#this one is very painful

[fantasyismyonlyrealescape]

Whumptober 2024: No. 21 - Let the Bedsheet Soak up the Tears

Title: Reaching Out for Help (but Nobody is There)

Fandom: WWE (Professional Wrestling)

Characters: Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens (Zowens)

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Word Count: 753

A/N: Welcome to another addition to Whumptober, Day 21. Okay, so I marked this one as Zowens, but it's definitely angsty Zowens. It's not happy, by any means. Sami is put through the ringer. So, take that as you will.

Summary: Sami Zayn is low, questioning his decisions after joining the Bloodline. Kevin Owens, somebody who was always there for him in the past, is not willing to listen. Sami deals with the aftermath of the interactions like he's done so many times before.

Cross posted on AO3 under user wrestlinginjeans.

It had been five months. Five months of hard work, five months of working to prove that he was good enough to stand amongst them. Five months of taking bullet after bullet for them, especially Roman. Five months of giving all that he had and more to the men that he would call his family. It hadn’t been enough. ‘It hasn’t been enough yet.’ Sami corrected his internal thoughts, trying to remind himself that they were warming up to him more and more each day. Or that’s what he told himself. Jey still looked at him like the enemy, Paul looked at him with pity, Jimmy tolerated him. What Roman and Solo thought of him, Sami could not be sure. This wasn’t what he wanted.

At the show that day, he passed Kevin Owens in the hallway, both wrestlers walking alone. They made brief eye contact, Kevin being the first to look away. Sami was low in that moment, so low that he needed something, anything to remind him that he was human. So, as Kevin made a move to pass by Sami, the redhead brushed shoulders with the darkhaired man. Kevin stopped on a dime at the contact, his body rigged and wound. Whirling around, he brings his forearm up and slams it against Sami’s chest, forcing him backwards and up against the cinderblock wall behind him.

“Don’t ever touch me again, do you understand me?” Kevin growls through clenched teeth, shifting his weight and leaning into Sami so that there was more pressure being exerted by the forearm still pressed to Sami’s upper chest. “You lost your right to do that when you betrayed me for them.”

Sami swallows and licks his lips nervously, having not expected this reaction from the other man. “Got it, pal. But I will note that you are the one touching me right now.” Sami says, trying to come off as cocky and unimpressed by this display of bravado.

Kevin growls in response, pressing into Sami once more to the point of discomfort, before pushing off of him and turning on his heel and stomping off, leaving Sami behind as he leans against the wall to catch his breath.

Sami brings a tentative hand up to where he could still feel the burning heat from Kevin’s forearm pressed against his upper body, bunching up the fabric of his t-shirt in one of his fists. A moment later, he brings the fabric up to his nose and shuts his eyes as he breathes in the faint but familiar scent of cedarwood, amber and home.  

A shout from down the hall startles Sami out of his reverie, uncurling his fingers as his eyes snap open. No, he wouldn’t do this. He couldn’t, there was too much on the line to falter now. Rolling his shoulders and taking a moment to straighten out his shirt, Sami pushes off and away from the wall to continue on his way. He would be haunted by the scent for the rest of the night.

Sami Zayn refused to address the swirling thoughts inside his head until he laid down to sleep that night in his hotel suite, Solo already asleep in the next room over. As he climbed into bed, staring up at the white ceiling above him and with nothing else to occupy his mind, he drifted back to the exchange earlier in the day.

That night as he lay awake in the crisply made luxury sheets of his king-sized bed, tears rolling down his cheeks and onto the bedsheets below, he thought about all he had left behind. He missed Kevin, he missed what they had had. What had happened to him, what had he become? He reflected on what he had loved and lost, who he still loved. In that moment, he knew sleep would not find him that night. In the morning, he would awaken early and take a cold shower, splashing the water onto his face in an effort to remove any trace that he had been crying. He didn’t need to try hard, none of the other Bloodline members had ever asked why his eyes were red and he looked so exhausted. He would trudge through another day, he had to.

But that was then, and this was now. Taking in a shuddering breath, he turned onto his side to stare at the wall beyond and continued to cry silently as he did so many nights before as he let the bedsheets soak up the tears.

[evercelle]

hold that heart close... happy birthday, wanderer!!

[crimeronan]

with the pain scale poll making the rounds on chronic illness tumblr, i DO want to add the caveat that you Generally Should Not use that scale with unfamiliar doctors.

like, if you gotta go to urgent care or the ER for something related to your illness. Do Not Use A Reasonable Scale.

on the scale i wrote, a 5 (exact middle of the scale) means, "i am actually crippled from this pain and unable to live my life normally, BUT i retained the ability to drive here and walk inside unassisted."

PEOPLE WITHOUT CHRONIC ILLNESS REPORT THAT AS A 10.

for the majority of people without chronic pain, ANY pain that's significant enough to go to urgent care counts as a 10. i've been reliably told by EMTs and paramedics and nurses that they often get answers of "11" or "700" when asked to rate between 1 and 10.

when a doctor hears you say 5, they think, "ah, so this pain is mild and not distressing. it's just a little annoying." ie: about a 2 on the scale i wrote.

always, always, ALWAYS up your estimate by 3 or 4 points when you're interacting with a new doc. you MUST communicate, "this is urgent and needs urgent attention."

assume everyone else gives a 10 when they've badly pulled a muscle in their lower back. adjust your estimate around that.

[artkaninchenbau]

People keep on asking for more Baby Robin and Papadile so here is more Baby Robin and Papadile. Now never ask anything from me ever again

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Learning to celebrate the little wins!

[montyfinchirl]

A dead boy with a cricket bat and a magic backpack: if you wanna get to him you have to go through me!

Another dead boy who spent over 70 years in hell AND clawed his way out of it, is an insanely skilled magic user, doesn’t even notice when he’s burnt by iron, and got up and started walking around like he was in barely any pain after being trapped in a machine for half an hour that evaporates other ghosts in SECONDS: :3

[morganafayes]

because at the end of the day it’s about how love and hate will destroy you equally. it’s about the fact that merlin and morgana both lost themselves because they became so consumed by their love and hate respectively that it made everything else not matter. because merlin loved arthur so much he hollowed himself out for the sake of it and morgana hated uther so much it ate her alive and became all she was

[fantasykiri5]

Ticklish

[consultingfujoshi]

some thoughts wrt the two established "romances" in severance so far (burt/irving and helly/mark) inspired by @figmentof who pointed out how irving had to find out mark and helly kissed from the corporate video in s2 e1 and how he must have felt seeing his co-workers' love affair like portrayed like that, and how it ties into the queer narrative at play here which uses workplace dynamics and policies as very clear analogues for real-life prejudice against queer couples. I mean, just look at this:

it's not just documented, but celebrated. used as propaganda for how the conditions on the severance floor have improved. proof that the severed workers are happy. and how even though he is unaware of the sociopolitical meaning of all this, lumon is very not-subtly telling him that what he had with burt is inherently lower and less valuable than this.

irving doesn't even know homophobia exists and yet he is still affected by it, it still seeps into every corner of the way his and burt's romance progresses. burt is positioned as an unacceptable love interest from the jump. irv is actively discouraged at every turn from pursuing it. their friendship is viewed with disgust and apprehension from their coworkers. burt working in a different department that's hated by MDR. dylan himself not being homophobic in the sense he opposes their relationship because they're both men but his attempts to keep them apart still has a parallel sort of prejudice behind it and still ultimately has the same effect as if it WERE driven by homophobia. irving is made to feel perverse for wanting contact with burt. he's told this is for his own good.

and then, just as they manage to overcome that immediate resistance from their peers and escape to a place where they can explore this blossoming romance on their own terms, burt retires. for all it matters to irv, he's dead. and then irving is given the option to live the rest of his life with grief that will never heal, or kill himself too, because there is no reality where they get to be together. that's just the way things are. of course they wouldn't get to be together. he was unreasonable and childish for ever hoping that could happen. this is just the way it goes for innies. he's told to get ahold of himself and not make a scene.

but the thing is, the standards are not the same for all. a heterosexual romance gets upheld as the shining example of success and fulfilment for the severed employees, whilst a homosexual romance is ridiculed and invalidated, and written off as something that was simply never meant to be. and even more importantly to irving, a heterosexual romance is APPROVED OF by lumon, and by extension, by kier. irv held back from allowing himself to even call his and burt's relationship a romance, because his god had told him it was wrong, he followed the handbook, thinking this was what kier wanted, and then finding out after suffering the worst heartbreak imaginable because of it, that this WASN'T EVEN TRUE. it's simply just that someone like HIM doesn't get to have something like this. his love is not the kind of love god wants. he does not approve of irv's love. cynical and manipulative though that approval may be (even within the context of the corporate video, the helly/mark romance is only being celebrated to further the narrative that lumon care for their workers, but the point still remains that it was THEIR romance specifically used to suit this end), when your entire life has been in pursuit of that approval, it must be devastating to learn it was never on the cards for you.

he and burt even used the fact kier met and fell in love with his wife in the same circumstances as them to justify this to each other - and they were RIGHT, god does approve of falling in love with your coworkers - this simply just doesn't apply to them specifically. and if irving needed any more proof that he no longer has a place at lumon, that he's better off not existing at all than existing with this pain that cannot be remedied, pain that won't even be acknowledged for what it is, a symptom of a sickness which plagues the entire severance system, pain that he is simply expected to choke down and get over - this is that proof.

and that's the POINT. they're TELLING us that this is unjust, and there's a double standard. they're using the ways the innies experience romance and the difference in lumon's reaction (lumon being the collective of all the management we've seen, lumon as a singular entity) to burt/irving vs helly/mark to comment on how queer people are not afforded the same level of respect or validation IN REAL LIFE, for their attachments, their love, their pain, their suffering. it is NOT just incidental that irving's romance is with a man. it would not WORK if his love interest was a woman. the POINT is that they are both men and how that puts them at a disadvantage, even if they aren't aware of the prejudices of the outside world, even if they don't TECHNICALLY apply on the severance floor, there are very clear analogues which still end up oppressing them in equivalent ways that they would be suffering if this were a normal workplace in the outside world.

it genuinely sickens me to my stomach that even in a world so divorced from reality and the sensibilities of regular society, a queer couple is still made to suffer and feel inferior in a way that perfectly mirrors their real-life counterparts. how they will never, EVER be allowed to exist in a world where their love could thrive freely and uninhibited - they never get to taste the joy our world has to offer people like them, but they are still somehow subjected to all the pain it has to offer them regardless. it's such horrifically devastating writing. it makes my skin crawl. I can't stop thinking about it

[xmimikyuusx]

Made the mistake of looking at the notes on that post punkitt recently made and ohhhhhhh lord and heaven actually seeing trans women in the wild saying that they have a right to fear trans men because of the "societal/patriarchal power" we hold over them makes me want to delete this app and never interact with another trans person again in my life. How in the world can you be that far gone to think that trans men have patriarchal power how in the fuck do you function as a human while being this ignorant.

[kizzer55555]

DP x DC: The Most Dangerous Card Game

Ok so Danny has essentially claimed earth as his. And he is fully aware that there are constant threats to the planet. Now he can’t stop a threat that originates on earth (that’s something he’ll leave to the Justice league) but he can do something about outside threats. Doing some research on ancient spells, rituals, and artifacts, he cast a world wide barrier on the planet to protect it from hostile threats so they cannot enter. This will prevent another Pariah Dark incident. However, barriers like this come at a price. You see, there are two ways to make a barrier. Either make one powered up by your own energy and power (which would be constantly draining) or set up a barrier with rules. The way magic works is that nothing can be absolutely indestructible. It must have a weakness. The most powerful barriers weren’t the ones reinforced with layer after layer of protective charms and buffed up with power. Those could eventually be destroyed either by being overpowered, wearing them down, or by cutting off the original power source. No, the most powerful barriers were the ones with a deliberate weakness. A barrier indestructible except for one spot. A cage that can only be opened from the outside. Or that can only be passed with a key or by solving a riddle. So Danny chooses this type of barrier and does the necessary ritual and pours in enough power to make it. And he adds his condition for anyone to enter. 

Now the Justice league? Find out about the barrier when Trigon attempts to attack, they were preparing after he threatened what he would do once he got to earth. How he would destroy them. The Justice league tried to take the fight to him first but were utterly destroyed, so they retreated home to tend to their injuries, and fortify earth for one. Last. Stand. Only when Trigon makes his big entrance…he’s stopped.

The Justice league watch in awe as this thin see-through barrier with beautiful green swirls and speckled white lights like stars apears blocking Trigon and his army’s advance. The barrier looks so thin and fragile yet no matter how hard the warlord hits, none of his attacks can get through and neither can he damage said barrier. That’s when Constantine and Zatanna recognizes what this barrier is. Something only a powerful entity could create. For a moment, the league is filled with hope that Trigon can’t get through yet Constantine also explains that it’s not impenetrable. And clearly Trigon knows this too for he calls out a challenge. 

And that’s when, in a flash of light, a tiny glowing teenager appears. He looked absolutly minuscule compared to Trigon and yet practically glowed with power (this isn’t a King Danny AU though).

And that is when the conditions for passing the barrier are revealed. And the Justice realize that the only thing stopping Trigon and his army from decimating earth. The only way he can get through….is by beating this glowing teenager in a card game. 

Not just any card game though. The most convoluted game Sam, Danny, and Tucker invented themselves. It’s like the infinite realms version of magic the gathering, combined with Pokémon, and chess. And Danny is the master. So sit down Trigon and let’s play.

(The most intense card game of the Justice league’s life).

After Danny wins, this happens a few more times with outer word beings and possibly even demons attempting to invade earth, yet none have been able to beat the mysterious teenager in a card game. Constantine might even take a crack at it and try to figure out how to play. He’s really bad though. Every time this happens, the Justice league worry that this might be the time the teenager looses. Yet every time, he wins (even if only barely). 

Meanwhile, Danny, Sam, and Tucker have gotten addicted to the game and play it almost daily. Some teachers might seem them playing the game are are like ‘awww how cute’ not realizing this game is literally saving the world. Jazz is just happy they aren’t spending as much time on their screens playing Doomed.

[popuruu]

hope you had the merriest of christmases

[lesbianralzarek]

wyll's #1 sexual fantasy: being loved for who he is and assured that hes enough, even without his blade of frontiers persona

wyll's #2 sexual fantasy: being choked out by a minotaur

[hinamie]

just looking at these hand poses was enough to give me carpal tunnel and that's how u know they're prime megu material

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Ghouls night out

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[the-nothing-maker]

"[...] It is assumed that the thieves took opportunity of a commotion at the Earl's estate later in the evening to commit their crime. Authorities have urged local nobility to keep festivities to a low during the summer so as not to attract attention from these infamous jewel thieves, to no avail: Earl M. is their eight victim of the season. [...]" (Mélisande and Lazuli, my D&D PC and my DM @luposlipaphobya's NPC!)