#absolutely normal scenario

[q-uzi]

hi spive nation

[possibilistfanfiction]

nightmare for the one word prompts

[a little sad but mostly very silly, butch bea universe]

//

'i really don't have to go today,' beatrice says, kissing your forehead before settling down next to you on the couch. you know she means it: beatrice means everything she says, first of all, and you have grown — despite your brain's best efforts to steer you otherwise — to trust her when she offers care. you take her in: her fresh haircut that she gets done every month now, usually neatly parted on the top, messy from sleep; her tender wrists; the soft skin of her thighs; the soft sweater you bought her last christmas, sleeves pulled down over her hands, which are always cold.

you sigh. you had had nightmares — more than one, which is rare this many years later, after the worst of it — and woken up with scars that you don't think about too often, or at least with too much pain or sorrow anymore, aching all over your body. your legs had been pins and needles — worse, you've discovered, than feeling nothing some days — and your spine had ached, the halo feeling your sorrow, sharing in it. beatrice had skipped her typical surf session this morning, partially because she'd woken up with you both times last night, and partially because she's worried. she doesn't try to hide it anymore, her concern written all over her gentle face, in her sweet eyes, her soft hands. you find it nestled along all the small things she did for you in the past two hours: bringing you pain meds along with an easy breakfast of scrambled eggs and your favorite rosemary sourdough toast, doing a few snuffles with korra's morning unkibble so she's calm and ready to work today for whatever you need, helping you, after your glum nod, transfer from bed to your chair. you twist the wedding band around on your finger, focus on the few freckles that sit on the tops of her hands because of her time in the sun. your life is real, you remind yourself. your time on the other side, every endless day you spent in hell, was worth it for this, for beatrice quietly and patiently sitting next to you, soft and always becoming more herself; for your family visiting at the end of the week, camila begging to go to universal studios, lilith grumbling but giving in; for the respect people owe you now, and ready give; for your dog and your bar and the edibles you share with beatrice some nights, easy with laughter, and the farofa you feel confident in making for dinner when your friends come over, a warm offering.

'no,' you decide on, firmly, and you know beatrice will trust you. 'we should go. it'll be fun.'

'it will be fun,' she says, the same gleam in her eye you remember from years ago when she was ready to "maim or kill" (lilith's words) anyone who was in the way of her and the mission, especially once you became involved.

'you remember this is, like, your weekly tennis match for fun, right?'

'of course, ava.'

the way she cracks her knuckles tells you that the for fun is lost on her for the most part. it's endlessly amusing to you, though, and quite harmless — although maybe not to her opponent's pride — so you don't bother to argue any further. 'okay, well, i think angela and ruth wanted to have lunch anyway today after their jazzercise class, so we can watch you play.'

'no catcalling.'

you pout. 'you're my wife.'

'not from you, not from ruth or angela.'

'they're old, bea. let them have some fun.'

'at my expense? no thank you. i need to focus while i compete.'

she's already sitting up straighter, eyes lively. she's playing david today, you think, if you remember the club's "adult intermediate to advanced tennis league" rotation correctly. he's a decent player, and their head to head record is relatively even. he's also a bit of an asshole, and a venture capitalist, so it stands to reason beatrice despises him.

'fine.' you squeeze her hand. 'but can you change your shirt between sets?'

'ava.'

'gratuitously towel off or something at least.'

'ava.'

'whatever,' you say. 'i'm wearing a bikini. at least ruth and angela will appreciate it.'

'oh, i'll appreciate it,' she says, and then laughs softly and leans over to kiss you.

/

everything about beatrice, you decided years ago, is endearing. can she kill a man in, like, one second using just her hand? yes, sure, but you've seen her very skillfully practice her forms every morning for years, barring injury, and frown when anything is off, even by a breath. most people find her precision in all things kind of terrifying, but you've learned that some of it is a trauma response — from her childhood, from being a soldier, from losing you — and some of it is really just how she is. her books sorted exactly how she wants them — by genre, subgenre, and then author's last name — on the bookshelf; the meticulously labeled spices in your pantry, always in both their language of origin and english; her surfboards waxed perfectly and neatly stored in the small shed in your yard. everything about her precision is endearing because you understand her and you love her, and maybe the most endearing, or at least you think some days, is the way she treats rec league club tennis.

no matter how many times you've jokingly reminded her that your club isn't wimbeldon, she likes to wear all white little outfits; men's shorts and, your favorite, a neat polo. in the summer, she favors tanks, which you are not complaining about. she has three racquets and a very impressive bag like all the pros carry onto the court, special towels, pristine sneakers, and, when you're most amused, a wristband she very sincerely wipes her sweaty forehead on. since you'd met she'd loved watching tennis, and she'd taught you — as patiently as she has always taught you anything — the rules, her favorite players (not that it was, like, hard to think serena williams was the best athlete ever), common terms to know. you'd gone out with her a few times to the courts and she'd shown you proper form; you'd found out, eventually from her, that her dream as a little kid was to be a tennis pro, which was so charming and a little unexpected. you had thought she would've wanted to be some kind of scientist, maybe a really good lawyer, but her brother had dug out some pictures of little beatrice in her tennis getup, her expression so, so serious for a nine year old, and you'd fallen in love all over again.

she listens to her "pump-up music" — a lot of pop, surprisingly — as she drives you both to the club, focused already in her tennis outfit, complete with a quarterzip warmup top and everything. you're endlessly amused by her, in a way that most people are too intimidated to be, and you think it's good for her, to feel human, to not be taken so seriously when she should get to just enjoy things. your pain meds are helping by the time you get to the club, the pins and needles down your legs leveling out, the halo shaking off some of its deep sorrow, the memories of torture and abject aloneness that sometimes show up in your dreams. today is bright and sunny, the bluest sky, and your friends wave to you once you get out to the tables near the tennis courts. beatrice says a quick hello and then bustles off to start her very precise warm up routine, and you all wait until she's out of earshot to share a fond laugh.

'david today?'

'i swear she was rewatching coco and iga's last match yesterday to prepare.'

ruth pats your hand and angela orders a charcuterie for the table, gets prosecco for ruth and herself and — they both know you well enough by now that your chair usually means you've had to take medication, which you don't mix with alcohol — a cranberry soda for you, your favorite.

david shows up a few minutes later as you're gossiping, angela gasping at ruth's latest escapades with her new boyfriend while you laugh delightedly. he's the kind of muscular dude that likes to run along the beach shirtless because he thinks it's impressive but really it just looks ridiculous, the kind of dude that would give unwanted pointers in the gym. you don't have a disdain for him like beatrice does, because he's never done anything abhorrent to you personally, but when you see her steely gaze as he goes to his bench on the court, you get it. and, also, it's hot, so, like, you shoot a quick thanks to david and his douchey backwards cap for that.

/

things go just about as you'd expected: beatrice plays with the amount of passion you'd see in a wimbeldon final, and angela and ruth relentlessly whistle and cheer and boo. the charcuterie has a new truffle havarti you're all in love with, and the bottle of prosecco gets split happily while you watch. it's a fairly even match — david hits harder than beatrice but is slower and definitely stupider — and she wins the first set 6 games to 4. she gets mad at him for serving too slowly, and they briefly have an argument over whether or not one of his backhands was in. it's all deeply ridiculous for an afternoon at in an amateur club league, but beatrice and her overhand serves get you every single time.

she's down a break in the second set when she hits a drop shot that has david falling over his own feet, and you know it's over then. the second bea realizes someone is truly out of sorts, in any scenario, she's already won.

they shake hands after the match is over, beatrice taking the second set much quicker than the first, and then she makes her way over to your table and sits, very satisfied, in the chair next to you, a towel around her neck.

'my champion,' you say, and she rolls her eyes, accepting the congratulatory beer angela had already ordered for her as the last game was winding down with a thankful nod.

'great match, beatrice,' ruth says, half-sincere, half-teasing, but beatrice smiles anyway. sometimes, things are not good; sometimes, on the worst days, even now, even still, even with all this love, you still remember what it was like to suffer alone — without feeling, with too much feeling — for so much of your life. but beatrice slips into her quarterzip next to you and you smell sweat and laundry detergent and the pomade she puts in her hair, you feel the sun warming along your back and you hear the small group of children starting their lesson, laughing brightly. beatrice holds your hand and you'll nap later; you'll order takeout from your favorite thai place and watch the sunset on your patio; you'll fall asleep in her arms. you'll wake up and do it all over again — the loneliness, the pain, the longing — just for this.

[sheltershock]

The other day I was rewatching Hollowtone’s vod on Psychonauts 2, which is fun because of the chat overlay. And there’s the part where you can open the powers menu and see all the nice embroidered badges and the nice signatures of the teachers that gave you them…. except Sasha’s. And this makes sense, he wasn’t authorized to teach Raz psi-blast, so it would be really bad if he’s showing off his cool badges on his bag and someone sees Sasha’s signature. So Ford signed off on the marksmanship badge. But the chat in the vod is coming up with hilarious reasons why Sasha didn’t/couldn’t sign off on it, my favorites being:

“He’s only capable of of writing in Times New Roman”

“His handwriting is bad, toddler/doctor level”

“Sasha writes exclusively in latin”

“He actually can’t write”

“He uses telekinesis for everything, if he touches a pen he instantly dies”

And I was thinking about how ridiculous they were, but when I actually think about it… is there ever a proven time he actually writes something down? Like with his hands?

He’s living in a time period where typewriters existed, and in the current time, computers do, and therefore printers… And in one of the promotional comics he’s not even using his hands to eat with a fork, he just uses his powers. He uses telekinesis for most things actually. I don’t find it out of the realm of possibility of just using telekinesis to write things down. And then, I guess he’d never actually have need to learn to do it with his hands…

Maybe Sasha can’t write.

[graveyard-society]

the sheer amount of headcanons i produced while i was drawing this is insane

[orowyrm]

i have extremely complex thoughts about the nature of albrecht and loids relationship and how they’re simultaneously both so obviously smitten with eachother and also incredibly hesitant and detached despite it all. i’ve been fighting to articulate these feelings ever since i finally finished witw but i genuinely think the best way i’ve ever managed to put these thoughts to words was during this discord convo and i don’t feel like rewriting it all so i’m just going to post screenshots. forgive me

[rowavolo]

showing diavolo old school creepypastas (particularly the really 'bad' ones) and he gets so scared that he asks to share a bed with me every night for like a week. he wont go anywhere on his own hes like a pathetic doggy.

[haha--lorge]

Let's drink the gender affirming weight gain potion.... together ✨💖✨

[fyodorkitkat]

Would you guys still love me if I formally wrote one of my whumper!Lewis/whumpee!Fyodor scenarios before my actual s/i introduction fic.

[moe-broey]

OKAY. All Heroes OCs banner I am fuvking MANIFESTING HER

V quick v rushed but!!! Based her fit off of Mayo's design for Cipher (intsys she ALREADY has a swimsuit design!!!!!), w just a few adjustments cause I feel like she wouldn't wear a regular bikini bottom? Just vibes, but I feel like she would wear shorts or a frilly skirt (and I've already drawn that style so many times LMFAO so I wanted to do something different!!!!)

[fluxrspar]

[ 𝐥𝐨𝐮𝐝 ] : sender is expressing anger over receiver's constant recklessness.

for you i would (still accepting)

It is only natural for her to act like this—to put her all into battle; to focus solely on the mission; to expend herself in order to secure victory.

There had been a close call this time. (In actuality, there had been many close calls, piling up with every outing, every skirmish, every full-blown fight.) Selena had drawn too close to an enemy soldier, and now she had dressed wounds for it. It didn’t affect her breathing; neither did it hinder her pulse.

All the same, Sephiran finds fault. (This time, it was minor, but what of next time? What if there is no ‘next time’ after that?) Selena listens, and she ponders, but it is hard for her to change heart.

To hesitate is to condemn to death.

“Of course,” she lies. “I’ll be more careful next time. Don’t worry about me.”

[maburito]

I know it's annoying but I'm not done thinking about Pokémon, especially Pokémon Legends Arceus. Like the game is already a breath of fresh air in the franchise but what's really frustrating is that I know it could have been the best pokemon game of all time if capitalism wasn't a thing and the Pokémon company let their developers actual time to make good games, rather than prioritizing the numbers of game coming out in short time.

Like they really really didn't need to have the 9th generation coming out this year, Legends Arceus could have had DLCs and I know people would have been all over it.

More than anything though, if Gamefreak developpers had as much time and means for Legends Arceus as the Legend of Zelda team had for Breath of the Wild, there would have been no need for a 9th generation to come out the following months it would have probably made enormous sales

I would rather wait for a well developed game that take me hours to finish then one that was barely scrapped together so the next one could be produced and so on.

[holyluvr]

Only funny thing about people who demand tmi and proof before believing something personal like sexual orientation, gender, ancestry, or disability (if they agree with the person enough because being real it seems to be about not wanting to be grouped in or compared to someone they personally don’t like) is when they accidentally confuse traits everyone has for being specific to whatever they are attempting to “gatekeep” or doubt. They’ll be like “🙄Another illness? Hah, attention seeker” and it’s about something almost every human on the planet can experience and most will at some point in their lives.

[salsa-di-pomodoro]

I am in intrusive thought overstimulation hell help

[ozymoron]

im gonna write im gonna write so good you fucking watch me

[running-in-the-dark]

yes I've been lying in bed for three hours, listening to the same song on repeat, and yes I have written *checks* 14,000 words of the most stupid, embarrassing shit ever over the last two days, and yes I can actively feel my brain melting in my head, but I'm definitely totally fine.

[house-rat]

Childhood trauma culture is being horrified when people wish they could be a child forever because all you associate it with is complete disenfranchisement and powerlessness, being legally at the mercy of your abusers, and endless misery that you had no material way of escaping and could only endure.

You could not pay me to be a kid again.