#so i had to write it out

[thebroccolination]

[SOTUS/He’s Coming to Me (spoilers)] I Lived (Kongphob/Arthit)

There’s a grassy slope behind the grave, and that’s where they sit as the sun sets. Kongphob explains his dream, surprised by the amount of details that resurface the more he recounts. He rarely remembers any dream once he wakes up, and he’s insisted more than once that he just doesn’t have them most nights.

This one was unique.

Arthit listens intently, focused on the sky and the surrounding graves. The air is clearer here than in the city, and the heat doesn’t bear down like a curse. If their luck holds out, it won’t rain until Kongphob’s said everything he needs to say to put this dream behind them.

“He died without knowing who was behind it,” Kongphob says. He’s aware that the language he’s using has shifted since earlier in the week. He’s not framing it as a dream anymore.

He passes his phone to Arthit, watching his face. “He looked just like me.”

The newspaper he tracked down is from the economic crash in the nineties, and amid bleak tales of investments and lives ruined in turn, there’s an obituary of a boy.

Arthit, who hasn’t given away much of a reaction in any direction since they arrived at the cemetery, stares at the photo with something complicated like fear and dismay.

Maybe he was hoping up to this moment that it really was just a dream.

“Is—” Arthit breaks off and clears his throat. Though he doesn’t finish the question, Kongphob can guess what it was going to be.

After all, Kongphob can’t be Mes’s reincarnation if he was already alive when Mes died. They’re not even related—he checked that, too.

Kongphob is sort of nebulously religious. He follows customs when his family does, agrees on principle with some teachings, but in general he considers himself agnostic. Having a dream about a boy who died decades ago doesn’t really push the needle in any direction, no matter how identical they seem. There are only so many ways a face can look, after all.

But seeing as it’s a momentous time in the country that Mes never lived to see, with marriage equality on the brink of legalization, it feels right to follow the urgent calls of whatever has been directing him for the past several days.

“What are you supposed to do now?” Arthit asks. He’s more religious than Kongphob, and he’s the one who bought and set up the offerings for Mes’s grave.

“I think this is it,” Kongphob says. He circles his arms around his knees as a gentle breeze travels the length of the cemetery, rustling in the trees and through the grass. “I think he just wants people to know what happened to him. To care that he lived.”

With the sun gone, the cemetery should be a more forbidding setting, but Kongphob has always liked cemeteries at night. He may not have set beliefs, but if there is a curtain between the living and the dead, it feels thinner here under the moon, and there’s a warmer energy that comes along with it.

Arthit must feel it too. He pushes his shoulder bag higher on the slope, then spreads the extra flag over top. He mumbles an excuse about the long drive ahead, and Kongphob smiles as he settles down next to him.

Surely there are other visitors in the cemetery, maybe a groundskeeper, but Kongphob is willing to bet a lot that they’re the only ones taking a nap on one of the graves. Curled into each other, hands clasped, heads resting on the pride flag Arthit brought.

The smaller, more practical one Kongphob brought stands in a jar on the grave itself.

The sense of necessity Kongphob’s carried all week dissipates. He doesn’t need or want to ask any more questions now, content to have done a favor for someone who let him include his husband in the whole adventure. He runs his thumb over the back of Arthit’s hand and watches over him as he dozes off the way he’s done hundreds of times.

At the top of the slope, Mes twists his mouth into a pout. “I want the big flag,” he tells them.

They don’t hear, just like they haven’t heard any of his hints and outright instructions all week.

Ah well.

At least they did the important stuff.

“Thank you, P’Kongphob.”

[awakefor48hours]

The wind caresses the ocean sea in the ways that Yuno caressing Noelle

[dubioushonour]

Once, when I was in second grade, my whole group of friends deserted me for the entire month of October. They would completely ignore me if I approached them, or even worse, some of them would run screaming at the sight of me. This spread to kids in the rest of the class. I told a teacher, who scolded them, but it didn't do much.

I was a little too young to really understand the concept of "bullying". I just remember being confused, and hurt, and upset. I spent almost that entire month on the playground, alone.

Almost.

A girl from another class approached me in the sandbox during maybe the second week of October. She was new, she was in another class, and she was alone, too. I couldn't tell you her name anymore. It's just been too long. But I remember seeing her and my first thought being "pretty". I wouldn't learn the term "platinum blonde" until I was much older.

She asked if she could play with me in the sand, what I was doing, and why I was alone. I asked her about her old school, if my sister (who was in her class) was being kind to her.

We hung out the entirety of October. Sometimes in other parts of the playground, but we usually stayed in the sandbox because no one else went there. I found out we rode the same bus home. She lived just up the road from me. We started hanging out outside of school, too. We traded toys, and friendship bracelets, and secrets. She showed me an odd birthmark on her thigh, pure white, and said it was an angel's kiss. I showed her a scar on my arm from when I fell on a go-kart engine the year before.

It didn't matter that all of my other friends had abandoned me, because she was there.

The end of October rolls around on a Friday and my old friend group chases me into a bathroom stall, screaming at me and banging on the walls and doors with a fucking vigor. It's one of the scariest moments in my very short life. I go home crying. I am informed on Monday that the ring leader of the group convinced everyone that, since my birthday is on Halloween, I was possessed by a demon and I was going to hurt them if they didn't do something about it.

They apologized up and down, after the fact, but it was very hard to believe they were sorry.

My sandbox friend, who was not at school on Friday, has a birthday gift for me on Monday. It's a little pair of friendship bears filled with goo and glitter. It's not a hard choice to make. I spend all of November with her, instead, because I'm starting to realize that maybe those aren't the kind of people I want to be friends with. (and I was right, because they bullied me the entire rest of elementary school) (but that is besides the point).

The end of November rolls around.

My sandbox friend is moving out of state.

I spend all of the time we have left trying to make that time stretch. We both know that when she moves, we'll never see each other again. That's just how it was in 2003. On our final bus ride home, the last time I will ever see her, we trade toys one last time. She gave me a blue and white unicorn with a ribbon. I couldn't tell you what I gave her. It's been too long. (it might have been a stuffed dog?)

This pretty sandbox girl is not in our school yearbooks. Not even her name. She wasn't in our school for very long. My sister doesn't remember her being in her class, period, even if she remembers most everyone else. But she did exist. Even if just in my memories, and through an old, ragged unicorn, she existed.

I'm not going anywhere in particular with this. It's a stroll down memory lane. I saw a 2000s aesthetic post on here with those exact friendship bears on it and it threw me back in time pretty hard. I definitely don't have those bears anymore. I'm honestly pretty surprised how vividly I remember that one October when I was 7, turning 8, but I guess your friends trying to murder you in a bathroom is a fairly formative experience. I'm 27 now, turning 28. And it's impossible to think about all of that without also thinking about her, and how she made that entire experience something I can still look a little fondly back on.

Do you think she remembers me, as fondly? Or even at all? Did I make the same kind of impact? Did she keep the toy that I gave her? Or was I just another face for a girl who was in and out of schools faster than they could put her in a yearbook?

It doesn't matter, ultimately.

I hope, wherever she is, that pretty sandbox girl is thriving.

(this is not the exact plushie. I found this one on Google and it's very close. One of my younger nieces swiped the real deal a long time ago and I felt very bad trying to take it back...)

[inkskinned]

please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!

do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!

[hinamie]

unconditionally

[kentopedia]

nanami kento, who hates dating, and didn’t do much of it in his early twenties. but now, he’s almost thirty, watching all the people he works with settle down, have kids, and he thinks he wants that. so he might as well try.

so satoru sets him up on a few dates — friends of friends, he calls them. and at the end of every one of the dinners, kento goes home empty, exhausted, because he knows what they want is not the same.

still; he thinks maybe he’s being a little self-destructive, maybe too picky, maybe he just got so used to being alone. with satoru’s insistence, he gives all the women another call, invites them over to his apartment.

the first time was a disaster… kento had barely set the dinner on the table before his cat had hissed at her, scratched her down the arm in a thin gash. and though it did draw blood, it was hardly enough to warrant that reaction.

he didn’t even try to stop her as she picked up her bag and left, huffing like she’d been morally offend. kento, though, could only smile to himself in amusement.

because maybe kento was a poor judge of character, a man who was secretly hoping nothing would pan out — but his cat could certainly tell the good from the bad.

it became a little game to him, after that. seeing if anyone could win his pet over, and if they could, perhaps they were the one. his darling animal was a fickle thing anyway. a bit too defensive, quick to bite anything threatening after years on the streets.

naturally, no one came back twice.

he was close to giving up, accepting his solitude because he was tired of empty conversations over dinner. but then, he ventured out over the weekend to a new coffee shop, during hours he normally didn’t spend out of his home, and met you.

though you only talked for a moment, kento felt like maybe he’d known you in a past life. a part of him thought maybe it was strange, the way he kept coming back to talk to you, catching you at the end of your shift to see if you wanted to grab a coffee sometime.

by the second date, kento started to think you could turn out to be his best friend.

by the third date, kento wondered if soulmates were real.

on the fourth date, almost two months later, an appropriate time to get to know someone when you were as reserved as kento, he invited you over for dinner. it was, perhaps, the final confirmation he needed to let himself be with you.

he let you through the door, smiling softly as you told him about the book you were reading, and hung his coat on the rack. a moment later, you stopped, distracted, hands covering your mouth in a gasp.

“kento! she’s the cutest cat i’ve ever seen, you didn’t even show me pictures!” you exclaim, and, a few feet away, crouched down. “look at her pretty eyes…”

“careful,” kento said, “she’s not very—“

but the cat approached your outstretched hand, sniffed once, before letting you scratch her under her chin, purring loud enough for kento to hear across the room.

“shes such a sweetheart, you told me she was mean!” you smiled, making a cooing noise as you threaded your fingers through her fur. “kento’s a liar, isn’t he… you’re so precious.”

a few moments later, she snapped her jaw at you in a biting motion, and you only laughed, withdrawing your hand. “alright, i get it, i won’t bother you anymore.”

though she still brushed against your legs, just as she did kento’s, and seemed to communicate some sort of message to him.

“do you want any help cooking?” you ask, tucking your hair behind your ears. “i’m a disaster in the kitchen, but—“

“sure,” kento said, his chest tightening as he blinked back at you, only in his apartment for minutes and already looking as at home there. he wondered if it was possible to fall in love so quickly. “but only if you want to.”

[erabu-san]

I enjoyed every second of this quest

[This art has platonic intention. Thank you for not tag ship!]

[umblrspectrum]

i love learning cursive just to write text for exactly one character

[cairafea]

my favourite genre of seventeen is when they're straight up lying

ref:

[i-eat-bugs-and-dirt]

JONATHAN SIMS PRIEST AU! FORCED CONFESSIONS! PEOPLE BEING FORCED TO RELIVE THEIR CONFESSED SINS IN THEIR DREAMS OVER AND OVER AGAIN!!! RELIGIOUS GUILT MARTIN!! THE FEAR ENTITIES SOMEHOW LINKED TO THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS! IM GOING INSANE!

[wiltkingart]

bound

[kymsys]

'It was late spring, the first time all year that the sunshine had any real strength behind it. Satoru was wittering on about something inane as always — Tentomon or something equally ridiculous.

There was nothing special about the moment. Not really. Except for the fact that Satoru had shrugged off his jacket in the heat. It was draped around his shoulders just so, exposing the long column of his throat, pale after a long winter. Really, there was nothing special about the moment. But when Suguru looked at the boy silhouetted against the spring sky, bright and blue and boundless and beautiful — just like his eyes, Suguru thought — his heart skipped a beat all the same. With all the sight afforded to him, Satoru never missed a thing. So it was risky, what Suguru did. Later, when he was looking at his new phone wallpaper under the cover of darkness, grinning like an idiot, he'd wonder how he ever got away with it. Yet, if Suguru's yearning to capture that perfectly ordinary moment forever was stronger than all reason, perhaps it was stronger than the Six Eyes, too. After all, not even Satoru could stop time.' - by my beloved @fushiglow ♥

(( also glo says: FUN FACT! Tentomon is voiced by Suguru's VA — ergo it's Satoru's favourite Digimon, obviously )) ---------------------------------------------------------

freshly added headcanons: • gojo at some point randomly barged into sugurus room and put glowy stickers all over his ceiling • suguru has gojo as his phone wallpaper, but keeps it a secret • suguru is a hamasaki ayumi fan • the cinnamoroll phone charm is from gojo who spent almost an eternity getting that out of a gatcha machine for him • they were happy

[tarabyte3]

Hey fanfiction writers: If no one's ever told you this before, it's not just fanfiction.

It's something you spent hours, days, maybe even months on, pouring your heart out onto a page because you were so full of passion and thoughts about a story or characters, you felt like you were going to explode if you didn't get it out. Maybe you lost sleep because your mind was racing with ideas or you forgot to eat or drink water because you were so focused. Maybe your back aches from being hunched over for so long, unmoving. Maybe you even felt like you were going a little feral because you were so excited about what you were creating, or were frustrated when you got stuck. Either way, you put your heart, mind, soul, and body into making something.

It's okay to want people to read it, and it's okay if you're disappointed that they don't or it doesn't get as much of a reaction as you were hoping for. Humans are social creatures. Sure, we write for ourselves, but we also share because the joy of doing so is just as powerful as the joy of the process. Of having created something.

We all experience that joy and that disappointment, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

So it's okay. It's not just fanfiction.

[baeshijima]

thoughts on being engaged to duke!sunday, the head of the oak family, an incredibly influential figurehead within society, the close subordinate of emperor gopher wood who brought him and his sister in and raised him like his own, and the villain who faces a tragic ending in a novel you recently finished — the very same one you just so happen to find yourself transmigrated into. he is as cunning as he is blinded, a trait which brought ruin to many in the empire, and one which ultimately brought ruin to himself at the hands of the protagonists.

as luck would have it, you became a barely mentioned side character from a marquis family, whose role was to be the villain's wife stuck in a one-sided love who, too, would get caught up in the tragedy alongside him. however, now that it's you who is stuck in this position, you're determined to try any means necessary to deter him from going down that path, all in an effort to escape your predestined doomed fate!

of course, you didn't expect it to be easy. the day of your arrival in this world was already the night before your wedding, so you had little time to prepare yourself for the nonchalance of your supposed family, how they viewed you as but a means — a tool — to boost their influence and prosperity, the dismissive mannerisms of the household servants, and the absolute beauty of a man you will be married to.

(seriously. the novel descriptions did not do him justice. he was like... like... like he was handcrafted by god himself! and not to mention his sister, robin, was the very epitome of an angel! perhaps you're destined to perish by the god-tier visuals instead...)

to say the least, the wedding ceremony went by quickly. safe to say you didn't spend the night; he was cordial and gentlemanly upon letting you know that he won't do anything until you're ready, that you can take this relationship slow, but somehow you ended up feeling a tad insulted. like, who leaves their newly wedded alone in a big cold bed as they walk out on their own? a sick bastard that's who!

well, whatever. it's not like you need nor want to consummate with him! besides, you have bigger things to worry about — things such as your impending death. and, of course, the only way to stop sunday that you can imagine working is by chipping away at his resolve bit by bit, and opening his eyes to reality.

he is a tragic character, one who cares more about the well-being of penacony and its people than anyone else, but was manipulated into getting his hands dirty in the emperor's stead. you knew this. you sobbed over his story, cursed out the protagonists, and even fought internet randos on novel forums about sunday's motivation and how,

no, he is not just a stupid villain. he is a complex character with flaws and humanity and was cruelly taken advantage of by someone he considered family. he was deceived through the suffering the emperor wanted him to see to make him easily manipulated, creating a rift between him and robin to have that prominent separation. you know what? maybe you're just a !%#@ who can't even #@?"% read properly!

and yet you still find yourself at a loss when faced with the walls he has in place. your initial efforts went as well as it possibly could have; you trying to earnestly help him, while he "kindly" dismisses your offers! well, "kindly" being more condescending since you could read between the lines of his mannerisms and amiable demeanour, but that's fine! you expected this! that just means you have to double down on your sincerity, get through to his heart (somehow), and help him realise humanity isn't as weak as he's led to believe!

you have three years until the novel's plot officially starts, and another year after that until your demise. that's plenty of time to get him to warm up to you!

it was easier said than done, but after your valiant effort and abundance of time put into this relationship, which admittedly you could do with some of that lost time back, you could give yourself a pat on the back with the progress you made! while you definitely could have done without a lot of the headaches, it's safe to say sunday has significantly warmed up to you in comparison to your wedding day. he now willingly eats all his meals with you with some real conversation, takes garden strolls with you in the early evenings, invites you out for dinner at a restaurant at least four times a week, hell he's even joked and laughed with you more frequently! but most importantly, he has begun asking for your opinion before finalising any decisions he is required to make. and he actually listens and considers your side! now, that certainly is the best outcome you could hope for after all this time, and it most definitely will help in your endeavour to save you both from the protagonists!

however, you've noticed he's been more... affectionate? well, at the very least he now willingly holds your hand when in private (not just in moments when you're in the public eye and he has to make sure the family's reputation is spotless), sometimes he will hug you out of the blue ("i just need to... recharge. you have a way of calming me down. i hope you don't mind." ...how could you say no to his supreme god-tier face card? that's just a losing battle you won't even bother fighting against.), oftentimes he opts to just gaze wordlessly at you (robin had mentioned over one of your tea times how it almost appears as though there is no one but you in the world when sunday gazes at you with, in her words, "the eyes of a man so deeply in love!" ...whatever that's supposed to mean...), but a more recent development has been his sudden interest in kissing you; well, more specifically giving you a kiss to the back of your hand or on your forehead — certainly not anywhere near the lips! (besides, he's probably just gotten comfortable with you, enough where he can freely act without judgement. nothing more, nothing less.)

well, either way, development is development! soon enough, the time for the main plot to start has arrived. it of course follows what you remember, from the organised balls to the protagonists meeting to the political aspects of it all. the only difference is sunday's less active involvement in all the schemes and the emperor's ploy. rather, he seems more focused on you and the future of your marriage and even displayed a sudden interest in your practically non-existent relationship with one of the foreign diplomats, aventurine— wait...

"[name]," he calls your name out so sweetly you nearly disregarded it as someone else he was talking to. well, perhaps you would have done had he not suddenly appeared before you, a tight-lipped smile tugging the corners of his lips as he steadily approaches you.

oh. he doesn't seem very happy, if his tense figure is anything to go by. you wonder if one of the nobles grated his nerves a little too much this time?

sunday comes to a halt a step away from you. "i don't like that... gambler being so close to you. it... it brings me a rather unpleasant feeling." there's a slight, trembling pause. not a moment later does he close the gap between you, one knee on the ground as he matches your seated height on the fountain rim, your hands gently enclosed in both of his.

you idly wonder if this is what robin meant by the so-called "eyes of a man so deeply in love" she constantly gushed about, for the way in which he gazes up at you is enough to render you breathless.

"tell me, [name]," he begins once more. there is an underlying desperation woven within his tone, one which has your head spinning and heart thumping wildly as his trembling gaze holds you in place. "tell me, what am i to do with this fervent love and overwhelming adoration i hold for you?"

oh.

...oh.

perhaps your impending doom should be the least of your concerns when you now find yourself in the arms of a clingy husband...

(though, it's safe to say you did, in fact, manage to prevent him from succumbing to his tragic fate! you just gained a loving, yet slight slightly emotionally challenged husband along the way.

well, you can help him work through it; you have the rest of your lives now to figure it out, after all.)

[justsalpals]

And in this moment I became obsessed with G13

what if I was a shitty little oily hacker guy, looking out only for myself. what if I had a small ring of like minded cyber criminals, maybe my friends, maybe willing to stab me in the back at a moments notice, maybe that's what friendship means to us. what if I worked for the feds and the criminals and above all for myself.

what if a world of explosions fell flat with static. what if chosen family spat the same predictable lines. what if I was a hacker, and the world was code. what if.

what if a little old woman fell right into my brain, sweet and useless and real. real real real.

and if I reached out -let the code of my mind fill in her blank spaces- and tasted what it meant to be real.

[lazylittledragon]

ok someone please correct me if i'm wrong but am i weird for thinking those 'audiobooks don't count as reading' posts are ableist as fuck????