#this whole thing is just

[mossterunderthebed]

I Will Destroy You, Nick Flynn

[themournwatcher]

Trystan Hawke

Just a lil thing I wrote oopsie. If you’d like to get a peek into the (WIP) dynamics between him and Leandra and Bethany then keep reading :)

“Carver... He was such a little boy. Never had a knee that wasn’t scraped or trousers without holes.”

There was a monster in Trystan’s head screaming back at his mother that he was once a little boy too and he never had someone to nurse his scrapes. There was a monster screaming and roaring and cursing her out for every brushed-aside bruise, for every tut ever made over the fact that he’d gotten mud on his dress or over the fact that his hair had fallen loose of its braid—nevermind that such things were usually a result of him doggedly attempting to keep the twins out of trouble.

He wanted to shake her back to her senses. (This is your fault. I want my son back. How could you let him run off like that?!). It had taken everything within him then and everything in him now, over a year later, not to scream at Leandra that she still had a son. That he had done everything he could to keep Carver safe; that some things were out of his control and he couldn’t be the one to drag them through each day because she couldn’t stop crying about it.

Guilt-ridden as he was, Trystan had to get over his grief quickly. He still had Bethany to look out for, as it was clear to him that his mother and Gamlen weren’t going to do it. If he lost her, it would wreck them all. It would ruin them. He wouldn’t be able to look his mother in the eye again; he wasn’t sure that she would consider him her child anymore. His job, above all else, was to make sure that the same fate didn’t befall his sister. He knew it. He hated his mother for it.

All of that anger in his chest left him in an unsteady exhale as he saw the tears running down his mother’s cheeks. Pity took its place.

“I just keep thinking there was something more that we could’ve done. It’s killing me— eighteen years of loving and feeding and raising, and… that was it.”

Trystan didn’t know what to say. What could he say that wouldn’t make it worse? Talking things out was always Bethany’s strength, and she wasn’t here now. It was for the best that she wasn’t. It wouldn’t be fair to her to see their mother like this, broken apart, and him barely swallowing his anger back down into his throat. He hoped that he could resolve this before she came back into the room; it was all he could do to shield her from Gamlen’s inane diatribes.

“I’m glad you’re past blaming me,” he said, bitterly and with little humor. Leandra hiccuped and looked up at him with wide, teary eyes. Anger mingled with guilt in his throat.

“Oh, Trystan, I— I’m so sorry,” she pleaded. “I didn’t really mean that, I… I miss him.” When he didn’t respond, she looked back to the low-burning hearth. “…I am working to make an audience with the viscount. With any luck, we will be able to reclaim the Amell estate.”

“Good,” he said, and he wavered. Leandra glanced back at him, waiting for him to continue. Trystan hesitated as if he had more to say. If he were to be honest with himself, he did have more—much more. Yet what purpose would it serve except driving the knife deeper into his mother’s grief? It was a selfish sort of anger, the one that he harbored against his mother. He would hate her through his own tears as they fought over her neglect, silently wishing her dead; yet hours later would be tucked around the table laughing as though nothing was wrong. Trystan might have been Malcolm’s spitting image, but the wretchedness was his mother’s mirror.

He stormed off before he was tempted to say anything he’d regret.

Bethany caught his arm before he could reach the door, and all of his anger dissipated in an instant. Trystan turned to face her and, upon noticing her brows furrowed into a line of worry, he forced a smile to his face. “Don’t worry about it,” he said in answer to her silent question. He was unsure how much she had overheard. “We were just discussing Mother’s big plans for the estate. Where have you been?”

“Sleeping,” she said, “but I know you were talking about a lot more than just that. Are you all right?”

“Of course,” Trystan lied. That old rage was like bile in his throat, but he had to lie for Bethany’s sake. Mother’s pandering had been no fault of hers, after all.

Bethany had only ever been his biggest supporter, and grateful for his efforts; as young children they had shared dresses and ribbons in their hair, and as he grew up, she was the first to embrace calling him brother with her full chest and a big hug. It had taken Carver longer to come around for fear of no longer being the only boy of the family. Not that such fears came to fruition, in the end, thanks to how unsurely his parents had adjusted to such a change.

“Why don’t we go to the markets?” Bethany suddenly asked, breaking him from his reverie. “Just to look, or maybe to get Apostate a snack. He hates this musty old house, you know, and being cooped up all day.”

The Mabari raised his head at the mention of his name and talk of treats.

Trystan turned his head to look at her. “You aren’t worried about Templars?”

“Why would I be?” She asked as she grabbed onto his arm, just as she had always done. “I have my big brother to protect me. Besides, I think you can do with getting out of this house, too.” Light streamed in as they stepped out onto the porch, and with a whistle, Apostate jumped up from his spot on the floor to join them.

“Besides,” Bethany continued as they began their trek into Lowtown, “maybe now you can tell me about that other apostate friend of yours. The healer? He seemed really fond of you when we stopped by the other night.”

“Maybe we can not talk about that,” Trystan replied. “He just lost someone important to him. Don’t think I don’t know what you’re trying to imply about it.”

“Fine,” she sighed, and looked away with a huff. “I just think you’ve been lonely. It wouldn’t kill you to make some friends. If one of them turns out to be more than that, well, would that be so bad?”

FIN

[kisskissbanggang]

Provocation pt 3 is:

Filthy

Long, apparently

80% done

[corditeheart]

@aenyalios | x

One of the flowers is plucked from the vase-- she couldn’t really move it very far, just enough that she could still maybe get some work done-- and Xu inhales its fragrance deeply. 

When’s the last time anyone bought her flowers? At all? She can’t remember. 

“Yes.” 

There’s a smile there, hidden behind the rose. She twirls it slightly, and tucks it in the pocket of his jacket. He gets a kiss, too, a lingering one-- one that deeply, deeply implies that this man is going to get very lucky somewhere around 2100. 

“2000 is perfect.” 

[swan2swan]

Whoever conceived and animated this moment, I hope they're doing well and thriving. This is S-rank romance stuff here.

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[crowkip]

yeehaw, baby!

[adventures-in-poor-planning]

Today I saw a pic of a baby cowbird next 2 its nest "parent" and it was so much bigger!!!!! Which is the sort of thing that gets normal people upset about the injustice of nest parasitism but makes *me* worry if baby cowbirds get bird dysmorphia

[heavenbarnes]

thinking about your older bf!simon that cannot cope with being far from you.

when you’re in the shower, he’s sat on the lid of the toilet on his phone (watching those rug cleaning videos) enjoying your faint singing under the stream of water, the smell of your body wash on the cloud of steam- ready to pass you a towel or get your back.

when you’re at your desk, working from home or studying, he’s just on the other side of it reading the paper with one outstretched leg tangled with both of yours. he’s dead quiet when you’re on a call, just happy to be around.

when you’re doing laundry, collecting the clothes in the hamper and crouching to stuff them into the washer- turning around and accidentally colliding with a thick wall of muscle.

“sorry, love”

he steps aside but you can hear his soft footfalls as he continues to follow you throughout your home.

when you’re both watching something on the couch, what starts as his pinky locked with yours turns into his arm around your waist. that turns into your head on his chest, which culminates with you falling asleep in his lap with his cheek on your head and soft snores emanating from his lips.

when you grocery shop, you push the trolley but his chest is to your back, arms either side of you and hands clasped over yours on the handle. you can thank his military training for his uncanny ability to tell exactly when you’ll stop walking.

when he wakes up in the middle of the night, on a rare occasion when you’ve managed to slip out of bed without him realising, he’s immediately in a panic calling your name.

“in here, my love”

as soon as his heart settles, he realises the bathroom light was probably a dead giveaway. you’re taking a wee, you’ll be back in a minute.

that doesn’t stop a sleepy simon from leaning in the doorframe, shielding his eyes from the big light as he waits for you to finish up.

even on the short walk back to bed, you can feel fingers twisted in the back of your shirt- almost like you’re leading the way.

minute you’re both on the mattress, you’re being wrapped up in his arms, slotting you perfectly into the curve of his front- almost like you’re made for him.

(and you are)

[disc80s]

[angelsdean]

me whenever i see /pos and /hj: why are you calling me a piece of shit and what do handjobs have to do with any of this :/

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

[saints-who-never-existed]

“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets. 

Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”

–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.

[attractive-nuisance-esq]

hey so like does everyone know that Like A Prayer is most definitely a song about going down on someone?? like is the younger generation aware? did you guys know that Wade and Logan’s two pivotal scenes were set to a song about how blowing someone can be a religious experience?????? because this is Very Important information

[blazeball]

i just rediscovered the pelican spider. give me 1-2 business days to stop laughing at how they're shaped and ill be normal again

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived