#“hey where u at?”

[saelterlude]

Drawing a timeline from Xu Shanshan's kidnapping and Lu Guang's stabbing in season 1 to the tunnel fight in s2ep12 for a fic.

I'm trying to be generous in my timing while also following canon and they really have a shitty 5-6 days huh. Like in that week alone: (list under cut)

Their friend got kidnapped

Trap a killer in their house

Cheng Xiaoshi witness an almost suicide, a murder and an almost murder

Lu Guang got stabbed, Qiao Ling got possesed

CXS was arrested, thought LG dead

Finally reunited, thank god

The night raid happened

CXS watching Xixi's trauma, witnessed 2 more murders

Weird interrogation, turns out was a plot for an attempt kidnapping

LG actually did got kidnapped

Only clue being a mute and traumatized girl

Unprofessional medical help was not nice, was it LG?

Hostage exchange, but hey cool costume right?

An actual successful attempt to kidnap CXS via gun to the head

A bomb. LG and QL was caught in a bomb explosion.

The whole tunnel fight, and yes I will go into more detail

Stupid made up his own trauma man Qian Jin was there.

So a (not) murder, QJ was real quick on shooting Ma

CXS almost gotta fight Li Tianchen alone

LG and QL to the rescue. Too bad LG got tased and his wound reopened

Witness another murder, now of a scared girl who just wants her good brother

CXS got shot by this stupid lawyer

CXS and LG gotta fight this buff ex-cop while injured

They got beaten pretty badly too

QL gotta help a dying girl, the got trauma dumped via dying girl ability transfer.

But hey at least for half of these they were looking good with those theater clothes

[inkskinned]

so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.

first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.

it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.

and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.

you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.

and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.

your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.

in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.

in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.

so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.

you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.

once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.

and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"

you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?

hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!

you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.

we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?

[payasita]

[the inherently pathetic sound of exactly four people clapping]

[michaelsworddean]

can we, once again, talk about the fact that dean and cas were IN LOVE but also they were. best friends. dean on his knees crying saying you’re my best friend. they could talk to each other about the stuff that neither of them could talk to anyone else. they felt safe with each other they were like let me carry some of your burden!!!! it’s a privilege for me!!!

[cherrirui-official]

"You know... You didn't have to take that with you."

"But I promised him I'd take him out to see the ocean one day."

[tagerrkix]

[tomurakii]

I like bloodweave. Okay. But I DON'T like the version of them in fanfic where Astarion is a dick and Gale is like. Whining and pleading for him to be emotionally vulnerable (or just. Nice to him) prior to the relationship being established. Because that is just not accurate. Gale needs the player to express interest in him during his weave-teaching scene before he even considers hitting on them properly. Gale is entirely resigned to his fate and needs someone else to pull him away from it. Gale only starts being sweet and romantic and devoted after you accept his love confession and give him hope for the future. Gale says fuck all and then slinks away to cry privately if you break up with him.

Like he isn't chasing after people lmao. He isn't dropping to his knees and crying about anything much less this dickhead he met a week ago. He is overwhelmingly passive about literally everything personal to him up to and including his own death (provided there are no casualties/there is a good reason) until after the player expresses that they care about him. Astarion is not doing that in any of these fics.

Like Gale is friendly and a dork and doesn't wanna get murdered but he fully has a suicide plan. He thought the artefacts would help him survive but he didn't believe he'd ever truly live again. If Gale confessed and Astarion said/did like one (1) mean thing afterward Gale's romance is closed off forever. He's wandering into the forest to cry. He's killing himself immediately. His fragile ego and self worth can't take it. You have to understand that when we joke about him being pathetic it's not bc he's like. Sopping wet and chasing people down and begging for a scrap of attention. It's because he craves affection but would literally rather die than ask or even hope for it until someone else forces that hope back into his serotonin-deficient tadpole brain.

[dailyloopdeloop]

DAY 75: onehat

[gallusgalluss]

bugsnax spinoff game where you play as a snak and have fun and explore a Very Normal snak world

[luck-of-the-drawings]

"I think this is the most inhuman; and human, that I've ever felt.." MUCH CAN HAPPEN IN A YEAR. IN FIVE YEARS. A DECADE. imagine how much can happen in a century. just ONE (1). How will you grow? what phases do you find? even in 5 years, you will find patterns.

[ribbittrobbit]

a wizard and her paramour

[kveom]

@svtsource carat revival 2024: Picking Favourites and Fights

↳ Bias: DK | insp.

[puppyeared]

i feel like im not making any sense but does anyone else feel like there are stories that let u run with them and ones that spell everything out for you

[upathosarts]

wtf revue of souls real (more pics below the cut)

[tsunael]

Despite all their efforts, the Light had returned. The Exarch was gone, and once again she was the one left standing when the dust settled. She was tired. So very tired.

The days went on.

There was a stiffness growing inside that went well past her bones; it seized the sinew and locked her joints, causing an ache in every move. With each morning that she still drew breath, she found someone new in the mirror: that morning's iteration showed a woman whose skin had turned a sickly pallor, whilst her dark hair had begun to bleach itself to unnatural blonde.

When it all becomes too much to bear, seek me out at my abode, in the dark depths of the Tempest.

Emet-Selch had invited her to retain her dignity, and a part of her would have gone without a second thought if she only had the means to do so. As if her stiff legs could carry her to wherever The Tempest even was in this alien land. As she was now, she lived the paradoxical existence of hurry up and wait while her comrades scrambled for a cure for something that they all knew could not be undone.

--

Thancred moved from towering over her to gently sit upon her bed. The weight of him pulled her in, though she made great effort to keep the distance.

"You look well," he lied through his teeth. "Just when I thought you could not be more radiant-- All that beauty rest has done much and more." Had he not sounded so sincere, she would have mistaken it for dry wit.

She looked over her shoulder at him, twisted as she was, and wrinkled her nose. "Surely you didn't come just to be cruel."

His amiable expression fell, and she felt a pang of guilt for for her lashing.

"Apologies," he frowned. "That was... not my intent," he added, his voice flat. He politely moved his hands to clasp firmly between his knees.

She believed him that time. Tsuna pinched her arm to keep from throwing herself at him in a desperate need for comfort. They both sorely needed it. She wouldn't give into something so base-- not again.

"You shouldn't be in here," she whispered.

It had been a few days-- from what she could tell-- since then he had become more sunkissed. His boots were ruddy with Amh Araeng's dusty sands-- a far, and queer destination for one who could not ride the Aether.

"I didn't mean to bother. I simply wished to see how you were getting on," he said, twisting to better take her in, his hand brushed her curled tail. "Would you rather I leave?"

He was kind-- much too kind. She much preferred when they were trading blows, at least she could take them.

"That's not what I meant..." she sighed, winded. "You shouldn't be near me. It's not safe."

He gave pause, then chuffed at her proposal. "Y'shtola gave no such warning about your... condition."

"Y'shtola does not know everything," she snapped.

"Ryne has contained it," he countered, and she half-expected a 'for now' to be tacked on to the end of it. It was silent, but it was there. She knew.

Tsuna huffed. Frustration was causing her voice to grow thick with emotion. "She's just a girl, Thancred."

"And I trust her with my life. As should you." His tone had raised in defense before softening. "...She would never lead us astray."

Gently, he reached out to touch her exposed shoulder, and she stiffened, jolting away from the touch.

"Gods--" she swore. "You can't-- Don't-- Don't touch me."

She had brought the Light back to Norvrandt simply by being alive. The swell of it was strong enough to be felt knocking against her seams in her weaker moments. Who was to say she could not corrupt him-- or anyone else-- simply by being.

He grabbed her outstretched hand that had pushed him away, and reeled her back in against her will. His fingers intertwined with her own, and for a moment she thought something may just burst from her. Not the Light, no, but equally as unstable. It was something far more devastating.

The bird in her chest beat its wings against its cage and she wanted so badly to let it free.

"You see?" he asked, soft. "Everything's all right."

She could only stare at their intwined hands, marveling at the difference of size, how his own dwarfed her in comparison. His smooth, Hyuran skin compared to her own scales was fascinating, but with enough callouses on his palms to pen a story.

He had never touched her quite like that. The word intimate danced on her tongue and her breath fell shallow. Intimate. She gripped him back, rooting her fingers between his own, and to her surprise, he did not let go.

When he lowered his lips to her shoulder, she didn't notice, still transfixed where they joined, growing concerned that she could not feel the warmth of his hand. The breath dancing against her collarbone brought her back to where she belonged, though she felt no heat.

He kissed her as if it were his only solution to placating a grieving woman. Of course, it would be. Of course, it was all he ever knew. She didn't know what to feel. She wanted him to continue. She wanted to know where the trail would lead him; higher, or lower?

She also very much wanted to kiss him back, if only she could. Would she even be able to feel it?

Oh, Gods. What was wrong with her?

Your friends are now your foes. If you do not kill them, they will kill you.

"I think you should go," she whispered.

With a short pause, he lifted himself from her, and thus slackened his grip. Their connection broke, and she immediately missed the loss.

Thancred finally pulled away to give her space without complaint, though his honey-dark eyes lingered to study, to see where he had erred. His jaw worked for a moment before beginning to speak, then deciding against it. He stood from her bed.

"Keep the faith," was all he said. It was all he could say.

[z0mbiefrank]

you GUYS i am officially enrolled in my degree i am so unbelievably happy!!!!! i have been fighting for my life to get here. i had to turn down all my uni offers when i was a teen (had to move out independantly bc of domestic violence and disability/health complications). i've always known exactly what i want to do with my life but everything got put on hold whilst i desperately tried to sort my shit out. BUT IM DOING IT NOW!!!!!