#post end game

[innorogers]

Dawn

Steve Rogers x OFC

Summary: No, this pain…It was carved into him, ingrained into his very being, haunted him like a shadow. And no one saw it.

Warning: Angst

Characters: OC, Steve Rogers, John Walker, and Avengers.

Also: This is the almost last chapter of the series! Thanks in advance for repost or any feedback ❤️ Let me know if you want to be included in the taglist (DM, comment, repost and tag, whatever works)❤️

1: Insomnia | 2: Lucid | 3: Reverie | 4: Nightmare | 5: Awakening | 6: Dusk | 7: Hypnagogia | 8: Lull | 9: Vigil | 10: Eclipse | 11: Veil | 12: Labyrinth

There it was… this tree.

A giant, opulent, beautifully majestic oak.

You knew every branch, every root. You knew how the sunlight glistened through at dawn, golden beams cascading like falling rain through the shifting shadows of its leaves.

You knew how it breathed among the fog, whispering in an ancient language only time could understand.

You knew how it slept beneath the moonlight, how it awoke in spring, how its roots stretched so deep into the earth that – when you were underground in that hideous lab, strapped to the surgical table with things plugged into you – you could see it.

Golden threads of its life. Shining. Glowing. Bright as starlight, intertwined like an infinite spider web, nested in the ceiling, moving, circulating, breathing. Living.

When those Hydra white coats numbed you with electrifying pain, this magnificent view of these ancient roots was your tether to sanity. They curled into your mind, winding through the agony, singing a symphony only you could hear and understand.

And after whatever they had done to you and your siblings, you would go there. You could see through the layers, so its branches were like an open stairway for you to climb with ease. Your brothers and sisters never understood how you did it, how you ascended higher and higher until you were lost within the greenery of its leaves.

“Twelve!” They used to shout out to you—usually, it was Four or Seven who followed you to play deep in the forest. “What do you see?”

And each time, your answer was different.

“A bridge crossing the mountains… there’s, um… a red train with smoke! It’s so shiny! And it’s heading east… I wonder what’s in the east?”

“Oh, look! It’s that train again. It turned on the lights! Whoa, it looks so warm inside, and cozy too… They have yellow lights, that’s so nice…”

“Birds! I can see birds! Wow, they are so white, they look like flying little clouds… They are flying together… Now, how does the first one know there are so many others following? They are not leaving anyone behind… I wish we could do that too someday.”

“The village under the mountain has its lights lit! I think there’s a celebration. They have lights in red, green… violet? Is that the right color? I’ve never seen violet lights before… How do they do that?”

You would shout that to your siblings, and then they would tell the rest when you were together, sometimes during the rare occasion of having dinner, or after the guards went off their shift, in your separate cells where you could hear each other.

They would press you for more details, wide-eyed and eager, clutching onto glimpses of a world beyond their own. And they asked the rarest, weirdest, and most fantastic questions that turned a cold winter night into a conversation full of laughter and imaginary dreams.

Everyone would participate, except for Eleven, your twin.

She could read your mind, she never needed it to ask.

So she sat beside you at dinner, silent as she passed the bread and salt. Or curled against the wall of her cell, in the exact place you were on the other side, the corners of her mouth turning into the faintest of smiles.

Because she knew.

There was nothing.

Only miles and miles of barren mountains, infinite snow, jagged rocks, and trees stripped by the wind. The scenery was gray, deep green, and white.

Cold.

Unyielding.

Vast.

And hollow.

No bridges to the east, no trains with warm cozy lights, and no colorful lantern-lit villages.

Only a wilderness so vast and empty that the silence itself had weight.

And still, Eleven never said a word.

But sometimes, just sometimes, when she handed you the bread, her fingers would linger for half a second too long as if she wanted to say something. And you could hear her heartbeat, or see her life thread shining in the dark on the other side of your cell wall. It was shining more than usual when you told those stories.

But she never said anything.

And neither did you.

Or your siblings that went outside and saw the world.

They all knew. Just as you knew.

There was nothing outside.

Not for you.

Not for them.

But the tree still stood, after all.

And so did the stories.

So here you were, again. How many years has it been? You looked around. You were on a tall branch, a few feet from the ground. The air was cold, and the ground was lightly dusted with snow. Is it… winter?

You frown. Confused. You are in your usual position, these branches were so strong and wide, that you used to nap here in spring. But now… you couldn’t fit into it.

How… how long has it been since you were last here? Hours? Days? Years?

You looked around, and then you heard the voices.

Someone’s talking.

“It’s gonna work.” A female voice said, in a soft, gentle, but unwavering tone.

“How…?”A male voice responded. “We’re failing. My wounds aren’t healing. I’m not even close to passing the tests. Not like before. And Three… Three isn’t progressing either. She’s too slow. She’s—”

He faltered. “She was supposed to be better than us. And yet, when we were her age, we were so much stronger, faster…” His voice is desperate: ��And I don’t even want her to be that, but they won’t let her live…if she continues like this.”

You peered through the leaves, your breath catching in your throat.

You could barely remember them, it had been so long, but yes, of course, you see it now. You look so much like them, but yeah, they were so gorgeous. Look at One. Oh my god, she looks like a Greek goddess.

“It’s going to work.” One murmurs: “This project, our mission, our purpose, it’s going to work.” She says softly but with the certainty of someone who had seen beyond time itself.

Two scoffs, crossing his arms. “Well fine, GREAT, that’s what they want. So what…what do you see? Do they just find some miracle cure? Some magic serum? Or do we just keep surviving their tortures because we’re so perfect?”

“No.” One shakes her head. “Not in the way they think. Not in the way we think.” Her fingers brushed the bark of the tree. 

“The experiment succeeds because of something else. Someone else.”

“What? Who?” Two raises his eyebrows. “‘Jesus’?”

One doesn’t answer right away. She tilts her head slightly like she’s listening to something beyond the wind, beyond the forest. A future too distant to touch, yet already written.

Finally, she whispers, “Someone will survive. One of us. Eventually. And they’ll be the last. The last, but the most important. The only one that matters.”

She smiles faintly, as if she were seeing something beautiful, something never seen before, some dream so far away but yet so stunning that she doesn’t even have the words to describe it.

“Someone strong, warm, kind, gentle, who will carry this cross. Someone that looks like…redemption and…mercy.”

“So…” Two nods sarcastically: “Jesus.”

One chuckled, brushing a fallen leaf from his hair. “No…well, probably. You know, the one who will end the fight and bring the peace we never saw. And we will never see.” 

Two stiffens. He doesn’t need to ask what that means. He leans on the tree looking up, and narrows his eyes as some sunlight pinches through the leaves, casting directly into his eyes. 

“How long do we have?” He asks softly, he pauses. “Wait, since when you’ve known this? Since when you’ve seen it? Did you know? We would start to fail? We would…eventually…die?”

“I think I’ve always known… but we were always…brainwashed and…put into sleep so I just thought it was a dream, but now, when Three was created and she started to fail…it just became more and more clear.” 

One sits on the ground, and she leans back and looks up at the tree above them too. And for a moment, you thought she saw you, but she didn’t. She looked at the sky, some blank space between the trees and beyond, but that was the only sky she’d seen. Or remembered.

“We are meant to fail. Two.” She looked at her partner.

“We are meant to fail and die. So eventually, one of us will make it. We are the trials, the suffering, the experiments, the test results, we are the stepping stones to something greater. Something that’s…worthy.”

“Wait…” Two looked at her as he listened. He knew her so well, as their souls were written with the same ink and pen. 

“Is this why Three is failing? She carries yours, no, she carries our DNA, is this why she is letting go? Because…she is accepting it? As we are accepting it? Because…you accepted it. So we all did. And so…all that comes after us, all our siblings, eventually…will too.” 

You pressed a hand over your mouth as you sat frozen in the tree, disbelief sinking into your bones.

So this was it.

This was the reason.

This was why all your siblings had died before you. Even those who survived to the experiments.

They were never meant to survive.

They were only meant to pave the way.

And they knew. Just as they knew you were inventing stories but never said a word, never shattered the fragile illusion that you weren’t trapped, caged—that your existence wasn’t just a highly sophisticated experiment, a perfected kind of lab mouse.

They accepted One’s vision, imprinted in her soul since she had witnessed it, and it was passed down to Two, to Three, to Four, to all of you. And so, one by one, they let go.

So the final prototype, the perfect and ultimate version of you could…

No.

Your eyes widened. 

Something pulled at the edges of your consciousness. A thought, a truth—one so absolute, you knew it. You knew it all this time but it was so deeply woven and buried into history that you didn’t grasp it at the beginning. 

It was like One said: The experiment had worked. Just not in the way Hydra intended.

“Not in the way they think. Not in the way we think.”

It had succeeded.

Not in them.

And not in you.

But in someone else.

The final outcome. 

The one who carried it all. 

Not just the experiments, not just the test, or the science, but the very heart of what One had seen. 

Strength, warmth, kindness, mercy.

Your breath hitched.

It was never you.

It was him.

It had always been him.

Steve.

All of you, you were never meant to be the final answer. You were the foundation. The formula. The failed trials. The pain, the suffering, the endless experiments—all of it, all of you, existed so that, one day, the right person would receive the right answers. 

Not the strongest. Not the fastest. Not the most enhanced.

But the one who didn’t need it to be great, not at those things, at least. A good man. A good heart. A soul so bright, so just, that his life thread was shining like concentrated sunshine.

Because Steve Rogers had been Steve Rogers long before he ever took the serum.

And that was what made him different.

That was what made him the success.

That was what made him worthy.

You felt the cold sting against your cheeks and wiped at the tears, but they kept falling. 

You could see it now. All of it. Every unspoken answer to the questions that had haunted you, every muted sacrifice, every quiet acceptance. 

One had seen it back then, and she embraced it. 

She had let go, and so had your siblings, the refined, enhanced echoes of her. And now, so would you.

Right?

So would you.

The tree opened.

Its golden life threads glowed like the first light of dawn, unraveling and twisting like infinite veins of pure light. They pulsed, beckoning, calling you home.

And in the distance, you saw them: your siblings. Standing together beneath the branches, waiting.

Four and Seven, side by side, just as they always were. Eleven with that quiet smile, she was carrying Eight, the one who passed so early, too young to remember the pain, too innocent to understand what she had been made for.

They were waiting.

White birds pure as cotton, moving like little clouds. They don’t leave anyone behind. They took flight. No one was going to be alone.

And for a moment, you wanted to go.

But. 

“No…” You muttered.

Someone was being left behind.

You could see it. 

You could see him.

His back was hunched, his hands gripping the edges of a sink, white-knuckled. His reflection in the mirror hollow, exhausted, tired. Dark circles under his eyes. He had been up all night, again.

You saw him sitting at a desk, untouched food growing cold beside him. His shoulders tensed as he forced himself to keep reading report after report, even as his vision blurred.

You saw him in the gym, fists slamming into the punching bag, again and again and again, sweat dripping from his skin. The bag snapped off its chain. He grabbed another. Kept going. Never stopping.

You saw him staring at his hands. The scars were healing by itself. But did the pain go way too? Just because it was cured fast, does it mean that it didn't hurt?

You saw his sleepless nights, wandering around the compound, just checking what he could do better, faster, so the seconds and the minutes passed quicker and it was another day, more challenges, more missions, more hurt, more scars. More.

You saw.

Pain.

Not the battle wounds or broken ribs, bleeding fists or a bullet on his shoulder or another scar on his back.

No, this pain…It was carved into him, ingrained into his very being, haunted him like a shadow. And no one saw it.

Because he was Captain America.

And Captain America didn’t falter.

Captain America didn’t get to fall apart.

Captain America didn’t get to suffer.

But Steve—

Steve did.

Steve was suffering.

“No.” You said again.

You promised.

You promised you would come back to him.

You promised to fetch every star so your soldier could sleep, that you would go to the furthest sky and come back.

You promised. 

And yet, the tree was pulling you in. The light wrapped around your wrists, your ankles, your chest. 

“No.” 

Your siblings were walking to the light, and so were you. 

You were meant to go with them. You were designed to let go.

It was in your very DNA.

Does promises weight more than nature? Than fate?

“BP is plummeting—40 over 20!” The quinjet’s med bay was a storm of flashing lights and frantic movement. Biometric monitors lining the walls flickered with erratic data streams, pulse oximeters screaming alarms. 

“I need 2 milligrams of epinephrine, NOW!! Move! Charge the paddles to 200!”

Someone shoved an IV line deeper into your arm, saline, blood expanders, anything to stabilize your failing system. The ventilator hissed, forcing oxygen into your lungs, your ribs barely rising under the straps securing you to the gurney.

“Come on, come on, stabilize…Push! Another dose!” The doctor that was rescuing you, fighting against Death, was frenetic: “Come on Dr. Lancaster…Come on!”

“Dammit, I need a crash cart ready now!” He was screaming to the nurses as the other medic was already prepping the defibrillator, hands steady despite the terror in his eyes.

“Push another round of epinephrine, now! We need to get her back …” His orders went above the sounds of quinjet’s machinery, above the blinding lights or the deafening wail of machines. 

“She’s fading!”

“Heart rate dropping—she’s crashing—get me the stabilizer, NOW!”

Steve wanted to say something, his lips moved. But he could barely make a sound, he was just there, John’s arms were around him, holding him down as the medics worked. 

The walls of the quinjet blurred, distant, irrelevant, the machine’s beeping slowed. The medics worked and the nurses run, but Steve didn’t see them. He saw you. Pale. Still. Slipping.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

No.

NO.

He thinks he made some sound. But it was so strange the voice that came out from his throat, it was pure agony, a desperate, animalistic sound.

“Please…” He heard himself saying.

“FIGHT!” His voice cracked, splintered, shattering against the walls of the jet. “You hear me?! Stay with me!”

“Come back to me.” His voice broke. “You promised, you PROMISED.”

But you weren’t moving.

“DAMN IT, PLEASE!” His voice ripped from his throat, raw, shaking, pleading. He was begging. He didn’t care. He’d fall to his knees if it meant getting you back. “DON’T DO THIS. DON’T GO. FIGHT.”

But then, the ECG monitor displayed jagged, chaotic spikes before—

Flatline.

Steve froze. 

And his entire world just broke down to nothingness. 

You looked up, and your fingers faltered. 

The strings of the tree’s life thread were so strong, pulling you so hard that they took away your strength. 

You could see it: Your own life thread was being absorbed by the tree. 

You think you are screaming, kicking, and fighting, but your siblings just keep walking. Your sounds were muted, echoed into silence and absorbed by the wind.

Please, no. 

You inhaled deeply. 

You need to go back, you don’t… you can’t leave him. You promised you’d never leave him, he was not alone anymore.

Please…

Your fingers trembled as you reached for something, anything.

You weren’t going to give up, not like this, not here, not without giving the fight of your life.

He is waiting, so you have to go back. You have to go back because he will be hurt, and you won’t let anything hurt him. Not anymore.

“No…” You clenched your teeth as you struggled with all your strength. But you were loosing, because this is engraved in you, it is written in your DNA, your soul, and your existence. You are destined to let go, just like your siblings did. 

No. You tried. Harder. And harder. And you prayed and begged. You called for his name. You were trying to hold on, to all the wonderful things you had when you were finally free, to friendship, to love, to life. 

Please. You could hear his voice, or was it yours?

Tears in your eyes, and you could hear how his heart was breaking, how his soul was crashing, so you fought, but the threads were so strong, and the tree was taking you further and further away.

Suddenly, Something caught you.

A hand. 

Rough, firm, unwavering. 

Grasped your wrist and pulled.

You gasped, head snapping up, and for a moment, this world of light and glow blurred.

And then you saw him.

Your breath caught.

Your eyes met his. And for some reason, it all made perfect sense.

You would have expected Steve to be here with you, and when you finally saw him, you just knew.

Of course.

Of course, he’s here to save you.

Of course, he has been here all along.

You didn’t really meet him. You never had.

Yet somehow, it felt like you had known him all this time.

And you had been waiting to meet him, right now, in this moment.

Bucky.

“I knew there was a reason why I was coming to this damn tree every time I was put to sleep…” Bucky chuckled once you were standing safe and sound before him.

“I knew it! Damn, and I was wondering, like, where the hell have I seen this tree before?” He smiled at you, not the Winter Soldiers’ smile, you could see it so clearly: this is James. The James that Steve knew.

“Well, it makes sense now…” He shrugged, chuckling to see you still in wtf mode. “So what are you…like asleep? Or are you like…dying? What are you doing in this…limbo?” 

“I…” You came back from your shock, and you wiped your tears and sniffed a little: “I think I was dying…WAIT! where…where are my siblings?!” You turned around, looking for them, but nothing you’d seen was there anymore. 

The tree is still in this quiet, silent forest on an orange and golden afternoon. 

“It hasn’t been no one around for a while…” Bucky shrugged: “I think I’ve seen some birds just flying by, but um…sometimes I see Steve passing around, walking and wandering, but he is always gone fast…which makes sense, I mean, the guy is always recovering in the blink of an eye, so…he doesn’t stay long.”

“So um…” You were still confused: “You…you were here? Always?”

Bucky exhaled and smiled to you.

 

“So, yeah. I’ve been here before. A lot, actually.” 

He glanced around, eyes scanning the golden threads shimmering in the tree’s endless embrace. “At first, I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me. A side effect of you know…used. Being put under, frozen, wiped, rebooted, whatever shitty thing they did to me.” 

His metal fingers flexed slightly, glinting in the soft glow of the light around you both. “But now… now I kinda get it.”

You swallowed, you knew, but you asked anyway: “Get what?”

Bucky’s gaze met yours, steady, knowing. “This place… it’s not just in your head, or mine. It’s something else. An anchor, a tether, maybe even a crossroads. And I kept ending up here because—” He hesitated, then chuckled under his breath.

“You know, there’s something we share in our DNA. But also I think it’s because I was waiting.”

Your heart clenched.

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, glancing away as if embarrassed by his own realization. “I didn’t know what for, not until now.”

His voice softened, quieter than before, but there was no hesitation in it. “Maybe… I was waiting for this to happen.”

You opened your mouth, but no words came.

“I was waiting for you.”

He turned back to you, his eyes more serious than you’d ever seen them. “And so is he.”

Something twisted in your chest.

Bucky exhaled sharply, the corner of his mouth twitching up in the faintest hint of a smirk. The James kind of smirk. 

“So, you should go back.”

A sharp, suffocating stillness swallowed the Quinjet whole, everyone was in a deadly silence that filled the cabin, as the flatline in the monitor was progressively moving with a deaf sound, stretching on, as an endless, hollow wail, louder than any explosion, more deafening than any battle. 

No one spoke. No one moved. The nurses and the agents looked away, unable to meet the sight of Captain America, kneeling on the floor, eyes unfocused, soulless. 

John’s grip loosened, and he felt a lump in his throat. The only thing he could do was to put his hand on Steve’s shoulder. His lips moved, but there was no sound. 

There was nothing left to say.

No one could provide any words of consolation.

And then. 

You gasped. 

A sharp, sudden inhale, like you had been drowning and just breached the surface. It was like a horror movie slash miracle. You breathed. And you sat. 

A unified, staggered gasp filled the cabin. Eyes widened. 

And then—

A single, steady beep.

The monitor flickered, its display shifting. A heartbeat. Your heartbeat.

Steve was still frozen, still staring at you, his face unreadable. 

Until you turned around, disorientated, and met his gaze.

It took just a look, for his eyes to see the light in yours, again. And his body finally allows him to feel the devastation he was holding back.

And just like that, his tears finally fell.

TBC

HASDHAHUSDAISHASDIUDAHISUADSIUHAU Aaaaaaah! 🔥

I'm back! I'm so sorry I haven't post in a while. Oh god this chapter got me so emotional writing it, and it was just like 😭

So, from the beginning of the story, I knew that Bucky was surely sleeping, but I just KNEW he had a key part to play; the original plot, though, was REALLY DARK. And Bucky and John and Sharon, are the ones that actually save Twelve. (It was too much of an angst and I couldn't write it cause I was so down in my depression 🥺, but someday...) But still, here, I wanted him to be there. I knew he would be there.

So one more last chapter to go, and I'll be continue with the Burning Sun Series and probably some one shots 💖

Thank you so much for being with me all alone, and I'm sorry again for taking so long to complete this.

I'll see you in the big finale 💓

Love., Moon.࣪ ִֶָ☾.

Tag list: @vioplay19 / @jamneuromain / @steviebbboi / @heletsmelovehim / @otterlycanadian / hisredheadedgoddess28

[frankthesnek]

✨️ New story ✨️

Namaste (rated E)

Stony (Tony Stark/Steve Rogers)

Post end game fix it, getting back together, domestic fluff, daddy kink, bottom Steve

9k words

Stony Bingo space S2: Yoga @cap-ironman

It was hard for Steve to believe this place was real. The lakehouse with chickens and a farm dog and children’s toys scattered around the backyard and deck. Tony had grown into his age and wisdom and settled into the soft domestic life he had never allowed himself—or never been given the chance—to have. Sometimes Steve felt guilty, like he was hijacking Tony's life because he himself had never found the one he wanted to settle down and start a life with—or more accurately he hadn't been able to keep them. But now, things were different for them both. Softer and simpler, and maybe that loving domestic life was not as far off as Steve had thought.

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[hey-bigday]

RAINCHECK!!!

(full thing and totally greyscale ver under the cut!)

[forgettable-au]

FORGETTABLE-AU (page 82-85)

THAT LAZYBONES!!

[BEGINNING] [PREVIOUS] [CONTINUE]

[secretagentspydetectiveninja]

that is technically a low five. but it's the thought that counts 🙏

[minecraftrelatedrandomness]

dan povenmire (co-creator of phineas and ferb and voice actor of heinz doofenshmirtz himself): hey, jimmy! if i had a nickel for every time you weren't the first out in a minecraft life series, i'd have two nickels! which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice, right?

this is insane. wild, you might even say

[alphaori]

Being into indie ttrpgs on Tumblr is a very funny experience because while you're ambiently considering designing a little game about idk, gremlins growing cabbages or whatever there are people who built this hobby from the ground up with 15 award winning published games and three podcasts and a knighthood from a small European monarchy just doing their thing on the same platform. Imagine this was the case for any other hobby. You go to shoot some hoops behind your house and LeBron James is just there

[baker-chan-senpai]

My gift for @ot3 who asked for an exploration of Trucy and Phoenix's relationship for the @aa-spring-swap

[aquanutart]

I was talking and I mentioned that I have my old Game Boy and original Pokemon cartridge. I said, "I think they still work."

I was told, "The internal batteries on the Game Boy cartridges have run out. They're all dead."

"Oh," I said, trying not to show how crestfallen I was. I felt like I was losing nerd cred for not knowing that, although I never kept up with that type of info anyway. I'm here for the fantasy and imaginative aspects of games, and tend not to follow the competitive or technical details.

I tried not to feel anything as I went home. If they were real animals, I reminded myself, I would have had to say goodbye long ago.

But like so many other people, Pokemon was my childhood. It was all I thought about and dreamed about, and the closest thing I could imagine to heartbreak was the knowledge that they weren't real. I spent nearly all my time writing longhand self-insert Pokemon fanfiction--far more than I spent actually playing the game. My Pokemon were with me in my imagination wherever I went. I started playing Pokemon Blue when I was 5, and the last time I had played it was probably when I was 9 or 10. I remembered I had turned it on again one more time after that, not to play it, but to look at my childhood Pokemon.

It was during high school, after a move overseas that completely upended my life, and I was struggling with the crushing blow of being taken away from everything I knew and trying to make sense of anything (least of all adolescence) in another language. All I wanted was to go back to childhood and have everything go back to how it was before.

Seeing my Pokemon, just as I'd left them, had comforted me. I had looked at their stats pages, taken photos of them with my digital camera (that I don't even know if I still have), and then turned it off without doing anything.

That was probably 9 or 10 years after the games came out. It had been a long time since then. I had long since taken the AA batteries out of my Game Boy Color and left it untouched. I didn't even have AA batteries anymore.

It had worked then. But now it had been 27 years... I thought about not trying to turn my cartridge back on. As long as I didn't turn it on, I could believe my Pokemon were still there, the way I remembered them.

On my day off, which happened to be Pokemon Day, I googled and read that some people on forums and Reddit were still able to play their original Pokemon games.

Then... it was possible. I went out to buy toothpaste. At the store, I asked where I could find AA batteries.

It was a big thing for me to be able to go to the store and buy things myself. When I moved at age 13, I felt like something went wrong with growing up. It was difficult to follow what people were saying, and people didn't always understand what I said either. I had been introverted even in English, but now I had enough negative experiences that I became afraid and stopped trying to talk to people altogether.

I threw myself into video games and reliving childhood memories. The internet was where I could communicate in my first language and understand. I lived online and didn't interact with the real world. On the internet I felt like I was understood and could find people who shared my interests the way I did, but in the real world it always felt like I could get hurt if anyone knew me.

I realize now that I could have had a better experience overseas if I'd known how to adapt and socialize, but this was not something I knew even in English, and trying to learn in another language made it ten times harder. I'm sorry now for missing out on interactions that I know I could have had, but I just didn't know how. I wouldn't know how until I learned, and it took me a long time to learn.

I grew up online, in the company of others who had trouble fitting in with the real world, even in their own language. Those experiences shaped me, and the friendships I've made and support I've received online are invaluable to me. The internet gave me a way to live, and through it I learned how to interact with others. But in many ways, for many years, it felt like my life was put on hold and I stopped growing up.

Several years ago I moved back, to not far from where I was born, and I was able to work for the first time. I began to interact with people and feel like I had a place in the real world.

After shutting myself away for so many years, every little step I made out in the world felt terrifying. But every little thing I did on my own made me feel like I was living for the first time.

Even something as little as going to the store and buying a pack of batteries.

I was directed to a shelf at the end of an aisle, and found myself looking at a rack of lithium AA batteries. Did they not sell the old kind anymore?

I walked around to the other side and was relieved to find the familiar black and brown Duracell batteries I'd known from my childhood. I felt more confident about putting in a battery that looked the same as I remembered. The smallest pack they sold was an 8-pack for $12.99. I really didn't need 8 batteries. I didn't have any other devices that used them.

I thought, what if I turn it on and it doesn't work and I'll have wasted $12.99?

I also thought we might already have batteries. I might be able to say, "Mom, do we have any batteries?" and she'd pull out two AAs from a drawer somewhere and I'd save my money.

But somehow I felt like part of what was important about this was being an adult and being able to buy my own batteries.

Yet... what if it just ended up making me sad? Was it better not to know?

I went to the checkout with just the toothpaste and stood hesitating at the edge of the checkout line.

If I didn't get the batteries now, and it turned out we didn't have any batteries, I wouldn't try it. I knew I would just put it off until even more time passed, and then... "Are you in line?" someone asked me.

"No," I said, and I turned around and went back to the shelf.

I bought the batteries.

At home, I took out my original Game Boy Color from the drawer where I left it, the one my dad had surprised me with when I was 5 years old and that I had brought overseas and back.

I put the batteries in and turned it on without a cartridge first to make sure the batteries were inserted correctly. The Game Boy logo scrolled across the screen and it made the familiar blinging Game Boy startup noise. I turned it off again, satisfied.

I took out my original Pokemon Blue cartridge, momentarily having to remember which way it went in, and slotted it in.

I turned it on, watched the whole Pokemon Blue intro out of nostalgia, and then pressed START.

My heart leaped for joy.

MY POKEMON!!!! MY POKEMON ARE ALIVE!!! 🥺🥺🥺

My original Pokemon, that were with me in 1998 when I was 5-6 years old, are still with me 27 years later. I want to cry!!! I love the old sprites, I'm SO happy to see them again 😭😭😭 the Pokemon look so little and cheerful at the same time, which I love 🥺🥺🥺 I know there are people with many more hours on their games, who have leveled all their Pokemon to 100. But these are my Pokemon who were with me through my childhood, and I spent many more hours making up stories about them than actually playing the game. I'm so happy to see them again 😭😭😭

All I want is to see my Pokemon. My other Pokemon are in boxes. Now, how do I get to the nearest PC? Where am I?

Oh... Oh. I have to confess something. When I was a kid, I was scared of the dark cave areas, and whenever I got to them, I stopped playing for a while. (I was stuck at Mt. Moon until I was like, 7.) So I never actually beat the game.

And here I am on Victory Road, with the team of Pokemon I was taking to the Elite Four, without an Escape Rope.

The only way for me to see my other Pokemon is... to finally make it through Victory Road, after 27 years?!

[riddlerosehearts]

isabeau's confession at the end of ISAT is constantly living rent-free in my head it's so fucking good. right now i'm obsessed with the way he responds to siffrin saying "i love you too" because just. imagine you're siffrin and for so long now you've believed that you were horrible disgusting manipulative unloved and unworthy of love and yet. your best friend is telling you he loves you. and you feel that you love him too (in what way? the same way that he loves you? you're not quite sure yet, but stars, you feel like your heart is going to burst out of your chest, he means so much to you) so you tell him so.

and he responds by telling you he already knew that because he has eyes.

you're siffrin and you are kind passionate protective and so loved and full of love for your friends, your family, and yet you hate yourself so, so deeply that you don't see any of that but isabeau does. according to him it's written all over your face, apparently--the face you're always trying so hard to hide with your hat, which as the universe would have it, you don't have anymore!! and he sees you and he loves you and he knows you love him back, even after you said and did such horrible, cruel things to him and the rest of your family that you know they didn't deserve, after you almost broke the world trying to keep them by your side, somehow isa understands you and still loves every single part of you. and you love him, you love him, you love him because how could you not?

especially since he also got so excited when you told him you loved him that he shouted "CRAB YEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" in your face.

[cheeseandcake-from-ao3]

[lizadale]

yeah, i don't think it would go as King Boo expects

(Boo jumps out of Mario before the first hammer swing connects. Luigi would pursue him, but he's busy being revenge-tackled by a very bruised Mario, who really doesn't care what's happening, just knows that Luigi hit him with a goddamn hammer and he needs to dispense noogies)

[yinyangle]

i love u angel martinez ❤️

[introspectivememories]

all sunrise on the reaping has taught me is that the same way katniss is haymitch's not-daughter, peeta is effie's not-son

[vaguely-concerned]

the fact that taash genuinely thinks lucanis is so fucking cool (despite the fact that they like. know him personally and are aware that he sleeps in the pantry among the onions and the turnips lmao) is so adorable and so hilarious