#my childhood friend (basically my brother at this point) has just been getting annoyed at me really easily recently so i have to be careful Tumblr posts

[wherela]

Look I love my friends dearly and I love listening and supporting, and I will be there for them and I will be the person they can turn to, and I try so hard to be considerate, but I have nothing in me to give right now. Most of my relationships involve me just giving giving giving, and as much as I love doing that (I truly do, being someone my friends can turn to is the most wonderful thing in the world), but I have so few relationships where I receive, and it's especially hard for me right now. Maybe it's cause I'm so busy with my exams and thesis and organising a camp, but at this point I just need someone who will give me a hug and just Be There. Not try telling me what to do, or how to deal with my stress to try "help".

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for getting my childhood best friend a new friendship bracelet even though he has a girlfriend?

Basically my mom and her best friend got pregnant within a year of each other. As a result me and Dylan were raised as siblings. Our families are super close, spend holidays together, we've gone on vacations together, and Dylan and I have always called each other brother and sister.

Dylan's been dating Maya for the better part of a year. Maya is nice, but clearly has some feelings on me and Dylan being as close as we are. We've both explicitly stated there have never been romantic or sexual vibes between us, and I have made the hard choice to pull away from Dylan quite a bit to give Maya more room.

(For example I stopped our weekly hang outs, only really hang out with Dylan in a group setting, we don't hang out on FT anymore, ect.)

Maya is generally polite, but there's been tension and a few pointed remarks over the months. I know the girl best friend is pretty much a pariah in boy/girl friendships, so I've tried to just be as unobtrusive and respectful as I can.

Onto the current problem: Dylan and I have always had friendship bracelets and a few matching items. For example we have matching photos and photo frames from the holiday to Greece when we were little, we both have matching hoodies from a concert we went to, and one or two other bits. Its not a lot, but I guess it would all fill a small box if you put it together.

Dylan's friendship bracelet broke last month and couldn't be fixed. He put it away in a keepsake box but was pretty bummed about no longer being able to wear it. It took the whole month of scouring secondhand sites and ebay but last week I actually found one and was able to get it for him as a replacement. I gave it to him when our families met for dinner on Tuesday and he was super happy. He put it on immediately and hasn't taken it off.

We all met as a group to hang out today and Maya seemed a little...Vaguely annoyed toward me? When you can just tell someone's got an issue with you, even if they're not outwardly acting any different.

But she came with me when I went to the bathroom (as girls do) and as we were washing our hands she told me she was really 'surprised' I got Dylan another bracelet. I wasn't really sure if she meant in general or that I was able to find the exact same one, so I asked what she meant and she said she didn't want to be 'that girlfriend' but when the bracelet broke she was internally relieved, because she thinks its kind of inappropriate that we wear matching bracelets and have a 'claim' over each other like that.

She said she's been thinking about the future a lot more recently and she doesn't want anything 'held back' or 'obstructed' by my obsession with Dylan and the 'premade family' we have.

I'll admit I got annoyed by that, and immediately asked if she'd have an issue with me if I was a guy. She said I know that's different, and then one of the other girls from the group came in to look for us because we'd been gone so long and we kind of had to put it on a shelf for the rest of the day.

She text me a bit ago saying 'think about what I said.' Internally, I want to tell her to get a grip on herself, but I also know that I'm the girl best friend, and pretty much anything I do from here on out is critical and could make me the asshole. I also didn't want to hurt her or cause problems for Dylan, I was just trying to replace part of our friendship that's always been there.

AITA for replacing it? I can't exactly stop wearing mine (he'll ask why) or tell him to stop wearing his (again, he'll ask why) but honestly I'm also unsure of what to do now. Maya's the only one who thinks us being best friends is a problem, even our families know we've always had a sibling relationship and not one that might change to romantic.

What are these acronyms?

[compassionatereminders]

So I had a discussion with my dad a couple days ago about how some of my behaviors reflect symptoms of complex PTSD. For context, my dad has been extremely verbally abusive to me basically until COVID when my mom was home all the time and he couldn’t yell at me without her telling him to cut that shit out. He still loses his cool sometimes, either directed at me, my brother, or my mom. My mom had an incredibly traumatic (in many ways but primarily physically) childhood. She does not do this.

I hypothesized that I must have inherited these C-PTSD adjacent behaviors from my mom because I haven’t experienced trauma. I said this in part to gauge whether my dad would recognize that I have been through traumatic things — not even necessarily because of him, some of it is from being severely bullied and ostracized at school because I’m autistic. He agreed with my lie that I hadn’t ever experienced anything traumatic, and then started to complain about my mom being “overprotective” of me as a child. At some point I managed to bring up that I had gone through a lot of stuff in my childhood that’s scarred me for life, and he pretty much went “well yeah but you weren’t physically abused so you haven’t experienced trauma.” Which…no. Not how that works.

I moved on from that but my dad kept saying “this is such a productive conversation why don’t I have these kinds of conversations with you more often.” He at one point said something that made me tell him, “I’m not qualified to talk about this, you need a therapist or someone with a degree in psychology.” This made him go “nooooo why are you making this conversation go sideways why are you making this difficult we were having a PRODUCTIVE conversation why would you ruin it like this :(((( I can’t talk to you about anything”, which is not an uncommon response for him to have but just very annoying.

The worst part, though, and what I primarily wanted to tell you about, was when I confronted him about him, during a fight in January, yelling at my mom that she was just like her abuser. I’d asked my mom if she was okay with him saying that and she told me “oh he says that a lot but when he does he’s always drunk so I don’t let it get to me.” My dad justified his actions by informing me that, quote, “your mom was actually being really mean to me when I said that.” I couldn’t tell if he was joking or being serious and something about that made me so sad I started to cry. He didn’t respond well to that. Previously he’d complained about my mom “freaking out whenever I raise my voice at her,” which, yeah! She was verbally abused as a child! I told my mom about this later and she was like “well he says things like that sometimes, try not to pay attention to them.” I had talked with my mom’s best friend about incidents like this previously and she’d mentioned that my mom has a really high tolerance for emotional abuse and basically any kind of abuse that isn’t physical.

And I just think that’s so sad. I wish my dad would not be…like that. He’s a walking collection of red flags and I want better for my mom. I can’t put my feelings about this shit into words other than “it’s sad.” Because it is sad and I think my dad really has to do some self reflection but I’m not helping with that shit. He has to work through his issues by himself because I am not a licensed therapist. I’m literally a teenager. I shouldn’t have to be dealing with this stuff and it’s frustrating to be around my father most of the time. I think it’s very sad for him too because he’s fucked up his relationship with me specifically so so so bad. Your kid should feel safe around you, but I can’t feel safe around my dad. And that’s just sad.

Anyway sorry I had to tell someone about the “she was actually being really mean to me before I screamed at her and compared her to her abuser” comment because what the fuck. That’s a wild ass thing to say right? Like, there’s no justifying that. The justification made it so much worse imo.

His behavior towards you and your mom is unacceptable and unfair, and I'm sorry you've had to grow up in such an environment. That being said, attempting to have a constructive conversation about abuse and trauma with a long term abuser is rarely particularly productive, and you might get further by avoiding direct confrontations with him when that's possible than by actively trying to confront him with his abuse. At least until you can get out of there ❤️

[ghostblazewrites]

Children of the Forest Intro

BASIC

genre: fantasy, adventure,

status: finished first draft, editing

key themes: found family, exploration, fantasy, nature, mythology, magical realism, siblings, childhood friends, nostalgia, parasites, at this point i'm just listing things in my book i'll stop

𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼

STORY

Two boys are born in a willow tree inside a forest brimming with magic. They become obsessed with uncovering the secrets of this forest, exploring and researching the wilderness along with their childhood friends. When the forest suddenly vanishes and then reappears in struggling condition, the boys are left wondering what happened to their home, and if they can save it.

CHARACTERS

Theo Winter (he/him)

Impulsive, always-smiling, and just a tad bit reckless. He's the class clown, never one to take things seriously and it backfires. a lot. Theo's just having fun ok? Not his fault the god of the forest decided his body would be perfect as its puppet!

age: 17

quote: “I highly doubt any of what you said is gonna be a problem,” Theo said distractedly, then grabbed onto Kian’s backpack urgently as another thought struck him. He was always active, and always filled with energy. Kian didn’t think he ever saw Theo without a grin on his face or his blue bandanna off his head.

quick facts

he's trans (ftm)

adhd king

playboy (don't worry, he learns very quickly this isn't good)

inspired by oliver queen and lance mcclain

heart of the forest

Kian Winter (he/him)

Intelligent, oblivious, and always locked in his own world, he's always operating at 100% and extremely determined/stubborn. the inventor of the group, his tech assists his research on the forest.

age: 17

quote: John’s veins bulged from his neck, his eyes slitted. He turned slowly to look at him and his voice was low. “You’re dead.” “I’m very much alive. It’s Mothsong who is dead. I think.” Kian rushed to pick up his robotic insect’s limp body from inside the mess. “I’m sure I can fix this–”

quick facts

autism king

inspired by zane (ninjago) and gansey from the raven boys!!

always wearing his goggles and his jacket with a million pockets in them- with almost any gadget you can think of

gayyy

always known as the younger brother of theo even though they're technically twins and no one knows who's older

brains of the forest

Rue Ezeani (she/her)

Quiet, sarcastic, and always willing to stand up for what she believes is right, she's a punk who got kicked out of her home, and she's brutally protective of her friends. also, flowers grow on her quite a lot.

age: 16

quote: “Poverly, you don’t know shit about me,” Rue growled, taking a step towards them. “I’ve been to this forest longer than you, it’s more important to me than you’ll ever know. Of course I was working to get it back.”

quick facts

has freckles

trans lesbian

first friend kian and theo made

inspired by blue sargent (wow who could've guessed) and killer frost

eyes of the forest

can play electric guitar

i love her

Becca Hill (she/her)

Smart, cold, and competent, she is known as the 'normal' one of the group, although she has her issues, don't worry. Gets skeptical and annoyed easily, but connects with nature and animals very well. Natural-born leader.

age: 17

quote: “Oh my god, you guys can’t just break ceilings and destroy classrooms. Do you have any idea how much those cost?” Becca pressed her lips together, concerned.

quick facts

'token straight friend' (sure...)

inspired by laurel lance and pip fitz amobi!!

has a pet dog, turtle, and bird

complicated relationship with theo

ears of the forest

Cove Poverly (they/them)

If you thought Theo was impulsive, think again. They're a fighter, with a short temper and witty humour. Chews gum, tobacco, straw, lollipops...they like to keep busy. Mastered the 90's + 2020 aesthetic at the same time? A reaaal southern kid.

age: 16

quote: “Trouble in hetero relationships. Can't relate," Cove casually chewed on a piece of gum. They brushed past Theo, picked up a twig, and began drawing something on a nearby rock.

quick facts

heterochromia! (one eye is blue, one eye is hazel)

inspired by... tbh i have no idea where cove came from they just popped up

very blunt/no filter

nonbinary

m e n

likes arguing with rue (affectionately, they hate each other)

fists of the forest

Amora (she/her)

Mysterious, sassy and flirtatious imp, lives deep within the forest and a master of manipulation. Is she truly evil? Who knows? Some hate her, some love her, but no one trusts her.

age: ?

quote: Amora grinned, her eyes a deep mauve in this lighting. “No games, Thorny. I’m just here to help you save the forest. It’s my job.” She stretched the last part, singing it with a tilt of her head.

quick facts

wears a red cloak

inspired by darcy wu and parisa kamali

seduces like half of the characters

she has elfish ears

twig horns and long black nails

also has ties to a god/spirit...

Miiba (it/its)

no picrew for this mf but basically this is the god of the forest, it's a big pain in the ass for our main characters because there's...occasional possessions and flora growing everywhere on their clothes/body. it has questionable morals due to being immortal and its sole purpose is to preserve the forest. it doesn't have a corporeal form, instead bouncing its consciousness around any creature/living thing in the forest (plants, trees, animals)

AESTHETIC

FACTS

𖡼 i wrote this entire book during nanowrimo!! i won, but i added 13k after november so it's only 63k right now, but i am editing to make it longer. it took me two months to finish draft 1

𖡼 i came up with the idea during summer of 2022, based on a playlist that a close friend gave me - they said boom, make a story, and i did!!

𖡼 the story is set in the fictional town of pinevale, canada, and i do not have a name for the forest yet (i should probably get on that so it's less vague when i talk about the forest

𖡼 it's third person and the POV switches between kian, theo, rue and miiba, and amora for like one pov (i'll probably make it more consistent in the 2nd draft)

LINKS

spotify playlist

pinboard

𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼 𖤣 𖥧 𓋼 𓍊 𖡼 𖤣 𖥧 𖡼 𓋼

if you want to know more, please tell me! this took SO LONG but i loved doing it. i'll probably do it for my other wips!!

[6spicy6satan6]

so i fully caught up with the oshi no ko anime and so far, aside from being an interesting/unexpected framing device, i really don’t get the point as to why aqua & ruby are reincarnations (yet). so far, aside from the previously mentioned, it seems to mostly just be a source of comedy and explanation for their intelligence as babies. at best it is being used as a way to give further depth to ruby, but i also don’t see how the story would be particularly harmed by having ruby temporarily hospitalised as a kid and having ai die a few years later than she did. as far as i can tell, the ACTUAL main reason to do the reincarnation stuff right now is so there’s a really weird incest-but-not-at-all-incest angle of gorou amemiya being sarina’s “first love” and then them becoming brother & sister, along with gorou amemiya being basically in love with ai, who ends up being his mother. while im 90% sure the closest we’ll get to an ‘’’endgame’’’ couple is aqua/arima and the weird incest-but-not-at-all-incest angle will end up being at least mildly forgotten you understand why it’s kinda Annoying to have this element at all in an otherwise really engaging show. i dont see why we needed to have aqua & ruby be otaku in previous lives to even explain why they love their MOTHER that DIES TRAGICALLY either. i also think the reincarnation angle is like technically 10x harder to sell than just explaining aqua & ruby’s intelligences with ‘they’re genius prodigies’ and leaving it at that. i think there would of been even more weight to the scene where ai helps/dances with ruby and helps her gain confidence in her body if ruby’s health was a proper point of concern for her at any given point. i find aqua’s initial response to akane’s imitation of ai 10x more compelling if we were under the impression that he is seeing his dead mother ‘alive’ for the first time in 12 years than i do with the actual interpretation i got, which is that his previous life’s crush on ai has now given him the weirdest freudian complex ever. i want to assume the manga does something more interesting and less weirdly incest-but-not-incest things with the reincarnation stuff but i have my doubts. at first i thought the reason why we had them be reincarnations is specifically so they 100% remember being infants-toddlers but then aqua just outright says he cant remember stuff from being an infant so... im just really frustrated because it’s really keeping this anime from being truly great for me. IT ALSO DOESNT HELP THAT GOROU IS THE ONLY GROWN MAN IN THE WEIRD INCEST EQUATION. I WOULD EVEN BE BETTER OFF IF HE WAS JUST THE SAME AGE AS SARINA AND WAS MORE LIKE A CHILDHOOD FRIEND THAN GROWN MAN WHO ENDS UP WITH A CRUSH ON 16 YEAR OLD AI HOSHINO.

[theboysfromaustin]

Okay so I have more about them in my pinned post (along with fics :>) but basically AFWtP (ain’t fucking with the past) (the title is actually an msa lyric fun fact) is about sammy, des, and Nathan when des and Nathan came to visit nathan (and Sammy’s) hometown! (It’s a small town in Kentucky (specifically Dixon, Kentucky, if we’re getting super specific) and the story takes place after this serial killer dude makes a ✨comeback✨ while Nathan and des are in town (me and @crossover-enthusiast have affectionately dubbed him god boi so that’s what I am going to refer to him as)

So some of the characters! The main 3 are Sammy, des, and Nathan (they are my ot3 fr) and some of the other main characters are Sophia (Sammys younger sister) and Al (Sammy’s younger brother) (I have more information about them in my pinned post but feel free to ask me about them I love rambling about AFWtP fr)

So anyways god boi (who sammy and Nathan (and Nico, but he died after being attacked by god boi) (sammy also got attacked by god boi and lost an arm but he lived) (Nathan got separated and that’s probably the only reason him and sammy made it out alive) (also they were like 12 when thins was happening) returned somehow and like. Sammy and Nathan are understandably Panicking and Al is a little shit and reckless and rebellious (affectionate) and sammy is v overprotective of him and he finds this annoying and has no idea why the fuck he’s doing this (also he’s like 12 and is basically identical to sammy at that age and acts a lot like Nico (sammy has called him Nico accidentally a few times when he was upset that Al was doing dangerous things)

Also, Nathan and Des have been dating for about a year at this point (but they’ve known each other since they were 18 and were roommates for a while) and Nathan and Sammy are childhood friends and have been through a lot together (there was romantic tension when they were teens but Nathan didn’t realize he was gay until he was like 20)

Tbh I’m shit at explaining bc I just start rambling (pls read my pinned post it explains AFWtP but like. Actually coherent lmao) (and there’s art AND fics)

I do have some art though! I’ll send it separately if this doesn’t load, bc there is. A lot of it and this got long

I love everything about this. I'll read the first at the end of the masterwork this weekend since I'll be off work. I love the whole show within a story concept, that a lot of dedication to maintain along with AUs (I have AUs that I need to flesh out at some point.)

Keeping up stories with other people is awesome because then you have another brain to bounce ideas off of. Good ideas. Bad ideas. Ridiculously despicable ideas. I love the sheer variety of characters you have and they're super fleshed-out and believable.

Maybe I'm just smitten with stories that start out in the early to mid-2000s.

Feel free to send more stuff!

[ladysophiebeckett]

Omg thank you for replying to my ask about LFMB. I didn’t know Tiziano Ferro’s appearance was added to do damage control, it had nothing on Bésame but it wasn’t that bad either controversy aside 😅. Also the whole Aurora/Jessica Rabbit plot is one of the worst things they could have come up with. Also, making Carolina fall for Omar out of nowhere (maybe it didn’t look so bad because the mexican actors looked well together and even got married in real life, but I just can’t picture doña Catalina and Mario as a couple). Alicia becomes even worse over time and even more of a caricature of herself, Tomas basically has not dignity or self respect until the very end when she easily steals millions from Conceptos (and she would have gotten away with it had she not gotten any issues with her passport) and even then he was ready to take the blame to protect her 🤦‍♀️

Moreover, having Fernando and Marcia become friends and basically take on a siblings dynamic. I mean, I understand their intentions were good and it was heartwarming to see them mend their relationship and get to that place were they could treat each other as brother and sister, but it’s just not realistic it happened so soon. They were in a toxic relationship for years, she was obsessed with him and treated him as some sort of trophy, he constantly cheated on her, put her family’s patrimony at risk, admitted he was in love with someone else, they hurt each other time after time. It’s a novela so these kind of too good to be true situations are fair game I guess. It’s just that the essence of the characters is just so different from YSBLF from the moment she goes to Acapulco up until the ending as you correctly stated it. Speaking of, what was that thing about Aldo being an angel of some sort? Lol and the fact that they dragged this love triangle until the very last minute where she was supposed to marry Aldo, but he suddenly backs off and allows her to be happy with Fernando. It made no sense. Still, Angelica and Jaime had great chemistry and you are so right when you say they were dorks in love, and Betty and Armando were much more sensual even if their love scenes were way more limited and they showed much less skin, but there’s something about Armando’s desperation to be with Betty during the gaslighting arc that neither of his counterparts has been able to replicate.

I don’t want to bore you anymore with more things. LFMB holds a special place in my heart because it reminds me of my childhood. Sometimes I put it on because it makes me laugh. It’s dumb humor but it works. It will never come close to the quality and acting of YSBLF though especially after they ran out of the source material and started adding nonsense, but it was genuinely decent up until some point like you said.

If you made it all the way to this part, I cannot thank you enough. Have a lovely rest of your day, I love your blog 💜

'te tomare una foto' is PERFECT for letty and fernando (the fanvids are good too) and it's also perfect for betty and armando but nobody's made a vid for that and it kills me. (but 'besame' is so sexy and its so them, so again, i cant complain).

i forgot they made omar\carolina a thing. (quick complaint--i hate how they aged up the cuartel and then aged catalina down that was annoying). if u squint it make sense bc in YSBLF mario is shown various times in the first half to be very attracted to catalina, while catalina is always shooting him down. no way she would ever reciprocate in YSBLF, but i guess its fine in LFMB is omar is on some kind of redemption arc. (i dont remember omar being as sinister in LFMB, correct me if im wrong).

the fernando\marcia thing is so?? im laughing. the reason why LFMB makes these kind of choices (everybody being friends in the end) is literally bc of rosy ocampo, who specializes in children's television. all her work before LFMB is kid's telenovelas. that's why aura maria and sofia's kids have huge scenes in LFMB (were as in YSBLF u barely ever see them and only hear of them). its why aldo isn't evil incarnate but instead 'an angel that was meant to bring letty and fernando together'.

they did not know how to end LFMB bc they got all tangled up. i think marcia even ends up as president, which doesnt bother me. but i felt like that was done to make up for the fact she lost fernando.

but there’s something about Armando’s desperation to be with Betty during the gaslighting arc that neither of his counterparts has been able to replicate.

ocampo would not let jaime do that bc its not suitable for children. (but also i dont think he can. he's not JEA. he's just not.) but oh my god yes. not one adaptation can do this. they dont get it. when u see the scene comparisons of the fight they have outside of el meson de san diego....there's something missing. and its called sexual tension. fernando is more sad while armando is juggling 25 different emotions and one of them is fear that he's losing betty and no knowing why.

im not ready to revisit LFMB yet, but there WERE good times (all the fun filler before she reads the letter). like it was so good until it got bad. but even at its worst, it wasn't betty in ny. so.

[thesickestgirl]

The start of an addiction (?) / Damn I hate being sober

One time when I was 14, my aunt’s cat hurt his leg while I was at her house. She had to take him to the vet. I was home alone at her house. She had a weed pen that she didn’t smoke much because she has asthma. Whatever. I was like, ok I’ll hit it because I’m soooo cool. And I did. A few time. I recorded too of course. I mean I didn’t show anyone and I don’t think I told anyone but I wanted to remember.

Ig that’s something about me. I like to capture moments, to remember things. I have a bad memory. I hardly remember most of my childhood. Ig my memory really starts in 2020, freshman year. I mean, the memories from then don’t really feel like they were my life. But I can remember some things from then. Anyway, yeah I like to record and take a lot of pictures because it helps me remember things that happened.

Anyways, I hit my aunts pen a few times when I was 14. I didn’t even know how to inhale. It was a total waste. I smoked basically whenever an opportunity arose. I never inhaled though. I didn’t know how still. I was dumb. In 2021 when I was 15, I found my mom’s pen. I lived with my mom so I had easy access. Well, all I found was her battery. I had found a cart on my aunts house a while before and had been hiding it for months. But then when I found my mom’s battery, I was set. I still didn’t know how to inhale or really even how to use the battery. Whatever

Later on while I was still 15 my other aunt taught me how to inhale. I know that’s bad. I know it’s bad for any adult to introduce kids to any substances. But I’m really glad I’ve had this opportunity. I had my mom’s pen still and that same cart because I hardly hit it. Or I took really small hits. Well anyways I started smoking with my aunt more. Not like all the time but when she would offer it to me I would say yes like half the time.

I don’t really know how I got to the point I’m at right now. I can finish 4 carts in 3 days. I’m going to try to remember though- when I was 16 I had lost my mom’s pen? Or no it wasn’t working good anymore so I gave it to my friend. Funny story- her brother sold it to someone. Wow. I could’ve sold it. Annoying. Well anyway, I stole my aunts pen because she hadnt hit it in like a year. I just took it. Later on she was looking for it to give to me but I had already had my time with it. We had a sweet time together, but unfortunately I lost it while waiting for my aunt to get me after hanging out w my friend. I swear to god I put it in my pocket or smth and then it was never seen again. It had a full cart too. To this day I am still sad about that.

Well whatever. In 11th grade I lived with my aunt and her bf gave her 2 old pens that she could’ve given to me. And I would get carts whenever I could. Actually hold up….

Before my aunt knew that I was smoking without her around, me and my friend used to meet up w a plug. We got carts after school one day. I stole a battery from my aunt, not the one that I lived with. She had like a bunch so it was like, whatever. Yk? She wouldn’t notice. And she didn’t. Earlier this year I told her and her bf that I stole 2 pens from them and her bf said “nope, I would’ve noticed if they were gone” like… LOL?? I literally still have one of them…

Well whatever. So yeah in 11th grade after my aunt decided it was ok for me to smoke, she had a pen for me and she would hide whenever she wasn’t home. Usually I would find it and hit it anyway, but it’s okay. I would hit that one because it was hard to get carts for my pen and because my pen wasn’t working right anymore.

Basically my point here is that lately, I smoke weed all the time. The only times I go without it are when I can’t afford it or when I’m in the psych ward. I’m basically dependent. But I’m going to try to take a break so idk… I’ll update 👍

[engiiiiiii]

gender took such a weird turn when I was growing up. I grew up during that wave of feminism, where we started to let women do everything (2010s essentially), right before they started to shut it down because they realised trans women would also be included. I remember the show shezow very well; the person who made it has since completely denied it's trans parallels, but it brought topics of gender into childhood. You'd never guess who it got mad too (hint: it's someone who is still being super bigoted! and whose name ends with Shapiro!). We were supposed to be free. Of course that never happened, in reality a lot of it was kinda trend chasing, Lily Alexandre talks about it in one of her videos if you want to know more.

In such I also had a kinda weird relationship. Very early I was a STEM kid, maybe because I read far too well for my age. But in the years after I would start to not care to a degree. I loved having a high pitched voice, doing choir, not doing sports like my other male friends, music, etc. My brother even played with dolls, and I became a furry (not really relevant but it happened). I also had some masculine characteristics, but weirdly just the annoying ones, like being edgy constantly. Realistically I never cared about gender until later in my primary school years. I remember every year, getting worse and worse to 'stop crying', and to 'stop being embarrassing'. I would know of trans people and things, but only through slurs and fetishes. It would take years until I actually understood trans people, where as I began to understand I would take on the title myself. Realistically? I may have even been nonbinary this whole time. Even as a kid. But when gender started to matter, I rejected it. I tried so hard to be masculine, to not break down, to be strong. But I knew this didn't work, toxic masculinity only broke me. As I've said before, when toxic masculinity broke it's grip, I could leave masculinity. I could have gone back to being normal masculine, but even masculinity at it's basic traits just didnt work. And now? When I'm not super dysphoric? I'm finally happy existing. Who cares if it was or wasn't during my childhood? Or anyones?

oh, and I think I'm going to go with Myra at this point. will confirm it in a week and a bit maybe!

[coffinofconfections]

Mom's been silent and it's the holidays, aka; oh no

My mom usually asks me by now what I'd like for Christmas or brings up something about it. The last I heard from her was before Thanksgiving — the day before — when she invited me over. I told her if it was just her and dad I'd consider it, but if others would be there I'd decline because I'm trying to stay COVID-free. I had a bad reaction to the vaccine that made my chronic illnesses worse, so my doctor doesn't think it's safe for me to get further doses. I'm basically unprotected at this point. Hence why I would decline.

Mom said okay, that she understood, and I asked her to keep me updated on what was going on. She said if others came then she'd bring me a plate of food later in the day or the next day.

That was the last I heard from her. Sometimes she goes silent, but I usually hear from her by now. The last time she went silent around Christmas, she was very angry at me for speaking up about my childhood trauma, and she and dad lied about me and gaslit me and my brother verbally abused me on my blog based on their lies.

Based on past patterns, I'm genuinely scared she found out about my book that I published about my life. It's fictionalized, but it has real moments of my life as a child surviving through some really tough trauma. I used different names, although they are still close. I tried to keep it from my parents, especially the sequel I'm going to publish in 2023, so we could keep some sort of peace despite me going mostly no contact. They're a serious trigger, which is a given.

Mom is also still in denial and so is dad, even though his health is very bad. Just like my days living at home, even as an adult, I never knew which version of mom I would get. Was she in a bad mood and looking to fight? Or was she having a good day and giving me gifts and taking me out to lunch? There was never consistency.

Mom and dad don't say sorry. They just move on and act like nothing happened, and if you bring up anything that they did that hurt you they get extremely angry, gaslight, or blame you for the abuse, or they say I only remember the bad things. I've tried talking about it. It just won't happen.

So... when mom goes silent around the holidays I am on edge. Holidays are already difficult for me, but the constant feeling of not knowing because my parents do the silent treatment thing, or they don't communicate, or they could turn on you for daring to speak about anything they did wrong, puts me in a deep depression because I'm suddenly home again, sitting in my room having panic attacks whenever I hear them pulling in the driveway from work or just walking around the house.

The PTSD memory: 'Are they mad at each other and dad is going to take it out on me? Did I mess up somehow, or not clean well enough and mom and dad are going to get upset? Are either of them just going to walk in my room, look around, and start putting me down and pointing out all my faults?'

I've lived on my own for several years now, although my last apartment was a huge trauma trigger as I lived next to an abuser and around partiers who had really annoying friends who would scare me on purpose or cause problems. Since December of 2021, I've finally been living in a quiet house out by the country, although I miss the city.

I've lost hope this cycle of trauma will ever end.

[violettelueur]

FUSHIGURO MEGUMU + GOJO SATORU || PROTECTIVE OF FUSHIGURO’S CHILDHOOD FRIEND

| featuring : fushiguro megumi + gojo satoru from jujutsu kaisen

| warnings : grammar errors but other than that n/a

| form : headcanons

| published : 28 december

| request : Can I request reader as Megumi’s childhood friend and both Megumi and Gojo protective of them

| barista’s notes : good early morning from the united kingdom! i’m nearly done with all the headcanons that have been requested and will be moving on to the imagine very soon ʕ ﾟ ● ﾟʔ and little random thing i wanted to say is that i have been getting into animal crossing : new horizons lately due to it being on my tiktok fyp quite a bit as well as my youtube recommendations! i really want a nintendo switch lite and that game now ʕ ꈍᴥꈍʔ moving on from that, i hope you enjoy your cup of classic black coffee (jujutsu kaisen request!) and please come again soon ʕ•ᴥ•ʔﾉ♡

FUSHIGURO MEGUMI:

Fushiguro as your childhood at the beginning was really difficult to get close to since he was a quiet child and someone who you disregard your presence - but since you were so persistent, he realised how much you cared about him and decided that it was okay to be friends with you.

As time went by, you and Fushiguro became really close and inseparable to the point where he would be protective over you (jujutsu sorcerer or not - doesn’t matter)

If you are human, he would make sure you have a cursed weapon like Maki and help you train to be able to defend yourself when he is not there.

But if you are a jujutsu sorcerer, he wouldn’t care how strong you are, the second you are in front of a curse, Fushiguro’s shikigami is already right in front of you before you could even blink.

“Ah...Megumi, don’t worry, I’ll be fine,”

“You never know what might happen, just let Nue carry you to safety when needed” - then what about you, you idiot?

He is also protective with you around boys since you both went to the same middle school and some of the guys would gang up on you to get a reaction out of Fushiguro - which they did….but not in a good way.

When Itadori came into the picture, he would always stand between you and him to make sure itadori wasn’t too close to you until he knew he could fully trust the boy - which he does later on.

But Fushiguro is still wary due to Sukuna being inside Itadori, so when he feels like Sukuna could make an appearance, he would just lowkey move you to the side and tell you to ‘run’ or ‘go away’ - I- I ain’t gonna run...are you stupid?

Itadori in an instant notices that Fushiguro is always standing near you and when you start walking or moving away, he also notices how Fushiguro keeps a very close eye on you before walking to where you are going

Overall, Fushiguro is like a protective brother when he is with you and will always make sure that you are okay at all times.

GOJO SATORU:    

When Fushiguro introduced you to Gojo - probably when you were younger and he was in care with white-haired shaman - Gojo will probably pick you up and coo at you based on how cute you look before Fushiguro will somehow make him put you down.

When you and Fushiguro become older, Gojo will tease you and Fushiguro to no end on how you two should get together and become childhood sweethearts - Fushiguro will probably give him a death glare to make him stop.

However, it seemed like Fushiguro’s protectiveness has also transferred to him as well since every time you would be in front of a curse, he would just causally appear out of nowhere, sliding his hands under your armpits, lift you up and put you to the side before attacking.

He would also make sure if you are not alone and will probably drag you somewhere with him - with without Fushiguro’s permission of course.

This happens quite a bit when you’re with Itadori and that is not because of the boy, but the curse that is residing within the boy because I know Sukuna will make a comment or two about you.

Gojo is somewhat of a protective older brother to you - just a tiny bit more annoying and completely the opposite to Fushiguro (isn’t that a good dynamic?)

Maybe a father that refuses for you to go out with anyone else but Fushiguro - since he wants to make little imaginary of his real.

When any boy tries to talk to you, expect Gojo to stand behind you giving the person a whole deadass death glare and when you turn around he would just go back to his childish antics and that cheeky smile of his.

When Fushiguro is also behind you with him, that will be more terrifying for the person trying to flirt with you since I can definitely see both Gojo and Fushiguro holding up the middle finger to them with a death glare.

Overall, Gojo is basically like another older brother mixed with a father - either way, he is still protective of you like Fushguro is with you.

[basic-otaku]

My thoughts on Xue Yang's character (based on the drama and novel)

Xue Yang is a character I didn’t fully understand until I finished The Untamed. I looked back on him with a bit of pity but little understanding. It wasn’t until I listened to his character song that I truly began to dissect his character. Reading those lyrics completely flipped my perspective on him, and I went back to watch the Yi City arc again. I was shocked by how much I had missed. Xue Yang has since become one of my favorite characters of the series. I’ve spent so much time thinking about him and his motives that I finally decided to write down my thoughts. This analysis comes mostly from what I perceived, so it may differ from other people’s opinions. You are free to disagree with me.

Let’s start with what we know: Xue Yang was a street kid with a hard childhood. We know he was abandoned at a young age, but we don’t know how young. However, he must have been old enough to survive, so he couldn’t have been younger than four when he started fending for himself. We don’t know who his parents are because he doesn’t remember them, nor does he remember anyone else who had potentially taken care of him. His parents could be dead for all we know, or they could have dumped him somewhere when they no longer wanted to take care of him. It’s all up to speculation. He also has a very high pain tolerance, probably due to constant beatings as a child.

When you’re all alone in the world, you have to learn to put yourself first. There’s no one to care for you, so only you can care for yourself. I believe that Xue Yang wasn’t always a bad person because no one is inherently evil. However, because he was alone, there was no one to nurture him and teach him right from wrong. When all you experience is violence and hatred, that becomes your response to similar situations; you don’t expect kindness or want to give it in return.

One of Xue Yang’s flaws as a child was his naivety — he was much too quick to trust. That’s how he got himself into such a bad situation. He was eager to have something he was never able to have (candy), so he immediately trusted that shopkeeper when he said he could have some as a reward for running an errand. What he got in return wasn’t candy, but a brutal beating and a severed pinky. If Xue Yang had still had any faith left in humanity, this is the point where it would have left him. The remaining childhood innocence in him was gone. This brings me to an interesting piece of dialogue. In Yi City, when Xue Yang confronts Song Lan and tells him what he’s been up to, Song Lan curses at him, calling him an animal. Xue Yang laughs at him and says, “I quit using those words when I was seven.” And what happened to Xue Yang’s finger? “One finger was ground into battered flesh on the spot. The child was seven.” Even Xue Yang himself knows that moment was when everything changed, and he still carries the resentment with him now.

Back to the cart incident. This event scarred him for life and was the primary reason he became a sociopath. Now he’s bent on revenge. He was powerless as a child; just another street rat who shouldn’t be treated like a human being nor spared any pity. So, when he realizes he can do the same to those that hurt him, he takes it much further. When he was old enough and strong enough, he exacts his revenge. He wanted to make the Chang Clan feel his pain — not only for the finger he had lost but for his whole miserable life up to that point. If no one deigned to understand him, then he’d make them understand in the only way he knew how. With violence.

Xue Yang was only fifteen or sixteen when he slaughtered the Chang Clan, killing more than fifty people. This is where he meets Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. From the first moment, Xue Yang hates Xiao Xingchen. He’s so righteous, so full of light. He thinks he makes the world better just by doing a little good. What a hypocrite. Where was he when he was needed? Where was he when Xue Yang was a seven-year-old boy left crying in the streets after having his finger ground to a pulp? No, nobody can be that good.

When Xue Yang is captured by Wei Wuxian and the others, Xiao Xingchen takes him back to Qinghe to be apprehended, and Xue Yang vows to get his revenge on Xiao Xingchen for it. It isn’t long after he escapes from Qinghe that Xue Yang slaughters Baixue Temple, blinding Song Lan in the process. According to Xue Yang’s logic, hurting Xiao Xingchen’s friend is just as bad as hurting Xiao Xingchen himself. This is what causes the rift between Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan. Without this incident, Xue Yang and Xiao Xingchen may never have met again.

A few years have likely passed while Xue Yang was working for Jin Guangyao. He is probably closer to eighteen or nineteen when Jin Guangyao injures him and throws him out, which is how Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing find him. Xiao Xingchen doesn’t hesitate in bringing Xue Yang back to Yi City with him and A-Qing and caring for his wounds. Xue Yang wakes up pained and disoriented, but he immediately tries to back away when he realizes who is tending to him. He doesn’t know Xiao Xingchen is unaware of his identity, and probably thinks that Xiao Xingchen is getting ready to take him to face justice or something. But Xiao Xingchen insists that he doesn’t need to know who Xue Yang is and that he’s only doing what’s right. Xue Yang is clearly shocked by this admission. He truly cannot comprehend kindness, and this is the first time he’s ever experienced it.

This is also the first time we get to see his genuine smile. It’s shocked and incredulous, like he can’t believe this is happening, but it’s there. Throughout the series, Xue Yang’s snarky words and sly smirk are a token of his character, but now we know they are just a mask he uses to hide the small, broken child inside of him. If no one can see the hurt he hides, then no one can hurt him further. But with just one kind gesture, Xiao Xingchen was able to bring out the young boy who just wanted love and comfort.

This kindness is such a foreign concept to Xue Yang that he doesn’t think it’s genuine for a long time. But as the years pass, Xue Yang comes to realize that Xiao Xingchen isn’t a threat. This is something he scoffs at. Xiao Xingchen is ridiculously naïve; so stupid. If he knew who he was living with, who he was eating with, he wouldn’t act like this. He would treat Xue Yang the same way everyone else had. So, Xue Yang decides to trick Xiao Xingchen into murdering innocent people for revenge. Xue Yang can’t wait for Xiao Xingchen to find out what Xue Yang has made him do because it’ll break him. What this revenge is for is up to interpretation. Maybe he’s still angry about being captured and sent to Qinghe. Maybe he’s angry at the world for treating him so badly. Maybe Xue Yang wants to show Xiao Xingchen that his worldview is stupid and that there are no good or pure people in the world. I choose to believe that it’s the last one.

At least, this is his motivation at first — he slowly loses the will to harm Xiao Xingchen. This brings me to another interesting point. In episode three, Xue Yang says he doesn’t fear death, he fears boredom. But isn’t this domestic life he’s living with Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing considered boring by his standards? I think the boredom he speaks of is really the fear of being alone and having nothing at all. Now he’s happy, however reluctantly he’s willing to admit it. He wouldn’t have put up with A-Qing’s petulant behavior if he didn’t enjoy the time they spent together. Although they didn’t get along at first, Xue Yang protects A-Qing and takes care of her like an annoying older brother. He teases her, sure, but he also cuts her apple slices in the shape of rabbits and gives her advice on how to scare away the people who bully her (even though killing them isn’t great advice). Xiao Xingchen and A-Qing were the family he never had. Now he would do anything to preserve the life he is living.

After about a year, Xue Yang’s plan stopped being about revenge. I’m not completely sure how he justified this change of heart, but I like to think he told himself he was still biding his time and that he’d get back to it eventually (even if he had stopped thinking about hurting Xiao Xingchen). Based on what A-Qing told Song Lan when he arrived at Yi City, Xue Yang hadn’t taken Xiao Xingchen out on one of those night hunts in a long time. And most of the people that Xue Yang made Xiao Xingchen kill were the merchants that made fun of his blindness and cheated him with bad vegetables and high prices. It was a messed-up way to get revenge for Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang hates being looked down on, so shouldn’t Xiao Xingchen feel the same way?

Nevertheless, the time they spent in Yi City was probably the only time Xue Yang had been happy in his entire life. Xiao Xingchen was so in tune with what Xue Yang needed that Xue Yang came to care for him deeply. Whether those feelings were romantic or platonic in nature is up to the viewer, but I believe Xue Yang had fallen in love with Xiao Xingchen in the only sick and twisted way he could. Xiao Xingchen understood him more than anyone ever had, going so far as to listen to his idle ramblings and bring him a piece of candy every day after hearing that he had loved sweets as a child but could never have any. He managed to tame the savage beast in Xue Yang’s heart with only his presence and basic human decency. Xue Yang’s bloodlust was satiated as long as he had Xiao Xingchen to take care of him. At this point, I don’t think he would ever actually kill Xiao Xingchen. He had stopped wanting to hurt him a long time ago. A-Qing? Sure. She’s expendable, but Xiao Xingchen is irreplaceable. Even if Xue Yang reluctantly came to care about her, it wasn’t the same kind of bond. She had never shown him the same kindness that Xiao Xingchen had. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her if she betrayed him, but she was important to Xiao Xingchen, which meant he couldn’t do her any harm if he didn’t want to disrupt their happy life.

If Song Lan hadn’t found them, how long would Xue Yang have stayed? I don’t even think he knew. He just knew that he didn’t want to leave anymore. Xiao Xingchen gave him too much for him to want that. The viewer can easily see the happiness in his eyes when he looks at Xiao Xingchen. Xue Yang acts like a kid around him — playing games, joking around, making him laugh with childish remarks. Even in the quiet moments, he’s happy. This was especially noticeable in the campfire scene. It wasn’t shown in the original drama, but in the special edition, Xue Yang smiled at Xiao Xingchen from across the fire, and the look in his eyes as he gazed at his daozhang was so tender that it honestly caught me off guard. It seemed to catch Xue Yang off guard too because he caught himself, and the smile slowly fell. It’s like he realized what he’s doing and remembered that this should be about revenge.

Where in the past, Xue Yang hated Xiao Xingchen for his righteousness, he now loves him for his naivety. Without it, Xue Yang knows that Xiao Xingchen would be disgusted with himself. There would be no more laughs, no more games, and no more smiles. Then Xue Yang would lose the one person who didn’t treat him like dirt. So, when Song Lan finds them, Xue Yang immediately perceives it as a threat to their domestic life. He knows how important Song Lan is to Xiao Xingchen, and there’s no doubt in his mind that Xiao Xingchen won’t hesitate to leave with Song Lan when he discovers Xue Yang’s identity.

Furthermore, Xue Yang resents Song Lan for taking Xiao Xingchen’s eyes (even though it was voluntary on Xiao Xingchen’s part and was essentially Xue Yang’s fault). His logic tells him that having Xiao Xingchen kill Song Lan would be the perfect way for Xiao Xingchen to get his revenge. What Xue Yang doesn’t understand is that not everyone thinks about things in the context of revenge. I don’t believe Xiao Xingchen ever truly regretted giving up his sight. But Xue Yang can’t comprehend how someone could be that selfless.

This is where it all falls apart. A-Qing sees what happened to Song Lan, and she runs to Xiao Xingchen and tells him everything. When Xiao Xingchen comes back to confront him, Xue Yang spills it all. There’s nothing left for him to lose. His mask falls again, and he basically bares his soul to Xiao Xingchen. This is probably the first time he’s told the story about his finger, and I think he genuinely thought Xiao Xingchen was going to understand him; that if he knew what Xue Yang went through, he’d sympathize with him and justify his action (thereby justifying his feelings). Instead of that, however, Xiao Xingchen calls him disgusting, and it flips a switch inside of Xue Yang. How can Xiao Xingchen call him disgusting when he’s killed people too?

I think one of the reasons Xue Yang led Xiao Xingchen to kill those people was to bring Xiao Xingchen down to his level. Xue Yang doesn’t think that anyone can be as good as Xiao Xingchen claimed to be, so he had to taint his perfect record. Maybe if he killed people, Xiao Xingchen would understand him. Xue Yang thought that when Xiao Xingchen found out, he’d stay with him. Now he’s not the same righteous person he used to be, so how could he be good enough to travel the world with Song Lan? No, he should stay with Xue Yang instead and live a happy life together.

So, when Xiao Xingchen calls him disgusting, Xue Yang was probably confused and upset, which made him instinctively put his mask back up. Being vulnerable only hurt him again, so he’s back to harsh words and smirks, telling Xiao Xingchen that this is why he’s always hated him and that all of this was fun. Fun in every sense of the word: the killing and the happiness.

Xiao Xingchen finding out that he killed Song Lan was the last straw. Xue Yang is still laughing as Xiao Xingchen slits his own throat. It takes a moment for the realization to set in, but as it does, the smile falls from Xue Yang’s lips, and his hands begin to shake. This is the third time his mask has fallen. His eyes begin to well with tears, but he tries to keep up his act, saying that dead ones are easier to control, but the only one he’s acting for is himself.

The next scene is the one that really solidified Xue Yang’s feelings for me. He cleans the blood from Xiao Xingchen’s skin with the same care that Xiao Xingchen had shown him when he first found Xue Yang in that ditch. Xue Yang clearly thinks that Xiao Xingchen is going to come back and that the ritual will work, that he staves off his tears and sets out food for both of them. He considers eating his candy but then decides he should wait until Xiao Xingchen comes back. If he’s back, then Xue Yang is sure to get another piece.

When he realizes that the ritual isn’t working and Xiao Xingchen isn’t coming back, he breaks down. The tantrum he throws is so full of rage and anguish that it really shows the depth of his feelings for Xiao Xingchen. Again, he goes back to acting, trying to guilt Xiao Xingchen’s dead body into coming back to life by telling him all the terrible things he’ll do to Song Lan and A-Qing if he doesn’t reawaken. Obviously, Xiao Xingchen can’t hear him, and Xue Yang knows this, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. He finally dissolves into tears, screaming and crying over Xiao Xingchen’s corpse. This may have been the first time he’s cried since he lost his finger. Crying is for innocent, naïve children, and it doesn’t help anybody. But now Xue Yang has had a taste of pure sweetness and doesn’t want to go back to the bitter life he has known, so he finally lets himself weep for all the things he could have had.

Xue Yang spent the next seven years trying to bring Xiao Xingchen back to life with no success. We don’t know much about his activities after Yi City, but we have gotten information through rumors that Shuanghua was being used to kill innocents. It seems like Xue Yang wanted to keep a part of Xiao Xingchen with him. He even continued his sick revenge plot after Xiao Xingchen’s death by gouging out the eyes of and killing the remains of the Chang Clan, including their leader, Chang Ping, by lingchi. Xue Yang doesn’t blame himself in the slightest; he just thinks that Xiao Xingchen’s death was an unfortunate consequence of the situation. He will put the blame on anyone and everyone other than himself. Thus, instead of performing lingchi on himself like Wei Wuxian suggested, he takes out his anger on the remains of the Chang Clan.

Everything Xue Yang does in the present is tied to Xiao Xingchen, yet he still can’t bring him back. So, when he heard that the Yiling Patriarch had suddenly come back to life, Xue Yang knew it was his last chance. The sword ghost/ghost arm is what led Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji to Yi City. It was pointing to its murderer. I’m sure Xue Yang could have avoided a confrontation if he wanted, but this was intentional. As for the juniors, I have a feeling that Xue Yang was behind the cat corpses that led them to meet up with Wei Wuxian. This is still unclear though because Xue Yang doesn’t have a real reason to get them involved. The only person he needs is Wei Wuxian.

Xue Yang has tried everything at this point. So, when Wei Wuxian finds him in Yi City, pretending to be Xiao Xingchen, he is completely desperate. I do wonder if that is something he has done more than once. Did he often go around dressed as Xiao Xingchen? Was he playing with the life they had in Yi City? Pretending he was still there? Or was it a one-time thing to trick Wei Wuxian into dropping his guard? I also wonder how often he used his own sword because only after Lan Zhan took Shuanghua from him did he pull out Jiangzai. That could be because he was acting as Xiao Xingchen, but we can’t be sure. However, that isn’t the point. Right now, Wei Wuxian was Xue Yang’s only option because the Yiling Patriarch surely knew things he didn’t. Xue Yang had lived with Xiao Xingchen’s corpse for those seven years, keeping him in pristine condition. I’m pretty sure the only way Xue Yang could have done this was by giving him spiritual energy every day, which would be incredibly draining. I don’t think Xue Yang had an exceptionally strong golden core to begin with either. He is primarily a demonic cultivator, which means he doesn’t use his golden core often. It must have taken most of his strength to keep Xiao Xingchen’s body in such good condition. But anything for daozhang, right? Xue Yang needed Xiao Xingchen’s body to be perfect when he returned. He also put aside his pride and used Song Lan for protection all those years. He kept the one person he continued to hate with a burning passion around him for so long.

When Wei Wuxian tells Xue Yang he can’t bring Xiao Xingchen back to life because his soul is too broken, Xue Yang refuses to believe it. It’s been seven years already; he can’t give up now. Deep down, I believe Xue Yang knows Xiao Xingchen wouldn’t want anything to do with him even if he did come back, but he can’t figure out why. Because nothing was his fault, of course.

Something Wei Wuxian said really struck me as I went back to rewatch episode 39. Before the fight, Wei Wuxian turns to Xue Yang and says, “you disgust him to the core, yet you still want to pull him back to play this stupid game.” Xue Yang responds with “I want nothing of the kind.” And he’s being honest. He doesn’t want a stupid game — he wants something real. He wants a life where Xiao Xingchen knows his identity and stays with him in spite of it. He just wants one person to accept him as he is, but that will never, nor could ever, happen —not with all the crimes he has committed.

When Lan Wangji cut off his arm, leaving Xue Yang bleeding on the ground, I think he knew it was over. There was nothing left for him now. He was never getting Xiao Xingchen back. He never had him in the first place, not in any way that counted. So he laughs, blood spilling from his lips, to cover up the tears he wishes he could cry.

He’s ready when Song Lan stabs him, dying with a smile on his face as he gazes at the last piece of candy Xiao Xingchen had ever given him. It’s blackened and inedible, yet Xue Yang held on to it for so long; it was a reminder of his daozhang and of why he was fighting so hard. Like his character song said, he was “too determined to let go.”

It’s kind of sad that even in death, he was never respected by anyone other than Xiao Xingchen, and all of that was built on a lie. He didn’t even get a proper burial, although I suppose he kind of deserved it. Xue Yang is the character I pity the most in this series. He isn’t a good person, nowhere near it, and he deserved the end he got, but I wish things could have been different. What hurts is that it just as easily could have been Wei Wuxian. If Xue Yang had been taken in as a child; if he’d had his own Jiang Fengmian, his own Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli, he could have been happier. Maybe none of this would have happened. Maybe he would have met Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan and started a sect with them. Realistically, he and Xiao Xingchen would never be lovers because Xiao Xingchen was so strongly connected to Song Lan, but I think they could have been friends.

However, one question I still have is did Xue Yang fall in love with Xiao Xingchen because of how he treated him or because of the person Xiao Xingchen really was? If they had met under different circumstances (and if Xue Yang had had a support system when he was young), would Xue Yang have still fallen in love with him? I guess that’s up to the viewer to decide.

Ultimately, Xue Yang is still a sociopath who can’t understand empathy or feel remorse, so I don’t think he regretted any of his crimes. However, I do believe that Xue Yang regretted the consequences of his actions in Yi City. He didn’t want Xiao Xingchen to die, but his actions were what caused his death. It’s more of a dissatisfaction with where things ended up than feeling guilty for his death. Although I don’t think Xue Yang felt remorseful, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t grieving, nor does it mean his feelings for Xiao Xingchen weren’t as genuine as they could have been.

I don’t know where Xue Yang or Xiao Xingchen will end up now, but I hope they’ll both be happy in their next lives. The same goes for A-Qing and Song Lan (when he finally meets his true end). There are so many things that contributed to Xue Yang’s unstable mind, but I think the moral of the story is that it pays to be kind. If just one person had taken pity on him as a child — had shown him that there was good in the world — I wonder what kind of person he would have become.

I already know how cruel fate is

Not looking, not asking, not grieving, not hating

Waiting to relive my life just for a single person

Ups and downs in life

I would leave no regrets

I tried searching in the darkness of night

When I am trapped in the past

I still hope that a flicker of light will appear in my heart

The legend of this lonely city

Who came here before?

And gifted to me my karma

I am waiting for this karma to liberate spirits, liberate souls, and liberate me

Even though I am already too determined to let go

If I get rid of these inner demons

Would you forgive me?

Gaining freedom from destiny, starting all over again

[stuck-in1]

First of Summer

We've been friends since childhood, until we're not...

Nishumura Riki x OC | friends to enemies to lovers | Oneshot

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-Niki's POV-

Today marks the last day of junior year and I’m all set for summer, nothing specific is planned though, just enrolled some review classes for the upcoming college ability test this November.

For tonight though, it’s the dreaded junior-senior prom. As per the school’s tradition, this is like a send off for the seniors while welcoming the juniors into semi-adulthood.

I, myself, don’t like these social functions—even my friends are all going with their respective dates, I didn’t ask anyone though, it wasn’t deemed necessary. I’m just going since this is the last time I’ll see my favorite seniors, especially Jongseong hyung.

Jongseong hyung, or Jay as everyone calls him, took care of me since freshman year, when I first joined the dance club. He also introduced me to his friends who were part of it, and that made it easier for me. Although, I think, being part of that caused rift between me and his sister, Park Serin.

Serin was my bestfriend growing up—we were basically friends since kindergarten. I didn’t know what happened, but I’m guessing that it’s because we had different interests, we just drifted apart.

The chats in the hallway were reduced to nods, until it came to a point that we were completely ignoring each other.

She became popular, and probably her head ballooned with it. She’s untouchable, especially when her brother is the ever so famous, Park Jongseong.

Her friends are also the worst; everyone was scared of their little group. And it also has been a known issue in our circle how problematic Jay hyung’s sister is, how she’s become a spoiled brat, how she has a bigger allowance than him, and an even better car which was gifted to her by their parents on her 16th birthday.

Speaking of, there she is now at one of the Science labs. Classes have been dismissed early today due to the event this evening, I wonder why she’s still here when everyone must be in their respective homes, getting ready or doing some last minute touch ups.

Unfortunately, I was assigned with the cleaning duties today, which explains why I’m still here. She on the other hand looked glum, and she sat on one of the stools just outside the lab.

Now the problem is, how can I make her leave?

"Excuse me..." I approached her in the nicest way possible, "Serin-ssi, I would need the stool so I can lock up the lab."

"I'm sorry?" she said with an automatic high pitched voice. It's more or less 3 years since I last called her by her name, or rather talked to her.

"I said-" I was ready to repeat what I said, but she cut me off.

"I heard you.” she said icily. "Do I look stupid to you?" she gave me a disgusted looked that says nobody shoos her away.

"Of course not, I wasn’t implying anything!" I said like it was the most obvious thing to say. Maybe she still made me speechless, no one knew that I liked her before.

Without another word, she stood up, kicked the stool away from the both of us, the loud clang sounded through the empty corridors.

"Thanks." I said in a non-sarcastic voice, but somehow it still annoyed her since she gave me a piercing look. "Did you need something else?" I asked, as I looked at her in the same manner.

She just shook her head as a response.

"Good. The place is empty, let me walk you to the parking lot. It's not safe here." I offered, and to my surprise, she agreed.

We walked silently the first few steps, but I had the urge to start a conversation, "are you excited for the prom later?"

"I'm not..." she was too quick to reply accompanied by a frown.

"Why? You're probably going to be the prom queen..."

She became quiet for a minute as she sat on one of the benches that were near the school’s parking lot. "How can you be excited when the people voting for you don't even respect you?"

"What do you mean?" I sat beside her. It somehow reminded of those times that all we did was kill time in each other’s backyard. "Of course, they respect you..."

"More like scared of me!” She scoffs, “That's why they're voting. This may sound to narcissistic but I know I'm the most envied girl in school, but at the same time, I know I'm the most hated." A sigh escaped her lips. "what about you? Were you planning to root for me at all?"

"Of course..." it wasn't a lie per se. I was indeed going to vote for her and I think she's the prettiest of all the nominees.

"For what reason? A prom queen should be someone to represent the school in a good way, not because she's popular or the most envied one, or maybe just because she's rich. She should affect the people's lives in a positive manner, not bully them..."

"You affect them... but only, they get terrified!" I couldn't help but laugh at my lame joke, she did too.

"Nishimura Riki... Do you even want to go to the stupid prom?" she asked me. Serin mentioning my name again, after so long, made me feel giddy. It was the only thing that I needed to realize that I missed her, a lot. I shrugged as I glanced at her..

"Let's play hooky!" she said with a big grin. “Uhm, you don’t have a date, right?”

"I don’t have a date. But for real?"

"Yes! But I'm going to be dead for sure if Jongseong oppa finds out I didn't attend."

"I have an idea..." I offered, as she was all ears. "What if, we don't skip the prom, just be late? What do you say?"

"Sounds like a plan. We're going to be fashionably late!" she giggled. "Come on, lets head home first so you can change into your tux, and I can wear my ridiculous dress.”

We each rushed home, to prep for the evening. Both agreeing that we’ll see each other at 6:30, an hour and a half from now.

Mom thought I was excited for the prom as she took thousands of pictures. I was already frowning big time but she still finds it adorable. Kept asking who my date was and didn't believe a single thing I said when I said I didn't have a date.

Oh great! There's one thing I forgot to ask, her number! Of all the thngs that I had to forget, it was this one essential thing.

I’m not arguing with myself internally on whether to call Jay hyung or not. To call him and risked getting interrogated, or to wait for some miracle to happen and waste time?

My phone then rang, showing an unknown number.

"Hello?"

"Niki... it's me, Serin." the voice on the other line replied.

"I was about to call Jay hyung to get your number." I laughed.

"I stole your number from his phone..." she also laughed. "so where are we going to meet?"

"Shall I pick you up?" I offered. "But I have to tell you, the car I’m driving is an older model, you may not wan to be seen in something old and beat up!” I teased.

"It doesn’t matter, to be honest. I actually don’t care. I just asked my parents for my car so I can piss off Jongseongie oppa!" That surprised me, as I expected another reason. This made me grin unknowingly, my mom looking at me weirdly.

I faced the opposite side just so she wouldn’t see my face, "Great, I'll be there in 20 minutes."

We both hung up as I made my way to the car, trying to avoid any more conversation with my mother.

This is not a date, this is not a date, this is not a date. I kept repeating this to myself as I didn’t want to assume. It’s even more surprising that she didn’t have a date to the prom.  

It took me less than 20 minutes to reach their place, have I driven too fast?

Serin was wearing a light blue dress, the hem of the skirt flowed just above her knee, paired with a strappy high heeled sandals which looked uncomfortable. The whole outfit she put together was not on the conservative side, but on her, it looked elegant. Breathtaking, in fact. She really is.

As a courtesy of course, I went down after I parked my car, and I can tell that Jay hyung was surprised to see me.

"I didn't believe that you’re her date... I thought she was lying."

"I told you oppa, I'm going with Niki..." she whined like a little kid. Cute.

"It's better that you go out with him, since he's a close junior, just don't give him a headache, please. It’s already embarrassing enough to be your brother!" he scolder her. "Niki, take care of my sister, and I'm hoping that you'd be patient with her. " he both pushed us lightly to my car, and we waved our goodbyes before leaving.

"Where are we going?" she was pretty excited when she asked.

"I have no idea..." I confessed. I didn't plan the whole thing, since I wasn't really good at it. She must've sensed my frustration when she spoke.

"It's okay, lets grab some take out first and then I know this place..."

We chatted like old friends while I was driving, she was nothing like the Park Serin that everyone knew from school, tonight, she was just the fun loving, silly girl that I used to be friends with.

After we got the food, she instructed me to drive until we reached a secluded place, which was over looking the city. The air was fresh, far from the city's pollution.

"I often go here when I feel like my life is useless..." she stated. We were both sitting in my car's hood, looking at the city lights, "this place is like my sanctuary..."

She continued to speak without inhibitions, "When we were in our last year of middle school, I felt the pressure. I started to change without even knowing it, until it came to the point that I got lost, and I didn't even know who I was... and after talking to you today, I was reminded of how happy I was back then... so thank you."

Dumbstruck was the perfect word to describe me at this moment, I didn't know what to say. This was the person that I fell in love with before. She was the Serin that I knew... the one I’ve always admired.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" she tilted her head, her clueless expression was so inviting.

And this made me realize that I never really stopped liking her. I just became contented with looking at her from afar.

"Nothing..."

"Oh come on!"

"It's just that..." I didn't finish my sentence, instead I touched her cheeks, then slowly lowered my face to hers and kissed her. I can tell that she was pretty shocked at first, but she slowly reciprocated.

"I've always wanted to do that..." I admitted, "but I never had the chance."

She rested her head on my shoulder, "you should've done that before... I needed a wake up call."

"Are you kidding? You were so high and mighty in school, I even thought you've forgotten about me."

"Well... not really, but the people around me made me feel like I had no life back then. I hate the idea that I had to give in with the peer pressure."

"It's okay Serin, at least we're good now... I wish we could jut stay like this."

"Idiot, we can't. We still have to go to the prom..."

I frowned, "Why?"

"Because I want to show you off!"

---

Time passed by so quickly that when we got to the prom, it was just in time for the announcement of the prom king and queen. The school principal was the one who announced it, but it wasn't Serin.

We were standing in the middle of the crowd, giving an applause along with the rest of the students, I initially thought that Serin would be disappointed, but I was wrong--she was smiling from ear to ear with the look of contentment plastered on her pretty face

"Serin! I thought you wouldn’t' make it!" one of her friends approached us, "what are you doing with him?" The said friend looked at me from head to foot, repulse evident in her eyes.

"Well, I'm here, aren't I?" Serin snapped, "and Niki is my date. Now if you'll excuse us."

“Was that okay?” I probed as she dragged me to the dance floor, “I mean she’s still your friend…”

“Ah, the friend that spreads baseless rumors about me.” She then wrapped her arms around my neck as we found our spot and started slow dancing as Butterfly by The Boyz started playing.

She tiptoed a little and gave me a kiss on my right cheek, and gave me a smile. I panicked internally when I realized that we were in front of the whole senior class, and I was right when I saw Jay hyung and the others looking at me.

“Jay hyung is going to kill me!” I muttered, when she heard she looked around instantly finding her brother staring at the both of us.

“Oh he’ll live with it!” she rolled her eyes and gave me another kiss, this time on the lips. “I want to see him try though!”

This is going to be the most interesting summer of my life!

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Home | Masterlist

[dat-town]

wish you were here

Characters: Mark Lee & you

Setting: wish dragon au (and a bit of aladdin because mark even has a tiger in their garden like jasmine did. don’t ask why, just blame the regular mv), childhood best friends to lovers (at least there’s potential?)

Genre: fluff and humour

Warnings: mentions of a sick animal and a wild animal kept as a pet in a huge garden (just like jasmine’s tiger, it’s very tamed)

Summary: A magical teapot, a dragon that wants everyone to be happy and an old friendship being revived. Oh yeah, have I told you that you have 3 wishes?

Words: 6.4k

For @restlessmaknae​ 💕

When your mother told you you got delivery to your childhood home, you certainly did not expect this: a brown box as big as a small watermelon with your old Canadian address and MARK LEE scrabbled next to your name as another recipient but no sender. Not to mention, the first stamp on the thing was dating back to the early 2010s. Where the hell was this package for 10 years? And what would you and your old neighbour slash best friend have gotten together?

Okay, first things first:

You and this clumsy, kind of cute kid, Mark had been quite tight while growing up. You were born in the same year, only a month apart, and his family lived in the house next to yours in the suburbs of Vancouver, so it was kind of natural. You two might have been against the world kind of comrades, playing hide and seek when you were six and wondering about whether time travelling was possible through black holes at twelve. But no matter how close you used to be, you fell out of touch when Mark's family moved to the other end of the world, back to Korea, their roots when you were fourteen. You slowly forgot about him, and started university in the city, moving away from home, so nothing really reminded you of him ⎼ and your stupid, big fat crush on him that you had no courage to tell him about in middle school ⎼, nothing until this box.

You put the delivered package on your kitchen table while you make some dinner for yourself out of what you have gotten during grocery shopping earlier just before you picked up the mysterious stuff at the post office. You eye it suspiciously over your pasta, really not wrapping your mind about what it could be but instead of annoying yourself with this pointless curiosity, you put your fork down and stand up to open it. It’s a struggle at first, the box being secured with multiple adhesive tapes over the years but when you finally get rid of all that and can look inside of it, an intense feeling rushes through you… immerse disappointment.

“A teapot? For real? What were we thinking?” you furrow your brows taking the small, green and pretty old teapot into your hands. It looks like a piece of a traditional Asian set with its jade colour and dragon pattern. It couldn’t have been in a much better shape 10 years ago either seeing how wayworn it is but still, you expected something more… exciting? Something funny that might or might not give you an excuse to look up Mark Lee on the internet and message him for the sake of old times. But how lame it would be to befriend him on Facebook only to tell him that you got delivered a teapot under both your names. Hah, you would rather not embarrass yourself like that.

You shoot one last glance at the teapot before leaving it on your counter and going back to your food, you successfully forget about the whole ordeal. You carry your life on with only one small difference: Mark Lee back on your mind after long, long years.

It was just a small crush, you tell yourself, sighing as you look into the mirror, absentmindedly wondering how he’s doing. Does he think of you sometimes as well? Did he go to music college like he has always wanted? Is he happy? You wish he was even if he’s half a world away and with that thought you think it’s time to go to sleep despite the upcoming weekend days. You don’t want to mess up your sleep schedule over some boy but as soon as you pull the blanket over your chest and close your eyes, something explodes in your kitchen.

You jump out of bed faster than lightning, in slight panic over the fact that your neighbours will hate you for bothering them late at night and your landlord would kill you if you managed to blow up your microwave. But the sight that welcomes you is like no other that you imagined. The whole room is covered in thick pink glittery smoke. Like your worst Barbie nightmare.

“What the⎼” you cough, waving your hands to clear the air and once it dissolves into nothingness with its weirdly cotton candy smell, there’s a boy in the middle of it all, sitting cross legged on your kitchen counter so casually as if he owned the place. His pink-ish purple hair hangs into his eyes and he seems to find your coffee machine strangely interesting. You grab the first thing you can ⎼ a blender ⎼ and hold it up in defensive before yelling at the boy: “Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my apartment?”

The stranger’s mouth pulls up in a charming smile, his eyes sparkle as he turns his attention to you, hopping off the counter. He’s all thin and long limbs, so you hate how you hate to look up at him as he walks towards you before bowing ceremoniously.

“Hello, sorry for the sudden appearance, I just couldn’t wait any longer! I’ve been stuck in that teapot waaay too long. I didn’t mean to be rude or anything. My name is Taeyong, I’m a wish dragon and you’re my new owner,” he smiles and what he says makes absolutely no sense.

“A wish dragon?” you mumble in shock, looking around to see if this is just another prank of Johnny. You wouldn’t be surprised to see him jump out from under one of the cupboards. Or maybe you just fell asleep and you’re dreaming. Yeah, that seems like a realistic scenario.

“Ah, yes! I know I don’t look like it but modern times require modern solutions. Most people freak out because of my dragon form, so human it is,” the boy who seems only a few years older than you grins as he’s chatting and you have to give it to him, he takes this role pretty seriously. “You have three wishes as my owner. You can ask for anything as long as it’s not about death or love.”

So you got yourself someone who thinks he’s basically a genie? Oh gosh, is he that drunk?

“Aha, very funny. I’m too tired for this prank, so I would appreciate it if you left the same way you came...” you point towards your window because there’s no way he came through the door. Putting down your blender because the guy looks pretty harmless despite his crazy blabbering, you move to go back to your bedroom.

“No, no, no, I can’t do that,” the boy, Taeyong as he introduced himself, appears in front of you within a second and grabs your shoulder as if he could shake some sense into you. He looks pretty desperate. “I can only get a new owner if I fulfill all wishes of yours. It was super stuffy in that box the last decade, you know.”

At that excuse you let out a laugh.

“You don’t even fit it the⎼”

“You were saying?” Taeyong is suddenly nowhere near ahead of you but instead a small creature, supposedly a dragon, in the size of your palm flies in front of your eye level. “It’s magic!”

Okay, now that sight makes you feel like it’s you who is drunk. Or worse.

“Am I dead?” you have to ask in a small, uncertain voice, trying to think back what could have happened. Maybe that explosion literally blew your apartment up? But it hurts when you pinch your arm and turning back into his human form, Taeyong wants to prove the very same thing. Not the hurting but the not dead part, obviously.

“No, you’re very much alive and a happy owner of a wish dragon. Not permanently, of course, but still,” he tells you as he drags you onto your couch in the living room. As if sitting down could help processing all this.

So you have a wish dragon in your home, a magical creature that can casually switch between its dragon and human form and he says you should wish for three things, so he could leave and you could go back to your old, boring life without magic and things that scare you to death at 11PM.

“Can I ask… why? Why me? I’m not really owner-material,” you whisper because heck yeah, you even managed to kill your cactus before. Taeyong purses his lips as he sits down, a hand at his chin.

“Well, it’s unusual indeed to have a peasant girl, no offence, as my owner but as far as I know, you and your friend asked for a sign that magic was real.”

Oh, you remember that, being so obsessed with shooting stars and other stuff like that, you two used Mark’s brother’s computer to browse the internet, trying to find evidence about all that. You were kids wanting to believe in a world beyond the one you knew. But...

“That was like 10 years ago,” you furrow your eyebrows, not getting the timing.

“Well, sorry, you weren’t put on the top of the Heaven wish list and the shipping from Shanghai to Vancouver isn’t the fastest either,” Taeyong shrugs as if it was supposed to be natural. As if that was the most unbelievable thing. Well, delivery services are sometimes a pain in the ass, that’s true but getting a wish delivered by Heaven was something you would have never thought of and it all drains down on you. Strangest realisation of your life.

“So… it’s all real,” you whisper ahead of yourself: magic, dragons and all that. You could basically see your old best friend’s I told you so smile and let out a soft chuckle. “I wish Mark could meet with you, too.”

At that the guy ahead of you claps his hands and rubs them together, creating the same purple smoke from before. You look at him alarmed.

“Your wish, my command,” Taeyong grins and lifts his hands and before you could make a sound of protest because gosh, you didn’t mean it literally, you feel the ground move under your feet and you’re falling, into the darkness but despite shutting your eyes automatically, fearing the impact of the crash, nothing comes. Only the smell of soy sauce in the air and warm sunshine on your skin… Wait, what?

Your eyelids fly open and you notice in shock that you’re not in your flat anymore, ready to sleep. Instead, you stand in the middle of a goddamn street somewhere in Korea based on the signs still in your PJ shorts and tee. Oh my gosh! You hide in an alley right away and yank the seemingly proud Taeyong with you.

“I didn’t tell you that I meant right now! I can’t meet Mark in my PJs and I need my phone and wallet to function anyways. Not to mention, I don’t speak Korean at all...” you ramble panicking, the realisation that you’re indeed on the other side of the Earth due to some magic is yet to register. But the awkwardness from the stares you have just gotten has already turned you bashful.

Listening to you, the wish dragon seems sheepish and slightly embarrassed as he scratched his nape, his colourful hair falling into his cast down eyes.

“Oh… sorry. I got so excited over the wish that I didn’t think about it! It’s been a while since I did teleport magic but hey, I still have it in me. Anyways, sorry. Phone and wallet, you said? Here you go,” he pulls out something from his pants which magically seems to be indeed your belongings. That definitely makes things earlier.

“Uhm, thanks. Where are we exactly?”

“Ah, well you mentioned your friend Mark Lee, so we’re here. Well, one bell away because I did remember that it’s rude to intrude other’s houses without permission first,” oh now, you know, you snicker internally and gulp because hell, even if you wanted to see Mark, you wouldn’t have thought that the meeting would come so soon. You didn’t have enough time to prepare yourself mentally.

“So… you’re telling me that this… is where Mark lives?” you point at the impressive apartment complex on the corner of the street but Taeyong shakes his head.

“Nope, This is where your Mark lives,” he says and before you could object about the ‘your’ part, the dragon points at the other side of the road at a luxurious house with a huge garden, basically a palace. Seeing the beautiful fountain, the modern and yet traditional Korean style building beyond the fences makes your jaw drop.

“Hahaha, alright for a magic dragon you must have made a mistake. There’s no way the Mark Lee I know lives here,” you look back at Taeyong finding it funny that the kid who used to wore his favourite tees until his mother basically threw them out would live at such a place.

“Mark Lee, korean name Minhyung, supposed to be 22 years old internationally soon. Bad eyesight, contagious laugh, clumsy but has surprisingly good reflexes, gets embarrassed easily. Sound familiar?” Taeyong crooks a brow at you as he reads the information off from a parchment he just took out of his pants. Everything he listed is just so Mark that you’re left in disbelief.

“Uuh… that sounds about right.”

“His father hit it big in 2016 with a tech company, their net worth has too many zeros to count,” Taeyong explains, seeing how surprised you were over the fact that he lived a lavish life like this. Not that he doesn’t deserve it! Mark is such a sweetheart, so of course, you would only want the best for him but as if half the world wasn’t enough, now you have another huge gap between you.

“Gosh, I really can’t believe this. How am I supposed to just ring the bell and say hello after so much time?” you sighed with your head in your hands. “Argh, I need to buy some clothes and change.”

Taeyong approves the idea based on how enthusiastically he hollers, you wonder why nobody on the street seems to pay no attention to him. Maybe only you see him, just more reason for you to be crazy.

“Good idea because we’re having dinner with Mark!”

“What?” you look up in shock, not following through. Taeyong grins down at you, flashing a giddy smile and with a twirl he’s changed from his baggy, casual clothes to something more chic but still laidback.

“Your wish was him meeting me, so I arranged everything. I can't meet him without you and the teapot there, you know,” he explains as if it was supposed to be obvious. You aren't ready yet though.

“You just want to eat all the fancy delicious food he has,” you squint at him suspiciously and the dragon stays silent, so you must be right. He laughs nervously.

“Maybe, but can you blame me? I haven’t had a feast since a literal decade!” he hollers and somehow you really cannot find it in yourself to be angry at him. You are in Seoul for god's sake after all and magic is real, you can put up with the inconvenience of buying clothes and making yourself look decent before dumping all this surprise on Mark.

An hour later you stand in front of the gates of the Lee mansion and nervously you wipe your sweating hands into your dress. You can totally do this, you just say hi to an old friend, it's not like you're afraid he wouldn't remember you, hah, of course not–

"Y/N!" 

You whip your head at the call of your name to the source of that all too familiar voice. Sure it's deeper than you remember but there's no mistake in whose it is. Plus, who else would call your name in South Korea of all places.

"Mark, hey!" you wave the boy who just got out of one of the fanciest cars you've ever seen in your life. And yet, despite the Prada suit and expensive shoes, styled hair and Swiss watch on wrist, Mark Lee still has that goofy little smile and the doe eyes that used to make you weak in the knees. Hah, who are you kidding? They still do.

"Oh my god, dude, you… you got pretty," Mark jogs up to you and having no filter like always he blabbers immediately only to stutter as his ears turn red. It was so him talking before thinking, so you didn’t really mean to dwell on his words. Although you felt your cheeks dusted with pink soon enough. "I mean, it's really good to see you! I was so surprised to see your name in my calendar for today's dinner! You should have told me you were coming to Korea, I would have picked you up at the airport."

His calendar? Ah, of course, he must have been busy and all that. You wouldn’t have been surprised to see an assistant run after him at this point, so you wonder how your wish dragon magically put you onto his list of important people to meet. Gosh, it was so weird.

"Ah, I have a funny story about that…" you chuckled to yourself but before you could have get out anything, even a please, can we go to a more private place? Mark’s eyes zero on the guy next to you and his eyes grow comically wide.

"And uhm, who is your friend?" he points at Taeyong who waves him in exchange with a kilowatt smile. He looks back at you with his mouth agapé. "Oh my god, you came to invite me to your wedding?"

He says oh my god way too many times for an eloquent rich kid, he really is the Mark Lee you knew.

"No, never! I mean, of course, I would invite you but Taeyong and I– I literally met him on my way here," you explain hastily cursing yourself for the silly lie. You came to tell him the news not to try to make it believable. 

“I heard there’s food,” the wish dragon pipes in very helpful and you shoot him a disapproving glance he doesn’t notice. Luckily, Mark doesn’t seem to mind.

“Oh, yeah, of course, dinner! Come on in, let’s get you two settled,” he grins albeit a bit awkwardly as he leads you through the gate after opening it with his card.

On the way through the very, very, very big garden, he’s chattering about how he misses the Vancouver weather, especially on humid, hot days like this and talks about how he thinks the fountain in their yard is a bit too much but his mom loved it and then before you know it, you sit by a huge dining table with fine food in front of you. Suddenly you can’t decide whether you're grateful for Taeyong’s shameless presence – he digs into the jjigae right away – because at least the situation isn’t awkward because of your silence or you’re annoyed by it because you must seem like a weirdo because of him. That’s why you decide to rip off the bandage and tell Mark as soon as the last maid has disappeared too.

“Okay, so actually I came here because I have a surprise,” you speak up, probably too serious because the boy almost chokes on his food due to how fast he turns his head towards you.

“More surprise?” he coughs out and you offer him a glass of water which he takes with a smile.

“You literally won’t believe this one!” you assure him and wait until he gulps down the drink. Only then you point to Taeyong and tell him that your childhood wish has come true. 

Mark almost falls off his chair this time.

Not after you tell him that though. He laughs at that with that wheezing laugh of his as if you told the joke of the century then pats you on the shoulder murmuring That was a good one, bro and turning back to his food. But then you look at the magic dragon pointedly and Taeyong puts down his chopsticks with an exaggerated sign. Then he flexes his magic: turning into his dragon form among additional sparkles and Mark suddenly looks like he’s about to faint. He reaches out to tap on your shoulder while not taking his eyes off the wish dragon.

“Am I dreaming?” he whispers and honestly, you totally get his reaction while Taeyong mumbles something about ‘people these days not believing in dragons’ as he shows off all the things he could do: gift riches, make one stronger than they are, giving skills of whatever one wants. He starts rambling about how this one Chinese emperor became wealthy thanks to this, how that one actor in martial arts and all this before changing back to his human form and he continues eating his pasta like nothing ever happened.

“I can do this all day,” he shrugs as if he didn’t just perform the coolest magic tricks.

“This… this is the best thing ever!” Mark exclaims with those sparkles in his eyes you missed so much. He was always so excited about new things and it automatically makes you smile how he bombards Taeyong with million questions like: ‘So you are the wish dragon that grants wishes?’ or asking him about his scales, his unique color, how it feels to live in such a small teapot, how old he is and the dragon glows under all the attention. Can’t blame him but Mark has always been so curious about the world, it’s endearing.

“So your first wish was to meet me?” he turns to you after long minutes of interrogating Taeyong and suddenly, under the spotlight you don’t know what to do with yourself. You can feel yourself blushing because you didn’t necessarily mean to wish for that but it’s not like you’re regretting it, it’s just… you don’t want him to misunderstand.

“I thought you should meet him, too, after all the package was delivered for the two of us,” you look down, trying to sound nonchalant while picking your food, avoiding Mark’s gaze. No matter how open armed he welcomed you, you still aren’t convinced that it’s okay to be here because the more time you spend with him, the more you would like to stay a part of his life. “It’s just… I wasn’t really sure we could ever meet again. We didn’t keep contact after you left.”

With dropped shoulders, you try not to sound too downhearted because of what happened because you know all too well, it wasn’t his fault, it was a family decision and look at him, it did good for him! He seems happy, they live in a practically mansion but most importantly, he didn’t seem to change with the wealth. He might wear expensive clothes but under it all he’s still the boy with the most loveable smile.

“I… I was thinking about you a lot, I just thought you forgot about me,” Mark admits with a sheepish smile, tucking his hair behind his ear shyly. He really still is the same and it’s playing silly little games with your heart. If this was a cheesy Disney movie, a slow bgm would start to play as you look into each other but your moment is broken when Taeyong accidentally kicks into his chair as he stands up. At first he looks alarmed but then giggles.

“I will just… go. Don’t mind me,” he disappears like smoke with a wink, leaving you two alone at which Mark lets out a woah. You chuckle at his cute reaction, heart doing somersaults in your chest.

You thought it would be awkward, just the two of you alone after long years but Mark has this thing that he makes people feel comfortable around him, so it’s actually quite nice. You catch up on everything and anything that comes to your mind: old neighbours, studies, friends, what are you doing now and what would you like to do, too.

After finishing the delicious dinner, Mark offers a home tour which you would never refuse and you jaw drops at the huge crystal chandelier in their living room as well as their swimming pool but your favourite place in the whole mansion is Mark’s room because it’s just so him. You can’t describe it well but the moment you step inside, it feels like home. It’s cozy to the point it makes you want to cuddle a pillow. It has colours of pastels, a synthesizer here, a guitar there, posters of singers framed on his wall and vinyl records hanging down. His window has a view of sunset and Namsan above their green garden and although you haven’t been in Seoul before, you’re pretty sure it’s your favourite place in the whole damn city, too.

“Wait, there’s someone I would like you to meet,” Mark suddenly exclaims while you’re looking through his pictures and he pulls you out of his room, out of the house, into the garden: You giggle all the way as he’s being so secretive about it but then your steps halt unexpectedly and the hand you have in Mark’s yanks him back.

“Mark… why is there a tiger in your garden in the middle of Seoul?” you ask as quietly and as immobile as you can. You don’t want to attract the sleeping animal’s attention to yourself. But to your biggest surprise, the boy just laughs, his thumb caressing your skin soothingly.

“She’s Jasmine and she won’t hurt you,” he reassures you but needless to say, you’re not too calm and you’re pulled close to the wild animal that lifts its huge head towards you lazily. “She was abandoned by her mother as a cub and she was outcast in the zoo because she’s a bit sick, so she has always been weaker than her siblings. Dad made a donation and we have raised her since she was young.”

You hiss when Mark reaches out without fear but the tiger basically purrs as he strokes down his fur at the neck. You watch in awe as this big wild animal becomes a soft cat under the hands of Mark Lee. When the boy encourages you to pat her too, you hesitate but he promises you that it’s gonna be alright and you take a leap of faith. 

“What’s her sickness?” you wonder aloud as your fingers get lost in the soft fur of the tiger. You hope she’s not in a lot of pain.

“It’s an immune system thing, not sure what exactly but she wouldn’t have survived this long in the wild,” the boy tells you and his mouth curls up in a smile when Jasmine licks your hand. It seems like you’re tiger-approved. You look into its warm brown eyes and your heart churns at the thought of her condition.

Mark tells you stories of Jasmine, about that one time she crashed his birthday cake or how much she likes to swim with him in their pool during summer and gosh, you could listen to him go on and on forever. You’re only reminded of the reality, that all this is just a possible one-time thing, a weekend getaway with magic when Taeyong shows up in swimwear, ready to crash in said pool.

“I guess he might have been bored in that teapot,” Mark laughs, not minding at all. He even offers you to join but you have a better idea.

“Taeyong, I have my second wish!” you call out for the wish dragon who’s suddenly much more excited about that than the water. He’s beside you in a moment, beaming and curious. You glance at Mark with a soft smile before looking at your personal genie confidently.

“I wish Jasmine would be healthy,” you whisper, playing with the tiger’s furry ears which she seems to enjoy. You were a little bit afraid the dragon would say it’s not possible, that he can’t cure sickness but to your relief, he just grins.

“Your wish, my command,” he nods and puts a hand over the animal. Nothing but a smoke of purple signals the magic being done but you believe in it and so does Mark by the looks of it. He reaches out for your hand and squeezes it gently. 

“Thank you,” he smiles and you smile back. He used to be your best friend after all, it’s the least you can do for him.

Mark convinces you to stay the weekend and there’s no way you could tell no to him, not when he clears his schedule just for you. He never complains about how busy he must be working for his father’s business while being a music major at a local university. All he ever talks about is the places he wishes to show you and he takes you around Seoul as if he was your certificated tour guide. It’s lovely how enthusiastic he is about it while what really matters to you is the time you spend together. He makes sure you two take a million photos to remember by, Taeyong posing on half of them since he joins you on your little trips and sometimes it’s just the two of you watching the wish dragon being genuinely in awe by modern technology, 10 years is a long time after all.

On the last day before you have to go back to Vancouver (thanks to Taeyong’s kind offer to take you the same way you came back since he misunderstood you, you don’t have to sit through a 10+ hours flight and you have more time), Mark not only tries to make you breakfast despite having an in-house chef (his eggs are ugly as heck but you appreciate his efforts and can’t help but coo at his dreamy smile under that grey hoodie when you tell him it tastes yummy) but he also introduces you to his friends in Korea. Of course, they tease you (mostly Mark) about where he has been hiding you but it’s all chill and fun you’re not quite ready to say goodbye. But you should go because the more you stay, the more you don’t want to leave. You’re lucky enough for this chance to reunite with Mark but all good things end eventually.

“Let’s not disappear from each other’s life again, okay?” the boy grins at you as you’re ready to go, Taeyong already working on his magic.

“Yeah, let’s not,” you agree easily, looking forward to your video chatting and constant texting even if it’s from the two opposite ends of the Earth with a terrible time zone difference.

You glance at the wish dragon who’s drumming with his fingers while pursing his lips as if he was waiting for something and you let out a huff before working up the courage to actually do something about these feelings inside of you. You might have regretted not confessing in middle school, you have spent years wondering about the what ifs, so you don’t want to make the same mistake twice but still, you want to give Mark a chance to ignore it all if he wants to. So you step forward and wrap your hands around him as you hug him close. It’s obvious that your action takes him aback, he suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his hands and his body tenses under you but it all melts as you say those words that have been threatening to fall from your lips all this time:

“I have missed you.” you confess, honest and based on the hitch in his breathing, Mark must be surprised. You can’t blame him though, you just wanted him to know. You step back with a weary smile, his big Bambi eyes on you but before he could say anything you nod at Taeyong and you feel yourself falling, purple fog pulling you in. A few moments later you’re back in Vancouver, in your apartment, without him.

The first few days pass in a blurr, you can still barely believe what just happened. Your weekend with Mark feels like a too good dream but Mark kept his side of promise and texted you almost immediately as you left. He sends you selfies, songs that remind him of you and you talk about your days like you never did before. Still, it feels like you’re dancing around certain topics which are basically the elephant in the room and maybe that’s why Taeyong tries to cheer you up in his own way. Though, he soon realizes that you not being happy isn’t the problem, you are happy, you just… miss Mark more than you ever did.

“Enough of moping, you still have a wish left!” Taeyong exclaims, throwing himself onto your bed. “Come on, close your eyes, imagine what you want the most in the world and make a wish!" he singsongs. However, before you could even just indulge him, your phone pings with a new notification.

fullsun00 tagged you in their post!

You click on it right away, wondering what Mark’s friend Donghyuck is doing online at 1AM. The uploaded post turns out to be a photo of you and Mark when you all hang out near Han river. You were too busy at the time laughing at how the boy almost lost his whole scoop of ice cream before he could have had a single bite to notice his smile while looking at you. Based on his caption Donghyuck apparently wasn’t.

fullsun00: just old friends, they say. friends my ass @buttercupyn @onyourm__ark

You click your tongue wondering what Mark thinks of the callout but you press like on the post anyways. You put your phone aside before you could see how his other friends join the teasing in the comment section.

“Actually, I do have my third wish,” you speak up as you turn to Taeyong before he could make a remark on your tinted cheeks.

You’ve been thinking a lot about it during the past days. You could wish for anything but you’re at a point of your life where no riches or fame would make you happier because you’re happy enough just the way it is. It might not be perfect but you don’t want to be selfish and you want to make decisions you won’t regret: like catching up with Mark, curing his tiger and bringing happiness into the life of somebody who only ever served other people in his life.

“Ooh, what is it?” Taeyong claps, giddy as if he was waiting for this to happen. He probably did.

“I wish you would go on a vacation and enjoy life,” you tell him but unlike his usual reaction, this time the dragon’s smile fades and he blinks at you, confused.

“You could ask for anything in the world and that’s what you want? Are you sure?” he furrows his brows, not quite believing your words but you just smile, knowingly.

“Yes, Taeyong, I’m sure.”

“Your wish, my command,” he bows with his hands put together and with a twirl suddenly he’s in a Hawaiian shirt and sunglasses, looking as ready for a holiday as one can be. You chuckle and tell him to just go, you’ll be fine.

You’re fine, you really are. Life goes on, you study and work, you laugh with your friends, you video call with Mark regularly and his friends are regulars on your social media, too. It’s just sometimes the feeling of missing something hits you harder than other days. Especially when you’re looking through the pictures you have from your Seoul weekend.

“I wish you were here,” you whisper ahead of you at one particularly good photo of Mark and the sunset, smiling at you behind the camera. You miss his smile, the cute wrinkles around his eyes when he crunches his nose, the sound of his laughter, his hand on your wrist… you miss him.

Ding-dong.

You stand up startled at the sound of your flat’s bell, running to the door to open it even though you have no idea who it could be so early on a Saturday morning. Not having a better idea, you expect it to be either a neighbour of your landlord but on the other side of your doorstep stands a boy who you thought was a continent away. He’s dressed semi-casually this time, his shirt tucked in his jeans, hair lightly falling onto his forehead and a nervous smile on his thin lips.

“Mark! But I⎼ I don’t even have more wishes,” you blink, taken aback, looking around to look for Taeyong in case he came back. But your behaviour just manages to confuse Mark instead.

“What?”

“I just wished you were here,” you blurt out without thinking, your words only processing later in your brain and it’s then when heat creeps onto your cheeks. Mark tries to but can’t really hide his growing smile at that.

“Really? I’m glad then. I just took my new private plane on a test drive,” he says bashfully, a silly excuse for real.

“All the way to Vancouver?” you tease, watching Mark fumble with the hem of his shirt. Your heart beats overtime just because of the fact that he’s there. 

“Well, what can I say? I did miss the weather here,” he plays along with a shrug but he’s more serious when he looks deep into your eye and adds: “And you left without letting me answer.”

Oh yes, you did. You were kind of afraid of his reaction but seeing how he was ready to travel across the world just to see you, maybe there’s no reason for you to be so afraid. It feels like deja vu but a reversed one in a way as Mark gently pulls you into a hug, his lips grazing your hair with a whisper that makes your heart skip a beat: “I have missed you too.”

You really wouldn’t wish for anything more.

[mayasdeluca]

I know it's an unpopular opinion to talk about or feel sorry for Jack but your comment really had me think. Jack was at his "best" (most tolerable) when he was happy with Inara. So obviously the solution for his next storyline is to make him the most annoying mold latching on to your fan favorite characters. On top of that instead of making him finding out he has a brother a happy reunion, you stab him in the heart that the brother was raised by their bio parents and then twist the knife to say the parents raised what was it 3 more siblings and Jack was the forgotten trash left behind. Then double down even more and say the parents didn't even attempt attempt to find out about Jack, they just assumed he was placed in a good home. Common sense would say find him and see where he ended up and then decide if he's happy, let him be or if he's a street rat (like he wound up) take him back in.

Sure, give Jack (or any character) some drama to overcome, we all have it. Maybe he finds his brother and realizes his bio parents raised him. It throws him for a loop sure but he works it out, talks to Diane, his friends, Ben and Joey and he wraps his head around the circumstances. But to squash him with a steamroller to where he's splayed across the asphalt is going beyond the necessity for drama especially considering Grey is not the caliber actor to take on that emotional roller coaster.

Good writing is storyline+actor who can execute and the writers fail every time to connect those pieces. If you pull Grey out and drop any other actor in, no doubt in my mind that story line would have been 1000% better.

Imagine this...Maya's test comes back that she has another sibling that her parents put in the system because they were too young. It causes Maya to confront her father and mother (stained relationship that's already established), revisit some of her past childhood traumas (not in a bad way), gets her to relate to Jack (which I know eww but it's something the writers love), and it gives her and Carina a problem/conflict they have to work on together. Similar story line that would've/could've been told in a completely different dare I say better way.

It's just so frustrating that the writer's keep trying to fit a square peg into a round hole and expect a good outcome.

These are great points and I totally agree. The execution/portrayal/story telling all has to be there or at least 2 of the 3 and with Jack’s storylines it’s usually 0 of 3 which makes it a tough watch. Like you said if you were to give his kind of storyline to Danielle for example, even if all the writing wouldn’t necessarily be great or well thought out, Danielle is a high quality actress so her portrayal would still make it watchable and intriguing. And they had already made it worse with Jack by inserting him into Marina’s baby storyline to the point where now no one even wants to see him on screen period. If they had just given him his own storyline from the start, yeah it would probably still either be boring or not executed well but at least it wouldn’t drive people nuts in the process.

I also don’t understand and never will understand what the point of the Jack/Inara/Marcus storyline was if it was just going to end like that and now Jack is where he is development wise now. So basically it was for nothing. They were boring and bland so yes it was the right move to end them but if you had nothing else to do with Jack besides have him ruin other characters storylines then he should’ve just went to California with them? At least he’d get his happy ending and wouldn’t still be the guy who is ruining everyone’s lives and messing with people. Now instead he’s back to being a hot mess and in comes Eva (literally who cares to see her back? No one) who I’m sure he’s going to have some angsty hook up drama with and he’ll just go back to being the moronic jerk that these writers love making him. It’s so stupid and unnecessary and no one cares to see it.

These writers just don’t know what good drama is, they don’t know what good story telling is and don’t know how to write consistent and interesting character development. It’s very sad.

[danny-chase]

Do you think that Tim saved Dick in a way? Because we see Dick getting better as he gets closer to Tim and healing and getting back into the family, and ig it’s Tim who initiated that.

I literally don't have a yes or no answer for this... like most things in the Batfam - it's complicated. (Following answer is informed by 90s-00s comics, i can't really speak for new52 because it just... has so many issues one of which being erasing the relationship between Dick and Tim for *checks note* no discernable reason other than possibly *checks note* Didio hates legacy characters and wants only bad things for them so he could have excuses to kill them off or cancel their comics... idk just a guess)

Warnings: for Bruce stans - just look away i'm about to bring up bits of canon you most likely don't like, for Dick stans - Devin Grayson's run is mentioned, for the lovely anon - i wrote an essay, hope you are prepared

Tim coming into the family gave Dick a reason to occasionally hang around Bruce and i'm not sure if this is an exaggeration or not but he did sort of save that relationship - but whether that was a good or bad thing at the time, i can't really say. For sure - it starts off good, Bruce is actually trying to be a good dad (he comes down to Blud to check on Dick, adopts him, trusts him with his own city, calls him for backup, etc.). But we also see throughout Bruce Wayne: Fugitive/Murderer how unhealthy the relationship between the two can be. Dick built his core values around Bruce - if Bruce had actually killed here it would have been devastating for Dick (he was pretty much on the verge of a mental breakdown simply because they couldn't find proof Bruce wasn't guilty). The two literally got in a fist fight during the arc because Bruce was being uncommunicative and Dick couldn't take it anymore, snapped, and punched him when Bruce said "Bruce Wayne is dead only Batman now" - this tied into Dick finally having the relief and validation of being adopted and he couldn't handle Bruce stripping himself (and by extension, his fatherhood of Dick) away. In this era of comics Bruce had gotten physical with Dick before (here's me venting like an annoyed loser), and here's a clip from Bruce Wayne Fugitive that i just, *sigh*, canon Bruce, my detested.

Now on the other hand - getting Dick involved in the batfam more doesn't just mean he was hanging out with Bruce. His relationship with Tim is pretty great and I can definitely see where it was healing for a while - but also - to give credit where credit is due, the healing he goes through during this era of comics can also be attributed to Barbara and the Titans (the fab five specifically). Wally literally joins the Titans to give Dick a "social life" (me - it's because he's gay and wants to spend more time with Dick, actually, screw you DC you know i'm right). Donna plays a major part in keeping Dick's emotional well being in check. So like everything was going fine - Dick was healing, spending more time with friends, spending a lot of time with people he loved, like Tim, except he was neglecting his health and not sleeping - but overall he was in fact, managing, and moving past the deaths of Jason and some of the other Titans. With the current Titans - he was a hardass (which like ~trauma~ so I understand), but like things were going relatively okay.

And then Donna and Lilith died. And hooof Donna dying was like really really bad for his mental health.

Teen Titans/Outsiders Secret Files (2003) #1

[Image ID: Dick sits in a room staring at a photo, the phone rings in the background, and he doesn't even acknowledge it, the voice mail plays: "I'm not here. Leave a message after the beep." The photo is shown closer in the next frame, it's of the five original Teen Titans - Roy kisses Donna on the cheek, tipping his hat his other hand making the okay sign, Donna has an arm around Roy, the other hand on Dick's shoulder, Garth proudly stands beaming with his hands on his hips, and Dick has both his arms around Wally's neck. Everyone is smiling in the photo. A voice plays over the answering machine: "Dick, it's Roy - pick up the phone... c'mon... please... I know you're there... just pick up. Dick, we need to talk... you can't just... please..." End ID]

For context - the previous page noted that this is Dick SIX WEEKS after Donna died. Usually Dick's the one who moves on quickly, but Donna dying broke him in a way nothing else had before - and that could be partly because he was still recovering from everyone else's death.

Up to this point, Dick had been healing and Tim was definitely a part of that, but then DC decided to throw the absolute book, bookshelf, and library at him. Reading Outsiders (2003) it's very clear he's very traumatized, and around the same time, Devin is literally whumping him like it's the whump Olympics, breaking him and Babs up, burning down his childhood home, blowing up his apartment complex (killing all but like two of his neighbors), he's literally sleeping on fire escapes using newspapers as covering because he has nothing, and the bad thing i don't like to think about (i'll let you know if you ask but that one needs lots of tw, but if you know where i'm going you know what it is already), Blockbuster is killed and he blames himself - and loses it over breaking Bruce's one rule, Bludhaven is nuked, and he pretty much tries to kill himself.

So basically, he was on the path to healing (with Tim as part of that) before he got absolutely destroyed (and almost killed off by Didio in one of the crisis). Tim in his own right, was also going through a lot in the meantime, his dad died, Steph died, Kon and Bart died, i don't remember what else happened and i haven't read that era of Robin yet. Things were good until they weren't anymore, and sometimes i think Dick would regret ever exposing Tim to the life they live, and questions whether he should have just sent Tim packing x2. They do get to spend a year together on a mental health cruise, but then Damian comes into the picture, Battle for the Cowl happens, and they have their falling out. But whatever happened on that cruise must have been really healing for Dick because he actually kind of rocks it in this era - he keeps things light with Damian, Alfred notes at one point how he makes things easy because he has lightness in him, and he patches things up with Tim - catching him in that panel of Red Robin - from there they kind of go back to normal, there's a lightness to the way they banter with each other (also here) and Tim returns the favor (from the Red Robin incident) by pulling Dick out of the water.

They've saved each other multiple times over (physically), and in both in the Black Mirror and Gates of Gotham, Tim helps out in a period where Dick is starting to fall apart from the pressure of holding things together for so long (something Tim might feel guilty for, because he did run away from Gotham on a wild goose chase for Bruce). In that period, it's really clear that Dick saves Tim (he reminds him in RR, that someone does actually care for him) and then Tim saves Dick from being torn apart by Gotham.

I should point out - Damian, while starting off as kind of a hinderance, does eventually start helping Dick as well. By the end of their relationship (before the New52 destroys everything i love), Dick has helped Damian grow emotionally, and through that process Dick probably finds meaning and value in their time together, probably a lot like he used to feel with Tim. And of course, physically, they've both saved each other multiple times by the end of the run.

So yeah. I think Dick finds meaning in growth in mentoring his younger brothers, and it's likely a healing process, that healing just has some twists and turns along the way, and sometimes, on bad days, he probably feels like maybe he shouldn't have intervened at all, but i think on most days, he's proud of what Tim's become.

...I hope this is coherent lmao