#breaking us once again

[turtleblogatlast]

[ cw: death mention / strangulation mention / stabbing mention / blood mention / self-sacrifice / codependency mention in tags / ]

I think a lot about how common it is for Raph to be the one to have direct focus put on him when Leo gets into all his near death experiences.

Like, when Leo is thrown off a building, it’s Raph who’s right there jumping after him, not even thinking about the consequences to himself when he does. When Leo almost gets skewered by the Krang, Raph’s right there to take the blow and send Leo to safety without a second thought. When Leo’s being strangled to near death, it’s a Krangified Raph doing the job, doing exactly what Raph would never, ever want to do. When Leo is telling Casey Jr to close the portal, it’s Raph who tries desperately to convince Leo otherwise.

Likewise, Leo is consistently very single minded when Raph gets forcibly separated from them. Both when in the sewers and by the Krang, Leo is dead set on finding Raph first and foremost.

I also think it’s interesting that during each of Leo’s near death experiences, the lightheartedness of his words during them goes directly hand in hand with both how close Raph is to him physically and how much danger Raph is also in in that moment. From a literal “I told you so” as Leo’s falling away from Raph to a soft joke about how “hero moves” are Raph’s style - both of these are on the more morbidly carefree side and both of these notably take Leo farther away from Raph and, in turn, have Raph not in immediate danger.

On the other side of things is the apology from Leo, heedless of the danger he himself is in as he seriously and genuinely speaks to a Krangified Raph face to face. Then there’s Leo’s freezing and desperation as Raph takes a hit meant for him and sends just Leo to safety, leaving Raph himself behind. Both of these involve much closer proximity and Raph being directly harmed - these together make Leo much more vulnerable in his words and actions, something not even the threat of death can make him.

These two care about each other so much, and they’re way too much alike for their own good.

[adverbally]

Think of the Tender Things

Written for the @steddieangstyaugust prompt “‘Keep breathing, please.’” | wc: 773 | rated: T | cw: hospital, premature baby | tags: adoption, new parent anxiety, hopeful ending | title from “Don’t You (Forget About Me)” by Simple Minds

———

The NICU has its own window, far enough from the regular nursery to seem intentional. It makes sense to Eddie, theoretically speaking— keep the preemies and the sick babies away from the healthy ones so the comparison isn’t so startling. It just doesn’t work that well if they have to walk past the full-term nursery anyway.

They pause to observe the fat, happy newborns who will be going home in the next day or two. They’re all chubby cheeks and chunky limbs, round little tummies swaddled tightly with matching caps on their heads, just like the parenting books advertise.

Steve’s hand squeezes his, and Eddie knows he’s feeling the same thing: that’s how it should’ve been, and all of the guilt and fear and bitterness that goes along with that line of thinking.

They keep walking down the hall until they reach the door indicating the special care nursery. The glass there is smaller, since fewer babies fit in a room when they’re surrounded with incubators and ventilators and monitors galore.

The second bassinet from the right has a card with a stork that says “Baby Boy Munson” and wow, that’s going to take some time to get used to. Eddie gets closer, almost pressing his nose against the glass, to get a better look.

“He’s so small,” Steve says beside him. “I figured he would be, but…”

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. It says right there on the little card: three pounds, thirteen ounces. Sixteen inches long. Not the smallest baby there but noticeably smaller than the ones they just walked past. “A lot of hair, too.”

“Yeah.”

They’re quiet after that. There’s not much they can comment on before they have to acknowledge the fact that they’ve just become adoptive parents a full two months ahead of schedule.

Their son (holy shit) seems even smaller with the tubes and wires obscuring him. Eddie identifies an oxygen cannula, a feeding tube, chest leads, an IV, and a blood pressure cuff, plus a few other lines he doesn’t know the purpose of. When you factor in a diaper that seems to dwarf half of his tiny body, there’s barely any skin visible. And from what Eddie understands, they’re lucky that more serious care isn’t necessary.

“Thirty-two weeks. That’s not… it could be worse,” Steve said after they got the call from the adoption agency that morning. The whole drive to the hospital, he rambled about lung maturity and the suck/swallow reflex and birth weight, going into one of Eddie’s ears and out the other as he tried to focus on the road.

Steve was the one who read all the books. Even the parts about premature births and what could go wrong throughout the pregnancy. “I’d just rather know and be prepared,” he explained. “Just to cover our bases.”

Eddie had skipped those chapters. It felt like bad luck, like tempting fate or something, as if avoiding it would prevent anything from happening. In retrospect, he wishes he had more of a clue about what’s going on, what their future will look like.

Any future seems far away when the present is so uncertain. Eddie watches his son squirm, with his too-long limbs and his too-big head, and he watches his chest rise and fall with each breath. His tiny lungs are working and he’s moving and none of his machines are beeping, and that has to be enough for now.

Just keep breathing, please, he thinks desperately. Keep growing and getting stronger and we’ll worry about the rest later.

When Steve breaks the silence, his voice is small. “Do you think we can hold him? Or, or touch him, at least?”

Eddie doesn’t want to. He knows it’s just his anxiety talking, but he’s terrified that he’ll pull some essential line or do something wrong. He was supposed to have another two months to prepare for this. How do people prepare for this?

“Ed, are you okay?” Steve’s voice startles him back into awareness.

“Yeah, just…” He pauses to think about how to say it without alarming Steve. He settles on, “I’m scared.”

Steve throws his arms around Eddie’s neck and pulls him into a tight hug. “I’m scared, too,” he confesses in a whisper. “I think we’re gonna keep being scared for the next eighteen years, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it.”

Eddie tucks his nose just under Steve’s ear and breathes him in, sweet shampoo and hints of spicy cologne in the collar of his jacket. They stay like that for long moments before Eddie sighs and pulls away with a decisive nod. “Okay. Let’s go meet our son.”

[iamnmbr3]

i love how draco and harry have the perfect setup for an 'enemies to even worse enemies' story about how their childish enmity turns into true hatred and violence as they grow up and join their respective sides of the war

but they keep missing their cues. every time either of them is in actual danger they immediately drops the whole rivalry thing and are willing to risk it all to save each other.

harry's like 'omg i hate draco so much he's totally a death eater' but after the sectumsempra incident he completely backs off even tho his suspicions are more confirmed than ever because he doesn't want to be in a situation where he could hurt draco and after the astronomy tower confrontation he actively lies to minimize draco's role in things and spends the rest of book 6 and all of book 7 worrying about him. and he saves him twice without hesitation in book 7.

and draco's like 'im a death eater now and i hate harry potter so much' but even though he knows firsthand what letting harry potter escape will mean for him and his family he doesn't identify him at the manor and says nothing when he sees that harry and ron are loose in their cell instead of still tied up and he lets harry take his wand while barely putting up a fight and in the room of requirement even unarmed he tries to stop crabbe and goyle from hurting harry and doesn't touch his mark to summon voldemort and his wand works perfectly for harry despite being of the most loyal core.

they really looked at the obvious 'narrative foils who go from petty rivals to deadly enemies' arc for their relationship and said 'lol no thanks we'd like to be narrative foils who dysfunctionally pine for 7 books instead'

[wispforever]

original quote under the cut

[queerprayers]

i want to say first of all that i fully respect a community's/denomination's/culture's right to have closed practices. i am not entitled to other people's traditions, and when i am a guest in a space i understand that everything is not automatically for me. and i know i do not have to understand to respect.

and also! when i go to a catholic church and can't receive communion i want to fall on the floor weeping. what do you mean i can't have him he's right there. sorry my baptism was the wrong kind of baptism. i'm hungry and you want me to become someone else before being fed.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

the artblock be hitteth Harder than normal, for tis not normal artblock. woe. Wally be upon ye

[dxxtruction]

Louis' "You're boring!" Could mean so many things, but I think what's most apparent about that line is that Armand takes no initiative just for himself. He's not really anybody, because he never goes out and finds himself or gets attached to anyone but Louis. Without Louis as his guide he's literally just sitting on a couch picking lint! That's the thing.

He orbits constantly around what would make Louis happy, and never really fully going what would make me happy? Ultimately that drive to please Louis is what drives him to torturing Daniel, not so much that he'd care to just do it. Ultimately, not giving proper care to Louis is just a way to make sure Louis knows he has to orbit around him as well, with shoving Lestat onto him just that other nail on the coffin. So, even if he fails to figure out how to make Louis happy with him, he still knows what Armand is good for, and better than.

That dependency is what drives Armand's abuse. It really just comes down to that. Armand doesn't even realize how suffocated he is by his own dependency. This is just how life is to him. (It shouldn't be lost either that dependency is a theme considering this episode also deals with addiction).

Daniel's fascinating because he's just so driven to be somebody. He's largely independent, he seeks things because he wants them. It's his drug to poke and prod at all the things that he shouldn't. Daniel's exciting because he lets Louis in to something different, lets him in to all this potential in another person that he can also do the same with for himself. It's a real connection. A two way street. It's easy to tell how Armand can be smothering then because he's never introducing him to anything really new, and most the ways both of them connect are all painful and traumatic. It's never just fun because there's always that layer of that pain. Fun died with Claudia.

50 years on they've gotten to a lot better place, both of them, but it's still that same shit. No seriously, "How is this any different from last time, Louis?"

Well... Because Armand's going to be, at the very least, making one [1] decision only for himself - and that's to hold power over Daniel's life. Fucking sick foreshadowing.

They aren't driving each other to the brink anymore but "The vampire is bored" STILL. Maybe it's even worse, despite being in better places, because Louis' sort of just been defeated by it. (I mean, can he even really leave this either?). He's accepting the dependancy cause he kind of has to. He'd literally ended up letting all the enjoyment be up where he can't reach [The book shelves]. Armand so desperately wants Louis happiness but what really ends up happening is that Louis ends up having to give Armand all his own. He's got no one or anything else to get it from. But like an iPad and an over the top eating ritual. Two extremes of what's just more lint picking.

This whole relationship is one I find just tragic inside and out. You have to just pity it, really. There's ways in which you can find yourself feeling bad for both of them. But you can only really be mad at Armand for any of it. Armand, who isn't even 'free' in any sense, having so little concept of his own independence, but is at the same time so controlling over other's. It's a tragic cycle. It's an infuriating one.

Louis at least has the mind to know when enough is enough. If just needing that extra push to get there. Armand's too scared of it being over to even try.

[boredsoup]

Look at your couch, it is homo-baroque! 🗣️ Don't talk to me about taste! 🗣️

[elizabethzoopzoop986]

I miss Mei so much you don’t understand :( bring her back AidaIro. Also Yako and Hakubo

I hate how the school mysteries (other than Hanako, Mitsuba and Akane) get there one arc where you really get to know them and care about them and then they just go away forever. GIVE THEM BACK PLS AIDAIRO LET THEM OUT OF THE CLOSET THEYVE DONE NOTHING WRONG

[in-fair-verona-we-set-our-scene]

I think Slay the Princess is so popular partially because the *gets stabbed* "I'm in love" reaction is both intentional on the part of the developers and then they completely follow through on it.

[parab0mb]

The first time I fought the King (after getting the shield of course) I was able to beat him no problem, but then on the subsequent attempt I ended up dying like 5 times in a row because he keeps spamming his instakill attack before the shield can recharge.

Is he supposed to be harder after beating him the first time? Or am I just getting unlucky, because I feel like I only beat him again purely by lucking out and having him not spam the instakill.

[hollywoodsargeant]

boyish - chapter 12 16.5k words | 151.8k words total | loscar

“You’re just the expert of amicable break ups, or something.” Logan doesn’t think about Oscar saying that when one of Mia’s friends comes into his work the summer after graduation and asks if he’s “finally dating that Australian boy.” He says no, because he’s not, and she leaves appearing unconvinced. Logan can barely remember her name, but for some reason, he’s upset she doesn’t know Oscar’s. It makes him feel weirdly sick. He daydreams about crawling into a bucket of live bait and waiting to be thrown out to the water, seeing who will latch onto him first.

IT'S BEEN 84 YEARS (three months)... i hope this waters ur crops. 16k words of boyish loscar back on the table. my semester is almost over and i might explode if i don't finish this fic soon i have been dying to share the ending with you all <3 if anyone remembers me saying i was afraid of chapter 12 please know it kicked my ass way harder than i ever dreamed it could. PLEASE ENJOY!

+ here is a link to chapter one if you would prefer :)

[cheesy09]

[CN] Kiro's 2024 Birthday Prequel

🌸 Warning: This post contains detailed spoilers for content that hasn't been released on the EN server yet! 🌸

[Note: This was translated with the help of Google Translate :>]

——*:･ﾟ✧——*:･ﾟ✧——

[Episode: First Wish]

The castle is captured by a dragon.

Its sharp claws flash fiercely, and its gigantic wings seem capable of setting off a deadly storm at any second. And ever since then, the world has fallen into darkness, filled with only endless and endless night.

The evil dragon enters the castle with terrifying footsteps. With the slightest movement of its claws, the boy's thin body is easily picked up. His heart seems to beat out of his chest, and the fear prevents him from making any sound. All he can do is close his eyes when the dragon opens its bloody mouth, as if the incoming pain would disappear along with the darkness.

The boy doesn't know when this kind of life will end. But it seems as though his life has been like this for as long as he can remember.

The evil dragon would come to catch him and the other children in the castle every few days. Some children are eaten, and some turned into another kind of monster. Some of the adults will help it; spouting lies and pretending that this castle is a warm place. But the boy knows that many of them have actually turned into dragons -- human-shaped dragons. There is no safe space within this castle, and cries and shouts come from all around. He covers his ears, hugs the little bear in his arms, and keeps running deeper into the corridor.

But the figure of the evil dragon gets closer and closer.

If the boy doesn't find a place to hide, he will get caught.

His breathing grows more and more rapid, and cold sweat continues to break out on his back. A huge shadows envelops his tiny figure, and he shuts his eyes in fright--

"I'm going to be eaten again." He discards his thoughts and waits for the outcome that he expects.

With a "thump", the window of the room is blown open by a strong gust of wind, and the boy suddenly wakes up. Turns out that it was just a dream.

He skillfully wraps himself up in his blanket and runs to the window, and like he has done countless nights before, he struggles to close the window with his little hands covered in frostbite. Although spring has arrived, this orphanage seems to have remained impervious to its warmth, the wind outside as biting and cold as ever. Nights were always difficult, and his hands would hurt from the wind.

Walking back to his bed on the cold marble floor, he huddles up within his worn blanket.

He quickly tries to warm up his body, especially his hands. When he first developed these chilblain, he had felt itchy and couldn't keep himself from scratching them, which would then turn into bigger sores that would often cause him to frown in pain. Now that he is used to it, as long as he endures it, he may get better faster, although he doesn't understand why these things appear in winter.

Compared to his peers, he still doesn't understand many things.

He doesn't understand why the children around him want to talk to him, why they raise their eyebrows or lower the corners of their mouths;

He doesn't understand how to respond to these conversations;

He doesn't understand why others don't respond to apparently beautiful patterns or pleasant sounds;

He doesn't even know how to express the world he sees.

But compared to his peers, he knows a lot. The bitter white tablets are medicine; the sharp ones that pierce the skin are needles; you will bleed if you are hurt or injured;

Going to a single room is scary; if someone goes cold and stiff, they are dead.

Once you die, you will never make a sound again.

Then someone will take them away and then disappear.

It isn't until the pain in his hand gradually eases that he pulls off the blanket and looks around.

After such a tossing, most of his sleepiness disappears. After making sure that all of the others are asleep, he carefully takes out the shabby picture book from under his pillow.

Under the moonlight, he skillfully turns to the last page.

"The warrior completely defeated the evil dragon. The darkness ended, the world returned to its former brightness, and the people lived happily ever after." He doesn't know the words on it, but he can understand the picture, and he likes the ending. Although he has seen it countless times, he still enjoys it.

The paper of the picture book is somewhat yellowed, and the rough printing makes the pictures and text unclear. But just like this, what may look like trash and waste paper in the eyes others, is a rare treasure to him, making these cold night less lonesome.

The night watchman's terrible voice sounds in the corridor. To him, the sound is akin to an imaginary evil dragon, making shiver unconsciously. He immediately puts the picture book back under his pillow and hides it, laying down and pretending to sleep. Just close your eyes, the dragon still roars. He can't help but wrap the blanket tightly around him.

Maybe spring will be better. At least, it that warm season, his frostbite will be better, and he wouldn't have to be woken up by rusty windows every night and have to close them again.

"If I can become a warrior, will I be able to defeat those evil dragons?"

"Then I will become a true warrior."

Little 1562 thinks this in his heart. He has never wished for something like this.

At that time, he didn't know that such thoughts were called wishes.

In a daze, he falls asleep again. In his dream, he becomes a real warrior. he defeats the dragon, shattering the invisible darkness, and escapes from the castle. The sun rises slowly outside the window, and the warm sunlight shines on the shabby little bed, climbing onto the boy's cheek little by little, and seemingly illuminating his dreams.

There are sweet clouds in his dream, the world is warm, and it feels soft when one lies down on it. There are no hideous bloodstains or sharp needles. Countless flower stay facing the sun, glowing with a brilliant luster. He looks at it for a long time, then nestles into the flowers, and seemingly turns into a flower facing the sun.

He smiles faintly in his sleep. The weather seems to be getting warmer today--

Spring is coming.

[END]

——*:･ﾟ✧——*:･ﾟ✧——

Date: Coming soon

[puppyeared]

I CANT USE CSS ON ARTFIGHT...............

[sacriou]

She’s a hypocrite but I love her so it’s ok. (Referring to sylv)

[phant0m-l0rd]

self-indulgent Shohei Ohtani ballpoint pen sketch dump from the other week~

(I know this is mainly a music and kdrama blog but I'm afraid the baseball hyperfixation is rotting my brain atm and I had to get it all out of my system)