#now onto a DEGREE

[miku-meeku]

literally got up from my bed while sick to cook up this vision i had that may explain reasons i like robinhill

dont they look alike im not delusional i swear they look alike i swear rIGHT THEYRE WHITNEY AND AMY CORE RIGHT

[banned-for-horny]

After your words I just need more possessive traumatized, messed up Robin who clings to PC like a small coala.

"Robin!"

Robin is five when he skins his knee.

He doesn't remember how or when. What he does remember is the itch of the cut, the way his skin tingles and burns as blood begins to puff at the seams. He remembers his eyes watering, blurring the world around him as he starts to hiccup and wail, because Robin had been (and always will be) a crybaby.

But, he also had you. You'd come running the moment he fell, chubby hands dragging one of Ms. Bailey's friends behind you. Unlike him, you were never allowed outside without supervision. Today, that seems to work in his favor.

Yes, Robin remembers thinking. He's very lucky to have you.

"Robin, what are you-stop!"

Robin is seven when he loses his first tooth.

That's late, apparently. You're already missing three, two falling out and one forcibly knocked out when an older orphan tried to push you down the stairs. Robin had bitten the older orphan in retaliation, but the force from hitting the floor still knocked your tooth clean out.

But it's not a scary process, you tell him when you cram your fingers in his mouth. It doesn't hurt at all! And if it hurts, you'll go get Ms. Bailey for him and then she'll buy you some nice pastries from the café.

It's a flat-out lie. Robin recalls blood gushing from his mouth when you finally ripped his tooth out. It started to make him dizzy, so you ran out to find some help until he was sent to the hospital to have his mouth looked at. You're still there when he wakes up, though, and you manage to buy him some vanilla ice cream with what meager savings you have.

His throat was still numb from the anesthetic, but Robin recalls tasting milk and honey when you smiled at him.

"No, Robin, stop! S-Snap out of it already!"

Robin is ten when he first walks in on you in the bathroom.

It used to be fine before. He remembers taking showers with you all the time, blowing suds at your face and wrestling to shove you under the surface. Ms. Bailey had said to stop that when he reached seven, but you were never one for listening to the caretaker, so neither was Robin.

But now, Robin thinks that night, it's...different.

He has his thin blanket strained between his legs, face warm and neck damp with sweat. The weird squirming in his stomach won't stop. He wants to sleep, but every time he shuts his eyes, he sees your bare back instead and feels sick all over again.

In the future, he will take classes and learn from a pretty blonde man all about what he's feeling. It's natural, he will learn, for boys his age to start developing some interest in people. It's not something to be ashamed of. In fact, in this hell, it's something he should embrace.

But for now, Robin just rolls onto his stomach and tries to ignore it.

"Robin, this isn't-please, don't! Get off-"

Robin is thirteen when someone tries to take you right in front of him.

Your bodyguards are careless, have been ever since you hit thirteen. Robin knows one is still around, though he's too busy schmoozing with some other guy across the park.

But Robin isn't, and the second the lady's grip on your forearm gets too tight, he's there with a fistful of mulch and a scream that splits the air like the temple bells. He shoves the chips at the tall woman's cheeks and rams an elbow into her shoulder. It's just enough to get her to let go, stumbling back from the assault.

Then she rounds on Robin with her lips pulled back in a snarl, but you're already on her, throwing your entire weight into a tackle that sends the woman flying into the fountain. Your physique has always been better than his. He's still very lucky you would never use it against him.

By the time a 'random bystander' (ie, the bodyguard that supposed to be protecting you under Ms. Bailey's orders) comes in to sweep you and Robin away, you're starting to grow a black eye and his ankle hurts pretty bad, but he's hand-in-hand with you. You're all smiles for the first few hours, reassuring him that everything was okay and that you're fine, but when he's in his shared room with you, you end up slipping into his bed.

You're trembling. Robin wraps his arms around you and holds you tight.

"Don't touch me!"

Robin is sixteen when he sees you kiss another classmate.

He doesn't know who she is, just that you're just as flustered and apologizing to hell and back. It must have been an accident. It happens all the time.

That doesn't stop the hole from tearing into his chest, rattling his nerves and flooding every pore in his marrow with...with what? Unease? Disgust? Betrayal?

Whatever it is, it's chased by a rush of shame. You would never betray him. Furthermore, you aren't his. Not like that, at least. You've been raised by his side ever since he can remember. Wherever Robin went, you were guaranteed to follow (or, at least, try). Even when school started and your schedules differed, you made it clear that walking home with Robin would be part of your new routine. If Robin ever fell, you would be there to catch him.

And if anyone tries to hurt you, Robin is supposed to be there to protect you, because he's your friend-no, because he's yours.

"..."

Robin is nineteen when he finally pulls out of your cum-slicked hole. Sweat drips from his temple and traces his cheekbone. His arms are aching, his stomach burns, and when he looks down, your eyes are locked onto the curtained window that overlooks the town. The flesh around your throat is already starting to puff with hand-shaped bruises. You could have easily fought him off, but you would never lay a hand on him, even if it meant hurting yourself.

He's lucky, he thinks before collapsing on top of you. You're still half-dressed in your sleepwear, the fabric clinging to his sweaty skin as he tries to curl around you. The bed sheets below you are still fresh with your scent.

Right. This is your room. He'd come into your room, climbed into your bed, and-

He doesn't realize he's crying until your hand touches his cheek. You're not looking at him, glazed eyes focusing on the wall instead, but the rest of your body moves on autopilot, muscle memory from years of comforting him when he wept.

"...it's okay, Robin," you murmur. "It's okay. I'm fine."

Because you would always be there to catch him. No matter what.

Robin is very lucky, indeed.

[narugen]

i seriously need more narumi and mina moments because just imagine the relief mina felt when narumi joined, similar age to her and was also considered a prodigy in the force.

to have someone to share the burden of the defence force’s future with must’ve felt so freeing. because before he joined it was just her, age 18, being told that she was going to change kaiju extermination with her exceptional synergy with firearms. and she was so, so scared.

narumi doesn’t have the kind of skills or talent for long range combat like she does, but he’s also a top candidate (despite his behavioural issues- which aren’t much of a hinderance anyway) and mina doesn’t have to carry the burden of the future alone anymore

(although she’d never admit, given she probably views narumi as someone completely shocking i just think it’s so funny how she stood there like O_O when she first saw him)

like i LOVE seeing the contrast. mina who was sent onto the battlefield for the first time and was deathly afraid vs narumi who was sent out and immediately took action because that’s how he always lived (fighting)

and now they’re the top two strongest captains in the force and they will be the ones to lead the new generation..

[unproduciblesmackdown]

has happened plenty around iconis goings on but what an all-timer

[bookwyrminspiration]

fillinf out all the stupid forms and ordering a stupid transcript to explain to the stupid financial aid people that the reason I have so many stupid credits but am not in my stupid degree program yet is because they're stupid transfers from stupid OTHER college and stupid OTHER degrees and most of the stupid credits are not! actually! relevant! to my stupid CURRENT degree paths!

[enigma-absolute]

-looking into the 39 Clues series via tvtropes and general browser searching-

it's beginning to look like LOST MEDIAAAAAAAA

[eternal-reverie]

got the posting anxiety bad tonight

[icewindandboringhorror]

misc photo diary stuff.. also this unintentionally all matches sort of lol.. warm toned photos?

[hairtusk]

if i comment on the tumblr poll poetry smackdown i'm going to sound like such a cunt. again.

[rescuethewretched]

I finished grad school!

so I submitted my very last assignment tonight and I am officially finished graduate school! after I walk at graduation next weekend, I will officially have my Masters in Library Science!

[poppies]

2023 was the worst year of my life. not sure what's to come or where to start but i know things have to change, i have to fix things somehow

[soft-serve-soymilk]

More random head children musings (aside from the really sad one because that deserves better than a throwaway post):

Honestly I think it’s very fortunate that Dism’s team isn’t *entirely* comprised of lucid dreamers.

[tempestuousserenity]

.

[racke7]

Me vs FF14 part... 2?

It's taken me pretty much three full days of running from cutscene to cutscene. But I've finally reached Heavensward.

And like... on some level? I'm kind of offended?

Like, a part of me genuinely wants to replay the entire game from the start "as something else" (different main-class, different race, different starting-area, whichever), because the dungeon-queuing system is actually really fun when you start to Understand it.

As in, FF14 has somehow made an MMO that has almost eliminated the feeling that it is a level-grind? Partially? It's turned the whole thing into a surprisingly comfortable level of (limited, but genuine) social interaction.

To the point where even someone who isn't obsessively grind-focused like me, can genuinely enjoy themselves. Just queuing up for dungeons, Hunting some bounties, and-...

And then FF14 has so many fucking quests that it literally chokes the life out of the gameplay.

As an example, one of their biggest dungeon-draws (bcs high rewards) is a quest that almost everyone hates playing. Because doing that dungeon means watching literally eighteen minutes of unskippable cutscenes.

And that's with them having reduced the amount of cutscenes in that dungeon, because the players complained so much about them.

Like... I'd be perfectly happy replaying the game from the start with a different character, even knowing that leveling isn't some kind of pain-free thing. But the thought of having to restart the fucking Main-Quest? Of having to spend literal days just running back-and-forth to cutscenes?

I'm currently feeling a bit burned-out as a result of the binge I went on to get here, but I'm pretty damn sure that I wouldn't replay this fucking thing even if you paid me for it.

(And, of course, Heavensward also has a Main-Quest continuation that you have to follow. And now I'm not even allowed to fly everywhere to cut down on the "running back-and-forth"-part of my complaints. Not until they arbitrarily allow me to discover flight for the new areas, by going through even more of the Main-Quest.)

(Not to mention that now I have to go back and do even more Class-quests, with their own cutscenes, in order to unlock a bunch of skills.)

(I'm very fond of the "the church is evil because it doesn't let you fuck dragons"-meme, and I'm very much seeing it. But like... come the fuck on. Why is this MMO a feature-length movie-series? Why can't I just play the game and have fun?)

[the-casbah-way]

i'm not doing anything !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm not fucking doing anything !!!!!!!!!!!!!! i just sit and rot and worry and yearn whilst other people are out there living and feeling and breathing and experiencing and still i just do nothing !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[they-call-me-hippie]

Guess who almost died in a car crash