. have a nice day!

tagging. @bunnysaursushii @yawnzzzzzzzz @cholios @kashee-h @iluv-ace @lotuslovers @elarakive @touyas-moon @napbatata @k0z3me @h0ngh0ngh0ng @honeyoru @yoongiwithglasses @hellokitty-doll @lilsebnem @tetsuukuroo @crangrapel0ver @syrhra @qyuin @lotusstarr @akiii143 @eternallyshifting

[gallusrostromegalus]

Are there any people Nemu gets along particularly well with in the Gotei 13?

Is there anyone she avoids? Anyone she wants to get to know better?

Alternatively, would Yamamoto ever consider making a fourteenth division?

Nemu's primary hobbies are Aiding and Abetting so she is GREAT friends with everyone else in the Shinigami Women's Association. Girl loves her some shenanigans, even chicanery, but the SWA is providing her with outright machinations and the lab-grown henchwoman is THRIVING.

The most important things about Nemu in AEIWAM are:

1. She knows perfectly well that she is a lab-grown person, she's her father's seventh attempt, and she regularly looks after her likely successor Hachigo in her tank in the basement of the 12th. This doesn't bother her- if anything, Nemu is a bit smug about all the care and attention her father put into creating her, whereas many of her colleagues are the result of insufficiently durable prophylactics.

1.1: She is sometimes a little sad that Hachigo will not be raised to consciousness until after Nemu has been destroyed, as she would like the opportunity to talk with her "little sister" and make sure she understands all the prerogatives they share, because there are a sight more than Mayuri knows about, and also to play house a bit.

1.2: Nemu really likes playing house in which she has her collection of dolls perform arbitrarily assigned familial roles, but if you ask her why, she gets very agitated and tries to move on from the topic.

2. Nemu takes after Mayuri in quite a few ways that are not immediately obvious because she's not as vocal as he is, but she has the same mile-wide streak of pride and the ruthlessness of someone who can see the bright, shining line between her means and goals, and the willingness to disregard all else in pursuit of those goals.

Nemu has been in a personal quest to push the scientific boundaries of sanitation and disease eradication, quietly running her own experiments on the other side of the lab from her father and the occasional unsuspecting 12th division member. Her secrecy from Mayuri is not a matter of safety- being disassembled by him is a mere nuisance to her- but a matter of pride: for all his other accomplishments, Mayuri has never successfully eradicated a disease, so she wants to have eradicated at least one major pestilence before she presents her results to flex on him.

The only real difference between Mayuri and his daughter is that she can hold up her end of a conversation without immediately resorting to threats of violence to get her way, or falling for obvious jabs at her pride. You can neg Mayuri into doing something, but not Nemu.

...her problem is that she's extremely susceptible to flattery and the casual expectations of others. It took Matsumoto all of ten minutes to work out that she could get Nemu to do nearly anything if she started the request with "I'm sorry to bother you with this but frankly you're probably the only person in soul society who could handle it-!".

Nemu would rather die than fall short of the image others have of her in their minds, and it is a testament to Matsumoto's loyalty as a friend that absolutely nobody else knows this.

3. What social graces Nemu does possess, she has largely due to her fellow SWA members, but ESPECIALLY Unohana. Lady Unohana did not come by her social graces naturally, but instead by centuries of patience and analytical observation, and can now explain a great many social interactions from a unique outside perspective, often to the horror of her friends.

Nemu, who was not allowed to interact with people outside of the 12th until she hit puberty/mayuri's previous lieutenant escaped and he had to promote SOMEONE, Found these lectures to be invaluable, and took notes. This greatly pleased Unohana, who has the maternal instincts of a cuckoo but is a remarkably good teacher, and soon the two of them had formed an odd friendship people would lack the ability to describe until 2001 when Tatsuki Aikawa introduced soul society to the phenomenon of Autism.

3.1: At least some of Nemu's fascination with disease control comes from Unohana- the older woman was once verbally recounting a problem with hantaviruses at an SWA meeting more as a form of rubber ducking than anything else. Nemu realized and pointed out that the likely vector was probably not the fourth's lab rats somehow contracting the diseases through contaminated grain, but improperly sanitized interactions between the research medics in charge of the lab rats and the sanitation medics that were exposed to the sewer rats.

"...I think you're right." Unohana realized, then turned to Nemu, smiled and patted her head. "Good girl!'

Nemu has been chasing that high ever since.

4. Nemu is rather leery of Ukitake, actually.

The captain of the 13th has absolutely no problems with checking the behavior of the other Captain's, with force of necessary. He gets away with this kind of dominance play because he never does it unless he's damn sure he's right to do so, and if push comes to shove, he'll be backed up by the other captains.

Mayuri, chronic ethics guidelines violator, has been on Ukitake's bad side more than once. It's less that Nemu feels persecuted by proxy, and more that...

Well frankly, Ukitake is scary when he's angry. The man is a very heavy hitter among the captains and if he's genuinely mad he will not hold back. Mayuri is more death-resistant than most, and has gotten into more than his fair share of battles with his colleagues, but Ukitake tops the leaderboard in terms of number of altercations and closest anyone has gotten to actually killing her father.

...which makes the fact that Ukitake is so kind and friendly to Nemu all the more upsetting for her. The fact Ukitake can compartmentalize like that is what she finds most frightening about him. He WOULD kill her father and offer to take her out for ice cream afterwards.

So she keeps her distance from him. She knows it's irrational- she's heard more than enough horror stories about the Bad Old Days from Unohana to know that all the really successful captains are capable of this kind of extremely selective violence.

It's the fact that Ukitake is so goddamn NICE all the time that really illustrates the terrifying gulf between human nature and Nemu's understanding thereof.

---

Yamamoto was forbidden from expanding the Gotei-13 from its dimensions of 13 divisions, with no more than 200 members each by governmental fiat- the Central 46 kept the Gotei-13 obedient by keeping them overworked.

Yamamoto is perfectly aware that the Gotei-13 is being forced to do too much work for too few people, but is less of the opinion that he needs a fourteenth division so much as about half the division responsibilities should be someone else's job. Combat medics should not also be doing civil sanitation. Research and Development is key, but a waste of shinigami when there are so many other perfectly qualified nerds out there. After the events of TBTP, the 13th division was forced to take over the work of the Kido Corps, which pissed Yamamoto off because he had damn near foisted the burden of research from the 13th onto the Corps, and now they had to take on the whole thing!

So, no. Yamamoto does not want a 14th division. He'd like the 13 he currently has to be free to do their fucking jobs.

[anemoia-org]

Sys game #3 answers

🦴 I'm sort of dating one of our members, I won't say her name here because I don't know if she's comfortable having her information on our public Tumblr. She hasn't been around much anymore because she went through something awful, we've had a lot of severance from her lately. We're the only couple I know of.

I miss her.

💀 Not really, we don't have many fictives. We've had several introjects of an OC that was based of the character Nagisa Shiota from Assassination classroom and a lot of severance from those members. I'm one of them.

We just develop past our source because we're people.

🪦 A lot of us have real weird kinks and fetishes that I won't go into here. Breach of privacy. I'm weird myself.

⚰️ Yes. At least one many of us know of. His name is Sunny.

🕷️ Depends what you mean. Some of us are for example obviously autistic like Alex who presents like a savant. Most of us are apparently very distinct as “alters” according to our close friends. Can't exactly measure who's the most distinct from everyone else, there are at least 50 seperate people in here.

🕸️ We either choose our names, help each other with our names or have intuitive names from somewhere.

☠️ Many. I'm one of them. I won't go into all of my individual body modifications though bodily we have 5 piercings, one tattoo and blue and purple hair.

🔪 Not very. Not everyone wants to or remembers to. We have very bad amnesia.

🧿 LMFAO this is so mean. Merrow complained about being thrust into our last rep's life but that's totally fair.

🎃 Eh no not specifically? We don't categorize ourselves based on introjection, we're all still people not fictional characters. We don't treat anyone differently based on introjection.

They do get to keep their source names though. Most of the time.

👻 Our last rep was scrolling on Tiktok and came across a video on structural dissociation. I'm cutting a lot of information out from that story for privacy. It basically just kickstarted our research, we got a specialized therapist and then got diagnosed.

🩸No introjection isn't a big deal for most of us. The very few who care and who we know of don't hate their sources.

🦇 No not really. We're a large system and very distinct so there's nothing we all share in common other than our body and our life. I really like the song "A Sardine Grows From the Soil" though, it reminds me of my favourite game (which is part of my source). And Fences.

🐈‍⬛ Yeah. At least many used to. I don't know if they still do. I'm a German Shepherd therian but it's not a big deal for me. Many of us aren't human but that's who we actually are, not therianthropy.

🔮 There's no system (hah) we have for it. The handlers take care of everything as best they can and if they need help they ask for it. Then someone else might start take control for them.

🧟‍♀️ Those of us who know us externally say I am. I'm a dragon and I'm very confident, I generally assert myself a lot but I'm never mean!

Internally other members say they admire me. We're most intimidated by a member named Dog. She's a vigilante and very protective. And defensive.

🕯️Our cubs aren't present often though when they are some use baby talk. Or just younger kid talk. They are children after all. They do that verbally though online I can't remember the last time any of them were. So I don't know if they do so digitally.

⛓️ Don't have one right now. If I think of one I'll put it here later. We don't keep of track of what we say. Maybe me telling my girlfriend “You're an alcoholic.”

⬛️ I don't know what's considered a non traditional role. Our roles aren't generally hyperspecific, we have a lot of agency and do many things. Our roles are just contexts for some of our behavior, experiences and instincts. We have some sexual roles specific to our experiences I won't go into.

🪳Those of us who draw tend to draw ourselves though we usually don't finish those drawings because whoever switches out. A lot of the time we find images that we feel represent us as profile pictures. I'm considering using picrews though and editing them because jeez we don't have many good pictures specific to what we look like.

Basically our get to know us!

If some of the language I used was confusing, check here!

System Ask Game #3

🦴 - Is anyone in your system dating? If so, who is the strangest pair?

💀 - Is there a particular source you have a lot of fictives from?

🪦 - Who has the strangest habits?

⚰️ - Do you have any nonverbal headmates?

🕷 - Who is the worst at masking?

🕸 - How did your headmates get their names?

☠️ - Do you have any headmates with colored hair,piercings, or tattoos?

🔪 - How consistent are you with logging switches?

🧿 - Is there anyone who spends most of their time in front complaining?

🎃 - Is there anything specific you do to help introjects feel more comfortable?

👻 - How did you discover your plurality/systemhood?

🩸 - Is there anyone who absolutely hates their source?

🦇 - Are there any songs that you associate with systemhood/plurality or your system as a whole?

🐈‍⬛- Is there anyone who identifies as otherkin/therian?

🔮 - How does your system determine who handles certain tasks/responsibilities?

🧟‍♂️ - Who is the most outwardly intimating? Are they viewed the same way within the system?

🕯- Do your system's littles use "Baby Talk"?

⛓️ - Funniest quote out of context

⬛ - Is there anyone who has a unique/ non-traditional role?

🪳 - How do you visualize your headmates? (Drawing them,picrew,etc)

[halfpsychic]

After Hours (John Carter x gn!reader)

Summary: After a rough shift, Carter takes you out for something to eat. Thank you to anon for requesting :) Set in the same universe as Saint John.

Warnings: mentions of child death, coping with losing patients, mutual pining, some emotional comfort.

WC: 2.3k

Carter, exhausted from working a double shift, still waits by your locker while you finish paperwork for your last patient of the night. He bites back a yawn, glancing down at his watch. It’s late. He thinks about grabbing you by your shoulders and dragging you away from the admit desk so you’ll finally go home. All afternoon he watched how your shoulders drooped and your smiles faded too quick for his liking. You had lost a patient this morning– a family destroyed by a car accident that was no one’s fault. That was always the worst; trying to understand how something so awful can happen with no one to blame. 

The car behind had mechanical issues with their brakes and rammed the family’s van into a busy intersection. A mother with her child in the back seat. Mom was upstairs in a coma and the kid died on the trauma table thirty minutes after being brought in. It’s unclear if mom will wake up and you almost don’t want her to. She shouldn’t have to suffer through the loss of her child. There was no comfort to be found in the sunshine yellow walls of the room. 

You had brushed off all of Carter’s attempts to cheer you up. Talking about his own patients didn’t distract you, it only made things worse, wondering why a convenience store robber with a knife could survive being shot in the chest but that poor child had her life cut short before she could experience living. You didn’t eat anything for lunch in the cafeteria even though Carter offered to pay for it. You couldn’t stomach anything yet. 

For the rest of the evening, you were uncharacteristically quiet. Carter can’t stand to see you like that. You don’t deserve it, not in the slightest. It’s not your fault you feel things too deeply some days. Today just happened to be one of those days, and paired with senseless loss, Carter wanted to shoulder some of that sadness for you. With you, if you’d let him.

His head snaps up when the door swings open and thankfully you walk through. A half an hour after your shift originally ended and you’re finally ready to go home. Carter’s presence by your locker is a surprise. You thought he already left. 

“Carter,” you address his presence. “You’re not at home yet?”

“No, I was waiting for you,” he answers, moving out of the way so you can open your locker. No matter how many times he sees it, his heart always skips a beat when he sees the polaroid of you together taped to the inside of your locker door. 

“You should’ve gone home,” you say quietly. Always putting his comfort before your own.

“But then I couldn’t take you for something to eat.”

Your head tilts up to look at Carter and you sigh. “Carter… I just want to go home.”

“You didn’t eat lunch,” he shakes his head. “We don’t have to stay long. I- I don’t think you should just go home alone right now.”

Deep down, you know he’s right. It wouldn’t do you any good to go home to an empty apartment, left alone with your spiralling thoughts.

“You’re annoying, you know that?” You mumble, but there’s no malice in your voice. It's as soft as ever. You pull your jacket on and grab your bag. Carter smiles and nudges your shoulder with his own, following you out the door.

It’s warm outside for spring. You crack the passenger seat window of Carter’s Jeep open, letting in the sweet evening air. It’s hard not to let your mind wander back to this morning in the shared silence. Watching the buildings pass you by, you get lost in thought. The job, the patients you lose, the opportunities you miss because of how demanding work is, you wonder if this is where you’re supposed to be. Too many doctors fall victim to apathy the longer they stick with the job. You’ve had people tell you that it’s easier to be detached, otherwise it will consume you. But what’s the point, then? How can you vow to heal people while not caring about what happens to them? Even Carter has gotten better at ignoring the reality of the job. It’s why his presence by your locker after his double shift was startling. Why would he want to stick around with you while you mope?

Carter had found this diner a few months ago when he walked from his apartment to yours. His Jeep was in the shop and the train only took him so far. There it was, a neon sign cutting through the fog. He paused for a moment to look at the menu taped to the front window and he made a mental note to check it out sometime. Now, he pulls up next to the sidewalk and puts his Jeep into park.

Inside, the diner is empty. It’s a relief to you, to be able to enjoy Carter’s presence without the extra noise of other patrons. Carter picks a booth by the window. 

“You on tomorrow?” He asks, shrugging off his coat. 

“Yeah,” you answer. You dread it already. Dead on your feet at the end of this shift and you have to be back in the morning. “You?”

Carter shakes his head. “No, I’m off. Was hoping you’d be, too, after today.”

“Not everyone’s so lucky,” you flash a weak smile.

A waitress stops by the table to take your order. Carter orders coffee while you order something small, your appetite not fully returning yet. 

Carter studies you under the dim lights. He watches your eyes trail to the window, the way they’re glazed over from being deep in thought. He knows what you’re thinking about. That mom who will never see her kid again, even if she does wake up. How fast families can be torn apart and lives can be thrown upside down. How fast it could happen to either one of you.

“Remember that time a patient came back to give you a cake?” Carter’s voice snaps you out of your somber daze. He’s always been good at that, pulling you out from your catastrophic thinking. “She wouldn’t leave until I dragged you out from the trauma room. Y’know, I’ve never gotten a cake as a ‘thank you’ gift.”

The memory brings a smile to your lips for a moment. It was early in your time at County General, barely a month into working at a hospital, and you were blessed with something rare. Gratitude. Most doctors are lucky to get a ‘thank you for saving my life’ from a patient, resulting in apathy among countless experienced doctors, who find it increasingly difficult to treat patients as if they’re living, breathing people instead of a chunk of flesh with symptoms to heal. It’s easy to forget why you’re still waking up before the sun and enduring long hours with few breaks, if you get any. Today was no different. Tragedy strikes and you wonder why you’re still going to come back the next day instead of quitting for a job that doesn’t have death as a daily occurance. 

“You ate half of that cake,” you tease, the tragedy-stained thoughts slipping from your mind.

“Hey, we both saved that woman,” Carter smiles.

“You barely helped,” you roll your eyes at him. “If we were eating cake based on how much work we did, you’d be stuck with just one slice.”

The waitress comes back and drops off your plates. 

“Do you ever think about quitting?” You ask Carter. The question takes him by surprise, his head tilting up with furrowed eyebrows.

“Sometimes,” he answers truthfully. His voice is quiet, cautious of the subject. “Do you?”

“Today I am.”

“It’s not an easy job.”

“I don’t know if I was meant for it. All this death.”

Carter sighs. “We’re in it together, right?”

You nod. Carter’s constant presence in your life has saved you every time a shift turns sour. He grounds you in a way no one else can. “Most days, you’re the only thing that makes coming into work bearable.”

Carter smiles and lowers his head for a second. He’s always caught off guard when you say something so kind and raw. “If you quit, you’d barely see me.” After a beat, he adds quietly, “And I’d really miss you.”

You pick at the food on your plate. His words do little to change your opinion about the job but they remind you that you’re not alone. It’s easy to let work take over your life. There’s no separation from the stress once you walk out of the hospital doors after a shift, and it’s rare that you can manage to think about anything else. Carter, still here after all these years, is the lighthouse in your storms. A promise of safety after sailing through rough waters. He’d never let you drown. 

“I’d really miss you, too,” you respond quietly, your eyes flickering up to meet his. You don’t often let the conversation turn so sentimental with Carter. There’s reminiscing on the days of college together, but expressing true feelings about the other isn’t a common topic of conversation. So much is danced around in fear of coming off too strong. You’ve spent years glued to Carter’s side and you still can’t shake the embarrassment of sincerity.

“Not every day is like this,” Carter reminds you. You know he’s right. Yesterday wasn’t like this, and tomorrow won’t be, either, even if you still have to carry the weight of it.

Your chest heaves with a tired sigh. “Yeah. I think I just need to go to sleep.”

He nods, understanding how you feel. A good night's sleep always helps.

Carter takes the bill when the waitress comes back and opens his wallet to leave cash on the table. You open your mouth to protest, hand reaching for your own wallet in your pocket, but Carter shakes his head. “No, don’t even try,” he smiles at you. 

Outside, wind tunnels through the buildings and cuts through your jacket. A shiver runs up your spine, body trembling in the unexpected (it’s Chicago, you should’ve expected it) cold. “I can walk, it’s not too far from here,” you suggest, trying to still your shaking body.

“Not a chance,” Carter tells you. “Get in.”

He holds open the passenger door for you and you sink into the seat, the Jeep’s stale air no warmer than outside. Carter starts the vehicle and your eyes flutter closed when the warm air blows out from the vents.

“Thank you,” you murmur, “for everything. You really didn’t have to.”

He pulls away from the sidewalk. “You don’t have to thank me for being your friend.”

His sentiment is bittersweet. If the roles were reversed, you taking Carter out after a rough shift in an attempt to cheer him up, you wouldn’t accept his thanks, either. It goes without saying that you take care of each other. A habit forged in promises during college. But even on nights where it was just the two of you, it hurts to know it won’t go any further than friends. He won’t kiss you goodbye or say I love you before he hangs up the phone like you’ve dreamt of for so long. Tonight, he won’t walk you up to your door and lean in for a kiss because he can’t leave you without a reminder of how you taste. 

“I still think you should hear it anyway.”

You can’t quite make it out under the passing street lamps but Carter’s cheeks turn pink. The rest of the short drive to your apartment is quiet. Carter’s gesture worked. Instead of ruminating on patients, your mind focuses on Carter. On moments that almost were and moments that will never be. It’s just as heartbreaking but it’s better to imagine what might be than focus on tragedy that did happen. There’s still hope, even if just a sliver. 

Carter parks outside of your building. It’s late and your body is heavy with exhaustion but you don’t want to leave him just yet. There’s comfort in silence with someone who understands. He knows what it’s like to lose yourself in a patient. 

“Promise you’ll try to sleep?” Carter asks, turning his head to look at you. He’s serious. 

“Promise,” you answer, and you mean it. It’s not a lie to appease his worries.

Before you can reach for the door handle, Carter speaks again. “You can call me if you can’t. If you want.”

That offer has always been there between you. Most nights it goes unsaid. He’ll always answer the phone if you call, it doesn’t matter how late it is or if he has work in the morning, and you’d do the same for him. It’s one of those nights where you can already tell your hand will hover over your phone in a few hours, never daring to dial his number. Sometimes, talking to Carter in the middle of the night is a worse thought than whatever was plaguing you in the first place. Sometimes, it’s easier to just deal with it instead of hanging up the phone and wishing he was next to you in bed instead of across the city. 

All you can manage is a quaint smile, but it conveys what you feel. Gratitude. For always offering a helping hand, a shoulder to cry on, for being a light at the end of every dark tunnel, for cheering you on and cheering you up, for never leaving. 

Carter waits until you disappear into your building to drive away. On the drive back to his apartment, he wonders if tonight will be the night you pick up the phone to call him.

A/N: i’m a sucker for friends to lovers slow burn so my apologies for how many pining carter x reader fics i will probably write. i swear they will get together one day. just not in the next one.

[ghosthoard]

LU theory: Twilight is still dead

🌀 and it's all a dream 🌀

xD i wouldn't do that to you guys

but okay this is my wacky theory that i don't really believe in but it's fun anyway

cause obviously the common thought would be that the shadow has some control over twilight now that he has black blood in his system. the comic itself directly addresses that theory cause based on the links experience it would be silly if they don't consider that

Dawn pt 5

but i'm doing a fun little twist on the whole "twilight is being or going to be controlled by the shadow"

here's what i'm puttin down

this is what happens right:

twilight gets a wound that wouldn't have been deadly if they could heal it

(shifting shadows pt 7)

(sunset pt 3)

wild and the others inspires the fighting spirit into Twilight (sunset part 13)

sunset part 14, we end with twilight essentially having his life flash before his eyes but in a inspirational, i'm gonna live kinda way

and then it cuts to night when we see the shadow ressurrect

night

and of course the panel where Twilight is emerging from shadow now that he's miraculously, quickly, and suspiciously better the morning after (Dawn pt 1)

isn't it convenient that when the shadow resurrects, twilight also “resurrects” 🤔🤔🤔

here's what i think:

twilight and the shadow are (ironically) soul linked

the wound twilight got from that strange bad vibes emitting weapon did something to tie him and the shadow together

so when the shadow came back to life, that meant twilight had more strength

i think if they attack the shadow again, and "win" again, twilight isnt going to take that well

then the shadow will resurrect itself once more, bringing Twilight back to health, and oh boy would the dots connect

so essentially, twilight is still dead, he's living on borrowed time.

and we all know that Twilight becomes ol grandpa wolfie somehow in the future, and from i understand he's a spirit similar to the 3 champions who helps champion in his adventure

wouldn't it be fun if when they defeat the shadow that means that Twilight will stay dead. >:)

and like many others have pointed out these two ominous scenes from the more recent updates:

central room pt 4

Twilight moving into shadow with an ominous red light

South East Basement 1

twilight standing over what could easily be mistaken as sky

both instances more easily points to the whole "being controlled by the shadow", than my silly little theory but wanted to include them because they're related.

there are a lot of holes in this theory but it popped into my head and thought it would be fun to share.

Thanks for readin

[k3itar0-with-a-three]

Tetro pink is coming to an end. Tetro itself isn't over, but this season is. And I'd like to share my thoughts

This was by far the best fangan/Danganronpa-inspired series I've seen. The characters are beautifully flawed, the story is very good, the voice acting is INCREDIBLE, and the fact that this was mostly made by one person cannot inspire me more.

This community has introduced me to wonderful people, and people I can now call some of my best friends. I've been having a very very hard time in terms of my mental health for a while now, and seeing just how many people care about me now, just how much praise I've gotten for my silly projects related to tetro and the support from this lovely community has given me a push to keep living.

My dream was to be an entertainer for the longest time. And now because of the tetro community, I am so close to 1k. This project has inspired me in ways I can't describe, and I look forward to seeing how Blue and White play out. This has been nothing short of an incredible experience, and thank you to the tetro community for being so welcoming.

And of course, bravo, Von. You've made an incredible project, and you've inspired countless people including myself. I hope you're proud of yourself because you really should be. You and everyone who has worked on this series have my utmost admiration.

Thank you all for bringing a new wonderful hyperfixation into my life, and I look forward to what the future entails 🩷💚

Keep impressing me, Tetro community :)

- K3itar0

[theladybrownstarot]

VAMPTAROT SCAM

Well , I would first thank @vamptarotscam to bring this matter in the light of other audience here , making them aware about the money scam that has been acted upon by @vamptarot through guilttraps . I remember the reader as someone I found genuine through the reading . I was skeptical about saying anything on this after I saw her suicide post but as reader who has voiced a few times for others I didn't feel this as a right thing to not share my views or voice for it ..

I'm sorry for those who invested their money to get a reading from them but never got them back , I pray that they get the justice they deserve .

Personally, I have few people I already know are scammers as readers but I didn't exposed them just because few people told me that there's no point since this is gonna happen many times well hilariously or sadly whatever , the scammer themselves said this , "what will you do ? It's gonna happen anyways so better be shut than seeking attention" and I fell for it but I won't now at all after introspecting again deeply.

To @vamptarot : I have no intention to be rude to you , comment you down or Say anything because I don't know what's going with you personally but at same I cannot ignore what people are going through . It's matter of fact that my saying won't change anything till the person changes themselves so please change yourself and work for it . If you are so supporting yourself with reasons than why not actually show us the evidence than arguing back ? But at Same time it won't change the money scam that you did intentionally or unintentionally depending personally on you.

I'm keeping my perception balanced here , mediocrity but more towards in support of those who you have scammed up . You have broken the trust of many people here so you have bit of conscience left than please act upon it than saying anything..

To @vamptarotscam : I have seen your posts but I stumbled upon one of them where you mentioned that those who were just silent and watched are just after money. Personally this is quite biased and wrong . We have our own share of experiences and opinions that we keep to ourselves or interact only within the blog ..we have priorities no doubt but we have also our personal reasons that we do not reveal because people finger out saying, "you are seeking attention" at same time humble and genuine readers like me open our arms to those who suffered or are seeking help . If someone is not comfortable than they are not and if someone is than they are - it depends personally on them and we cannot force them because it won't make anything different , it's comes from inside .You have your views and we have ours so solely based on your side you cannot judge us on that we are potentional scammers or only after money.

Many of us don't directly interact on posts but go there talking it out personally. Some of us just reblog / like and some of us actually make post or comment down or vis-a-vis. Everyone has their own way to be accountable exception to other cases which varies personally to everyone.

So, please I respect your role in exposing and voicing up but I do not support this belief fully on the whole point .

Simply here I'm not supporting any particular person , I'm supporting to those who have suffered or are suffering from any side in general or personally.

[boinkyyy]

Clan Ventrue and China--my thoughts

Not really a big or super elegant writeup bc my brain hasn't been super functional lately but while I recognize that clan Ventrue is primarily based around ancient Rome, I think there's actually a lot of untapped potential with Ventrue and China.

I will preface this (and hopefully catch your interest) by saying:

There is an old proverb in Chinese that goes "死要面子活受罪，就是为了不丢脸，硬撑的"-- "It is better to die with dignity than to suffer in life."

Chinese (and I'm sure many other Asian cultures, shoutout to all of us) culture places an enormous sense of importance on the concept of dignity and honor. You may find that this is strikingly similar to the Ventrue concept of Dignitas. As the saying goes, better to die than to "丢脸"--lose face. There is a kind of unspoken agreement to suffer in silence. Struggle and hardship and one's ability to endure it stoically are perhaps one of the highest virtues one can have, especially because growing up in China means enduring an immensely competitive environment. Through hard work, you better yourself and hopefully achieve highly enough to improve your class. economic power translates to social capital. Outside of China, at least from my experience, you'll be hard-pressed to find Chinese people openly begging in any context, especially for money. There's nothing so shameful as begging for the fruits of other people's hard labor, which you haven't earned. Especially since everybody is collectively suffering and again, the environment is so competitive. If you want anything in life, you can't wait for someone to save you. Any opportunity, you should take it (抢--"to snatch forcefully, rob").

Thus, there is the obvious caveat that there is a universal expectation or dream to be incredibly high-achieving, or as accomplished as humanly possible. If you think Ventrue Sires exercising the Right of Destruction/Accounting on their Childer for embarrassing them is extreme--don't.

There's also the fact that Clan Ventrue places importance on age. Age is a virtue of its own which can be synonymous to wisdom, demanding a certain level of veneration. Clan Ventrue prides itself as being the "eldest brother" out of all of the clans and claims that [Ventrue] is the eldest of the Antediluvians. The eldest son in a family is said to be the 'father' of the other children (长兄如父), taking on a position of leadership and therefore the most burdens/expectations due to a combination of age veneration and traditional patriarchal values. This is very much like how Ventrue have a shared mindset that leadership is the proverbial cross that they must bear, for they are the oldest, the wisest, the most high-achieving and the most qualified. This ties in well with the concept of tradition and filial piety (孝顺).

Clan Ventrue has a strong, unifying clan culture in which every Ventrue (well, so long as you fall in line) is inherently seen as more valuable than every outsider, much like a family (although not quite as literally as the Giovanni). Tradition is obviously a big mainstay of Ventrue culture but Ventrue also demand their youngest to defer to their elders in every way imaginable, never challenging them and always heeding their wisdom. Childer must subsequently honor their Sires and pay respect to the lineage that 'birthed' them, engaging in elaborate rituals of recitation and commemoration of their notable deeds ("honor your ancestors"). One can say that in a way, coming from a good bloodline is like coming from a good 'family', and there's a lot of shame attached to associating with people who come from a 'bad family', like their lack of honor would in a way taint yours by association (see: marriage).

Sometimes in Chinese you may also find someone cursing out someone's entire family by telling all 18 generations of their bloodline (9 generations forward, 9 generations backwards) to go fuck themselves, although this is considered an inelegant and frankly mid insult. Ancient china really had some absolutely insane work when it came to constructing elegant, almost poetic verbal barbs, or wielding/maximizing command over language in general, and we all know that Ventrue hold a disdain for ineloquent speech, sometimes at the expense of sounding overly verbose, posh or antiquated.

Ancient Chinese courts and even the conception of the afterlife were bureaucratic, emphasizing the importance of hierarchy--which Ventrue are also notorious for, much to the annoyance and chagrin of virtually every other clan. A Ventrue Agoge can likewise be synonymous to Chinese cultures' emphasis on education and the importance of properly equipping your child to handle the rigors of the world.

Finally, or at least this is only the last thing I can think of after having been typing this for like a solid hour now, is that noblesse oblige and etiquette plays another role. You're expected to carry yourself in a dignified manner, and that means treating others with the appropriate amount of respect (尊敬人) and paying heed to sophistication. 'Class', if you will.

So with all of that in mind, I suppose the takeaway here is that I think Chinese culture and Ventrue clan culture have a lot of interesting parallels and I hope that this gave you some food for thought.

Edited addendum: Kind of funny that the Chinese afterlife involves spending a lot of money now that Ventrue in the modern day have notoriously adopted the mantle of boardroom capitalists. Can't escape the grind even when you're dead

[alas-aralas]

Sharing the opening of a lil Aralas WIP set pre-war of the ring because I can’t stop thinking about them…

“That is a wretched creature downstairs,” said Legolas from the doorway. “I almost pity it, though not more than I pity you for having to endure his wailing.”

Aragorn smiled. “I do not require your pity, old friend.”

“No? How about my hospitality? I am Prince of this realm, Estel.” He hopped into the room, and they were suddenly young again. Legolas had not changed, except grown deeper into his beauty, but in the glimmer of his eye there was, as ever, the invitation to play that Aragorn had never once resisted.

“I suppose I could stay for a night.”

The Prince was before him, glittering with mirth. How many years had passed since they’d seen each other? He was almost grateful to Gollum for giving him a reason to return to Mirkwood.

“Two nights.”

Aragorn laughed openly. Amidst the terror of what was to come, Sauron’s ever-growing potency, and the entire fate of Middle Earth, here was his playmate bargaining so freely with his time, for joy, not agency. Legolas had never required anything but the simple presence of Aragorn’s company. And he did feel simple around Legolas, stripped of titles and destiny, like they used to undress before the pools in Imladris and bathe in the moonlit water.

“I shall have to ask Gandalf.”

Legolas sighed. “Must you always be so noble.”

“Must you always be so adorable.”

The Elf’s eyes widened, though the room around them shrunk. Aragorn felt a heat rising up his neck to his face, and knew that Legolas was perceiving his embarrassment, his stumble. He could retract the compliment. Only he did not want to.

It was nearing the Fourth Age by the time Legolas spoke again. “No one has ever called me ‘adorable’ before. It seems a term of endearment among Men.”

“Yes, I…I suppose it is. In Elvish we might say—”

“I do not require an Elvish translation, Estel. The answer to your question—if it was indeed a question—is: yes. I must always be so adorable. The left corner of his mouth flicked up with a smirk. “I am afraid I have no control over my being so.”

Feedback is very much encouraged! I’m totally new to the LOTR fandom, after finishing the book earlier this week (a life-changing experience), and this WIP has been highly influenced by @aramblingjay ‘s breathtaking Aralas fic ‘By The Weave of Your Hands.’ I’m hoping to share my own Aralas writing on ao3 soon :]

[foreverabby]

Abby Anderson from a comphet perspective:

Hey guys. First off, I want to say that this isn’t my headcanon of her necessarily, but that the possibility has absolutely crossed my mind. I wrote a cute piece about it on my previous account that you guys enjoyed, and I wish I still had it to link here.

I could argue for it either way, if I'm honest. But let’s explore it, yeah?

I guess if we’re deep diving this, it’s important to have some idea of what compulsory heterosexuality really is. Which, of course, I can’t possibly summarize in one paragraph.

Every queer person has their own story and experience. But in essence, it’s a combination of society and circumstance convincing you of what you’re supposed to want. And it’s not always a conscious lie. Think of it as spending your whole life mistaking admiration and safety or even fear for attraction. As someone who lived it myself, I’d describe it as a deep, gnawing sense of something broken, like a hollowness left by relationships that just felt kinda wrong.

The next point I want to make, is that people often argue that Abby wasn’t capable of letting herself reach for happiness after grief overtook everything in her life. While this is totally possible, as someone who lives with PTSD myself, it’s not the only outcome of trauma.

In fact, often times, it can be the opposite. Grief doesn’t always shut people down. Many trauma survivors actually seek out sex and intimacy as a means of coping (hi, Manny, I see you, good sir) and it’s entirely possible the loss she endured could’ve intensified her need for affection.

But if what is being offered does not feel right, it gets complicated.

Grief definitely made her rigid, but I don’t want to ignore the flickers of queerness that shine through in some of her scenes.

Again, this is my personal interpretation, not fact.

But it’s interesting to me that after five years of life threatening raids, violent patrols, confined quarters and messy high adrenaline camaraderie, she’d never engage in any form of attachment outside her adolescent relationship with Owen. No casual lovers, no drunken kisses, no flings. Maybe there were, and we just didn’t hear about it. But it’s heavily implied otherwise.

It’s intriguing to me also, that her roommate is arguably one of the most sexually active people in the apocalypse, and her reaction to it is rather indifferent. Proximity and trauma bonding often lead to blurred lines. Manny is flirty, shamelessly horny, and chasing tail at every outpost (we love a romantic King) and Abby lives with him. This man is throwing sexual energy into the air like confetti.

Comphet can sometimes include trying to feel something with people who are safe and trusted, but Manny is loud and flamboyant at times. A relationship with him wouldn’t fly under the radar. She’s private and hyper disciplined. Also, they’re so platonic it’s unbelievably sweet. But why?

She trusts him more than anyone else. He supports her and sees her in ways she doesn't find elsewhere.

Food for thought.

Isaac, being the militant ex-marine he is, placing them together in shared living quarters always had me curious.

I wonder if it would've been different, if she had a queer, female roommate.

Also, to say it’s because she was in love with Owen, feels a little disingenuous. Sure, that may have been the case, but again, when has that ever really prevented humans from seeking companionship in times of immense stress? Especially at her age. She's beautiful, warm and funny, and the WLF is full of strong, attractive people. She’s one of the toughest, most respected and capable soldiers. Nobody made a move on her? I doubt it.

But did women feel comfortable reaching out? I genuinely wonder. Would she have even entertained the idea in the absence of safe queer attachment? Or would she have defaulted to the only thing commonly modelled to her? Conversations surrounding queerness would’ve been so much different for them than it is for us.

Something to consider.

Anyway. If you’d like me to go deeper with this, I’m absolutely down to do it. It’s a fascinating topic for me and I really cut out so much from this one, just to keep it from being too exhaustive.  

No matter what, this girl deserves boundless, gratuitous amounts of love. I adore the thought of her with a woman because she's such a softie and it just fits her so well. 💚🩷💚

[nabi-unveiled]

The Meaning of Water

Trigger Warning: While it ends in a positive place, this post delves into the symbolism of water specifically as it relates to SA.

I started my Saturday reading a post by @watchthisqqq about the difficulties of perception and how it can vary between people. After all, it can be hard to understand when we see something different in a piece of media from other people.

But later on Saturday, I was reminded why I'm SO very glad that people share their different perceptions on the media we consume.

The bottom line - I now owe @poetry-protest-pornography a gift basket thanks to their post about Top Form. I don't know what a Tumblr style gift basket looks like, but I owe them a huge one.

Why?

Because although I haven't written a lot about it, Top Form is one of the airing shows I'm enjoying most. I like it a lot.

But I have been stuck in the shower scene of episode 7 for over a week...and not for reasons of the enjoyable kind.

I had been incredibly nervous going into episode 7. I think stories surrounding sexual assault are very important to tell; however, I've seen them botched way too many times in the past.

But for the most part, I was relieved.

No matter how they handle Johnny in future episodes, Top Form made it very clear that the sexual assault was NOT Akin's fault.

There's no perfect solution in a scenario as real and heart wrenching as this one, but I did feel that Jin was giving Akin the peace and resolution HE needed. I was okay.

And then we moved into the shower where my brain promptly went haywire. It couldn't decide where to focus.

I loved the fact that Jin was covering the marks on Akin with his own. It reminded me of my bestie. She's a childhood cancer survivor. As part of her treatments, they needed to tattoo spots onto her body. But as an adult, she put tattoos of HER choosing over those spots. This action felt similar to me. It felt very much like letting Akin reclaim his body with the marks HE would want.

On the other hand, I was laughing about the music lyrics. They were so on the nose, that I just couldn't help it.

And as often happens when sweaters come onto screen, I got distracted by the sweater. It was pretty. I loved the buttons. How would a sweater of that texture and weight feel sopping wet?

(Side note - I've now done that experiment. It's better than the honey. That hardened way too fast. Not the point of this post though.)

But then we got to the water, and...my brain didn't like it AT ALL. To be clear, I adore shower scenes. They're trickier in real life than they make them look on screen, but some of my favorite NC scenes are shower ones.

However, water is a symbol. A complicated one at that.

Water is a requirement for life. It's also a force of destruction. It can be peace or it can be torment. Water has SO many different symbolic meanings that vary greatly depending on the context and the culture.

And in the context of sexual assault? I didn't like the water. And I REALLY didn't like that Jin was the one that turned it on. (Edit: For clarity, this is the part that got me stuck. Jin turning the water on instead of Akin).

Because based on my upbringing? Water in this context meant purification of wrongdoing. It was associated with being impure, feelings of shame and the need to be "made clean".

Similar to this scene in Make Up With Mud...

I've seen water used as a tool for judgment and shame...in a public setting no less.

So within THIS context? The water in Top Form made my skin crawl (and not because of the wet sweater). I didn't like it. Because Akin hadn't done anything wrong. He didn't need Jin to purify him.

I knew it was because of my personal experiences. The narrative of Top Form wasn't telling that kind of story.

They had already acknowledged that it wasn't Akin's fault, and Jin was trying to heal not harm.

But I couldn't figure it out. Why was Jin using water if not for "purification"? Plus, he was in the water too. What did it mean?

Even when I searched my brain's database for other media that used water in this context, it didn't help. I only came up with things like this movie:

For those unfamiliar with it, one of the characters is a trafficking victim (my words) that ends up drowning themselves in the river.

Water is a powerful symbol in that movie, but it was reinforcing my own experiences. Not helpful for getting unstuck.

So within the context of SA, I had nothing as another meaning of water. And when my brain has wandered to this show in the past week, I've been mentally stuck in that shower with my skin crawling and trying to figure it out. I actually delayed watching episode 8 for a while because of it.

But I had ignored the other part of symbolism.

Remember when I said that the meaning of water varies greatly depending on the context and the culture?

I had got so stuck in the CONTEXT that I had forgot CULTURE. And there are a slew of cultural meanings and associations with water.

Which is where @poetry-protest-pornography's post came in. They reminded me that water can also just mean washing off the bad or the past. Not as a symbol of judgment or purification, but as a reclaiming of self and control. As a desire to move on to new things and a hope for a new beginning. And that both Akin AND Jin needed to move forward.

And that was enough to get my brain going in a different direction.

Because while this is a Japanese IP, it is also a Thai production.

And Thailand, as we've all enjoyed the pictures/videos from recently, has an entire holiday dedicated to spraying each other with water as a way of washing off the past and starting anew.

Anyone that follows news about Songkran knows that holiday has nothing to do with judgment. It's all celebration.

And if I keep that idea in mind. Then this scene becomes really beautiful. Both of them washing off the bad memories and the past so that they could start anew.

No judgment. No purification. Just a reclaiming of their own narrative, moving forward and a celebration of a fresh start.

So I really need to figure out what counts as a Tumblr gift basket, because I'm now out of the shower and into a much happier space. Well...the shower's a happier space now too.

[incorrectcats]

Nobody asked for it, but since I'm one of the many people who was affected by this situation (and I very much need to talk about it because I'm still sad), I wanted to give my five cents about the Madrid ritual getting cancelled with just 4 days' notice.

I want to first start saying that I don't blame the band for what happened, even though I felt very disappointed. Spain has gotten its share of rituals in the past, it's just that I had never been able to attend a previous one. On top of this, the Spanish concert industry is rotten quite to its very core. These last years have been absolute chaos when it comes to anything related to live music (ticket prices, venues, management, resales...). So, no, I don't trust them to fucking do their jobs and guarantee that the concerts will actually take place as planned. Furthermore, I've been to concerts in the same venue where the ritual was supposed to take place and my experience has been far from pleasant (the heat was unbearable, people in the pit was fainting and the freaking band had to ask management to give us water bottles so we wouldn't have a heatstroke).

This being said, was I heartbroken by the cancellation announcement? Fuck, yes. Did I feel some sort of resentment towards the band when I first saw the post? I'd be lying if I said no, even though it didn't cross my mind to leave some sort of heated comment (like the band's ig was Tobias' personal mailbox...... lol). So, of course I don't condone the behaviour of a part of the fandom that only blamed the band for what happened, but I do understand the anger and the frustration. Most of us are working people and we put our money and vacation days to be able to attend the concert. Again, I don't think the band is to blame and I want to believe that they really tried to find every solution possible, even adapting the show (and a show of such magnitude can't be adapted overnight, I'm sure), but I still felt somehow abandoned and, as I've said, heartbroken. And to see people both on ig and tw getting all holier-than-thou telling us basically to shut up about it... guys, we can criticise and be angry at someone or something and still be respectful and admire it. I promise.

Anyways, I needed to vent a little bit, because I've been waiting for years to attend a ritual and getting cancelled when it was within arms reach...... it hurt. But, nevertheless, I still love Ghost and I'm very excited about the new album (can't wait to yap about it). I hope everyone attending the Skeletour gets to have the time of their lives and, if there's any fellow Spanish ghestie reading this (is there any on tumblr?), be patient! I'm sure we'll get our ritual and it'll be the best fucking concert ever 🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️