#she got something really bad and rare and very hard to cure

[thedreadblog]

Get to know me better meme

tagged by @banal-isenatha, thank you!! <3 it’s only 3+ years since you tagged me haaaaa-

Favourite colours: purple, red

Last song I listened to: Dinner & Diatribes - Hozier

Favourite musicians: you really wanna do this huh. Here we go:

Blur - Gorillaz - The Good, The Bad, And The Queen - Rocket Juice and the Moon - can you see the theme yet? - I am a giant nerd for/fan of Damon Albarn - *shrugs* - Imagine Dragons - Sigur Rós - Jónsi - Sin Fang - Sóley - Of Monsters and Men - Foster The People - Foo Fighters - Alt-J - Caravan Palace - David Bowie - Queen - Editors - Florence + The Machine - Stromae - Two Door Cinema Club - Paramore - Hozier - The Static Age - Pip Blom - Jungle - older Muse stuff

Favourite song: can’t pick one

Last film I watched: the Bob’s Burgers movie lmao

Last TV show I watched: Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss on repeat (same universe, it counts as one)

Favourite OC: I mean, that has to be my Ellana Lavellan, simply bc her story has taken over all of my free time. There’s others, but she’s the most fleshed out OC I have.

Savoury, spicy or sweet: savoury

Tea, coffee or sparkling water: coffee AND sparkling water. Not at the same time D:

Pets: oh god.

Loki and Thor, our stable cats, Nanne and Bregje, our indoor cats, Lilja and Pandra Fjara and Týra and Hviða - our Icelandic horses - and Solita, our Shetland pony, Vogel, our parakeet, Jonkvrouw Hedwig and Adelheid, our goats, 5 chickens who don’t really have names oops, Sírius, Sámur and Yggur, our three dogs. We might have a farm lmao.

Tagging: no one specifically but feel free to do this and tag me!

[ladykailitha]

I have decided today I am giving out my Steve Harrington headcanons, because I love him so much.

His parents are very rich. His dad is new money, self made. His mom is old money.

His father is Indiana born and bred, but his mother is from Kentucky. She doesn't have her accent anymore because she trained herself out of it. Though it does show up when she's drunk or angry.

I know everyone does Richard (Dick) for his dad mainly for the lols, which I respect, but I think his name is Clint. It's just rich dude bro enough, you know? And then for the mom I go back and forth between Maureen and Allison. Allison because that's Ally Sheedy's character in The Breakfast Club and I often use her looks as bases for Mrs. Harrington.

They were never meant to be parents. They had the one because that's what was expected of them, but no. They don't like kids.

I don't know if his dad is only verbally abusive, but he is some kind of shit. Steve was so scared of him finding out that there was alcohol the night Barb vanished that that was all that consumed his thoughts. And even in season 3 Steve tells Dustin (thinking he was his dad) that he doesn't do drugs, just marijuana. Meaning that's something they've fought about a lot.

Kids of good parents rarely smoke, drink, smoke pot, and have wild parties all the time as an under-aged teenager. There are no doubt exceptions, but most of the time it's kids who are neglected and abused that are the ones that act out like that.

Steve had nannies and baby-sitters growing up that he saw more than his parents. But he would still be taken on actual vacations with them. Mostly to show off that they do have a son.

He was in baseball in middle school but quit when he got into high school. His parents put him in as many after school activities as they could. He was taught piano. Went to swimming and was so good at it, he joined the team in high school. Played basketball throughout both middle and high school. But he was forced to dropout due to the concussion Billy gave him his senior year. It's why he sneers at Brenda at the game when she says it would ironic if they won the championship the year after he graduated. Because he wasn't even on the team his last year.

When he turned sixteen they gave him his BMW. No, he did not get to pick the car or the color, but he takes very good care of it. Does a lot of the maintenance himself. One of the few things his dad taught him, but because you needed to know enough to make sure your mechanic wasn't ripping you off.

He can cook. But only if he has a recipe to follow and will get upset if it doesn't look like the picture. Is a consummate baker though. Because everything has a reason it's done like that and it makes sense.

Definitely a fall baby. That's why he was able to lifeguard for three years even if he didn't lifeguard after his senior year due to him working at Scoops Ahoy.

He's bad at math and science which is why the Party teases him all the time, but he's great at English and history.

Only applied at the schools his dad thought were "appropriate" and didn't get in. But to be fair, he was still suffering from a concussion when those applications went out and he wasn't really at his best. Just above his worst if he was honest.

He likes his preppy clothes and while he laughs it off, it upsets him when he's made fun for it.

Alt rock fan all the way. Depeche Mode, The Cure, New Order.

Has a list of the Party's likes and dislikes for food and other things, so he is the best gift giver. He doesn't spend a lot of money, though he has been accused of that a couple of times. But he prefers well thought out gifts over expensive ones. It's why Max, Eddie, and the Byers boys love Steve gifts. They never feel pressured to one up him.

Complete romantic. Loves being in love, but it was hard to pick up the pieces of his broken heart after what happened with Nancy.

Loves Robin, but even though it is sometimes weird, it never veers into creepy or obsessive. Robin is absolutely the vodka aunt of the party to Steve's mom.

When Eddie comes into the group, they tease him that's he's the dad to Steve's mom. Because as goofy as Eddie is he absolutely wouldn't let the kids get into real trouble.

Steve the romantic gets absolutely wooed by Eddie and never is made to feel wrong footed when showers Eddie with the affection he would for a girl. It's nice for a guy to receive flowers sometimes too.

Steve favorite flower is sunflowers. But his favorite color is blue.

He absolutely keeps the vest. Refuses to give it back. Which Eddie is surprisingly okay with.

I could go on forever, but I'll stop there for now and if I come up with more I'll add them later.

[runawaymun]

It's something that I want to do a full write-up on after I finish more more quests (most especially Baizhu's) but I just want to put it out there that I am constantly amazed, as a chronic-illness haver myself, how many characters in Genshin Impact have chronic illnesses, how visible they are, and how well represented they are.

Like, it's extremely difficult to find even one character in a piece of fiction that has a chronic illness (let alone one where it isn't played for laughs, OR otherwise it completely destroys their life and they're fucking miserable, OR it's magically cured).

But Genshin? Dude you trip over a character with a chronic illness every five seconds, it feels like, and I fucking love that. Off the top of my head there's:

Anna (Mondstat), who visibly suffers from her illness and we know her brother struggles to pay for her medicine. But the traveler, through a series of quests, helps them get ahold of an affordable medication to manage (MANAGE, not cure) the illness and to return her quality of life to her.

Little Hongdou (Liyue) - who has an unspecified chronic illness. And she just does. But she's out and about and seems very happy.

Collei (Sumeru, playable) - and sure her illness is fixed by the end of the Sumeru quest, but I don't even care because of how well it's represented. She has hopes, ambitions, dreams. She participates in her work as a forest ranger even though we get visible confirmation that her illness is progressing. The people around her care and are compassionate, and do their best to make sure she takes care of herself, but she is also allowed to just...go out? and do things?? This shouldn't be such a tall order but chronic illness-havers with friends and family members who understand that, hey there are good days and there are bad days -- that's rare in fiction (and IRL for that matter).

Dunyarzad (Sumeru) - her chronic illness is a major plot-driver in an entire fucking archon quest. She has a huge amount of influence on the people around her, and her chronic illness is actually part of the whole reason we even are able to help Nahida in the first place. Her chronic illness is what makes her instrumental to the plot, but it also isn't the only thing about her, and I love that.

Dulphy (Fontaine) - an actress from Furina's story quest. What really struck me about Dulphy is how the people around her interact with her. I was half in tears by the end of the quest -- not even for Furina reasons (yes, that too), but because I was so touched by the fact that a game gave us a character who was unable to follow through with something she said she was going to do (finish her closing performance as the lead actress in a musical), and that was okay. Like, yeah, the people around her were upset -- but they were upset because she hadn't taken great care of herself and had pushed herself past her spoon limit! Nobody (including the narrative itself) treated it as a great failure when she had to call it quits on her performance. Rather, that was treated as a good thing, and they went so far as to explicitly state that her performance up to that point mattered, and that it was a meaningful contribution, even though she couldn't finish. And that just fucking got me, man. Also - again, this is a character where it is explicitly stated "this is a chronic illness. It has good days and bad days and it can only be managed, not cured. And if she pushes herself too hard then she'll need several days to recover." And that's just...part of who she is.

And, of course, Baizhu. (Liyue, playable) My beloved, my blorbo. His chronic illness(es) is an extremely visible part of his character - referenced in his voicelines, his idles, his interactions in quests, the imaginarium theater, and even your teapot house, and his emojis. Hell, he even coughs if you sprint too much with him. Nevertheless, he's arguably one of the strongest healer units in the game from a meta perspective, and from a story perspective he is immensely successful, insanely compassionate, and while he isn't necessarily super kind to himself about it, the people around him are. His chronic illness is part of him, but he is still allowed to inhabit a story where he's the most renowned and beloved doctor in his entire country & just...is an awesome, active person in general, and that means so much to me.

Just. God. I legitimately can't think of another piece of fiction where I have seen myself represented over and over and over again everywhere I look, let alone so kindly. It's genuinely so moving to have so many characters be so visibly chronically ill, and for that to just be part of their character. A neutral thing about them. And to have it be okay when they can't finish things -- even though they said they would, okay when they need to rest, okay when they have to take a break or extra care with themselves. And not just one but so many. I'm sure I'm forgetting some to boot.

(Honorable mention: Qiqi. Like sure she's a zombie but hear me out: visible chronic joint and memory issues, which is something I also deal with and it's just so refreshing to see a character who deals with them, too -- and who has so many people around her who are so kind about it).

[andreeacircus-blog]

Foot in Mouth Syndrome

Chloe Price was... sort of an idiot. Nobody could deny that. Not even sweet and tolerant Max, bless her heart, who had her reasons to believe that, even though she would never say it to her face.

For starters, the blue haired self-proclaimed punk had to be babysat most of the time, in case of, you know, her unexpected self-inflicted accidental expiration.

On top of that, she also had a really big mouth. And sometimes, out of that big mouth came very unfiltered profanity-infused rants such as the one Max was currently suffering through.

The reason? Well, Chloe was completely furious right now and the unfortunate target of her scorching hatred was a supposed identity thief. Someone dared copy Chloe's graffiti style to make the "lamest fucking gesture" in her opinion: desecrating Chloe's beloved junkyard by leaving cute, flirtatious love notes all over the, well, junk. And it was really bad graffiti, too. The shaky inconsistent lines betrayed a beginner's hand.

Even Max could probably do a better job since Chloe started teaching her some of her technique a few months back.

This was probably the work of a poser wannabe-skaterboy trying to impress some chick that's way out of his league, the vexed girl speculated. And instead of being flattered by the copycat's omage to her unique style, Chloe was just about ready to fill out the lawsuit paperwork... if only writing on junk were an endeavor protected by the law.

Miraculously, Max doesn't remember ever getting outright mad at Chloe. Her calm disposition and endless patience were usually great tools to deal with her impulsive companion, and they didn't let her down so far into this conversation, if you could call it that. But the statement that just came out of Chloe's dumb piehole is what pushed Max over that delicate line.

"...or maybe that lame-ass loser is hella infatuated with me, and this is his gremlin way of trying to get me to notice him. That would never work though, who even thinks something so corny would work!?"

A flash of red suddenly painted Max's face and ears, completely overshadowing her freckles. That and the glare accompanied by a deep frown created a very rare expression on the photographer's face, her frustration being almost palpable.

"Chloe, you're seriously such an idiot!" Max snapped as she exited the room in a fit.

And the idiot was left stunned by the uncharacteristic outburst. At least that got her to stop her endless rant just long enough for the coin to drop. And drop it did. Hard.

Her first thought: "Oh, shit." The second one: "Her angry face is pretty hot though.", thus proving there was no cure for Chloe's chronic ailment.

At least it wasn't fatal as long as Max kept sticking around. Probably.

[celibibratty]

This movie is funny cuz at the first time that you watched you get angry/makes you feel betrayed, me and marina first watched on 2017, and i remember that we got soooo mad(i mean it, was very very mad, it's rare ocassions that I/we got this mad)💢🔥(and to make worse mom out nowhere appears and was trying sugartalk the situation of the movie, trying to justify to us, LET US BE MAD ABOUT IT, geez), but watching again 7 years later(yeah, since then we never rewatched It)i/we didn't get mad at all, it was funny, but marina saw some people reviews, and she said that people seem to also got mad too(at least we from the past weren't the only ones😒), cuz okay the dude loved the other girl😒(i personally found hilarous how much those two take a childhood relationship so serious, japanese people and their logics), it's seems as if is a common thing of this movie, you will feel betrayed/angry(i don't care cuz it's right!, the bald dude it's better)

We were exactly like this girl, i felt i couldn't talk, my tummy used to hurt so so much(so much that at that time we used to take a stomach ache med everyday before going to School...and nowadays i don't take it anymore), my voice used to gets trembling when i talked in social situations, people referred to us as "mute" cuz i/we said any word, the scene when the girl talks for the first time in class and the whole class get impressed(saying things like "is that (...) Voice?is the first time i see her talking", "i thought she didn't know how to talk", ugh, it was exactly like this, i hate it💦, are innocent reactions/comments, but it feels so humilating

The way the mother treats the girl, ugh, it hits me/us too, is this thing of passively saying that "you're weird and stop with that"(the person can't control It, it's a process, i hate it, you get traumatized by people and then people expect you to act normal towards others as if it was nothing, it's inside of us, it's difficult), i find insteresting of our case is that we used to care so less to our parents saying this/they orders, that they even stop it saying it/trying("look at people eyes", "talk normal", never tried to do any of their orders), the part of the car, the mother thanking the school as if the girl didn't was capable of find/keep connections because she worked hard to socialize, cuz "she is weird, nobody would want to stick with/be friends with her, she is not capable of find friends", it's only School and the others to be praised, not the girl cuz in the mother's vision the girl has no courage, has something about this scene that it was so...urgh...

There's something so interesting and messed up about the fact that the girl believed that what would cure her "curse" would be love, but what really made her"curse" break was having her heart-broken/get into a very stressful situation, it was her limit, she had a big attack, that caused the egg to break/explode(the egg to me is her heart, it breaked a little in previous scenes, she was getting comfortable, as if was her heart opening up little by little, but in this moment, it breaks of hurt, it's rush It, and what has inside is not a empty/clean "egg", it's spills blood as if was opened bruttaly)i wish i could explain better💦

I still wonder what supposed to be the scrambled eggs? I think its mixed emotions, numbness, forget everything, mess everything up

This...scene...hurts 💧

this is more mine interpretation, cuz idk if this is the message that the movie wants to deliver🙄, but i find funny that the girl always likes to point that hurt words are bad and that you shouldn't say them cuz they hurt other people and you can't take it them back(which it's true), but was only when she said the hurt words that she got the strengh to go to the play, showing that express those words are also important(i wish the girl roasted her mother and her father💢, those two deserved those words indeed, but her mother and her father are literally the reason for her feeling/became like this💢, she deserved to express her anger towards them(even if her mom works hard to give her a good life)

I find interesting cuz this movie handles this trauma effect kinda well😒(i don't like those talk, but the movie is kinda about that so), cuz i think in the end the girl has no problem with talking!, I think her tummy doesn't hurt anymore!, i think she won't talk in texts anymore cuz now after that(the egg broke)she has no problem with talking anymore!, but even with that she will not be talktive/be like her kid self, she will never be the same again, it's not like in a "fairy-tale" everything super works out/end beautifully(even interesting and sad to say that cuz the girl was obsessed with fairy-tales), I find interesting that in the end we don't see the girl interacting with the boy and the other girl, personally i think after that she won't be friends with them anymore, it was gonna be just a memory of a cool thing that all of them made it together, but will stay in there, I think they'll be collegues,(but not as close as before), her relationship with her mother, i don't think will get super good/better after that, still gonna be distant, the thing that the mother now realises how much her actions affected her daughter and maybe she can try to be more pacient, but still nothing that shows in the end, in the end the curse broke, but the consequences of it still exist(pretty much like in a superation of a traumatic situation, you got over it now, but the way they affected you molded you, you can't be the same again, i mean you can be, but tbh I believe you will never be 100% like you used to be, but if is the case, it's a process)

[heartbreakblda]

A beginning…

2024 is now three days old and I promised myself that I would start this year with going back to my roots. My husband once said to me that I am an artist when it comes to words and I can paint a picture with words as well as other people can with paint. So I want to go back to this a bit more. God knows, I have enough I want to write about. Well, more things I feel I have to write about, but that's the same difference I guess.

2024 seems like a year that has been coming for a while now. I thought that 2023 would be this year, but now I came to realise it was just a practice round. So what do I want to achieve this year? I guess the biggest part would definitely be sharing more again. It feels like I have lost my voice over the last few years and I don’t like that. I also want to learn to live my life better again. I know that things are quite hard and not very easy right now, but I have hope that there is still stuff for me to do, that can make my situation better….

But what exactly is my situation?

Well, my life has always been a bit of a wild ride and so many really crazy, scary and wonderful things have happened in my life. So in that regard my situation is already a bit different. But I guess what made the biggest difference is that I got really, really sick in my late twenties. It all started very harmless but somehow just escalated very badly.

I am the proud owner of a very rare and aggressive form of endometriosis. If you have never heard of this, please do yourself a favour and look it up. Especially if you are a woman. Because this illness hits one in ten women and not enough people even know that this exists. I didn’t know when I was diagnosed. I had never heard of it.

But this illness should really change my entire life. It has put everything I wanted and thought I needed to be happy on its head and now I live my life as a full time disabled woman, not being able to work anymore. Instead of being the manager of a domestic violence agency as I always dreamed I am now a stay at home wife who wouldn’t even be able to say she is a house wife as I definitely do not do enough housework for that title.

My endometriosis unfortunately did not come alone. It came with a huge bag of comorbid illnesses. This is not unusual for someone with endometriosis but I really got the jackpot. Right now I am also struggling with fibromyalgia, POTS and a vast array of other little ailments. And the list is growing…

But even though my health has declined massively over the last couple of years I refuse to give up. I definitely can say that I live a life as well as I am able to right now. Of course I had to get used to a lot of things. And I still have to. As I said my illnesses are unfortunately just continuing to cause havoc. Oh, and what I forgot… So far there is no cure for any of my issues. All medicine can do for me is hold the process at bay while trying to keep my pain in a bearable area. This works sometimes quite okay and other days it’s just a total cluster fuck.

I definitely have days where you would struggle to believe that there is something wrong with me. But then there are also the days when I struggle to even make my way from the bed to the bathroom. There are days when even the fabric of my clothes hurts on my skin. Days when I am laying on a plethora of pillows as even the couch feels too hard to sit on. Days, when I just cry for hours as I just can’t bear it anymore….

I have to take a lot of medication and of course this all comes with a price. Right now there are some concerns about my liver as the last test results came back a bit alarming. I have to say that these news only slightly concern me these days. I remember when they told me about my kidneys not working anymore and getting so upset that I crashed my car into a traffic bollard. That’s not happening anymore… I got used to bad news.

The pain medication I am getting is on the highest end of what they could give you with a clear conscience. Which is again a weird situation. On one hand I am mega grateful as I couldn’t live my life without this. But on the other hand these meds have quite hard side effects and they alter how I feel. I can’t drive for example as soon as I have taken some of my meds which I haaaaaate, as I love to drive. But I love traffic safety even more and so I have given up driving for the most part.

But all this now sounds really quite negative and that’s totally not the purpose of this. Because even though I really got a bit of a bad deal in the health department I don’t think my life is not worth living. I know that a lot of people pity me. “Such a smart woman with a good education and a very interesting life. And now she is just this shell of her former self.”

In some regards this might even be true. I definitely am not the woman I was before my health took such a nose dive. I mean I was a very active person. I went out a lot, met friends and loved my job so, so much. I honestly really lived for work for a long time as it was just the most important thing. Saving women and kids from domestic violence was my life’s mission for a long time. All this is over now….

But just because my life has changed doesn’t mean it’s not awesome anymore. Yes, there are tough stretches in there. Yes, there are moments where I wished I could just disappear from this Earth. But overall I am still having a wonderful and fulfilling life. My illness also brought some good chances with it. I have grown and changed as a person and I am very sure I am a more patient and understanding person now then I was in my twenties.

My illness also gave me the gift of not working anymore. Now this is definitely a two sided coin as I stated above already how much I loved my job. But I definitely defined myself way too much over my job and that was absolutely not healthy. I still am passionate about helping people and making their lives easier. So that’s where maybe me not working anymore is really a bit of a blessing. Because now I can help how and when I can and want.

I really feel that my struggle with my health really is something that people can relate to. Maybe other people who are sick. Maybe other people who are just looking for direction in their life. I have no idea. But I want to share my journey now.

It’s a bit like running into the cold water of the ocean. You are excited, a tiny bit scared of what’s about to come, but also glad that you finally had the guts to do it…

[eyeris-moni]

Lil writing HC treats I wrote for myself a while back! Danya isn't on there since I hadn't introduced her at that time 😔

You should share your OC's answers to the prompts too 👀 I want to get to know y'all's oc's!

Prompt: You do a nice thing for them that helps them a lot:

Raz: You're his new friend as though he's not as clingy as he used to be, he is still WAY to clingy for a normal person's comfort-

Cupid: He thanks you politely and if it's not too much of a bother for him, might do something in return.

Hunter: Would not care and ignores you (unless you are a supernatural being, in which case he would try to end you).

Grin Snatcher: She laughs at your naivety and sends you on your way, letting you live another day.

Fhrey: Remembers it. Takes note. Never forgets.

Prompt: Their attraction and wants in a partner?

Raz: No preference at all - he will emotionally bond with anyone who lets him, especially if they're are affectionate back. However he has in later times found an appreciation for individuals who doesn't just agree with what he says and offers him genuine feedback as they seem to care more about his well-being.

Cupid: Deeply and aggressively pansexual LOL. Cupid doesn't really do romance generally, but this is less due to a lack of ability and more just rarely finding the people he deeply bond with in that way. His ideal partner is probably someone who offers pushback, dynamic conversation and who can absolutely hold their own ground. He becomes more emotionally devoted to those who doesn't seem affected by his ability to draw others in. The type who seems to first and foremost care about having a good, friendship and mutual trust. I don't think he knows his type though.

Hunter: None. He cares for no one. Negative attraction to people.

Grin Snatcher: Gray-ace sapphic?? Not really at all interested in humans on an emotional level though.

Fhrey: Bisexual - prefers people who sacrifices themselves for others and are very loving. Anything that can fill out that void he feels and cure his prior heartbreak is a possible next victim.

Prompt: Traumatized or nah?

Raz: Very! As a treat!

Cupid: Distress? Don't know her.

Hunter: Trauma indicates a level of self that probably no longer is there. There's only a drive to kill and a horrifyingly keen mind. How can you grieve when no sense of humanity lingers? How can you feel impact when you're a corpse reanimated by the lost remnants of the faded past?

Grin Snatcher: She knows what trauma is and is surprisingly good at handing traumatized people, but also she haven't "tried it".

Fhrey: Hard to tell, honestly. By all means, yes?

Prompt: You annoy them

Raz: Raz does get annoyed, but doesn't entirely know how to handle it or deal with it. Tries to distance himself, then comes back because he feels bad for prioritizing himself first and you probably didn't mean it anyway (:

Cupid: Your effort was good, but it is impossible to get under his skin in a way that feels like it has any noteworthy impact.

Hunter: You got in the way of his work or was his target. Time to be eradicated.

Grin Snatcher: Is that a challenge

Fhrey: If you are his target he will "correct you". He can play the long game. If you are not a victim, he will consider whether your death would prove "more annoying" than having you around. Might as well get rid of you and use it as fuel for trauma-bonding with his victim.

Prompt: They're running into an issue that is above their skills to solve

Raz: Stops trying and focuses on something else

Cupid: Shrugs it off and stops trying despite the fact that he probably is powerful enough to fix it. Nothing is *that* important.

Unless it's about his "job". Then he will probably stubbornly force it through.

Hunter: Retreats and re-plans his strategy if the odds are truly against him.

Grin Snatcher: Pushes Slender to fix it if it's important enough.

Fhrey: Gets smarter so it is within his skillset if he wants it bad enough.

[solar-ships]

🎀 and 🌻for the OC F/O Ask game

Thank you so much for the ask!

🎀 - What kind of relationship do you and your F/O have? What's your overall dynamic within their universe?

Ianto and I are still kind of finding our feet. Ever since I created him, we've sort of had a... love-hate relationship, because I speak with utmost affection when I say that this man is a mess. He's done a lot of harm in his canon, and wasn't the easiest person to deal with as his writer, but something happened to me in March that led to me finding a lot of comfort in him, aaaand I think we've kind of been catching feelings since? We're not putting a label on it so far. For the general dynamic... we're pretty similar, personality-wise, which can lead to butting heads, but at this point, it's more playful bickering than anyone, and also makes me low-key melt because I know Ianto prefers to sweet-talk people unless he really likes them/feels like they're close. Romantic tension off the charts and lots of casual physical affection. Gods, he's so... *hides my face in my hands*

Ava and I are the sort of couple that finish each others' sentences. Despite being a few years older than me, it almost feels like your classic teenage romance - she's fun, she's just fun, excitable and adventurous in a way that I'm not, but I let her drag me along. I think we're probably menaces to the people around us, low-key enabling each others' chaos, with constant banter and PDA (she's a cat - if my lap is free, it's her seat now).

I would describe my relationship with Knows-The-Skies as queerplatonic, I think? We're definitely more than friends, but I wouldn't say we're romantic (though I wouldn't mind that, tbh...). Been very close for a very long time, and have managed to become very emotionally attuned to each other. We've got the same fascination with history and the natural world, so a lot of our bonding is through fact-sharing, showing off pretty rocks or interesting bugs we found, or exploring some new area together... and also, she's super touch starved and kind of uses me as a cure for that. It's very soft, patient and kind of understated. I really like it <3

🌻 - If you're in a romantic relationship, what type of partner is your F/O?

I mean... I have to be frank, Ianto is kind of a bad one? Just judging by how he treats his canon love interest. It's the main reason we haven't gotten together earlier. He rarely falls in love, but when he does, it's hard and fast, and it's hard for him to fall out of it again. However, he struggles to maintain them. No matter how much he may like a person, the thrill will eventually wear off, and he'll become distant, turning his focus more towards himself and his other flings (he doesn't do closed relationships). It's not something he likes about himself. However, when you do have him... oh, it's divine. It's like something out of a romance novel. He's almost worshipful towards his partners - red wine, chocolates and cherries, ballroom dancing in ancient palaces or slow dancing in dark kitchens, walks in gardens and rose bouquets, long mornings in bed where he insists that he doesn't care if he's late to work, the kingdom can crumble for all he cares, this is far more important. If I have to describe him as a partner in one word, it's passionate.

Ava tries so hard to be this hot, punk, queer heartbreaker whose attitude towards relationships is so very casual, and it's true that she does like flings and FWB relationships... but she's also got a tendency to fall so hard she can't sleep because she's too busy thinking about them and it's honestly kinda frustrating. If I have to describe her as a partner in one word, it's adventurous. She will climb a window at 5AM to wake her darling up and take them on an urban-ex date. She'll write their names in grafitti or push them to go swimming in the nearby lake after two drinks, just so she can see them in swimwear, all while teasing and complimenting them in the same breath, her love evident every time she looks at them. It can be a bit intense, but it can also be the time of your life.

Knows-The-Skies has some... issues with intimacy. First as a wanted woman, then as a vampire, always as a wanderer, she's very, very aware of how proximity to her could lead to other people getting into danger. Even though she's pretty social by nature, she likes to stay clear of others to try to keep them safe. She needs someone who's even more stubborn than she is, someone she can really feel like she can trust and rely on. If you manage to get her to that point, though? She's ride or die, she'll never let you go. Slowburn that will most likely end in a marriage. If I have to describe her as a partner in one word, it's devoted.

[jackrogersfrost]

The Pediatrician

Summary: (Chris Evans) Imagine.

You take care of your brother who has a weird sickness, with the best pediatrician in the city: Dr. Chris Evans.

Pairing: Chris Evans(doctor!)x fem!reader

Warnings: Fluff, a little bit angst (your brother have a sickness without a cure).

A/N: If it's any grammatical mistake, my bad, I'm still learning. Reblog this to support my works. Enjoy!

MASTERLIST | MASTERLIST OF MY ART

You arrived hand in hand with your brother, the 7-year-old boy smiled with his toy soldier while he jumped avoiding touching the cracks in the ground.

"Good morning Sonia." You greeted the receptionist, a lady in her 50s greeted them with a warm smile on her face.

"Good morning guys, how are you?"

"Good, thanks for asking Sonia."

The little boy, Eduardo or Eddie as he liked to be called, stood on tiptoe to see Sonia at the high desk she had. "Has Chris come yet? She promised to bring strawberry popsicles this time." You laughed denying as Sonia heard it, a voice from the corridor greeted them.

"I heard my name from afar." With a smile on her face; Chris Evans, the best pediatrician in the country, was coming in his typical lab coat with you.

"Chris!" Little Eddie ran into his arms and the older one carried him happily hugging him.

"Eddie, champion! I've missed you all this month."

"Me too, did you bring the popsicles?" He laughed denying the innocence of the little boy and lowered him carefully.

"Those are not manners Eddie, say hello."

"Sorry, hi Chris."

The named ruffled his hair and saw you with the same smile. "It's good to see you again, Y/N." He greeted you with a kiss on the cheek and a half hug, making you smile.

"I'm glad to see you too... Although you know I'd rather it wasn't for this." You sighed and Chris nodded with a grin.

"I know, but let's hope this all ends soon, ok?" You nodded and walked with him to his office.

Chris Evans was without a doubt the best doctor of all and apart from being handsome, who brought all the nurses dead for him, he was the most gentlemanly man anyone could meet, and you had to admit that he also brought you dead at his feet. But as said before, you would rather it wasn't in this situation; your brother suffered from a very rare disease in which if they did not give him medication to treat him he could suffer cardiac arrest and recurring fainting spells, they had been looking for a cure for almost a year but according to Chris, they were still looking for it, for now, they could only treat him for postponing symptoms.

You both sat in front of Chris and he began to ask the little boy routine questions. "How have you been feeling these days Eddie?"

"Good, yesterday I had a friend's birthday party and they gave us ice cream cake, I didn't know it existed!" He replied excited that you looked at him with a tender smile.

And so the questions continued until after doing their usual checkup on his body.

"Well Eddie, go tell Sonia if she takes you to the playground, okay? I must talk to your sister."

"Yep." He smiled with his bundle of lollipops that had been promised him and happily left to look for you.

"Well... Now, tell me the truth."

You frowned at him. "What are you talking about?"

"Y/N, we have been friends for a year, I have learned little but I know when something bothers you."

You sighed and passed your hands over your face, he perfectly knew your appearance and what you felt without even saying anything. "I'm sorry, I really try to put on a good face when it comes to Eddie, but they've been calling me from the bank that I have to pay and they even threaten to repossess me... You know I can't pay them, I mean I want to but If I do that, that would mean not paying for Eddie's therapies, and I can't do that to him."

Chris got up and stood behind you giving you a light massage on your shoulders making you sigh.

"I know that you work hard to give the best to Eddie, that you do your best to help your brother heal, but you are not alone in this Y/N, whenever you need help, don't hesitate to ask for it, ok?"

"I don't want people to confuse it with pity..."

He crouched down to your height looking at you sincere and at the same time serious. "It's not a pity, don't think that, you and Eddie deserve happiness, and believe me that with a little help you guys will get it." He smiled at you and you smiled, nodding more animatedly. "Look, we'll do this: you won't pay for Eddie's therapies anymore until you finish paying the bank, ok?"

You looked at him worried, denying quickly. "What? No, I can't do that."

"You will... I'm going to pay them." You gave him a surprised look.

"But they are very expensive Chris, I can't give you that responsibility..." He shook his head smiling and put a hand on your knee. "It's not a responsibility, I just want to help you and Eddie in this, don't worry, when you finish paying your debt you can continue paying his therapies but until then I won't let you do it, understood?"

You sighed relieved and denied smiling. "I must pay you in some way for everything you do for Eddie and me."

"Well... How about a date this Saturday?"

You almost choked on your saliva when you heard it, the doctor who brings in half the population of women is asking you for a date. You thought about it for a few seconds and smiled sideways.

"Are you asking me out on a date, Dr. Evans?"

He laughed a little blushing and nodded scratching the back of his neck. "What are you saying?"

"7 pm, don't be late."

You both smiled and got up, Chris said goodbye to both of them and promised to be on time on Saturday. You went out with Eddie hand in hand with a lovestruck smile that you were sure wouldn't go away for the rest of the week until Saturday.

Part. 2?

[skellebonez]

i have been laughing for like an hour at that one post about Macaque with hiccups so. what if like. drabble about that with idk prompts number 9 and 72 i guess???

Anon, you have NO IDEA how much I loved this post by @animemoonprincess , I have been wanting to write something using this idea for so long. I just wanted to write silly goofy "Mac can't control his powers when he has hiccups" fic for a while and this was so much fun!

How long have you been standing there?/Don’t you dare.

"And... how long as this been going on?" Pigsy asked, torn between shaking his head in disbelief and worry and holding back laughter at the sight before him. He honestly felt kinda bad for wanting to laugh, but after all the stunts the immortal monkey had put himself and his friends through... he allowed himself a few chuckles.

"Three-hic-HOURS!" Macaque snapped, laying flat on his chest and gripping the sides of the table in front of him with a scowl. "I can't take i-hic-it anymore, you have to have some-hic-thing to make them STOP!"

Each hiccup made Macaque's tail bristle and fluff up, as if each one startled him, and made his glamor glitch awkwardly. If that was the best way to put it.

"Mac, you look miserable," Mei said, holding back her own laughter as she looked up something on her phone.

"I am," he said, uncharacteristic honest for the moment... but then again, it wasn't like he could hide this fact.

"Don't I know that feeling," MK offered in solidarity, patting the immortal monkey on the back and wincing when another stronger hiccup made Macaque jump.

They had all wondered why he was wearing a cloak and avoiding them for the last hour when he finally showed his face, only hearing the hiccups coming from him and seeing the way he jumped ever so slightly with them. He'd stayed as close to light as much as he could, very unusual for himself, and tried to just go about what his initial mission was (which was apparently getting some ice water in the hopes it would help alleviate his symptoms).

And then he has hiccuped just a little too hard at the wrong moment and managed to fall through Sandy's shadow and into the lower levels of the drone ship.

To say they were all grateful the ship wasn't flying at the moment and that he was on the upper level was an understatement... even if he would have survived the fall. Being immortal the way he was.

Right now he was in the ship's kitchen with the rest of their little group (minus Wukong who had seemingly vanished to... wherever it was he liked to hide), gripping the table as stated before to presumably not fall through a misplaced shadow again in the overly brought room, and looking... well...

He was blue. Literally, his hair had turned blue. Then he hiccuped and it became an odd shade that looked like his own mixed with stripes of Wukong's hair color. His eye that had a glamor over it changed color every other hiccup as well, and so did the color of his outfit (though he didn't normally have a glamor over that he couldn't control what glamors were put up or taken down it seemed).

The next hiccup was followed by a soft whimper of frustration as his two ears became six before their eyes. And that... made Pigsy pause.

"Does this hurt you?" Sandy took the initiative to ask, raising an eyebrow of concern.

Whatever laugher was about to bubble up from the group surrounding Macaque paused instantly once he brought up the possibility. MK in particular paused, a look of realization and slight guilt dawning on his face.

"No..." Macaque started slowly, seeming to think over his next words carefully before he sighed in defeat and face planted into the table. "But -hic-... it is very -hic- uncomfortable," the other admitted after, his ears changing color from completely normal to a rainbow on either side. "Imagine feeling the -hic- chest spasms but in what-hic-ever part of your body changes. And it's -hic- really tiring to have my -hic- powers activate like this."

Well... that was actually moderately concerning. Not dangerous sounding, exactly, but Pigsy could imagine how much this was affecting the other when the last hiccup made whatever glamor over the dark circles under his eyes fade away. They all knew that Macaque was hardly sleeping but this...

"Well," Mei said cheerily, jumping up from her seat and waving her phone. "I have a few idea on how we can get rid of these that are less dangerous than finding a rare flower that blooms under very specific circumstances. What have you tried already?"

~

To say they had been unsuccessful was an understement. They’d tried nearly everything they could think of.

Macaque had tried holding his breathe again, breathing exercises, drinking the ice water he had left his room to get. Sandy had suggested compressing his chest with his knees, but that hadn't worked either. Pigsy had brought him some ice to chew on with much the same result.

Mei's idea of eating a lemon slice or swallowing a spoonful of sugar, while creative, were even less well received when they did not work. There were other methods she found online that she immediately vetoed, no one wanted to anger the immortal by attempting to tickle them away (not after his snarled "Don’t you dare.")

MK's attempt at scaring them away was... laughable. Literally, instead of scaring Macaque the young man just sent him into a fit of laughter that only seemed to make him both even more exhausted and grateful for the short bit of amusement.

"Well now what?" Tang asked, checking off each attempt on a sheet of paper. "We've tried almost everything."

Macaque hiccuped again, groaning in exhaustion and covering one of his eyes with his cloak hood up to hide... whatever was on his face he didn't want anyone to see. No one said anything about it, the sight of the other making them just feel too bad for him to push the issue for the moment.

"Maybe if I pass out from -hic- exhaustion they'll stop," he almost slurred, leaning even harder against the table. He had been dealing with this for 4 hours with little to no relief sight. He looked awful. "Just let me pass -hic- out."

"No way!" Pigsy said firmly, helping Mei look up more cures on her phone. "What if they don't stop? You could fall through the floor again and we are not having-!"

Pigsy never got to finish that sentence because one second Macaque was alone at the table looking miserable.

The next Wukong was standing behind him and jabbed two of his fingers on either side of his neck.

"WHAT THE HELL!?" Macaque snapped after a yell of pain, breathing heavy as he clutched his chest and glowered at the Monkey King. "How long have you been standing there, Wukong!?"

"Only long enough to know that all of you didn't see me," Wukong said with a smirk, gesturing with his hand to the other immortal. "Hmn... sounds... awful quiet now... don't you think?"

Macaque paused, a look of confusion crossing his face before he realized... he wasn't hiccuping anymore. He stayed quiet for a moment, everyone did...

And no sound came aside from everyone's breathing.

"That actually worked!" MK shouted in relief, moving to hug Macaque in his excitement before realizing who he was hugging and letting go with an awkward chuckle.

"I know it's been centuries," Wukong said, face softening with a sad smile as his words continued. "But I remembered that worked for you... back then. You could have asked me for help, Mango."

"... yeah... thanks, Peaches," Macaque said slowly, looking at him with an almost suspicious gaze for a moment before he frowned oddly and stood to wander off. "I'm... going back to bed."

The group watched Macaque make his way to the hallway, movements slow and sluggish from his odd endeavor.

"Sleep well!" Mei suddenly shouted after him. "You deserve some rest after that!"

He paused just long enough to nod before heading on his way.

"You gonna explain any of that, Peaches?" Pigsy asked, crossing his arms and raising an eyebrow. "The heck did you do anyway?"

"Compressed his wind pipe and scared him half to death," Wukong answered with a shrug. "It was the only thing that worked when we were... friends. And no, I don't want to explain. Not until he wants to."

No one said anything to that, just nodded in silent agreement.

When Macaque woke up the glamors were back up and where they used to be... except, Pigsy noted, whatever had originally been concealing the dark circles under his eyes.

He also noted how when Mei asked how he sleept he sounded more honest than he had since joining them.

[i-love-hobbies]

The biggest criticism Lilith's redemption arc gets and Eda's biggest strength

(ft. me getting completely side tracked and wanting a Hooty redemption arc)

Ok, so firstly I wanna talk about real life and then say how it was done in the owl house.

I hate the words "Everyone should get what they deserve." Cause firstly this never happens, secondly, the words are very vague and it opens a window of miscommunication and thirdly, cause in Lilith's case they are focused at, she needs to be hurt in order to change.

There are even people that have said that they are looking forward to watching Lilith suffer (I don't know if I've said it on the internet but I was one of them.)

Revenge has been proven to not make people feel better. And a lot of therapists usually say you need to forgive people. That doesn't mean fix the relationship, it means try to stop wishing they get hurt. Cause the feeling is only hurting you.

Also it's a normal human feeling to be angry, so no I'm not calling people monsters for this. And forgiveness is a hard process that takes a lot of work, but it usually isn't helped by hurting others.

The words people usually use to defend this sentence are:

"Consequences change people's minds or at the very least make them scared of doing it again."

Ok so how about we use this sentence instead, it's short enough and the main mission now is keeping ourselves safe Instead of it being hurting someone, you're still wishing it but it's not the main goal, it's a secondary one.

Well, cause it immediately shows two issues both statements have.

Firstly a friendship with someone that wants to hurt you but is scared of doing so is not a healthy one, cause they'll just try to be sneaky. You can only do it with people that aren't close to you like how the authorities do it towards criminals.

Secondly punishments rarely change people's minds. They've never worked on me, especially when you attack my identity, cause this way you make it even worse. And expecting that you can change someone usually means you're about to fail.

"But we can't get rid of punishments, people will hurt us."

I'm not saying we should. I'm saying our main goal should be our safety and hurting them may happen but it shouldn't be important.

Or better yet:

"Building healthy boundaries to the point where you're not getting hurt anymore, but not going overboard."

Examples:

- You have a friend you see Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. But on Wednesdays, after work, they usually are very ignorant of your feelings and sometimes joke at your expense. So you stop going out at Wednesdays.

They might never ask why you did it and that's ok, cause you're not getting hurt anymore.

But usually they do ask why? You explain to them the issue with respect, don't call them names.

Some people will change after this and you can get rid of the boundary later on.

Other people may acknowledge this and say it's a good idea, cause they are overwhelmed, but never change.

Other other people may start hurting you even more. You build the boundaries even more, sometimes to the point you cut them out of your life, even if they weren't hurting you intentionally.

Which is completely ok if you can't maintain contact without being hurt.

- Eda's handling of Gwendolyn's cures is another good one. She never called her names or anything. She just made sure that Gwen can't hurt her anymore. Cause it wasn't only the cures. Eda's feelings were always getting ignored. She literally couldn't talk with her about anything other than the curse. Her emotions were getting neglected.

- Eda's handling of Tibbles is also an interesting example.

At first after the scamming she just left him. She couldn't see how he could hurt her.

And in episode 14 she killed him. Cause he showed that he would do anything to murder her dump kids and knew their address. Almost same story with Adegast.

Yes murder in this extreme cases can be a healthy boundary.

Lilith's relationships with the owl fam

King:

King didn't know Lilith was living with them and knows about her neglect.

Luz:

Luz would only stand up for others never for herself which is very unhealthy. I don't know if she forgave Lilith, but I can see her not mentioning it if she hasn't and playing along as a teacher.

"The real mystery is how she can be both so smart and yet so wrong at the same time. Academics, am I right?"

The closest one to her she has roasted like this, is her mentor, who firstly makes people feel safe.

"EDA, You're embarrassing me Infront of my crew." - Raine, after thirty years of not seeing her.

Secondly, she was being a jerk, she was teaching Luz about cards while she was begging for magic lessons and was not getting it for weeks.

"Cards, the paper rectangles that old people think are fun."

Heck, she might even be scared of Lilith. She almost got killed.

So far I don't have a reason to think she likes her. She hasn't really talked with her or about her much.

Eda:

Eda has already shown that she can handle conflicts in relationships. Like in episode 9, where she got Luz into Hexside and everything I already said.

I made an entire post about Eda being too emotional and I still stand by it, but serious situations that have to do with relationships, she usually is very rational and good at handling them. Probably because of the curse making her afraid of her anger and countless people attacking her.

At the beginning of the series Eda probably was expecting that the worst case scenario would be for Lilith to catch her and if Lilith isn't given the time to realise what she did, she'd be killed and best case scenario Lilith changes.

Episode 5, where Lilith burned down her wanted posters, episode 8 where Lilith was gonna get her straight in the coven instead of arresting her, episode 11, where Lilith said she wanted for Eda to join on her own and episode 17, where they played grudgby.

Proved to her even more that Lilith cares a lot for her and maybe she will change.

Then episode 18 happened and King wanting hugs and Luz's "Let me die!" Suddenly the worst case scenario became not her dieing but her dieing and the trauma the kids will experience. The fact that they won't have her in their lifes.

Lilith says "Then why were you so easy to curse?!?" This does not sound like "I accidentally did this and I'm sorry." No, Eda thought Lilith did this on purpose. And now her kids might get killed by her own sister cause she was too naive to trust her.

From now on I don't think she was trying to kill her cause Lilith isn't dangerous without raw power like Adegast and Tibbles, but to disable her is a possibility.

To add to this Eda wasn't rational almost throughout the entire finale. She probably didn't pick up on the line "If you would just let me explain." Just like she didn't question why Lilith was thrown in a cage.

Then she learns that Lilith commited treason together with her kids and started feeling like she doesn't know the full story, but Lilith is still a caring person. So she jumps Infront of the beam to save both Lilith and King.

Afterwards Lilith shares the curse and has nowhere to go if she gets kicked out so there is no reason to believe that she would hurt them physically.

I know in a post I said I don't think she fully processed the situation with Lilith. But now I think I was only half right.

She didn't fully process how much she was hurt but she understood Lilith's situation. Forgave her as soon as possible, not immediately. But that doesn't mean she rebuilded the relationship as soon as she forgave her.

First of, the forgiveness part happened after episode 1. The entire episode she was guilt tripping her, which I don't think was helping the situation. It makes Lilith more emotional which then makes it harder for her to face reality.

I'm not calling Eda a bad person for this but I do think it was a mistake.

What wasn't a mistake but a good thing is Eda wasn't the one to listen to her problems, it was Hooty. Cause her emotional health matters too and standing in one room with her sister is challenging.

And now I'm wondering does Eda know about how Lilith was treated by both the coven and their parents.

Eda calling Lilith a tool, seems to me more of them competing with each other rather than the recent events. Also Lilith forcing her rules without saying why they are there.

I'm glad the episode ended with them switching roles, where Lilith is now more powerful. Though I'm pretty sure the roles are getting switched again.

So what about the rebuilding of the relationship or should I say trust.

Well they didn't show us much, but I think the trust isn't fully back.

Cause she has only been proving that she can be physically trusted like when she saved King's life.

Eda never opens up, which is unhealthy. But in this case it's a healthy boundary, cause King did it and he got Lilith projecting onto him.

Lilith isn't good at being mentally supportive and still has bad habits.

Lulu and Hootsifer

Hooty helping Lilith was something, she really needed and didn't take for granted, cause the only one to ever even consider this is Eda.

They are buddies that look out for each other. I wouldn't say they talk a lot about feelings as they have no idea how to do that, but there are examples where they do.

Like "What kind of a witch am I?" and Hooty's letter.

Her letter for Hooty, was supportive, but ignored the issue of Hooty always being in people's personal space.

Which led to Hooty drugging Eda, kidnapping three children and almost killing said kids when his plans didn't work the way he wanted. He also ate the letter for King.

I want a Hooty redemption arc, now!

[lightsinthedistancee]

Darkness : Poe Dameron x Reader

Pairing: Poe Dameron x Reader

Words: 1.4k

Excerpt: “Darkness is a time of peace for you. A time to crawl into soft sheets, to curl up against your pilot. Some nights, to feel him lazily press a soft kiss to your forehead before his breath levels out in sleep. Others, to feel his hands roaming your body, feel him inside you.”

Summary: A short talk to Poe is always enough to cure a case of loneliness.

Warnings: Some sexual references

A/N: This is for @autumnleaves1991-blog Writer Wednesday. I actually originally meant for this to be a perhaps 500 word-ish Drabble but it ended up way longer obviously. But I’m really proud of it and love the concept of Writer Wednesday, so hope you guys enjoy! (Also, we’re just gonna pretend that phones and phone booths exist in the Star Wars universe...).

You’ve always found something lovely in darkness.

It’s simple, quiet, a constant that never changes, that rolls around at roughly the same time each night. Settles over cities and towns and every being in the galaxy in a thin blanket. Darkens faces into comforting anonymity, conceals the activities of lovers, provides peace in slumber for the weary.

There is a saying: One should not be afraid of the dark, but of what lies in it.

And after years of life, years of travel, years of experiencing the galaxy, you know that nothing sinister hides beneath darkness. No monsters, no demons, no ghosts. It is something that simply exists with no ulterior motive, something that is debatably hard to come by these days.

Darkness is a time of peace for you. A time to crawl into soft sheets, to curl up against your pilot. Some nights, to feel him lazily press a soft kiss to your forehead before his breath levels out in sleep. Others, to feel his hands roaming your body, feel him inside you.

In those times, darkness is there, still a constant. Hiding his features, hiding those eyes you adore during the daytime, allowing you to become entirely tactile, to simply feel him to the fullest, void of the distraction one’s most used method of perception, sight,  provides.

Yet tonight is a rare night. Your feet hit pavement as you walk quickly, hands in your coat, head bent towards the ground. You’ve been on this Outer Rim planet for nearly two months, gathering intelligence undercover, maintaining little to no contact with the Resistance, and therefore, Poe.

The darkness seems stronger than ever tonight. It slithers up and down the sides of buildings, seems to wrap around you in strings. In this moment, it is not simply a cover—it is suffocating.

The loneliness had been getting to you. Too many days going by a name that is not your own, too many days living in constant fear, too many days away from the touch of someone that’s always able to take your mind off of everything.

And that’s exactly what you need right now. A distraction. A brief moment to bind you back to everything you know, something you are slowly, imperceptibly slipping away from in your mind. The buildings seem to tower over you, to dwarf you. It’s an intimidation act, and you feel it’s working.

It feels as if you can sink into the asphalt, become one with the soil that had been so cruelly compressed by man-made rock. As if you can sink beneath and become one with the dead, the figurative and the literal that had most likely been so barbarously worked to death to build this historic city in the dark days of the galaxy.

You round a bend, turning onto the main street, and your eyes, adjusted to the dark, flare painfully as light hits you. You snap them shut on instinct, flinching. However, the object of your discomfort is not an unknown. This route had been walked by you every day the last two months, and the light is the same phone booth you’d been using to transmit information back to the Resistance due to the anonymous, unmonitored, and therefore, rare quality of it.

It is hardly used anymore, for everyone has their own personal holos, and this one is particularly beat up. It’s translucent walls are cloudy, it’s metal backing dented. Nowadays, it is probable that is it only frequented by drunks and Spice addicts and, well…you.

There is something ironic about the fact that this small, dilapidated booth is your only connection back to D’Qar.

But not ironically, perhaps in a poetically symbolic manner, it also shines bright in the darkness, eradicates the very thing that had been suffocating you moments earlier. It is almost a physical embodiment of hope.

It is also a universal rule that hope births more hope, and an unwise desire comes over you. One that could put the whole operation at risk. But resisting the temptation, it hurts. It’s agonizing, and you want to give in to it. You want to hear one voice. One voice that can wrap you in softness, encourage your imagination to conjure up the sensation of his touch.

And before you know it, you’re in the booth, dialing a long string of numbers you’ve memorized by now. A voice of a communications officer sounds.

You state your name.

“Security code?” the officer asks.

“Six nine eight oh seven three.”

Your eyes nervously glance around. Despite having done this a few times, the experience still makes your heart race. You can only hope that any observer would see only an ordinary lone figure, silhouetted in the light, making an emergency call to a friend because she drank too much or got her wallet stolen.

“You got information?”

“No,” you respond, letting out a soft breath and lying through your teeth. “I need you to transfer me to Commander Dameron. I have a hunch regarding something naval, and I need his opinion.”

You silently chide yourself at your quickness to over explain.

But luckily, the communication officer says nothing. “Transferring now,” he says.

You thank him, leaning against the inner wall of the booth, hovering the phone directly next to your ear. Moments of silence pass before a voice breaks it.

“Hello?” says Poe.

Every point of tension in you seemed to relax in a moment as your eyes slowly close. The timbre of his voice washes over you, through you. “Hey,” you whisper.

“Sweetheart?” He sounds confused. Above all, tired.

“Did I wake you?” you ask, feeling bad all of a sudden. The high that had been coursing through your veins moments earlier plunges back to the ground. The intensity with which you feel it is irrational, yet nothing in you mind is steady.

“Yeah, but that’s okay,” he replies, a slight urgency to his voice. “Is something wrong?”

You picture him in your shared bed back on D’Qar, shirt off like usual. Propped up on one elbow, sheets falling to his waist, holo to his ear, concern on his features. Concern at his love calling him in the middle of the night, her voice shaking.

“Nothing’s wrong…I just…I….” Your voice trails off, and a silence a bit too long elapses.

“Baby?” he asks.

Your breath trembles slightly as you let it out. “This was a mistake,” you mumble. “I’m sorry, just—“

He interjects at the tone of finality in your voice. “Hey…don’t go, sweetheart.” You hear him shift, perhaps sitting up. “Just talk to me. What’s wrong?”

“I miss you,” you blurt out. You’d meant to say it more eloquently, less directly, but that’s not something you have the energy for right now. “I miss everyone back on D’Qar. This assignment…it’s the most least contact with base I’ve ever had, and—why am I even telling you that? You know that.” You let out a frustrated breath, gathering your thoughts. He patiently waits, something you’re grateful for. “I’m just…having a hard time. That’s all.”

His energy transmits well through the phone. He’s thinking, the gears in his mind turning. You can feel the helplessness, for there is undeniably little he can do. “I miss you, too,” he finally says. “It’s a few more weeks, baby. I know you’ve got it in you…”

It’s a simple sentence, yet nearly reinvigorating in a way. Nothing that immediately lifts your mood, but perhaps something that briefly abates the hollow feeling within you.

“I’ll be there the moment you’re back.” His tone is soft, a little raspy with tiredness, slightly reminiscent of the way he tells you how much he loves and how amazing you are in a post-sex haze of exhaustion. It’s an odd relation, but the sense of peace that both tones hold is something you always cling to. “I’ll be there to kiss you. To hold you.” He pauses. “To take you to bed….”

The way his voice, on the last statement, walks the line between humorous and genuinely seductive makes you laugh quietly. It’s neither a common nor desirable combination.

“There’s that beautiful laugh,” he says softly, letting out a breath, returning to his previous demeanor. “I’ll be there, baby. I know you know that.”

You nod even though he can’t see you. Air brushes past your lips as your eyes flutter shut. “I know.”

..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::.. ..::::..

Taglist (for everything): @dark-academics-and-florals @theultimateslashgirl

Taglist (for Poe): @synical-paradox @spider-starry @paper-n-ashes

If you wish to be tagged on any of my future works, just let me know or do the form on my Masterlist if that’s easier!

Based on this Writer Wednesday pic:

[dutchmancallypso]

Not that anyone cares, but I have to write this or I’m gonna explode.

I haven’t written anything on Tumblr for literal ages, but now I just have to. I finally watched the interview with Meghan and Harry, and I have to say, the reactions to it have made me almost cry. The reactions of the majority of people kind of show that none of them really listened to the interview, and I have a suspicion that many of them didn’t watch it at all and they just want to have an opportunity to bathe in their hate and spite.

This is the only site I can go to where I can read other reactions than meaningless hate towards these two. 

Here are the most common hateful comments and my reaction to them:

1. “Yeah she’s an actress, she is acting, that’s bad acting, I’m a body language expert, she’s lying. She only wants to blame others etc. Harry is so whipped omg she wanted all of this from the beginning, and his money.”

Harry's mother died, when he was little. From the early age he was not really content with this whole monarchy thing, he served in the military, and he was all around not really the type to just silently sit and listen, even Diana saw this coming eventually, aka the money she left him. Meghan stated very clearly that she valued independence above all, and had her own income. To be with Harry, she basically had to give up her whole identity (heck they didn’t even let her keep her passport!!!) and she was okay with all this. She had to google the royal manners, or how to sing in church etc, nobody taught her. She was willing to give her whole life up so she can be with Harry. She then believed that she will get used to it, and was okay until she believed that she will be protected. Harry stated very clearly that he saw the pattern, that Meghan was eventually going to end up like his mom, and he didn’t want the history to repeat. He had to intervene.

Meghan didn’t name anyone who did her wrong, even though she could, and Oprah clearly wanted her to. On the contrary, she said that Kate is sweet and doesn’t lack self reflection, and the Queen’s personality is warm and she’s always been wonderful to her. She spoke about everyone with respect, and she seemed upset that the situation turned out the way it did. If she was acting, then give her an Oscar please, because at the point of talking about her not wanting to live anymore, I DID cry, and due to my depression-induced emotional numbness, I rarely cry. 

2. “She knew what she was getting into.”

This is the point that got me really convinced about many people not even watch the interview, because she said right in the beginning, she didn’t know what she was getting into, and admitted that she was very naive to think what it is gonna be like. That the reality swept her off her feet. She, as an American, didn’t see tabloids with the monarchy members on the headlines everywhere.

3. “They don’t want publicity and they go and sit with Oprah? Pfft.”  If someone wrote kept posting/saying something harsh about you, resulting in others attacking you, sending you death threats and it put you into fear of your own life, would you just say oh but I’m an introvert I don’t want to talk to anyone so I’m just gonna move to another city and let people throw bricks into my window? Would you?

4. “Oh yes, the rich are complaining, boo hoo.” Kurt Cobain, Marylin Monroe, Chris Cornell, Chester Bennington.... want me to go on?

Someone’s wealth, position etc. doesn’t define who they are. You never know what a person is suffering from. You could be the richest, most beautiful person, loved by millions, but gaining money, fame or publicity, that doesn’t mean you automatically defeat your own demons. I am HORRIFIED that after so many celebrity suicides, people’s mentality on this still can’t seem to change. 

I can give my own example. I am not rich, not famous, but in my teens, I was mostly alone and sad, plus living with my parents who abused me emotionally, I was helpless and suicidal. I thought that was the main problem and once I move out, I’m cured. I’m two years in living on my own, and I am still fighting my demons. I used to have no money and live in a toxic environment, and now I don’t struggle with money that much and have a great roommate, still, my mind is it’s own master... 

Meghan’s talking about not wanting to be alive anymore hit me hard and made me cry. Nobody who hasn’t ever experienced suicidal thoughts can relate or understand, but I am so furious that people seem to lack even the tiniest bit of compassion. 

►Here is a list of celebrity suicides for you to study.◄ 

DON’T DEVALUATE SOMEONE ELSE’S PROBLEMS JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE AN UNEMPHATIC PIECE OF SH*T. DON’T THROW DIRT AT SOMEONE JUST FOR THE SAKE OF IT. OF COURSE MEGHAN AND HARRY’S POPULARITY WENT DOWNHILL IN THE UK “OVERNIGHT”, IF YOU WATCHED THE INTERVIEW, YOU KNOW THE TABLOIDS’ POWER OVER THE UK POPULATION. FFS. 

*************************

If you’re a good human being, thank you. You make this world a lot better with your existence, and based on what I see daily, you’re a drop in the ocean. So much unnecessary hate in this world, everywhere. Don’t support the centuries-long racist institution, just because “it’s always been like this”. Don’t support this sheep mentality. Have your own head, please. 

Whoever read this to the end, I thank you so much and have a great day. Spread love, not corona. ♥

[evielallemxnt]

"There are T W O types of secrets: those we hide from others ─ and those we hide from OURSELVES."

have you seen GENEVIEVE 'EVIE' LALLEMENT strolling around central park at lunchtime? rumor has it they’re actually A HUNDRED AND THIRTY-FIVE years old, but i’m pretty sure they’re only TWENTY. they’re currently posing as a PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR at LALLEMENT LAW, but when dusk falls, you can usually find them heading home to MANHATTAN by TOWN CAR. apparently they DID attend the met gala this season! @duskintro

* / CHARACTER INFLUENCES: Jake Peralta ( Brooklyn 99 ) + Veronica Mars ( Veronica Mars ) + Nancy Drew ( Nancy Drew ) + Claudia ( Interview With The Vampire ) + Rebekah Mikaelson ( The Originals )

* / ANTHEMS: PRETTY SAVAGE | YOU MADE A MONSTER | 7 RINGS

*** PENNED BY BRI FOR DUSKFELLHQ ***

FULL NAME: GENEVIEVE "EVIE" LALLEMENT

FACECLAIM: Savannah Lee Smith

AGE: 20 ( estimated @ time of changing ) physically | 135 mentally

SEXUALITY: Lesbian

PRONOUNS: She/her

POSITIVE: Intelligent, charming, loyal, brave.

NEUTRAL: Spontaneous, trustworthy, daring, cocky

NEGATIVE: Impulsive, self-destructive, snide, and Machiavellian.

ELEMENT: Fire.

MBTI TYPE: ENFJ.

MORAL ALIGNMENT: Chaotic neutral.

HOGWARTS HOUSE: Slytherin

AESTHETIC: Breakfast at Tiffany's, fine tailoring, diamonds and pearls and rubies, late-night bubble baths with red sangria, Chanel No.5, bubbly stocked fridge, penthouse parties, drinks @ The Blond, exclusive social club, wigs and disguises, sly smiles, bad decisions, midnight sleuthing, gossiping until dawn, closets filled with Birkins, eyes that hold secrets, smudged lip gloss, devilish temptations

TW: Death, dying, blood

* / BIOGRAPHY: The history of Genevieve Lallement is a tricky one. If you ask her, she became a creature of the night in some whirlwind fashioned tale filled with love, betrayal, and sacrifice -- all the makings of a heart-clenching closed shut story. But the reality? That's much more of a mystery.

Her genesis is one filled with darkness. No memories. No family. No nothing. The only solace coming in the form of her sire -- Cassius. He saved her from a fever that took many in late 19th century England and told her as much as he knew. That he had found her bedridden and sickly in a run-down isolation ward where patients were sent to die more than to be cured. Apparently, she had reminded him of a sister he’d once lost and he acted on an inner impulse to save an innocent. The staff had told him that she had admitted herself under what they proved to be an alias, so there was no way to notify family or even prove she existed.

She was a ghost. Alone in the world. And dying.

So, he gave her new life. Eternal life.

When she’d awakened from the transition, the ripe young vampire found herself unable to remember, well... anything. It was as if the transformation erased everything human about her, wiped her slate clean as she re-entered the world as someone else. Something else. Cassius said that vampirism isn’t a perfected process. There are some ailments that the immortal blood which now ran through her veins can’t heal. By the time he’d found her, her mind had already been overcome with the sickness that was moments away from snuffing her out completely. To drag her back from the depths of near-death, she had to lose some parts of herself along the way. There were some upsides, though. She clung to Cassius like a newborn, and he grew to coddle her as if she were his own. Being inducted into the Lallement family allowed her to see a world that was previously unattainable as a mortal having had come from the dregs of England. He’d brought her to New York at the turn of the century, and it was a sight to behold as she realized…this was HOME.

As the decades passed, the new Lallement glided through life. The adjustment to vampirism wasn’t as hard as it probably was for others. Sure, she had her hiccups, but it was almost as if the lack of memories helped. There was no other way of living for her to remember or to acclimate from. In some ways, there was no true loss. Her new family filled the voids ( even helped her pick out a new name ‘GENEVIEVE” ) showered her with endless love ─ and the bloodlust helped pick up the slack. For a while. As an immortal, it is easy to become distracted by the power, privilege, and play that is now bestowed upon you. But eventually, the semblance of loneliness and eternity creep in. For Evie, it was plaguing thoughts of the unknown that haunted her. Did she have a family when Cas took her away? Did they look for her? Mourn her? Soon all she could think of was the possibility that they somehow survived the plague and managed to continue on. This led her to try to trace their footsteps back to the town Cassius found her in to look for anything, any semblance of a clue that pointed to her previous human existence. Only for Evie to be faced with the harsh reality that the one hospital in town, the very town she’d believed herself to have been raised in, had burned down not long after they’d fled. Along with the patient records. Any possibility of tracing back her roots had been destroyed in a reckless accident and something in Evie c r a c k ed. Never again to be fully healed.

But if anything, she’s a survivor. Evie turned her sadness into something productive, going on to study criminology and criminal justice in the ’70s and '80s, along with a myriad of other majors she probably got too distracted to finish. Evie figured, if she couldn’t figure out the mystery of her own life, then the least she could do is help others figure out the mysteries in theirs. Becoming a private investigator sort of just happened, but it soon became her life’s joy. Piecing things together, going on recon missions, and doling out the truth was something that Evie not only excelled at but truly found fulfilling. At least ─ during the day. When the sun goes down, she resorts back to her party-girl ways, needing to find some sort of entertainment as a method to keep herself distracted. Because, you see, the only thing Evie hates most in the world is being by her lonesome. It leaves time for that inner sadness and loss to come creeping back in, to remind her that there’s nothing in the world to truly call her own. That the Lallement name is a placeholder for the truth. And that’s the one truth she cannot face.

So, she parties, boozes, pushes the limit because she has none, and there is always a need for M O R E. Because boredom is never on the menu. And when the town car arrives eventually to take her back to Manhattan, merely a few hours before she must be up for work, Evie revels in the few minutes of silence and thinks ─

‘Another day down. Only an eternity to go.’

* / PERSONALITY: Evie is, more than anything, fun. She likes to have a good time and to look good while doing it. Sure, her deviousness occasionally gets her into more trouble than intended, and in some ways, her childlike need to be paid attention to can be exhausting to people, but she is not all play. Evie truly enjoys being an investigator and will isolate herself for days, weeks even, if that means cracking a case. Her job and lifestyle have been carefully cultivated to always keep her busy so the facade can stick. No one knows about her growing concerns with the idea of unlimited time or the feeling of wanting a connection with someone -- anyone. Evie doesn't really give into supernatural politics or bias, and her ruthless side only comes out when hangry or when you threaten someone she loves. Then it's all-out chaos.

* / FUN FACTS:

She's gone to college several times and has studied many things but only holds a degree in Criminology and Interior Design

Currently paying a witch to figure out a way for vampires to get tattoos

Obsessed with all things horror and true crime

Officially identified as a lesbian in the late '60s

Has two poodles named Khaleesi and Drogon

Manhattan PD knows her by name

* / WANTED CONNECTIONS:

SCOOBY GANG/HARDY BOYS/7 RINGS - These are her people, her confidantes, her ride or dies. Can be supernatural or human, mortal or immortal. Whether they met decades ago or the night before, tipsy, in the Cosmopolitan bathrooms, they instantly clicked and have been loyal to each other ever since.

ROOMMATE(S) - Evie lives in one of the many ritzy buildings Manhattan has to offer. While having an entire floor to yourself has its benefits, it can feel quite isolating. So, the vampire opened up her doors to allow in some roommates -- free of charge!

ASSISTANT - As a private investigator, sometimes certain cases can become quite tedious. While her work rarely ventures away from mild cases Cassius needs help with, Evie does also take cases from anyone who needs help. Keeping everything organized, going with her on recon, and even offering their own input and theories is what they provide for her.

PLAYTHING - Now Evie isn't evil, she doesn't play with people's emotions ( at least not intentionally ) but she does indulge in the power and influence that comes with vampirism. Not only would this person be someone to go to for the occasional midnight snack ( where they're the snack sowz ), Evie would also indulge in their life. Making sure they're well taken care of, listening to the things they're going through, and being there for them whenever they need her.

FOES/ENEMIES - When you live forever you might make an enemy or three. Evie has ruffled a few feathers over the past century, that's for sure, and she has no problem continually poking the bear if she finds herself bored enough to do so.

also: literally anything else pls plot with me i'll send you kit kats and a coupon for a free taco.

[zishustits]

oooooh ship bingo! i recently heard about these two concepts and would love to hear your take: ye baiyi and lan xichen, and xie'er and lan xichen <3

Oohhh okay, first I have to say I'm not actually into crossovers BUT let's forget about that for a little bit, these concepts are interesting.

First, Ye Baiyi and Lan Xichen. Let's see what they have in common.

They are both high skilled cultivators, very relevant figures in their respective societies.

They share common values such as righteousness, compassion, honor, service without waiting for anything in return, even kindness (more explicit in Lan Xichen).

They are not rigid in their principles though. Both acknowledge that most of the times you cannot judge a person as bad or good, nor a situation as black or white. They have struggled with it sometimes (i.e. Ye Baiyi considering whether he should kill Wen Kexing or not after knowing he's the chief of Ghost Valley, while also being aware of the difficult circumstances that led him to become that evil figure, which are indirectly related to YBY as Rong Xuan was his disciple. Also Lan Xichen caught between the evidence that Meng Yao has committed very wrong deeds and the kindness he has known from him)

Both have lost their loved ones forever.

Both have a tendency for retirement and solitude.

Apart from that, LXC has this noble and respectable aura that makes people feel calm and reassured when he's around, like if there's any problem it's okay, LXC probably knows how to solve it, he's diplomatic, also he will protect his people from danger, always keeping that composed calmness that's inherent to him (even if there's inner turmoil).

Now I consider, Ye Baiyi is very similar too, think of those scenes in the first episodes of WoH, when he gave Gao Chong the token of honor, then at the second Heroes Conference when everyone turned to him as a guide for what to do with the Ghost Valley issue, and also when WKX and ZZS fell from the bridge Cheng Ling felt reassured having YBY to help him. People feel relieved when he's around to lead them and solve problems.

So now, if LXC and YBY met I think they'd be a good match, like they would sense the similarities of their souls, especially the influence they have on others, now I can't find the words, but it's related to the righteousness and the high moral values and elevated cultivation they have achieved. Also they would perceive the isolation that comes with being far from the mortal realm for so long (for Ye Baiyi) and with being an important figure of the cultivation society that also has lost someone who was very important to him (in the case of LXC).

I believe they'd connect easily, like oh I recognize you, you are similar to me. And also they would enjoy learning from each other, YBY has reached the most elaborated martial arts skills and LXC is outstanding in musical cultivation (or whatever name it is). They see each other as equals and no one feels less than the other.

However, I think Ye Baiyi would break all of the Lan rules XD and be upset all the time, like why can't I just sit on the roofs at night to watch the stars while drinking alcohol? But as LXC is the Gusu leader (I think? Can't remember what he was at the end of The Untamed) and he is far from strict as LQR was, he would ignore it. In fact, I think he knows most of the rules are outdated and unnecessary, so they just keep following the rules that are actually related to master one's discipline, being righteous, respecting your elders and seniors and being kind to your sworn brothers and so on.

They might cultivate together. Keep each other company even as they are just sitting there in meditative contemplation or just enjoying the silence. Talk about ancient knowledge.

As for the type of relationship, I don't actually think it would be of romantic or sexual nature, like they were devoted to one partner in the past (probably more platonically than anything, at least on YBY part) and seem to me the kind of people that does not engage with anyone else after his companion has died, at least in the same way, like sometimes it's hard to reach the same level of deep connection with someone else. That doesn't mean they could not forge a close relationship, but to me it's not the same vibe as xiyao or rongye (or whatever the name of this ship is).

Following the bingo classification, I'd say Best friends, or Qplatonic at most. Also I'm intrigued to know what other kind of relationship people think they could develop. If you want to share with me, I'd love to know your ideas!!

Okay, probably for the next one I'll try to write less because I realized how long this is getting (it's just a bingo, please brain!!!), and I should finish some college stuff buut it's not less interesting to me I swear!!

So Xie'er and LXC. First, I think LXC would be aware of the good that's in Xie'er and his potential, mostly his inexhaustible willpower and determination, which have been until now directed towards, let's say, flawed goals? All that energy and intelligence wasted on another man's dream. It's unacceptable!!

The principal thing that comes to my mind and that struck me since Xie'er first appeared was the he seems to know who is everyone, like he saw ZZS and WKX together for the first time and he thought, why are the former leader of the Window of Heaven and the chief of Ghost Valley together wtf? While everyone else was like oh, two righteous wanderers, never heard of them before. Xie'er clearly knows how to obtain the right information, he has the mind of a researcher, and that could be put to good use.

Also Xie'er knows a lot about venoms and their antidotes, is that not another relevant and useful skill he has??? Again here, he is a researcher, as for instance he discovered the cure to the Meng Po soup was Drunk like a dream. Furthermore, he probably knows a lot about survival, hiding, disguising himself, being a shadow amongst shadows, fighting (especially dirty tricks), and leadership skills. He also has some knowledge on magic tricks (with the Drug men) that could be the simile to demonic cultivation.

All this knowledge and abilities could be put to good use, not to achieve other's goals, but to help people, for example, finding a cure to their poisoning or demonic possession (or whatever), instructing others on different facts that could be useful if they need to hide from a threat, survive in the wild for some time, coming alive from a fight with a nasty opponent an so on.

I mean, I haven't mentioned LXC until now but let's assume he is aware of everything about Xie'er's skills that I have described. Also, he realizes Xie'er has a good soul, it's something you can see right away if you spend a minimum of time with him. He has shown it with actions too, for instance, when he released Liu Qian Qiao and his lover, also that scene after the battle at mount Qingya (I'm still crying about Cao Wei Ning and Gu Xiang, my poor babies ;~;) when he left WKX and ZZS go (although he had a sword to his neck gssbsbsbsb), and of course everything he did for Zhao Jing, out of his love and affection for him.

Okay, he has done bad deeds, but he has kindness in him. A kindness that has not actually been nurtured but has developed there anyways. He has a tendency to serve others, that we see mostly with his yifu. Those are important values that might be developed and focused to actions that make an improvement on people's lives, and probably on Xie'er's own.

And LXC is determined to do that. Like he sees Xie'er's efforts to serve others because it's something that comes naturally out of him, but realizes it needs to be properly acknowledged as no one has done that before (we only got to see him do things for his yifu, who rarely showed any gratefulness for it, and only this time with Qian Qiao she almost got to say something nice to him, but Xie'er turned away swiftly, like he is not used to receive positive feedback on his good actions at all, so probably it's not something that he feels comfortable with).

I believe LXC would nurture this good side of Xie'er, praising those little (and bigger) services he does for others, which would act as a positive reinforcement. Also he would show interest in Xie'er's skills, and what he does in his free time (like no one has shown some interest in this before?), as well as his emotional state and stuff. Showing that he genuinely cares about him. That he appreciates Xie'er for who he is.

Also he would encourage him to persevere on those abilities he has and teach others, maybe the Lan disciples. So Xie'er would see that his skills can be used for some other things that are not killing or trying to become the king of the world.

As for Xie'er, he would grow to like LXC, finally finding someone who really cares about him, knowing for the first time in his life what it is to be seen and appreciated by someone who does not expect nothing from him in return. Learning that he deserves to be loved that way (and I don't necessarily mean romantically).

And that he does not need to kill for others anymore. He can become the person he wants to be, not what others want to get from him. LXC would show him he can do good deeds and they will be appreciated, even if he's doing it for others is something he inherently has done before, it nurtures his soul. He needs to experience more of that. And LXC would encourage it. He is patient, he is kind, he rarely lashes out, he has predictable reactions unlike his yifu (I mean, when Xie'er did something to please him but sometimes he would react nicely and many others he wouldn't, let's ignore if his actions were morally correct or not, the fact is Zhao Jing would respond differently to similar things).

Also Xie'er is able to discern what's good and what's harmful, and I believe that given he could choose freely, without thinking is this what my Yifu would do, he would be inclined to do the good thing. LXC encourages that.

Okay, I will not elaborate more, probably I've even been redundant several times. This relationship would definitely be great for Xie'er, for him to learn what is a healthy bond and to grow as a person.

But I don't think it would develop into a romantic or sexual kind of relationship. It just don't give me those vibes. LXC and Xie'er have different backgrounds, LXC is a sect leader and devoted to cultivation, Xie'er is the leader of a shady assassin organization and has developed other kinds of abilities.

Dunno, I don't feel them like equals, as it feels with YBY and LXC, for them the cultivation/martial arts skills are one of the main pillars of their lives and it's something they can share together, LXC and Xie'er are way too different. There might be some power imbalance too, and LXC would be somewhat taking care of Xie'er and not quite the opposite? (save from those little services Xie'er would do for him). Well, this is not probably a good reason because I like some ships with power imbalances too.

But I mean, they just don't click to me as a couple at least. More like a teacher/student relationship perhaps, or a friendship at most. Perhaps I just can't ship it any other way because of my strugglr with crossovers, but with YBY and LXC it was clearer to me that, well, it could be possible.

I'd love to know your takes on these two concepts too, whether you talk to me directly or in a post!!

@goldensprite

[marmolady]

The Wreckage of What Was

Main Pairings: Estela x (f)MC

Summary: Rourke Ending. An explosive encounter with the woman who was once her wife has left Taylor shattered.

Word Count: 3528

Chronology: Directly following on from 'There Was This Girl'. Read that one first!

Tagging: @saivilo, @edgydepressedchoicesthot, @sceptilemasterr, @greengroove @mauvecatfic

Curled up under the covers, her head tucked in against her chest, Taylor closed her eyes tighter, ignoring the knocking on her apartment’s door. Or, at least… she tried to. She wasn’t sure of the time. There hadn’t been much point in checking; she wasn’t going anywhere. It mattered little if she fell behind in her classes. Straight A’s wouldn’t free Varyyn and his people from Rourke’s enslavement. Nor would they allow Jake and Mike to stop running, to come home. Nor cure Quinn’s Rotterdam’s. And they sure as hell wouldn’t make Estela know her again. Love her again. Tears prickled Taylor’s eyes. The skin around her eyes and nose was red raw from crying, from being wiped and dabbed by what felt like enough tissues that she could call herself personally responsible for the felling of a small forest. Still, the tears came, because the all-encompassing sadness, the helplessness, just didn’t stop.

“Taylor! You can’t just hide in there forever!”

She didn’t want to see Diego. It made no sense to her that he didn’t loathe her. She’d been the one with the deciding vote, and it was she alone who could’ve fixed everything… if only she’d had the guts. Taylor saw herself as a coward; the one responsible for every wrong Rourke inflicted on this world. Diego had trusted her, and Taylor had chosen the path that tore him from Varyyn’s arms, and torn everything else from Varyyn in the process.

“TAYLOR!”

Then Zahra’s voice cut across him. “For fuck’s sake….” There was a creak as the door swung open, then approaching footsteps.

“Tay?” Diego called, right at her door this time.

Taylor’s groan of frustration turned into a roar, and she sat up in bed.

“You’re not great at taking hints are you?” She knew she was being unnecessarily mean, and she hated herself for it. But the fact was, she’d done enough to make him miserable without him being sucked into the black hole of despair she seemed to have become.

Diego pushed the door open. If he was hurt, it didn’t show on his face. His eyes were just sympathetic… kind. It was kindness she didn’t deserve.

“I think you know you can’t shake me that easily,” he said airily. “Have you eaten today? It’s after three.”

Avoiding eye contact, knowing how much of a mess she looked, Taylor sighed. “I haven’t been hungry,” she said, her tone flat. It was true. She’d barely touched a thing since everything with Estela had blown up spectacularly in her face. To get up and eat something, she’d have to find the energy to move, and for the most part, that had been eluding her.

Diego disappeared back out the door, and some rummaging-sounds later, returned with a plate of crackers and dip. He approached the bed and sat down on the edge… close enough to make it known he was there for Taylor, but not close enough to be pushy.

“Look, I know you don’t have any appetite right now,” he said, “but something small is better than nothing. Think you could do that… for me?”

Taylor huffed a little, and tidied up her hair as well as she could manage without going so far as rummaging for a brush. She looked her friend in the face, properly, for the first time since he showed up. He looked worried. Really worried.

It had been four days. Four days since Taylor had taken a great leap of faith, and fallen. For a little while there, it had actually been easy; having Estela near had felt natural, even if few words were ever exchanged. But Taylor had misjudged things, badly. There had been some… charged looks between the two of them…. moments where time slowed, and suddenly it was her old Estela seeing her, maybe even wanting her. It had been wonderful. If only it weren’t for that creeping knowledge that she was taking advantage; Taylor knew Estela, Estela didn’t know Taylor. The dishonesty of it all had troubled Taylor to the point of spurring her to action… and spilling all.

Obviously, Taylor had sounded deranged. She’d known that before she so much as opened her mouth to start, but her crazy story was the only truth she had to offer. Going on about Rourke changing history-- what the hell kind of reasonable person wouldn’t think Taylor had lost her mind? And Estela… well, Taylor already knew that Estela had no patience for anyone trying to screw with her. She hadn’t been ready, though, for the anger. She’d seen that anger in Estela’s eyes before, but never dreamed it could ever be directed her way. And, oh, it had hurt.

“You’re too good to me,” Taylor mumbled. Reluctantly, she reached out and took a cracker. For Diego.

“What best friends are for, right?”

Taylor put on a valiant, if ultimately sad, attempt at a smile. However much she might have felt it for the best, she simply didn’t have the heart-- nor the energy-- to push Diego away. “Well, what’s your plan?” she asked. “Sit me in front of Shrek until I believe in true love again?”

And so, they huddled under a duvet and watched Shrek. The dragon set Taylor off crying again, but it was generally a good distraction while they ate. Once the crackers were polished off, Diego nipped out to grab some ice cream-- the fancy kind usually reserved for Very Bad Days. It was a rare and potent breed of sadness that couldn’t at least be tempered by ice cream, but it seemed that Taylor was afflicted with just that. Even if the pain in her heart couldn’t be lessened, though, she was grateful for Diego… far more than she could say.

Her bowl empty and the movie done with, there was little for Taylor to do but to wallow in her own thoughts. The very same that had been so intent on dragging her under. At least now, though… at least she wasn’t alone with them.

“I’m… so lost,” she croaked after a long while, her voice hoarse with emotion.

“Yeah?” Diego rubbed her arm comfortingly. “I… I get that.”

Taylor looked down into her empty bowl, contemplating everything. No matter how many times she turned things over in her head, she always came out confused. The path forward-- if there even was one from this hell she’d unleashed-- was tangled with thorns and riddled with dead-ends and traps. She’d been stumbling through, fearful of causing even more damage while knowing that everything she cared for rested on her success.

“I feel like… maybe I was wrong? Maybe it wasn’t right to just blurt everything out? I mean, you remembered, didn’t you? Maybe if I’d just left it… she might have just… worked it out herself. It’s not like there’s a fucking hope of her remembering me if I’ve scared her off….”

“Hey. Our Estela doesn’t scare easily. And you know what? Maybe the fact that you sounded absolutely batshit crazy will help in the long run. You’ll stick in her mind.”

“And what if… what if what I’m trying to is actually… is actually just going to make me the person who hurts her most?”

Diego’s brow furrowed. “You’re losing me.”

“What if she’s better off? I know she felt so betrayed when I took this path but….” Taylor roughly ran her hands through her hair. This had been damn near driving her crazy. “She’s got her mom back, Diego…. It’s like her mom was never murdered. If I wasn’t so selfish, if I just let her be… she’d never have to feel that pain.”

For a few moments, Diego pondered; a couple of times he opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again, as if not quite sure of what to say. At last, though, he just came out with it. “I think… I think you’re just grasping onto another excuse to beat up on yourself. I’m sorry, Taylor.”

“Wha--”

“You heard,” Diego said firmly, obviously finding his resolve to really help as he looked Taylor right in the face. Even if it was hard for her to hear. “And honestly? I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking about. When we were up on that rooftop, did Rourke even try and win Estela over using her mom as a bribe? No-- because he knew that would only make her fight him harder.”

Taylor exhaled through her hand, now pressed against her face as she wrestled with her thoughts. Diego… had a point. “She’d have broken his freaking nose, then and there.”

“Exactly!”

“So, what does that mean? That I’ve failed and there’s no consolation?”

“I think,” Diego said, calm and steady, “that we’re in for a long haul. But I also think that there’s a part of Estela that really, really misses you, even if she doesn’t know what it is. Like… even before I remembered, I could feel something was missing. And I was drawn to you. Even if Estela thinks you’re crazy, you’re still that person she fell in love with a couple-thousand times over.”

“You’re betting an awful lot on Estela falling for the person who, by all appearances, is nothing but a delusional stalker.”

Shadows of sorrow crossed Diego’s eyes. “Well, I’ve got to. There’s… not really much else.”

Taylor snuggled close, squeezing her friend… the only one she had left, and one she could not be convinced she deserved. But she was all he had, too.

“I know… I know this is all making you crazy. And I know a big part of you hates yourself for making the call you did. But hiding in here and beating yourself up isn’t gonna do anything but make you feel worse. However much you think you deserve to feel that bad, I can’t let you give up. I can’t.”

Her friend’s words made Taylor wince. There really was no option; she simply had to keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep putting on a smile to should-have-been friends while her heart was quietly breaking.

Diego took a long exhale. “So. You can have today, and you can have tomorrow. But then, you pull yourself together. There are too many people counting on you for you to go to pieces now.”

Taylor nodded, and tears dripped down onto her lap as Diego held her. Being there for him meant letting go of her own self-loathing, however hard it was. If he still believed she had it in her to fix this fucking mess, she’d fight to her dying breath. The floodgates had opened, and she cried and cried, feeling everything she knew would soon have to be quashed back down. His own eyes spilling, Diego kept on rubbing her arm, supporting her always.

Messily wiping her face on her sleeve-- it was already crusty with tears and snot anyway-- Taylor gathered herself. Deep breaths. In… and out.

“I really miss her,” she said after a long while, soft as a whisper. To say it loud just made it bigger, and it was already tearing her apart. But if she was moving forward, that pain had to be expelled… else it swallow her. “And it just… aches. When things got scary-- and to be honest, when were things not scary?-- she’d just… slip her hand into mine, and hold me. It’s been months-- I know it’s been months-- but I can’t keep myself from half-expecting her fingers to wrap around mine, and just like that… make everything better.”

Without a word, Diego took Taylor’s trembling hand in his own, his thumb stroking tenderly.

When he closed his eyes, Taylor knew he was imagining Varyyn holding his hand. And as she closed her own, Taylor let herself, for just a moment, be held by Estela.

On return to reality, Diego’s face was wet with tears. He offered Taylor a watery smile. They were in this together.

“Hey,” Taylor said shakily. “Will you… will you stay?”

“I’ll stay.”

________________________

True to her word, Taylor forced herself out of the apartment come the day after next. Hard as it was, if she didn’t keep up with her studies, she’d risk losing her place at Hartfeld, and any hope she might have of reconnecting with her loved ones. Winter had set in, and for most students, life consisted of hurrying between one heated lecture theatre and the next, or sheltering in the library, cafe, or student union building. It seemed every heater on campus was mobbed by a tight circle of students, and the queue at every coffee outlet busy. Taylor joined the masses, huddled up in the library with a long-awaited coffee and a heavy text book. It would be all too easy to let the gloomy weather negatively impact her already fragile emotional state, so the best thing she could think to do was surround herself with activity.

Her mind strayed to its usual fretting-- about Estela, about Diego and Varyyn, about--

Taylor yelped as hot coffee burned her mouth. She knew the library’s drinks always came out piping, and cursed herself for being so goddamn distracted. Cheeks flushing, she set down her cup.

“Are you okay?” asked a familiar, kind voice, hoarser than it should have been. Quinn had turned around from a bookshelf, concern upon her pale face. “They do go a bit over the top temperature-wise here. I’m guessing you’re used to the coffee shop?”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you?” Taylor replied ruefully. “But no, I should know to be careful by now. Sadly, I just felt something warm between my hands and all rational thought deserted me.”

Quinn laughed, which, to Taylor’s horror, brought on a fit of hacking coughs.

Oh, Quinn.

Around the campus, Quinn was easily the most elusive of the group; quite an achievement when Estela insisted on keeping herself as inconspicuous as possible. It was a constant worry for Taylor and Diego, knowing what they did about their friend’s illness. Logic told them that if circumstances around her had changed little with Rourke’s interference, Quinn might be expected to survive at least until the end of junior year, but all appearances made it clear she was in a very bad way. Weeks could go by without either of them catching a glimpse of Quinn around the place, and it was downright frightening.

“Hey-- sit down,” Taylor urged gently. “Don’t want us both to hurt ourselves over my lack of judgement.”

Quinn sank into the chair beside Taylor and struggled to catch her breath. A fearful Taylor hopped up and started rubbing her back.

“Do you want to grab you a glass of water?”

“I’m okay-- kff-- I just need a-- kff-- a moment….”

Frustration was clear upon Quinn’s face. Not wanting to be over-bearing, Taylor eased back… but those coughs sounded so painful….

Slowly, Quinn got control over her coughing. “Better…,” she said, eyes closed. She opened them slowly, and offered her companion a shaky smile. “It’s Taylor, isn’t?”

“Yup, that’s me. Quinn, yeah? I haven’t seen you around in a while?”

Quinn’s smile became stronger, as though she was genuinely delighted to be remembered by what was a passing friendly face. “The colder weather hasn’t been doing my health much good. The school’s understanding; what can be done from home I don’t have to come in for. But sometimes I just want to brave it and actually be a part of everything.”

“Yeah?” Taylor said, “that’s understandable. All this dreary weather… it has its way of making loneliness hit even harder.” She pursed her lips a moment. “Look, if you ever want a study buddy…? You could even stop by my place-- not to be presumptuous or anything, but it might be more comfortable than having to fight for a spot by the heater here.”

A shadow passed over Quinn’s face, her smile growing sad. “That’s really kind of you to offer, and-- honestly?-- I’d love to take you up on it. I just… well, things are quite difficult for me right now.”

“It’s okay-- no pressure. I just want you to know that you’ve got a friend on campus if you need one.” Sitting back down beside Quinn, Taylor picked up her mug and gingerly took a sip. Much better. “Do you have any more classes today?”

“Oh, just the one,” Quinn said more brightly, clearly relieved at the change of subject. “I’m taking Visual Arts. I do a bit of painting-- not really seriously, more just for me. I was a little worried that study would take some of the fun out of it, but it’s turned out to be the bright spot in my schedule. If I can make it in person for anything, I always aim for Visual Arts.”

“Well, I hope you enjoy it,” said Taylor, and she took another, braver, sip of coffee. It was all useful information-- apparently this would be the most likely time of week to have a surprise Quinn encounter. More importantly, it was reassuring to know that it was not, in fact, all doom and gloom. “I’ve got to head off for my Introductory Chemistry practical in about ten minutes. Painting sounds a lot more fun-- wanna trade?”

Quinn just laughed.

Yeah…. Thought not.

_____________________________

As a general rule, Taylor didn’t actually mind Chemistry that much. It wasn’t exactly her bag; the equations had a habit of drifting in one ear and out the other, but it wasn’t the worst thing in the world. What made it painful now, was Estela.

A few weeks ago, Taylor had been overjoyed to have been placed in a group with the woman who had once been her wife, but a lot had changed since then. Estela had furiously warned Taylor to stay away, and Taylor had done just that, both out of respect for the wishes of someone she loved, and out of plain fear that she might fuck it all up further. There was no crossing the quad to avoid this one, though.

It was as uncomfortable as Taylor had anticipated. Estela looked right past Taylor, directing all communication to their third group member, who seemed oblivious to the tension. Taylor wasn’t sure how-- the air was so fucking thick with it she could barely breathe. Her hands shook as she measured out materials, and it was by virtue of a lucky save that she didn’t drop a test tube of chemicals onto the floor.

Everything in Estela’s body language, in her expression, screamed that she’d rather be anywhere else-- anywhere at all-- than there working alongside Taylor. The feeling was mutual. Taylor watched the minutes pass by agonisingly slowly as they slogged through the experiment. If she had to speak, it was only the bare minimum to get the work done. Never, never had she felt more alone in Estela’s company. She’d experienced indifference before, indifference that had fueled her longing until it hurt like a physical wound. But now Estela regarded Taylor not as a person of little consequence, but as a threat, and that was far, far worse. Trying not to wither under that fierce gaze, Taylor soldiered on, until finally, the experiment was concluded, and she was free to pack up… and head home for a stiff drink.

As she turned the tap to rinse the last of her test tubes and beakers, the water gushed with a sudden force, spraying Taylor down her front.

“Crap!” she cried. It was near freezing outside, and to have a clothes sopping wet would make for a very uncomfortable walk back to the apartment. Well… it was just her luck.

Taylor pulled off her jacket, and bit back a sigh. As her problems went, a bit of cold and wet was pretty much nothing. Hell, if home, and Diego, and a pile of blankets was at the other end, she’d put up with far worse. Grumbling a little as she packed up her things, Taylor braced herself for a great rush to get between this warm shelter and the next. But as she stepped through the doorway--

“Wait!”

That voice made her turn. It always would.

“You’re going to catch your death. Tonta.” Estela rolled her eyes and shrugged off her hoodie. “Your shirt’s still wet. Here.” She thrust the hoodie into Taylor’s hands.

“You don’t have to--” Taylor stammered, utterly taken aback. Remember to breathe, you idiot!

“Taylor. Just put it on, will you? Unless you want to freeze.”

Getting over her surprise, Taylor took the hoodie. Discomfort was plain on Estela’s face, so she didn’t linger to make the exchange any more awkward. Just a smile of thanks… and they parted.

Taylor looked on, stunned and watched as Estela slung her bag over her shoulder and jogged into the shadows. A chill wind hit her, and she hastily pulled the hoodie over her head. It was warm, and the scent of Estela, heart-achingly familiar, lingered. A tear, just another in a long, long line, prickled Taylor’s eye as she breathed it in.

She brought the front of the hoodie to her face and closed her eyes against the scent and feel of home.

It wasn’t over yet.