#bestfriendships

[loumandivorce]

enough already!

[princeseerow]

i think, the thing about rachel's death is that while narratively it makes sense, i disagree with the take that it's "justified" because she would never have been able to adjust to a normal life after the war.

even at her lowest moments, rachel was never so far gone as to lose her sense of self completely. sure, she was often afraid of the kind of person she was becoming, but to me that's because she was someone with the self awareness to recognize when things were getting bad. what would be worse is if, like mean rachel, she fully embraced her violent bloodthirsty side with no qualms about who she was hurting or why. she cried over david, her most personal rival in the entire series. she was not beyond saving. she was begging for help she never received.

after the war, rachel could've found a healthy outlet for her anger issues. it wouldn't have been easy, but she could've healed. she could've processed and worked through her trauma. and now she never can.

that's what makes rachels death the most tragic to me

[totallynotmeems]

y’all i wrote a crazy ass line about paynsaki friendship that made me feel something in my palasaki reporter au fic. so here it is.

“This leads to Niko tightly hugging him, so tight that if he had cracks from before, if he was crumbling, deteriorating before her very eyes, he would be held together. What is friendship if not the glue that holds a person together?”

[homosexualmorelikehomiesexual]

yknow its interesting to me how ppl read the final bit of the monologue where oliver says that sometimes he hated felix as like. genuinely contradictory and therefore usurping of the fact that he also loved him. because 1) multiple things can be true at once 2) none of yall know what an unreliable narrator is holy shit 3) my immediate first reading of that scene was specifically that *he hated how much he loved him and how helpless it rendered him*. especially considering the one thing we really seem to know about oliver is just how much he hates being humiliated, just how much he hates being out of control. and with felix he is utterly undone. because every single shot in the montage where he says he loved him is obviously romanticized shots of felix looking like a god yes but. but. every shot where he says he hated him is not of felix being cruel, not of felix doing anything worthy of garnering hatred, but of *oliver*. oliver falling to his knees. oliver crying. oliver sobbing. oliver humilated. oliver covered in grave dirt. oliver wretched and helpless and agonized, wracked in pain by the love that has overtaken him and will not let him go. he resents it. he is repulsed by it. he is a moth to a fucking flame and it *burns*. he is swallowed whole by it, and it frightens him. consumed by the desire to consume, his object of desire reduced to ash by the intensity of the flame, and he himself left badly wounded with nothing to show for it. of *course* he hates him. by god i loved him. how anyone can think those things dont go hand in hand is baffling to me, really

[agnesandhilda]

isakainess in the sense that isagi and ness are dating but kaiser's ghost is metaphorically looming over them the whole time

[namisweatheria]

I'm sure people have talked about this before BUT I AM thinking about an au where Rouge had a terrifying Devil Fruit power and ridiculously strong Haki (like Boa but... you know. not like that at all thank you.) and managed to have HER OWN ISLAND that The Navy refuses to touch. (Like Boa! Without the Warlord part.)

What if Ace got his good navigational instincts from her, and the island was somewhere basically impossible to get to. (Unless you're a navigational genius.) Which immediately connects it in my mind to a Bell-mere lives au.

Things I'm imagining happening:

-Rouge raising Ace herself on that island

-Garp finding her as he promised he would, and seeing a good opportunity, promptly dropping Luffy off forever

-Sabo sneaking on Garp's ship to get away from his parents, and managing to make it there as it happens to be where Garp is heading next for another quick visit to try to indoctrinate Luffy (and Ace) into The Marines

-ASL brothers again<3

-kid Ace being fucking crazy in an entirely DIFFERENT way. He didn't suffer from living under Roger's shadow (Rouge never even mentions that deadbeat) but he and his mom are very much alone on this island so he goes Insane

-Luffy and Sabo are still the best things to happen to him and slowly make him calm down a lot

-Rouge DOES want to bring more people to the island because obviously she does not want her son to be deranged but it's difficult to trust people when The World Government wants her son dead so badly. Also a nearly-impossible-to-reach incredibly dangerous jungle island is a hard sell. lol

-She is going insane in her own way but she throws herself into raising them well and training them and herself to be as strong as possible, so they can protect each other if the government comes for them

-She definitely knows about Dragon being Luffy's dad, tricking that out of Garp was Not Hard. lmao

-Sabo opens up about his backstory to her eventually too. Someone protect these kids from the damn government!!!!!!!

-In this au, Bell-mere is strong enough to get Nami, Nojiko, and herself out of Coco Village when Arlong takes over, but not strong enough to defeat them and free the village

-She tries to get Navy assistance but is met with bald-faced corruption. Extreme disillusionment follows

-They travel for a few years, Bell-mere always trying to get stronger so they can return and save the village one day.

-Nami studies hard and has plenty of opportunities on the sea to polish her skills as a navigator.

-Nojiko remains deeply hurt and outraged by The Navy's betrayal. Since she was older she had been told many more stories from her mom's time with them, and thus had a much stronger attachment to the idea of them. Being left by The Marines, with her whole community, to suffer and die, shook her entire world. She seeks out people who don't look kindly on The World Government everywhere they go, collecting stories. She has hopes of joining The Revolutionary Army one day

-This is also a Sora lives au. (@ Oda Stop killing all the moms! Let them unionize!) One day on their travels they come across a sickly woman and her two kids, Reiju and Sanji, who are on the run from a mysterious (in the East Blue) Mercenary Army.

-It goes like this: the two groups are in the same diner. Soldiers of Germa 66 bust in and try to grab Sora and her kids. They scream and cry for help. Nearby Marines intervene. This obviously doesn't look good for the Germa soldiers, attempting to kidnap a sickly woman and two young kids in broad daylight. They try to pay off the highest ranking Marine there to look the other way, with an absolutely outrageous sum. It works.

-Nojiko charges. Bell-mere didn't expect her usually cool-headed daughter to do something so reckless, and doesn't realize she'd gotten up until she heard the crash of Nojiko kicking the top Marine in the head. Nami had been paying more attention, and is already primed to hit the same Marine in the back with a diner chair before he can retaliate on Nojiko.

-Despite their training, they're kids, and these are Marines. If Bell-mere wasn't there, it would've been a world of hurt. But Bell-mere of course is right there, and takes down all three Marines before they know what hit them. In the chaos, Reiju takes down both Germa Soldiers with her superior strength.

-Now they're a group, standing in a public place, with a pile of Marines (and Mercenaries) at their feet. Yikes.

-They run together.

-Reiju and Nojiko, both being oldest girls about the same age, recognize each other and bond instantly. They convince their mothers' they'll be stronger together.

-Bell-mere was easy to convince, suffering from survivor's guilt from the occupation of Coco Village, she's very quick to take on other's burdens. Sora, despite feeling an instinctual trust for and deep attraction to this tough butch who saved her life, is much more hesitant. Putting her life and resources in the hands of one very powerful person was what got her into this mess.

-But it's not easy to make Reiju happy, a girl who takes responsibility for both her mother and younger brother, who orchestrated their escape, who defends them physically, who has a childhood of training to repress herself to unlearn. Sora saw Reiju actually laugh with someone other than herself and Sanji, and she can't take this new comrade away from her. Not to mention having another protector in Bell-mere could ease Reiju's burdens. She has to say yes.

-And it's a good thing she does, because the top Marine they knocked out kicks up an absolutely ginormous fuss. Suddenly Bell-mere, Sora, and the kids are wanted criminals with posters strewn everywhere. It takes all their wits and strength combined to survive.

-They're on the run together for years before they make it to Rouge's Island.

-Nami is younger than Sanji, but at this age she's bigger than him, and he's a huge crybaby while she keeps a very brave face. She's utterly delighted to treat him like a little brother, much to his annoyance. "I'm not the youngest anymore!" "Yes you are! Stop it!" "You can't be bigger than me when you're such a baby." "I'm a baby?! I saw you get scared too!" "No you didn't! Shut up!" They get very competitive.

-Reiju and Nojiko have the kind of weird little girl best friendship that has the intensity and power to destroy worlds. They are on levels of telepathic connection previously unheard of. And they are so serious about it and so fucking goofy. The SCHEMES they get up to.... And of course constantly being made to drag their little siblings along for the ride

-Picture this. They've been docked at the same island for a couple weeks. They're having an easy time, they've just gotten comfortable with a good doctor for Sora and a nice place to stay for a bit. The kids see a Marine Ship out sailing nearby while they're playing on the beach. If they tell their moms, they're sure to pack up and leave immediately. Of course the answer is to scare off the Navy ship themselves with a fake sea monster.

-Yes it's the end of the world if this mission fails. They'll have failed their families, and the concepts of bravery and justice, and they'll all die and get killed and never join the resistance or anything ever. Yes this fake sea monster needs to have extra whiskers.

-So serious. SO GOOFY.

-Meanwhile their moms are having the most repressed intense butch-femme erotic slow-burn romance of all time in the background.

-Bell-mere, in her head: How much of this is coming from my fucked-up desire to save people? Am I fetishizing her weakness? What's wrong with me? If I have to see the glow of her soft skin, shiny with the sweat of illness, peeking out from beneath her long dress one more time I am going to faint and die.

-Sora, in her head: How much of this is coming from my fucked-up desire to be saved? Am I fetishizing her strength? Do I just want to give up responsibility so badly? Am I appreciating her as a person or do I just want what she can give me? If I hear her loud laugh of victory after buying food for what barely counts as a bargain one more time I'm simply going to explode with love and desire.

None of the kids notice this at all even a little bit.

-Of course with Nojiko's story-gathering and Nami's navigational genius, and the Marines still hot on their tail, and Sora and Bell-mere's desire to find a place to finally stop for the sake of their kids, they do eventually make their way to Rouge's island.

-Rouge, at this point deeply deranged with isolation, fear for her sons, and suspicion, does not greet them well.

-Bell-mere does not take no for an answer.

-Their fight leaves a giant crater in the side of the island. It lasts for days, and only ends because while they were distracted all their kids did an enemies-to-best friends speedrun.

-Lead of course by Luffy, who despite loyalty to Rouge and natural suspicion of her apparent enemies, has little willpower against the smell of Sanji's cooking. His completely earnest undignified begging by the campfire endears him to the others, as well as his heartfelt thanks, and their kind and patient treatment of him endears them to his older brothers.

-Also they're all lonely as hell so it truly does not take much. They're running around the jungle, being given a tour of the best spots on the island by the ASL brothers FOR LITERALLY HOURS before at the same exact moment Reiju, Nojiko, and Sabo all go Oh Shit We Should Probably Stop Our Moms From Killing Each Other.

-Lol.

-I have other ideas involving Robin, and I want to save Banchina (Usopp's mom) as well. I think what this au needs is a doctor character. Someone Rouge trusts to help her give birth, who is also an enemy of the world government, who can stay on the island with them. Who can treat Sora when they arrive. (Treat not heal, her being chronically ill and disabled is important to me.) But I can't think of anyone who isn't needed elsewhere.... I guess I have to make them up....

[moe-broey]

Alfonse King of Minding His Own Business. Kiran Monarch of I WANNA BE A FURRY I WANNA BE A FURRY I WANNA BE A FURRY SOOOOOOOOOO FUCKING BAAAAAADDDDDD

Kiran drop your fursona NOW‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

[my-dear-ceramic-frogs]

Kissing

[smoshh]

For anyone who didn’t see: Ian & Anthony shook hands and promised that they’ll still be friends no matter what it says in Anthony’s angry letter

[violetgarlends]

i love fxmq so much but also like. god. fenglian. they’re not even a ship to me they’re like a concept. a state of mind. a constant of the universe

[novelconcepts]

84 for platonic vannat

84 - Falling Asleep On Their Shoulder

"You ever think about what our moms are doing?" Natalie asks one afternoon. Late summer has come up faster than any of them were hoping, and the forest has gone hazy with heat. She and Van are sitting by the creek, shoes off, feet in the water. If Natalie closes her eyes, she can almost imagine they're seated in shitty lawn chairs, up to the ankle in buckets of cold water.

"Probably making friendship bracelets." Van kicks her feet, watching the water swirl. "And charitable donations in our name. The usual."

Natalie dips her fingers into the creek, tracing a particularly attractive stone. She considers plucking it out, pocketing it. Discards the idea half a second later. The appeal of the stone is, after all, in being exactly where it is.

"Do you think they're okay?" she asks. It's all too easy to imagine her mother--already something of a trainwreck since the accident--fading away in the trailer. She wonders if anyone has thought to check in. Come knocking with a six-pack and a smile. She doubts it.

"Dunno." Van doesn't look at her. Her voice is perfectly neutral. She looks so little like the gleeful person Natalie's known since elementary school. So much more adult than she ought to.

So much more adult when she says, "Do we care?" She isn't joking. She says it idly, her eyes distant. They don't shine like they used to.

"I care," Natalie answers. She doesn't know how to shut it off. She wishes she could.

Van hums an indistinct response. She lays her head on Natalie's shoulder. "I know you do."

Van cares, too, Natalie is sure. If she didn't, she wouldn't have spent her childhood pulling Mrs. Palmer from the depths of whatever alcohol-soaked depression has that woman by the throat. Van cares, like she cares about the team out here--but that caring is colored by a certain kind of narrative. A certain kind of awareness as to how the story will go.

Van cares about that story most of all. She acts her part well, playing Lottie's games, but Natalie suspects she doesn't really believe in the religion they've constructed out here. Van's religion is stories. Always has been. Always will be. Van believes in the narrative, in arranging the plot points she can control and predicting the ones she can't.

She can't control her mother's narrative out here. Can't even see the shades of the genre in which Mrs. Palmer has trapped herself. So, Natalie figures she's thinking: what point is there in caring?

Van does care, but she doesn't care the way Natalie does. The way Natalie can't stop. She cares about it all: the team, and the dead, and her father's blown-apart face, and her mother's surrender to grief. She cares about every little thing so much, she sometimes thinks it's going to be the thing that kills her.

Van's head grows heavy on her shoulder. Natalie reaches up, trailing her fingers through tangled red hair. Van cares, but she can't care the way Natalie does. Maybe that's why Natalie's stuck wearing the crown, and Van's behind the scenes. Pulling the strings. Predicting the plot twists.

"I hope they're okay," she whispers to the creek, and the stones, and Van's gentle doze. If Van can't spare the energy, Natalie will hope it hard enough for both of them.

[skyshroom]

Oh you want to play Free game Pedestal by Uri so bad… oooo you want to boot up your old crusty laptop and play Pedestal by Uri for free soooo bad…

[tiodolma]

King Lot and Guinevere happily bonding over fun mealtime violence asdasfgdhjfhk

.........

ngl this was a really pleasant surprise. Guinevere really steps up to her role as queen and natural host here. King Lot is hilarious as always.

while lancelot is being a little moody sht

[awsok]

biggest tragedy ever is that people stopped talking about do revenge like a week after it came out

[19871997]

I got recommended a post about Dylan on insta and it made me look him up and go down a rabbit hole on his account. But man, the way he was Connor’s best friend and now Leon is Connor’s best friend, like I’m just wondering what that’s like for Dylan. Now Leon’s his best friend and duo, and they are and have been plastered all over the nhl, and they post each other on their accounts. How that must feel. Like does he care, do they actually still talk, keep tabs on each other, is he going to Connor’s wedding?? Like I cannot wait for this wedding to see if Dylan was invited or not. Also sorry for the random out of nowhere thoughts about this 😂

dylan liked that one tweet of connor tearing up dallas defencemen during the edm-dal series BUT connor didnt go to dylan’s wedding and dylan wasnt at connor’s bachelor party..

[in-tenebris-et-in-solitudine]

If your girl isn’t your bestfriend what’s the point