#and dying right in front of me

[anerol152]

Me during all of S2:

[youssefguedira]

K or N for Joe and/or Nicky

K. On the edge of consciousness.

Yusuf wakes slowly, so slowly that he can’t see and isn’t even sure he can open his eyes, only half-sure he still has eyes, and that’s how he knows there’s something very, very wrong. He can’t move, can’t hear, can’t even smell anything. He doesn’t remember exactly what happened to him, but every part of him is burning, and he’s fairly sure the weird aching sensation in his head is his skull knitting itself back together, which. He really, really didn’t need to know what that feels like. 

There’s a scraping in his chest when he breathes in, but at least he’s breathing. 

Where is he? He could be anywhere. He could be in the middle of the street, could have been dragged away from the fighting from someone who had seen him breathing through a wound that should have killed him immediately. When he wakes, what will he find? Will they have taken his weapon? How long has he been dead? 

Will Nicolò be able to find him, if they are separated? Will he even try?

Slowly but steadily, he starts to hear something: a high pitched whistling that sounds like it’s coming from deep inside his own head. The darkness begins to lift, leaving flickering amber lights across his vision, and a shadow in front of him. 

There’s a voice, too, one that sharpens into words as Yusuf’s hearing begins to return. He doesn’t understand their meaning, but the cadence of them and the voice itself is familiar. 

“Are you awake?” Nicolò asks softly, switching to Arabic. 

Yusuf tries to make a sound in response. Whether it’s audible he doesn’t know, because the only noise he can really make is a rasping exhale, but Nicolò hushes him anyway.

“Do not… you can be slow,” Nicolò says. He’s more comfortable with the sounds of the language now, but still doesn’t always string sentences together well. “We are safe. I am here.”

He’s made aware of where his hand is by the feeling of Nicolò reaching for it. Yusuf manages to make an actual sound this time, but still can’t form words. Nicolò squeezes his hand gently. 

“I am here,” he says again. 

Eventually, Yusuf’s skull seems to piece itself back together fully, and his vision sharpens, letting him see that they’re backed into the corner of the two remaining intact walls of a house ravaged by fire, Nicolò crouched in front of him with his sword in hand. There’s a trail of blood leading to where Yusuf is lying now, and a section of the room that has collapsed. He can piece together enough. Nicolò would have had to drag him over here.

This time, he manages to make a sound, even if he can’t quite form words. Nicolò looks down at him over his shoulder, and there is blood on his face and in his hair, and only then does Yusuf notice the bodies in the room. 

“Okay?” Nicolò asks. 

Yusuf manages to nod, and it sends a spike of pain along his spine. Nicolò turns slightly to look at him properly. 

“You are almost done, I think,” he says. “You did not… you were asleep for a long time. I did not know if…”

“Nicolò,” Yusuf finally manages, hoarse.

“Rest,” Nicolò says. “I am here.”

(letter asks)

[slime-crafters]

Gonna be real, I think Link deserves to have a panic attack. Just a full-blown mental deteriorating, absolute heart-wrenching scene of him absolutely losing his shit. I'm just thinking like... Imagine Link learning about what happened to Zelda in TotK and his response being something like falling to his knees, something to show that he can't Take It anymore

I want this twink to absolutely crumple.

[apollo18]

Fawcette citizens would thrive in Gotham but but gothamites would go insane in Fawcette

Does this make sense?

[thewastelandlosers]

Oops

[coquelicoq]

I hugged the two children while looking around at my companions. [...] Shin Yoosung asked me, "Grandmother? Is Grandmother Sookyung okay?" "I think she should be fine. It is entering the final stages." Relief passed through the party member's faces at my words. Only one face was different. "Hey, why is Dokja hyung's mother your grandmother?" "Ahjussi's mother is my grandmother." "Dokja hyung isn't your father." I quickly patted them on the back. "Now now, don't fight. You can both call her grandmother." "Really? Can I?" "Yes." I watched the red-faced Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung and tried to say something else, but quickly closed my mouth. To these children, what had happened in the past three years? What did these children hear, see and talk about as they passed through dozens of scenarios without me? "…Hyung?" I stroked Lee Gilyoung's head for a long time and Lee Gilyoung looked up at me helplessly. Shin Yoosung, who was staring at the scene, grabbed my hand and placed it on her head. (Chapter 343)

they love you they love you they love you

[suncaptor]

"If you're coming back just because you're attracted to the shine of my neediness... I'd be okay with that." House quotes of all time.

[rollo-o-rollo]

The art:

The Artist:

🤣🤣 he looks so disappointed and I didn't do anything other than pull out my camera and laugh.

[subsequentibis]

will never stop making me mad how people talk about how fictional characters deal with grief. criticizing someone for doing something that doesn't make sense because they're deep in mourning for a loved one? a family member or someone they loved romantically or platonically? 'oh skill issue lol i would never' shut the fuuuuuuuuck up!

[duskier]

you know for someone who sexualizes the dentist I sure am scared of dental issues

[scrunkalicious]

FUUUUUUUCK JAYVIK UGGGGHH im begging they don’t try to push it next season, im gonna keep my expectations low but we have a chance to survive cuz its the last season

sending love and joy and whimsy ur way………

REAL. TYSM LUCY U A REAL ONE....

im hoping praying so so bad that they rlly go thru w the jayce and vik LoL lore in s2 BC THEYRE ENEMIEZ OK. LIKE DEADASS MACHINE HERALD AND DEFENDER OF TOMORROW CANT STAND EACH OTHER. riot thatd be soooo lovely pleabse,,,,

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

his internal monologue goes crazy hard

[sysig]

Yeah of course I’m still thinking about plushies, what else (Patreon)

Most specifically thinking about magnets again - there’s the obvious of putting it in their hands so they can hold hands!

Of course if they’re on the same side i.e. right hand gets south polarity, left gets north, they’d only be able to hold opposite hands, so no handshakes (but I think that’s fine personally haha)

But on top of hands they could also have magnets behind their mouth! Kiss-magnets! My only real concern is the fabric pulling and developing kiss-wrinkles from being pressed against each other haha

They’d also be able to giggle with their palms to their mouths hehe, how cute! It’d depend on their kiss polarity

Which would of course depend on ship compatibility! Max has to be able to kiss Dex and Caleb, so if that makes it that Caleb and Dex can’t kiss, I mean that’s just an unfortunate side effect haha

[uncreativebean]

I love how in the Champions Ballad quest you fight all the blights with what the other champions had as their weapons/defense just to see how difficult it was. I just really like that touch and oh my gosh it made me so freaking sad

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Okay yeah uhm… I might need to tell a whole bunch of people not to mention something about me on a specific day. I think they’ll do that for me. They like me. I am a beloved member of their family. Ahahaha 😰

[orcelito]

I think I cried harder today over my dad's jackets than I did at his deathbed. That was a miserable time of course, a memory that will likely be seared into my brain until I die, but I cried... I think a normal amount, all things considered. More than I ever usually do of course, but I typically don't cry At All. All this free crying is certainly surreal.

The jackets, though. I was put in charge of doing his laundry, because we don't want to pack up dirty clothes. I was expecting it to be unpleasant bc my dad's dirty clothes - gross. But really, it was much more unpleasant in that... those were his. It felt wrong to touch them. Felt wrong to treat his jackets as gross. Because they were just his jackets. They weren't even in the hamper. And then I was remembering him wearing them, and then I was crying. Again. And again. Weeping over these damn jackets.

Then I found a shirt on his bed that still smelled like him. It smelled like a Hug From Dad. And that set me off crying even harder.

In total, I think I cried like 6 times within 40 minutes. It took me that long to finish sorting the damn clothes bc I just. Was a wreck. Like, what are you supposed to do when you're living life like normal, vaguely hopeful bc you're taking steps to secure your own happiness, and then 4 days later you're sorting your dad's laundry because he fucking died. Suddenly. Without a goodbye.

And you have to worry about his lack of a will (even under an ideal situation, only 2 heirs and no conflicts between us, probate's a fucking Bitch), and arranging the funeral, and prepping his obituary, and picking out pictures, and writing a speech bc you want to talk at his funeral, of Course you want to talk at his funeral, but even just thinking about anecdotes you could share has you crying yet again.

I've cried more times in the past 3 days than likely the entirety of last YEAR. And that's WITH my cat, and uncle, and family friend dying. Those all hurt, my uncle most of all, & I was real fucked up over it. But this? This was my Dad. Likely the person I'd have named 2nd closest to me in my life, second only to my sister. He wasn't perfect, but he did so much for me throughout my entire life. All he wanted was to raise us to be happy and independent. And he accomplished it, we're getting by without him, but we still wanted several more decades with him. He was only 57. We should've gotten several more decades with him.

But here we are now. Playing investigators to his life, digging into all his shit, trying to find documents and take inventory of all his things, and learning Many things about him in the process. In his lockbox of sensitive documents, like his SSN and birth certificate and all that stuff, we found an old letter. About a decade old now, written in my hand. Right at the very top, we found that he'd kept the letter I wrote to him telling him frankly about my struggles and the things I wanted him to do better. He kept it. He tried to take it to heart. He looked at it again, sometime more recently than all the rest of the documents. That was on top.

His love for us is evident everywhere. The pictures he has hanging up all over the place, majority of them with us in them. The old fathers day cards placed on display in his bedroom bookshelf. The gifts we gave him, even stupid little knick knacks, placed around his apartment with pride. I wish we'd taken more videos of him. I don't want to forget the sound of his voice. I don't want to forget his smell either, the smell of a Hug From Dad, but I still tossed that shirt into the wash even though it felt like saying yet another goodbye.

It's the suddenness that hurts the most, I think. We were planning on having him help me finally get my license this year. My final words to him, the last thing he would've seen from me, were messages asking up on whether he'd called his car insurance company to make sure there wouldn't be problems. I should've called him more. I don't know if I'm going to learn from this.

I cut my 2 weeks off early to have time to grieve and to work on things for the funeral and settling the estate. The last thing I'd wanna do right now is selling fucking bubble tea in a job I already decided to leave. So here I am without a job, though with potentially two life insurance policy payouts to come. Inheriting half his 401k. Inheriting couches, knickknacks, keepsakes, paintings, art pieces, maybe even his guitar and other furniture if we can figure out what to do about space (I don't have room for this furniture, I don't know if I even have room for the couches, but God do I want to keep so much of this furniture). It has me even considering keeping one of his guns, just one. A tiny little revolver, it sits so comfortably in my hand. I don't even want to use it for anything. I just want to have it, keep it stored in a drawer with its ammo kept separate. I don't like guns, but this is a part of him. He loved collecting guns. He was about as responsible with them as someone can be, keeping them locked in a lockbox and impressing upon his children the importance of gun safety (I've known the basic gun safety rules ever since I was a little kid. Of course, of course, of course.) It reminds me of him. It's horrifically easy to have a gun in Indiana. I apparently don't even need a permit to carry anymore. (I have no intention to ever carry this in public.)

It's all a cycle. Business, grief, thoughts about my future. Round and round, like the most nauseating carousel in existence. I don't know how I'm still so functional. My skills with compartmentalization have been my lifesaver.

And im just thinking about the story my dad's best friend shared today. About a friend of theirs who lost her father. She reached out after hearing about my dad to share his words with her: "it's okay to grieve, but don't make his death your life".

He explicitly referenced himself in this, saying if he were to die suddenly that he wouldn't want us to define ourselves by it. Grief is expected, but he wants us to be able to move on. He's always wanted us to establish ourselves and make ourselves happy. He wouldn't want to be a weight holding us back from that.

So every time I start to feel guilty for thinking about having nicer furniture or using his life insurance payout to fund the rest of my college, I remind myself of that. Thinking about the material isn't a bad thing. I'm only human. And in the end, he'd Want me to be thinking about it. He never intended to die, certainly not without warning like this, so he would've only encouraged me being pragmatic about it all.

He only ever wanted us to be happy. So I need to do what I can to live up to that.

I love him. I miss him already.