#the trouble with wanting

[wangxianficrecs]

The Trouble With Wanting by Beltenebra

The Trouble With Wanting

by Beltenebra

M, 7k, Wangxian

Part of the The 2022 MXTX Exchange

Summary: Wei Ying squeezed his hand lightly and gave him another tired, but much more genuine smile. “I know how you feel about having people in your space, Lan Zhan. I wouldn’t do that to you.” Lan Zhan fixed him with a look that he hoped was resolute, implacable, unable to be argued with. “You do not count as people, Wei Ying. It’s no trouble if it’s you.” Was that too close to the real truth of his feelings? “We are best friends, after all,” he added. Wei Ying moves back home and back into Lan Zhan's life (almost) seamlessly. Even with a king sized bed, Lan Zhan worries that between him and Wei Ying and all of the feelings he's been repressing for years, it might be a tight squeeze. Kay's comments: Modern with cultivation and foxxian? I am so here for it and I really loved this short little story in which Wei Ying and Lan Zhan finally get to work (and live) together again after being long-distance best friends for three years, but there is only one bed! Very cute and humorous! Excerpt: “Why don’t I ever see you in your other forms, Wei Ying?” Wei Ying tapped the side of his nose with one finger, a sign that he was thinking. “Eh, you know, Lan Zhan, not everyone is comfortable around huli jing. Even ones they came up through the academy with. Not you, of course,” he quickly added. “But some people at the office, or wherever. So I’ve just gotten used to… holding it in when I’m not at home.” Lan Zhan busied himself with finishing dinner, eyes down on the sizzling pan so Wei Ying wouldn’t see how angry others’ ignorance made him. There was no reason any cultivators ever should have classified all huli jing and other shapeshifters as dangerous or evil just because they didn’t understand them. There was certainly no excuse for such attitudes to persist in the modern day.

pov lan wangji, modern setting, modern with magic, friends to lovers, fluff and humor, moving in together, getting together, fox wei wuxian, domestic fluff, partners, sharing a bed

~*~

(Please REBLOG as a signal boost for this hard-working author if you like – or think others might like – this story.)

[dewitty1]

The Trouble with Wanting

waldorph @waldorph

Chapters: 8/8 Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter Additional Tags: Canon - Book, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Not Epilogue Compliant, Post-War, do not copy to another site, Slow Burn, Minor Draco Malfoy/Theodore Nott, Tattoos, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Post-Canon, Getting Together

Summary:

Draco Malfoy is cleared of all charges; this is what happens next.

Excerpt:

“This looks like chocolate,” Blaise said, holding the package up in George’s face. It was hard to tell, but George just looked…well, not furious, for a start, which was good. “Is it going to do something dreadful to me?”

“It’s going to make you want to shag,” George said.

“Oh, so no change,” Blaise said with a truly foully lascivious look as he took a bite, and Draco groaned as Potter burst into quiet laughter.

George looked a little stunned, and then intrigued.

“I refuse to watch this anymore,” Draco announced, and then looked down at his arm, which was still in Potter’s possession, and Potter was stroking his thumb over the jut of Draco’s wrist bone. “Potter you brute, unhand me.”

Potter, who Draco understood now had never properly been socialized and was also under some sort of delusion that if he wanted something he should have it, smiled and said, “No.”

Draco, who had been flawlessly socialized and was under no delusions that if he wanted something he should have it (because it wasn’t a delusion if it were true, as long as his wants were simple and easily obtained instead of outrageous things like happiness or his father’s love), stared up at him.

“You can’t just say no,” Draco informed him.

“What will you give me for it?” Potter asked, and it was so—close, here, under the stairs. Claustrophobic, really. Draco was certain the building couldn’t be up to code. Blaise would be very distraught when Draco shut down his dream of banging Weasley by bankrupting him, but Draco had a duty to his fellow citizens to—

“Oh,” Draco exhaled, because apparently Potter had decided to just take a kiss like a thief, like a terrible sneak thief and frankly Draco should have— oh . Potter’s hands were hot and settled in the small of Draco’s back and in his hair and it was.

It was—Potter pulled back and Draco took two seconds to compose himself where he absolutely did not lean in and he absolutely did not have to force his hands to unclench from Harry’s robes because he had more dignity than that.

“So do I get it back?” Draco asked, because Potter, moving like a snake, had recaptured Draco’s wrist, pressing his thumb into the palm of Draco’s hand.

“Why a snitch?” Potter asked instead, his eyes glued to Draco’s collarbone. “Are you—you’re killing me, do you know that?”

“That is demonstrably untrue and I have witn—” he broke off in a soundless rush of air because Potter had dipped his head and pressed his lips, then teeth (not properly socialized, clearly Weasley hadn’t properly trained him when they’d been dating) to Draco’s neck.

“Mate.” George Weasley’s voice broke the moment, and Draco looked up and then shoved at Potter, who moved away reluctantly and with no shame, maybe that died when Voldemort tried to kill him as a baby, too.

ʚ♡⃛ɞ(ू•ᴗ•ू❁)

[heatherleighann]

Hello hello I recently found The Trouble With Wanting be WrathofMacy (whom I don’t believe has a tumblr but if she does let me know and I’ll tag her!) and I’m now fully obsessed with Fremione. They’re so similar to Jily, I don’t know why I didn’t seek out this ship before. This fic is so damn good. It starts at the end of GoF and is currently at the beginning of DH. It follows canon as closely as it can while still being a Fred/Hermione story. It is a WIP but was updated recently so I feel comfortable reccing it 😅

[uncanny-tranny]

I think so many people are so deeply alienated from themselves that they have no clue how to exercise their free will and autonomy. For some, this alienation runs so deep that they are afraid of their own autonomy and humanity. It is completely understandable why one would have those feelings, but it can be worrisome.

I want to help others who feel this way, so here are small things I have done to exercise my free will:

Add "guilty pleasure" songs to playlists and actually listen to them (I have a ton of late 1990s-early 2000s music I listen to now proudly that I never listened to in the past out of shame)

Getting the décor item, bath set, bed spread, ect. in the patterns you like, even if it's "childish" (I got a dinosaur-themed wastebasket from the kids' décor section and I adore it)

Taking a new route to get to a place you go to often

Eat dessert first

Celebrate well, and often

Collect things that are "odd" or don't seem like an "acceptable" thing to collect (somebody on my "for you" page collects dandelion crayola crayons and it was so cool!!!!!!)

Incorporate one new piece in an outfit you wear frequently (e.g., a new chain, a necklace, ribbons, bracelets, ect.). Challenge yourself to add onto the outfits if you feel up for it.

Sing along to songs without worrying that you sound "good" or your intonation is completely accurate

Read a book from a genre you weren't allowed to read as a kid (comics, thrillers, mysteries, anything!)

Walk without having a specific destination or goal

Pick up a new craft without expecting yourself to master it or to ever be "good" enough. Get your hands messy.

I don't want to shame anybody for not feeling as though they have free will or that they are exempt from exercising it. However, I wanted to give ideas so that you might read this list and find your own ways to express your intrinsic autonomy and will. You deserve to be a person, to feel alive, not just living. That is what our lives are for.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[gingermintpepper]

I think, perhaps one of the funniest things to come from EPIC popularising the Odyssey is that now a ton of people think Poseidon wanted to kill Odysseus.

In the Odyssey, Poseidon has no intention of killing Odysseus. In fact, part of the whole reason Zeus lets Poseidon do whatever he wants even though he thinks Odysseus is rad and should get to kiss his wife is explicitly because Poseidon had no intentions of killing Odysseus. Poseidon wanted to pay back the suffering/inconvenience blinding Polyphemus would have caused. It's a really abstract thing tbh. How do you pay back someone permanently disabling your son? Poseidon's solution was just to amputate Odysseus from his other half; i.e. Penelope. The end game was never murder, it was always an endurance race.

(Od. Book 1: Zeus reassuring Athena that he is not, in fact, a part of Odysseus Hater-Nation. Trans. Robert Fagles)

Also, for those wondering if there's any sort of in text reason for why Poseidon wasn't around in God Games - at the time in the Odyssey when Athena petitions Zeus to let Odysseus leave Calypso's island, Poseidon was -checks notes- on vacation in Ethiopia. Yep. He left to Ethiopia for a festival and thusly was very much absent for Athena's whole "please let Ody go? Please? 🥺" request.

(Od. Book 1: While Odysseus was suffering, Poseidon went to party in the east)

I am begging y'all to read the Odyssey. It's a comedy for everyone except Odysseus and Penelope who are, in fact, suffering 24/7 365.

[doctorsiren]

Day 13 of Sirentober / Doctober

Epic / Love

They make me ill

Available as a print on my Etsy Shop

[gieoki]

sadie hawkman’s dance when?!

[kiwibrain]

part 2 of the silly isat dunmeshi crossover, with angst and a recipe i made up in 2 minutes :)

Part 1 ✨

[shadow-queens-blog]

additional thoughts, from tags i got on the og post

[canisalbus]

These started out as MLP versions of the dog lads but quickly got away from me and became just their own thing. Machete is a medieval unicorn and Vasco was inspired by Renaissance tack and carousel horses.

[technically-human]

Full name

[ashoss]

this idea wont leave my brain please help me !! YIPPEE HADES BATKIDS !!!

without the bg and text under the cut :))

asdhj probably gonna post like,, two at a time because thats ,, a lot,,,, of drawing ,,,,,,, so heres tim and jason! i think i got the hang of it more with jason lol

ALSO ALSO!!!

thank you to those who helped me with the titles for the batkids!! they were all really good :D (all on insta lol)

timothy: the tenured - thomson_at

[densewentz]

a quick silly sketch based off my earlier post about the Cat King having a mistaken identity crisis when Edwin and Co. don't recognize him in his new cat form post-esther