#but that means like i cannot tell if i have been losing weight or how much or see any of the changes on myself if there are any

[this-doesnt-endd]

I feel like my crown just shifted up oh my god

[hikeyzz]

.

[inkskinned]

no, but really, we need to talk about the casual objectification that has become the fallback discourse of the internet: if you're pretty and dressed nicely, you're a slut. and if you're even vaguely outside of their body standard, you're fucking disgusting.

too-frequently, people position sex workers as being "the problem". they sneer you're addicted to pornography, you don't know what a real woman looks like. but real women are in pornography. the real bodies on display are not the issue here: the issue is that other people feel extremely confident when commenting on someone's physique.

2000's super-thin is slowly worming its way back into the public ideal. recently i saw someone get told to "go for a run", despite the fact she was on the thinner side of average. not that it would ever be appropriate to say that: but it's kind of like sticker shock when you see it. people think that is fat? holy shit. do they just have no idea about things?

but what are you going to do about it? that's the problem, right. because chances are - you're a normal person. we can say normalize carrying fat on your body, but we are not the billion-dollar diet industry. we are not the billion-dollar fashion industry. we are just, like. people. who are trying to make content on the internet, without being treated shittily.

as someone who has been on both sides of things: you are treated better when you are thin and pretty. this is statistically correct. i am not saying that you cannot be bullied for being thin; i'm saying there are objective institutional biases against certain bodytypes. there are videos of men and women who lost weight all saying: i now know for a fact exactly how much worse you're treated. in the comments, some asshole inevitably says something akin to you deserved to be dehumanized when you were fat.

which means that ... the easiest thing to do is be pretty and thin. it is the path of least resistance, because of course it is, because any time you post a picture of yourself without a thigh gap, someone immediately comments something like you need to try a diet.

the other half is also dehumanizing though, huh, just in a different way. when i put on makeup and nice clothes, i am told i slept my way to the top as a professional. do you know how many women in STEM have told me they purposefully dress to "unimpress" because they already struggle to be taken seriously and if they're ever considered pretty - it for some reason takes away from their authority.

so they make it seem like it's your fault. you, existing in a body - it's your fault! if you didn't want shitty comments, don't have a body. they position us against each other like chess pieces; vying for male attention we don't even need.

and i can be an authority on this unless you think i'm fat and unattractive. when i am pretty and thin, i'm an activist. when i am just a normal person who makes a good point: i am immediately dismissed. nobody fucking believes you if you're not seen as attractive. you literally lose value. you cease to exist.

but the whole time, it feels like - is anyone actually grounded the fuck in reality? the line of "pretty and thin" keeps shifting. nobody seems to understand what "a normal weight" even looks like, because it's not something that exists - you cannot tell a person's health by looking at their body. even if you think you could tell that, even if you're sure a person is dangerously overweight - people are not your dolls. they do not need to be dressed up or displayed properly to soothe your aesthetics. you aren't concerned for them, you're stealing their agency. you don't get to say if they're "allowed" to take pictures and post them on the internet - you don't get to tell them how to exist.

people hide behind "the obesity epidemic" without any actual qualifications. they crow things about "normalizing unhealthiness".

but it's bullshit. i have visible abs. there is a pair of parallel lines on my body, even when i'm relaxed; where my obliques meet my abdominal wall. i am proud of this because it means i'm strong, because i overcame an eating disorder only to be ripped as fuck. it is genetic and physical luck that i even get any definition, i'm pleased as punch.

but it does mean that my abdominal wall sticks out a little bit. the other day i posted a video of myself dancing, and, for a moment, my shirt slipped. you could see a little bit of my stomach. i was cartwheeling to the floor. moments before this, i'd had my foot over my head.

a guy slid into my DMs. a row of vomiting emojis prefaced: you should really lose some weight before you think about dancing.

i stared at it for a long time. there was a time when i would have been triggered by this, where it would have encouraged me to starve myself. i would have ignored the fact i'm flexible, agile, good at jumping: i would have lost the weight for a stranger's passing comment. i would have found myself and my body fucking disgusting.

and for what? to please what? because why? so that he can exist in this world without an unchallenged eyeball? what would my self-hatred even accomplish? usually i write paragraphs. obviously. on this particular occasion, in this body i've been at war with for ages: i just felt exhausted.

it shouldn't be even worth saying. it shouldn't be hard to explain. all of this emotional turmoil when he cannot even comprehend the most basic truth: i am not an object on display for him.

[shadowxamyweek]

What The Fuck Do You Mean They Gave Amy Rose an Eating Disorder

Alright. I said I’d talk about why I think Amy has an eating disorder, and so here I am, ready to throw down.

Disclaimer! 

Let me explicitly say- there’s nothing wrong with exercise and there’s nothing wrong with going on a diet. Not intrinsically, anyway. If you’re being smart and healthy about it, you’ve got good people supporting you or you’ve got your own good mental supports to make sure you’re not hurting yourself, that’s awesome. I am not saying these things are evil. What I am saying is there exists a very dark and obsessive undercurrent to *any* sort of health choice due to cultural expectations that, if a person is not careful about, they can get sucked into.  

Trigger warnings!

This is very 'Dead Dove, Do Not Eat.' We're gonna be talking about eating disorders and self harm. It's right here on the tin. If you don't think you're gonna be okay reading this, then don't. I want you to be safe. I believe I've tagged this appropriately, but if I've missed something, please let me know.

What even is an eating disorder? 

Broadly speaking, it is any behavioral condition characterized by abnormal eating habits. Some eating disorders stem from physical difficulty with eating that becomes psychological, while others originate due to psychological issues themselves. There are eating disorders that occur because people just wish to be in control of something, those that originate due to side effects of medication, those that occur due to side effects of other psychological conditions like anxiety or depression. 

This is to say- not all eating disorders are due to an obsession with body image. 

However, it cannot be understated just how many people develop an eating disorder because they are obsessed with body image. 

I am of the opinion Amy falls into the latter category, that she is obsessed with body image and, due to that, has an eating disorder.

So what’s going on with Amy? 

Let’s look at Sonic Battle (2003). It’s a PVP fighting game for the Game Boy Advance, picking up the plot directly after Sonic Heros and introducing us to Ermel (who would die and come back as Germel). Much like the previous games, you would have a singular plot that was divided into sections. We will be focusing on Amy and Cream’s chapters within the story. 

Amy Rose (X)

Cream (X)

Battle is what introduces us to Amy’s boxercising. Originally, she started it to get stronger, Cream citing Amy’s desire to keep Ermel safe after briefly getting kidnapped. However, once she realizes she can lose weight via this method, she becomes obsessed. Cream talks about it, seeming visibly uncomfortable with Amy’s fixation on losing weight, but we don’t really get much in the way of details until we actually fight Amy and see this weightloss obsession in action. 

In the Amy chapter of the story, she takes Ermel back to her apartment to train. They set a goal of 5 KOs, then 10. Amy feels faint, citing lightheadedness. Ermel leaves her alone in her apartment.

The next time you see her, only a few moments later, Cream is there. Turns out Amy was so lightheaded she had to go for a liedown. Cream says she’s worried about Amy. Specifically, she says she’s ‘burnt out,’ from overworking herself. Amy promptly comes back from her short break, stumbling into the room, to which Cream exclaims they can’t keep going because Amy can’t walk straight. Amy tells Cream she’s fine, and proceeds to start another goal of 10 KOs.

After that, Amy wants to keep working out, but she’s reaching her limit. She’s unable to speak more than a word or two without gasping for air. Insisting she can keep exercising, she tries to excuse herself to ‘change tactics’. When Cream follows her, it’s revealed that Amy’s been wearing excessively heavy weights on her arms and legs during this entire training spree.   

Amy says to go for another goal of 10 KOs. Cream, visibly upset, says that Amy has lost her focus on training. Still, you fight her anyway.

After this, Amy collapses. 

She is able to pull herself together after a second, rushing off with Ermel to keep fighting in search of the Chaos Emeralds. Cream seems relieved that Amy’s alright, saying, ‘she’s the strongest woman I know.’ 

The relief does not last long. After you finish Amy’s chapter, you switch to Cream’s. It opens up post boxcercise with Amy congratulating Ermel on getting strong. Cream noticeably stays very quiet during the exchange. 

Then, Amy asks, ‘how much did I lose today?’ 

Ermel tells her that she’s burned 1000 calories during their workout session. If she wants, she can lose a kilo/2 pounds-ish per three days if she is able to keep this up, but she will have to eat only 700 calories a day max and drink 4 liters/ 1 gallon-ish of water a day. Amy gets very excited. She also says she’s going to purchase some ‘super diet-machine.’ to further her progress. She thanks Ermel for helping her get closer to her goal. 

After a bit of a back and forth, Cream says to Ermel that Amy is really getting into this dieting. When Ermel asks, ‘Is getting thin good?’ Cream explains that Amy wants to be thinner so that Sonic might like her back. Ermel, understandably, doesn’t get it. Cream replies that, sometimes, a person will do anything for someone they love. Ermel stays silent, and Cream says that one day, they may eventually understand. 

(I swear there’s an additional dialog option if you go back to Amy’s place to talk to her where Ermel suggests she eat nothing but lettuce leaves, but I have misplaced my own copy of the game and cannot verify this. As such, I am not going to use it as evidence, but I do ask that if anyone DOES have the game, fact-check me on this place. I’d like to know if my memory is correct or if this is just a fabrication due to… everything mentioned above.) 

So okay, that’s the beats of the story. Now let’s talk about dangerous exercise and diet culture:

Exercise and Eating Disorders

Boxercise feels like a direct parallel to stuff like Jazzercise (60s-80s) or Zumba (00s-10s), which is just normal exercise with a twist of some sort that make it palatable for mass engagement/marketing. These different fun and exciting methods (and they can be- they can be fun- I’m not even gonna lie.) of workout were often sold as methods of both gaining strength and losing weight, but the losing weight often becomes their focus. This game even calls out the ‘this will make me stronger’ to ‘this will make me thin and desirable’ mental pipeline that can happen in the culture surrounding these sorts of exercise methods, unfortunately fostered despite whatever intentions their creators or individualized mentors had. There is nothing wrong with any of these styles of exercise. However, overexercise can be a hallmark of an eating disorder, and a culture of obsession that can surround fad exercises promoting extreme weightloss is dangerous. (X) (X)

It’s not new. The culture around these fad exercise methods might create a special sort of vortex, but look closely, and you'll likely pick up a few people with the same mindset at any old gym. ‘If I just keep pushing, if I just keep going, if I ignore the pain, I’ll be who I want to be.’ That’s how people get permanent injury, from Jannet going way too hard at pilates to Keith pushing far too much weight. 

Speaking of weights- We are lead to believe that Amy has been wearing weights this entire time. I don’t just mean for the fight mentioned above. Think about it- she takes them off during that massive workout/fight, but when did she put them on? We don’t see it. We’ve been with her nearly the entire time. This reads to me that she has had them on the entire day, not just for her exercising. 

It should be noted that wearing weights in this manner for an extended period of time can lead to damage (X) . As an aside, I have found no studies on the matter, but at least half of the people I know who have also had an eating disorder at one point or another intentionally weighed themselves down in some manner thinking they could burn more calories by doing whatever it was they were doing. This includes wearing training weights all the time, overfilling backpacks and carrying them around, and other things.

It’s not the exercise that is bad, it’s not the method that is bad, it’s not most of the community that is bad, but there is (and has always been, and will always be, unfortunately) a portion of it with this dangerous mindset that a person can get sucked into if they are not careful.

Due to the evidence above, it seems clear to me that Amy has gotten sucked into this mindset. 

That’s just a part of it though. The restricted eating is where it gets really solidified for me. 

Diet Culture and Eating Disorders

Now, obviously I’m going to be going off of human numbers, so if you wish to counterargue that ‘oh well they’re smaller/different species of course they’d need less calories’ that’s fine- feel free to do so- but just understand I personally don’t think the text was written with that sort of calculation in mind. 

The average human body, even if it is a body largely at rest, needs about 2,000 calories a day to help maintain good health (X) (PLEASE ignore BMI it's a bullshit method of measurement). Various fad diets or crazes have come and gone across the centuries, with focuses on trying to achieve whatever body type was popular in that moment. 

‘This will make you sexy. This will make you wanted. This will finally make someone love you. Before, you were unlovable. After, maybe you’ll have a real chance.’ 

Noticeably, in the fad diets of the 90s into today, the focus for a lot of people attempting to lose weight has been ‘restrict your caloric intake.’ That’s not a problem until you start cutting out foods with nutrients the body needs to survive and/or getting to under a 1,000 calories a day (X). 

Despite what a lot of popular caloric or generalized eating restriction diets will tell you, if you keep your body from energy, it will go into protection mode. Protection mode is where your body acts like it is starving, because it is, thus slowing down its stash of burnable energy. Your average caloric burn then DROPS. This causes it to become harder and harder to lose weight the longer you starve yourself, which creates a vicious cycle.

Furthermore, if you are both working out and dieting, you need good caloric intake when working out in order to help facilitate building muscle. If you don’t eat properly while working out, you don’t build the muscle you should and, in fact, you can lose muscle or cause permanent damage since your muscles won’t have the tools/energy to repair themselves after workouts. 

Crash diets/workouts like this are also not sustainable. There have been dozens of studies on how losing weight too quickly can be bad for the body, but beyond that, the mental tax of trying to maintain a non-maintainable lifestyle of limited eating/ overworkout often ends in a massive rebound (a rubber-banding if you wanna call it that) due to lethargy or mental fatigue (not helped by the lack of food.). That plus a brutalized metabolism will cause people to gain the weight they lost back, make it more difficult to lose, and might ultimately result in the person gaining more weight than they had previously. Again- vicious cycle. (X)

But the dieting industry, the diet culture doesn’t really care about that. It largely doesn’t care if its product or concept or whatever hurts you. Its job is to make money. 

Because here’s the thing- Most people have a part of themselves, however small, that would love to change. Most people would like to be liked, to be needed, to be desired in some capacity. Due to this, a person's self worth is often tied up in some part of themself, often something that is visual, often something that, if given the opportunity, they’d change. 

How does continued hunger relate to mood? 

The concept of being ‘hangry’ is pretty well known. (X). Be hungry long enough, you get physically unwell, and you can unlock a special sort of anger that only comes with being hungry. 

Not just that, but being hungry for extended periods of time can also cause issues with mental clarity (X).

It goes just beyond hangry though. Food and nutrition have long been understood to affect mood and mental well being, though not to the scientific degree able to be achieved today (X) . To summarize as simply as possible- your gut biome, which is dictated largely by your diet, directly impacts mental and physical wellbing. If your gut biome is maintained as it should be, then you overall will have a healthier mental state and overall feel better. If your gut biome is poor, due to undereating or lack of intake of needed nutrients, your biome will start to wither. This will directly impact your mental and physical wellbeing. (X)

I’m not going to dwell on this for terribly long, but I want to bring it up in correlation with the previous two sections because who amongst the Sonic crew is often labeled as being emotionally unstable and prone to moodswings? 

Amy Rose. 

Who is often fingered as having outbursts of volatile anger? 

Amy Rose. 

And who do we see starving themselves in game and working themselves past the point of exhaustion? 

Amy Rose. 

Listen, I confess this one is a bit of a stretch. It’s more of a continuation from the two other points that I sort of wanted to point out. If you can understand the previous arguments for her overworking and underfeeding herself, then this one feels like a natural third component in that and, as such, I felt it should be at least mentioned. 

What I Personally Have Seen in Regards to Eating Disorders in Media while Growing Up.

Thank goodness so much has changed. I remember eating disorders taking up whole episodes in television series, whole issues in comics, whole books in novel series, and it has largely evaporated. The problem is still around, because of course it is, but it is far less of a joke now than it use to be. 

When I was growing up, there were a lot- and I mean a lot- of stories that said, ‘Oh, if you were just a little better, someone would love you. Someone will notice you. If you were prettier, cooler, thinner, buffer, whatever- people would notice you. Someone would love you. Maybe even that specific person you wish could love you back.’ 

‘If you just tried a little harder, maybe it’ll happen.’

And you saw this in the real world, in the marketing, in the fashion, everywhere. Advertisements pushed that if you didn’t fit this very specific, narrow, palatable concept of beauty, then you weren’t worth anyone’s time. 

When this was portrayed in media, it often manifested directly into characters doing insane things to change themselves. Sometimes it was their style of dress, or their personality. Oftentimes, it would manifest in them trying to get buff or be thin.

With a lot of stories, the character often came to the conclusion of, ‘Hey, just be you. You’re good as you- don’t do things to impress other people. Don’t be who you’re not because you feel you have to.’ 

But it was a coinflip as to whether or not the story would prove that to be wrong or true. 

Worse still, even if the lesson was still ‘just be you,’ the whole ordeal was often portrayed as a joke. 

Specifically, women- girls- working out to exhaustion, starving themselves, was portrayed as a joke. 

If the goal of the story was for comedy, and the end had the character revert back to who they were previously, it can usually be put into one of two categories: 

‘How could you be so stupid? How could you believe you ever needed to change? How dumb are you to fall for social pressure like that?’ 

or-

‘How could you be so stupid? How could you believe you could change? You’re not strong enough to change. You’re too you to ever be liked.’  

On that note, let’s back up and return to Amy.

I’m the sort of person that’s got a narrow focus when it comes to Sonic properties. Specifically, if it’s not game canon, it’s not canon to me. 

However, in understanding that other canons exist, other properties within the Sonic universe exist, I won’t ignore them. Even if I don’t think they’re canon, if there is a throughline within, I cannot help but to notice. 

So it’s with this in mind that I ask you: Do you know of Sonic Spin and Dash?

It’s a manga. Put out in the early 00’s, it was a little series of comics that focused on Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Shadow, and Eggman having arbitrary interactions. They’re largely cute and lighthearted. I couldn’t tell you officially what the official age demographic would be for them, but I’d have to guess something fairly young. 

Volume 6 is titled, ‘A Maiden's High-Tech Diet.’ In it, Amy freaks out about having gained 3 kilos/ about 7 pounds. Despite the fact that she’s a growing girl, this deeply upsets her. She asks Tails and Sonic not to eat (in front of her? At all? Unsure.) while she’s trying to diet. Eggman shows up and offers her a solution- a diet machine that will help her achieve the weight and look she wants so deeply. 3 days later, Amy approaches Sonic again. 

She’s emaciated. Wobbling in from off-stage, unable to even speak a sentence without pausing, she asks Sonic if she’s looking thinner. 

Let me rephrase- she’s asking if she looks ‘thin enough’.

Eggman, via his dieting ‘robot’ which really is just a mech he’s hiding inside, asks Amy and co. to perform more insane tasks to weaken them and cause them to be too exhausted to fight him. However, even during this, Amy has other ‘slimming’ products that she’s bought which she uses to defeat Eggman.  

In the end, everyone exhausts Eggman, causing him to give up his scheme and leave. By the end of all of it, he himself is looking thin, having worked off much of his weight in this charade. 

It’s just played off as a joke. 

Alright, but that was early 00’s. How’s Sega been about Amy now? 

Well, this hasn’t really come up in games again, thank goodness. I reiterate- times have changed, and I’m very glad about that. That doesn’t mean this sort of thing is entirely gone, however. This image is from Sonic Channel in 2022 (X).

The image is accompanied by this caption:

---

“Otome Straight!” Emmy is passionate about boxercise , saying it's perfect for dieting

Indoor training on rainy days is perfect! Bouncing the punching bag and working up a good sweat with Emel's support

"Mom, do your best. Ato Sukoshi."

 Let's keep a healthy body with training for the rainy season !

---

Once again, we have this focus on dieting and food reduction. Again, not a bad thing- perfectly normal- but the reason I take pause is because of the crossed out icecream picture. 

@mysuperlaserpiss - I hope you don’t mind, but I wanted to bring up your comment on that initial post I put out.

…Yeah. Yeah, I 100% agree. 

So when conversations around eating disorders comes up, one of the first things to discuss is, ‘what is your relationship to food?’ Essentially, it boils down to: do you see food as fuel and that it is a normal thing to have, or do you see it is something you have to earn/avoid? (X)

Amy beating the shit out of a punching bag sporting a crossed out picture of icecream, talking about dieting, smacks of, ‘you see food as something you have to earn/avoid,’ to me. It’s as simple as that. This appears as though she’s beating the desire for certain foods out of herself. Simply put, that’s not healthy. 

Okay, so what? 

Man, I don’t know.  

I don’t know, alright? I don’t know. 

I’m biased. I was inundated with the idea of ‘you need to be better’ from a young age from all angles. I am strong, but not appealingly buff. I am not what I'd call heavy, but I'm most certainly not appealingly slim and doctors have always bitched about my BMI (which again- terrible system to work off of). Not that long ago, I was hiding weights under my pant legs even in the dead of summer thinking the extra weight on me when I moved about my day would help me burn calories. Not that long ago, I was walking around 30km/18 miles a week on top of doing several hours of intense exercise a week, all while only taking in around only 500 cal a day.  I am constantly combating the idea that i need to deserve to eat, but if I eat, I won’t be loveable. Yeah, I’m doing better- significantly so- but I am a biased, untrustworthy source to write about this and I recognize that. I am biased because I’ve been through it. I am biased because I have lived this very specific, isolating nightmare, and no matter how much better I am now, there are still days where all I can manage is a couple hard boiled eggs and maybe canned low-sodium fish. 

I don’t know what to tell you. All I know is what I’ve been through, and when I look at Amy, when I look at her storylines through the games, I see a portion of me that I never would ever want to see in anyone else.

I see someone desperate to be wanted. I see someone disoriented and angry from lack of food. I see someone hurting themselves thinking it's normal to do so. I see someone trying and trying and trying so hard to fit this idea of ‘perfect’ and falling short.

There’s a lot of conversation right now around Amy’s character. How she was presented in early games vs now is significantly different, so of course it would be a subject of conversation. Sega seems to be trying to bring the characters into a new age, both in terms of the 2020’s and in terms of the characters' age themselves. There are those that say that Amy’s new presentation is due to her becoming older and more mature, while others argue that she’s become a shadow of her former self.  

I can see both sides of the argument. Of course I can- I’ve been with this characters since almost the beginning. Still, when I look at the changes in Amy Rose, when I look at how happy she is, how energetic and content, my knee-jerk reaction isn’t to start wagging fingers. 

It’s just, ‘Ah. Good. She’s eating.’ 

[zoros-sake-bottles]

What you’d argue with them over ! Pt.1 (Zoro, Sanji & Law)

Zoro

-Your arguing about him not taking care of his body

Zoro is willing to stretch his body to any length in order to defeat his opponent, he will break all his bones and loose half of his blood-he doesn’t care at all

He cannot and will not lose before he fights Mi-hawk and steals the title of greatest swordsman

You understand….BUT YOU CANNOT STAND IT

After every battle your left pale at the sight of Zoro, mortified at how he lays on his back in a sweat, bleeding and breathing so heavily 

By the time Chopper gets to him he’s barely conscious and each time you fear the worst. But of course since this is Zoro he pops right back up after a couple hours rest and instantly tries to train

“Lay down” you say your eyes meeting his

He sits up against your wishes and tries to stretch resulting in a spurt of blood from his abdomen

"moron" you mumble forcing him down

Its silent between the two of you as the topic of the afternoon hangs over you both

Your glaring at your boyfriend and he can feel it, so he turns his head away from you

He knows that your arms are crossed and your jaw is clenched

He knows your livid and he also knows why but no matter how intimidating your stance is he won't back down

"Oi, stop looking at me like that-"

"Shut the hell up" you say, your voice sharp and pointy like the edge of a knife

Zoro turns his head as he's about to give you a piece of his mind 

"I don't want to hear it, I'm done. You don't care then I won't care" 

"Go out and die then, selfish prick" you spat

Zoro huffs in disbelief, you've never gotten this callous with him before and he can't believe it 

"If I die that means I failed my goal and didn't deserve the title I was going after, I'm going to push myself beyond my limits whether you like it or not y/n!"

You get up and walk out of the room

You seemed so calm but underneath you were just seething

Zoro had basically just told you that your opinion meant nothing to him and that if he died then he just died

Did he ever really think about you? Did he think about how his death would affect you? How it would affect the crew? 

You bet Mi-hawk recuperates, you knew for a fact that he wasn't dumb and reckless like your boyfriend was

By the way Zoro was doing things, he was going to die from over exhaustion, rather than an actual fight

You cared so much and you hated it

Often there were times when you wanted to tell him "No, you can't go yet" "Zoro your wounds are still healing" "Don't lift weights the stitches will come loose" 

But you never said anything because you knew he would ignore you, telling you to stop nagging and that you were over exaggerating

You were sick and tired of it, so now you were going to let him be 

 Sanji

-Your arguing about him being sweet to other women

Arguments are rare things , that's how good the two of you get along

You’ve always been that solid couple that remembers everything: dates, anniversaries, birthdays-etc.etc.

So for the two of you to have a disagreement it kind of freaked you out

Your fights were always centered around two things: Sanji’s hyper attentiveness to other women's needs and you putting yourself in danger for the safety of others

Today it was the hyper attentiveness

You just couldn’t understand it sometimes, why he went out of his way to do things for girls who clearly had no intention of making nice with him

He would be any woman's doormat! It drove you insane!

You were all for the “respect and never hurt a woman” attitude but the things he allowed-it was a cross of boundaries ! 

Not to mention he was totally oblivious to when women were subtly flirting with him, every time he got bumped against, groped & touched- he just smiled politely

You were a calm and rational person but unfortunately someone got a fist to the face today

You had stormed away, with him apologizing to your victim and chasing after you in your wake

He tried to stop you and talk but you ended up blowing up on him

"Darling-please-" he tried to reach out for your arm

"Don't Sanji! Don't even-I can't do this right now!" you yank away from him

Still he follows behind you like he almost always does

"I can't believe you let that woman touch your chest!" 

"Ma cheri she simply fell into me-”

“What did she trip on Sanji?! The air!?

Sanji loves you more than anything so he didn’t shout not once but you could hear it in his voice that he didn’t agree with the way you handled things

It was no point in talking if he wasn’t going to understand so you left him there and didn’t talk to him much after that

Law

-Your arguing about him not communicating with you properly

This man is a loner

Even with a complete crew, he’s still a loner

You can’t even fathom how your relationship had gotten this far

There's so much he doesn’t tell you, even the small things everyone should know “oh I'm allergic to….  I don’t like when you….  I changed the ….” NOTHING HE TELLS YOU NOTHING

He often does this thing were he underestimates you 

Law operates on his own, he goes by what he thinks is best

You could talk up a whole plan for battle and research ! He would tell you “okay” but when it comes to the day of acting out the plan he’s changed EVERYTHING about it and hasn’t spoken a WORD to you

“Law, are you dead serious?! Wha-I-I looked like an idiot out there! Why didn’t you say anything sooner?!” you stressed running your hands through your hair

“Y/n- ya it wasn’t that much of a change I simply-”

“I was telling everyone the wrong information! I cost us time and-and-”

“It was fine, I'm telling you, your overthinking it…Bepo and Penguin took over and in the end everything was ok, we didn’t draw much attention either” he stood in the door of your shared room with his arms crossed

He clearly didn’t understand why you were so upset, he didn’t understand the magnitude of the issue for you

“Law, look at me…” you glared at your boyfriend

“I WANTED to help, I WANTED them to trust and follow my lead as a fellow member of this crew! Today all I showed them was that i am a clueless buffoon who just so happens to date their captain” your fist balled up

“Nobody thinks that” he raised an eyebrow, dismissing your thoughts and feelings

You were a steaming pot and just like that you were over boiling

“Will you stop treating me like I'm some blasted kid?! I'm 24, for goodness sakes Law are you even listening to me when I talk?!” you shouted but it seemed to have no affect on him

Law stayed silent in the corner and he didn’t move a muscle

You felt like you were talking to a wall

Your eyes glossed over and you stood up and pushed past him, tired of being dismissed and handled like you were incapable 

https://www.tumblr.com/zoros-sake-bottles/730292614007603200/what-youd-argue-with-them-over-pt2-zoro-sanji?source=share

[briebysabs]

Lu Guang is a hypocrite and that’s okay (great even)

I must stand ten toes for this man because I’m noticing the slander that went on in September and I cannot allow it. I know I’m six months late but just bear with me. We are introduced to Lu Guang as a rational, stoic, sort of wise protagonist. The brains of the operation if you will (although Cheng is clever in his own right but that’s a whole other discussion). Qiao Ling and Captain Xiao describe him as more mature. Shiguang’s relationship is strong but it’s structured, especially for their work, to where Cheng has to depend on Lu Guang. Should only do as he says and not do anything impulsive.

And it gets to a point where Cheng doesn’t know what to do without him and when LG isn’t there he relies on his past words to guide him. The thing is, we’ve seen that CXS can come up with great plans and make good decisions without Lu Guang’s voice in his head. Like how he caught Min Liu or planning how save Lu Guang from Li Tianchen. But the story has built LG up so much to be a reliable character so it can’t be untrue. But then the s2 finale happens, Cheng gets shot and Lu Guang loses his mind.

And then the ending basically tells you that he’s been winging it and gambling this whole time. Experimenting with god knows how many timelines, simply using his knowledge from the previous one to see if he’ll get lucky this time. Lu Guang has been playing a crane game. So in a story that is all about mistakes, guilt and regrets. Of showing the imperfections of people. Of showing the struggles of moving forward, of being satisfied with the present. Of sacrificing your sanity, your voice, your desires, and happiness for the people you love. How is this bad writing?

Link click has been tricking the audience to believe Lu Guang is an infallible character.

But Link Click was never about perfect people.

What he’s trying to do is no different from Li Tianchen, one of our antagonists. And I love CXS to fucking pieces but this show raises the question of a life’s value. LG is trying to save Cheng and so refuses to change the past for anyone else. Bc it may alter things and doom CXS in the process and ruin all he’s worked towards. But then you ask yourself, is CXS’s life worth more than the twins' mother? Is it worth more than Chen’s mother? Is it worth more than Emma?

It doesn’t matter because it is to Lu Guang. It’s like the question if your sibling and a mailman are trapped in a burning building but you can only try to save one. Unless they’re the absolute scum of the earth, chances are and possibly even despite that, you’re going to pick your sibling. That don’t mean it’s objectively more valuable than the mailman or you didn’t have sympathy for that person, they have loved ones, hopes and joys too. “Lu Guang is a hypocrite, selfish, unreliable, and a liar” yes he is. Because there is something called ‘flawed characters’. It’s okay for your protagonist to not be the best person. It’s okay to write a protagonist whose trauma has defined some of their actions.

If you’ve been forced to have someone you love die in your arms over and over, why is it surprising that you would lie to them? How is it surprising that you’d try to keep secrets? That you’d set things up to be in a position to control the situation? That’ll force you to plan better so maybe, just maybe things will be different? You think Lu Guang lacks self awareness and doesn’t know what this makes him? Of all things you can call LG, he’s not delusional. He knows the weight of his actions.

Link Click has and always will be a story about people. Where our emotions and choices take us. Lu Guang isn’t a robot so why would he be an exception?

Plus everyone should’ve been knew Lu Guang was sus anyway. Idk how that’s mischaracterization, there’s proof of him lying and keeping secrets from CXS in s1. It doesn’t ruin anything it recontextualizes what we were shown back then.

[wonder-mei]

Fate has spoken (MK1 Bi-han)

Author's note; reminder this is not lore accurate to the Mortal Kombat universe. I write because they're hot. I also do no have beta reader or i read my fan fic from top to bottom to see any errors. I'm lazy okay.

“Is it true?”

A familiar soft voice appears behind him right after he enters his room upon arriving at the Lin Kuei Clan. Bih-han didn’t move an inch,just standing there not knowing what to respond to her. The light of his life.

“You already heard from the others. There’s nothing for me to tell you” 

“I want you to tell me. Say it infront of my face,Bi-han”, her tone is frustrated but with a hint of sadness that she tried to bury. 

The Lin Kuei grandmaster clenched his fists. His heart is beating. His heart always beats for her. The stern Bi-han who everyone fears and respects him has always been afraid of her. Her kindness and gentle nature scares him, the thing he fears is losing her.

Bi-han turns around. Her eyes are already on her on edge to cry from betrayal. The eyes that always sees him as human and shows him that kindness still exist in his miserable life, “I took Shang Tsung’s offer for more power…. against the Lin Kuei oaths”

A single tear dropped from her eyes. Bi-han stares at her fighting the urge to touch her “And i let father die” 

“How could you,Bi-han. He’s like a father to me!”, all the memories of her with the former grandmaster plays in her mind. He welcomed her and her mother with open arms when he found them living by the street after the death of her own father. She and her mother were given a home to live comfortably by his generosity. “He believed you’ll be a great grandmaster for Lin Kuei!” she hits him in the chest “He believed you can take care of us,Bi-han…”

Bi-han just stood there letting her get her anger out on him “You have betrayed Lin Kuei,your family…. You have betrayed me,Bi-han. It hurts. It hurts so much…” she cries and cries showing her pain to him.

“If you won’t follow my orders as the grandmaster. You can leave” 

Her heart skips a beat at his words, she tilts her head up looking into his eyes. His eyes tell he is also in pain, “I do not need you anymore here. Leave the Lin Kuei. I am not like my father. I am a tyrant like they called me”

“Does everything we had mean nothing to you?”

Bi-han stares at her shocked,the question is unexpected. Her voice and eyes are demanding him to tell the truth, “Were every night we had walking together in the forest means nothing to you? Tell me”

“No… all of those we had together does not mean nothing to me”

She takes a step away from him. Taking a deep breath without her eyes leaving him “Say that you love me”

Bi-han heart got more heavy. Somehow he forgot to breathe.

“Say that you love me and then I will leave… letting you go on what you desire in life” 

Words stuck in his throat. He just stares at her as she stares at him too. She wants to know if their feelings are equal before they went apart forever, “Tell me,Bi-han”

“I…. i love you very dearly” 

She can feel the weight she’s carrying on her shoulders lift up upon hearing his confession. Her heart melts even in this betrayal situation “And i too,love you Bi-han”

Bi-han witnesses her last smile he will ever see. He won’t see the kind smile ever again. She won’t even be by his side for now on. He doesn’t show emotions, he doesn’t want her to see him in weakness. But before he was not afraid to cry, this time was different. Those before she is with him to get through the tough time. Now, she won’t be there to comfort him.

“Goodbye,Bi-han. May you live your ambitions and… live with happiness.Farewell”

With that she left. Forever. Bi-han didn’t call her name or hold her hand to prevent her from leaving. He did nothing. Just standing there. 

He stood there for hours. His mind is blank. With a heavy heart he left his room approaching her room. Her room is empty, her mother also cannot be seen. She brought her mother with her too. Bi-han closes the door, he sits in the middle of the room. Her scent is still in the room. He sits there to feel everything that is left in the room until her scent and present are gone forever. 

“In every timeline, she still won’t be yours,Bi-han. I am sorry”

Liu Kang had told him that;even in multiple timelines existed, they are not fated to be together. 

[inversionimpulse]

I've mentioned a few times by now that my interpretation of Yukari Yakumo is that she's secretly still a human being, so I guess I could probably stand to actually explain it.

So, this is what the Perfect Memento says about Yukari. The actual canonicity of PMiSS is in flux, I think, it was written in a much earlier era of Touhou when ZUN seems to have had a somewhat different vision of things and not all of it has remained consistent even accounting for that it's deliberately inaccurate, but we'll ignore that for now. Making strong assertions about something as clay-like as canon in Touhou is a losing game, in any case.

Akyuu's claims seem to check out. We can, actually, independently verify that Yukari does not collect fear from Gensokyo - most characters seem to be only vaguely aware of her at best (and the more they know her, generally, the less they respect her) and in Forbidden Scrollery we see that the human villagers are so unaware of her that showing up to a ghost story circle and telling a story about very specific identifying features like her gaps only provokes confusion.

On the other hand we haven't been shown any of her activities in the outside world. We cannot verify that she collects fear there. More importantly, Akyuu can't verify that.

A youkai that never attacks humans is by definition not a youkai. The youkai Yukari does not attack humans in Gensokyo. Therefore Yukari is attacking humans somewhere else.

That's the logic here. Akyuu is faced with two facts that don't fit together, so she invents something that resolves them. But she doesn't know anything. This may not be true, and if it is, it's of no relation to Akyuu's claims.

We could formulate this problem differently, if we were inclined to.

A youkai that never attacks humans is by definition not a youkai. Yukari, who claims to be a youkai, does not attack humans. Therefore Yukari is not a youkai.

That she's human specifically is a particular leap of mine because I like the idea. I like what it says about Yukari as a character and about her particular situation. And we know from Sakuya that humans can be immortal without ceasing to be human. But looked at with as close to dispassion as I can manage, the evidence is probably weighted more in the direction of her being the Hakurei God. Depending on how you interpret certain dialogue in Missing Power, she comes within an inch of outright saying it, even.

There's also that Yukari and Reimu have long been shown to have different expressions of the same essential powers over borders, boundaries, and other distinctions. This would tend to support the idea that Yukari is the Hakurei God, but I like to fit it into the "Yukari is human" hypothesis by just saying that she's the shrine maiden of the Outside World's Hakurei Shrine. After all, we know it exists, and based on what Rinnosuke saw of it - assuming Yukari's telling him the straightforward truth about what he saw - clearly someone's taking care of it.

Regardless, by presenting one interpretation, Perfect Memento also provides the evidence and uncertainties that make up that interpetation. In doing so, it opens up entirely contradictory interpretations. The wonderful thing about the arts is that the same material can be taken so many different directions. We are obliged to admit that [1 + 1 = 2], but nothing compels us to submit to [youkai ^ !fear -> elsewhere] when [youkai ^ !fear] could mean any number of other things.

[maximoff-pan]

how about eddie giving steve shit for not telling the reader how he feels for her while they’re traipsing through the upside down???

traipsing through the upside down — oh my, I love that…

pairing: steve harrington x fem!reader

word count: 1.1k

warning(s): none really, unless you count the upside down as a warning...

quick a/n: this is a really short, unedited, and pretty messy little blurb that I’m posting because I haven’t posted anything in a little bit...but I’m not super happy with it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy and expect better things (and by better, I mean, less jumbled and makes more sense) from me coming soon :)

“You’re staring Harrington,” Steve doesn’t need to see Eddie’s face to know that he’s grinning. The singing tone of his voice gives that all away. “Again.”

Amber orbs meet similar dark brown ones. “You wish.” Steve hits back, even though he knows it’s true. 

He was staring, he has been for the last several minutes. But it’s not like anyone here blames him. They all know how distracting you can be, how intoxicating you are to him. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Steve cannot help how often his gaze wanders to you. 

At this point, Eddie’s and Robin’s voices have become like static to him, barely registering in his mind. He’s failing to hear most of what they’re saying, picking up bits and pieces of their well directed jibes. And while Steve is more than aware that they’re talking about him, making fun of him even, your sweet voice is just too distracting for him to care about much of anything else. 

As he loses his focus again, Steve feels his posture slump. His feet ache as he carries his weight through the tumultuous terrain that is the upside down. For a moment, he’d forgotten where he was, forgotten just how much pain he was in. The throbbing feeling that rips through his back serves as a poignant reminder though, his body nearly collapsing at the anguish. 

If he’s being honest, Steve’s never felt pain like this before. It hurts to focus on anything other than you. Then again, you’ve always been easy to think about, thoughts of you never straying too far from the forefront of his mind.

That’s why he continuously finds his eyes drifting a few paces in front of him, where you and Nancy are talking in hushed whispers, smiles crinkling the sides of your eyes.

Steve can’t hear what you’re saying, but whatever it is, you’ve made Nancy laugh, loudly and genuinely. And while they may not have been the right fit for each other, if there’s anything Steve knows about Nancy, it’s that he’s always been able to tell when she’s faking her laughter. And this one is real, pure and raw.

But it’s not a surprise to him. For as long as he’s known you, you’ve had this innate ability to make people feel safe, make everyone around you comfortable in the moments when they should least find themselves feeling so. It’s honestly never failed to amaze him how you can find happiness in the darkest of moments. With everything going on around you, Vecna being at the forefront of the many terrifying traumas you’ve all had to deal with over the passed couple of years, somehow you’re still smiling.

And boy, is your smile mesmerizing...

Steve sighs to himself as his thoughts are broken by a high pitched and obnoxious hum from the teen beside him. It’s like this mix between a low groan and a squirrelly squeal, the hairs on the back of his neck raising at the sound.

“C’mon man,” Eddie’s whine drags ever so slowly that Steve thinks it might never end. And it feels like it, truly; it’s agonizingly querulous.

But then, like he’s read his mind, Eddie’s harping on again, and Steve almost wants to punt himself across the face, (let alone Eddie), to put himself out of this misery.

“I’m fucking dying over here,” Eddie continues, gesturing wildly to himself as his mop of crazed curls flies with him. He’s fed up with this game of will they, won’t they. “I wish you’d just open your eyes dumbass.”

And I wish you’d just shut the fuck up, Steve thinks but doesn’t say, because while (for the moment) Eddie is annoying the living shit out of him, Steve knows he means well. He knows he’s just poking fun, trying to distract everyone from the fate that currently awaits you all, but he can’t help but want to slap the Hell Fire club’s infamous leader.

God knows Eddie deserves it, but he bites his tongue.

Instead, Steve merely rolls his eyes in response, tone snarky. “They already are, idiot.” He echos.

Robin huffs from beside the two teens, her feet dragging with every step. “Steve, that’s not what he—”

Steve cuts her off with the flick of his hand. They’re testing his patience right now. “I know Robin,” the demobat bites on his chest and back are really starting to burn, the adrenaline wearing off. “I know that’s not what he meant.”

Trudging through the upside down, after nearly drowning and having been attacked by monstrous bats is not exactly where Steve imagined he’d be at the moment. Nor had any of you really.

But all of that, on top of being interrogated, and poked and prodded by Eddie fucking Munson about his feelings for you, all while facing life and death, that takes the cherry on the cake.

Normally, Steve wouldn’t bat an eye. He’s used to the teasing, very much accustomed to being told how blindly in love with you he is, and having each of his (and your) friends point that out to him. But right now, it hurts him to be reminded of it. Because he doesn’t know if he’ll ever get the chance to tell you.

And not just tell you on a whim because he thinks either of you won’t make it out of this. That wouldn’t be fair. He wants it to be right, wants to give you time to respond, to feel it through. Time, he’s not sure he has.

“If you’re not going to tell her,” Eddie’s voice chimes in once again, “at least do me one favour.”

Steve nods sceptically, eyes narrowing slightly. “One, Munson.” He agrees for the moment.

“If you’re not going to get your shit together,” Eddie rasps with a smirk on his face, “then for the love of god, stop fucking staring at her. It’s starting to get a little creepy.”

“Starting?” Robin jokes in response, elbowing Steve in the ribcage.

Steve winces at the contact, nearly unable to respond. But as he catches another quick glimpse of you, smile lighting up your face, he grins back winded.

Echoing his words from earlier, his tone light this time, his lips pull together. “You fucking wish.”

Well, Steve thinks watching the looks of surprise cross their faces, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

[yannaryartside]

SYDNEY, PASTA, CARMY, AND FAILURE

When Sydney was trying to create items for the menu and failing at it, I kept asking myself why, why is he self-sabotaging now, even when she may have been waiting for a change like this her whole life.

There were some events related to her fear of failure, to pasta, and to Carmy, that created a unique avalanche of her own.

She tells Carmy the story of the incident that broke her business, about a mean lady who demanded fresh pasta that she couldn't deliver despite her best efforts. The failure was caused by improvisation on her part, trying to compensate for biting more than she could chew to begin with. 

In that same scene, she fucks up Carmy's recipe to ferment the pasta. Too much acid, when he had suggested her to add acid to another of her original dishes before. This was a subconscious response to how badly she fears to disappoint him, yet she does. Simple instructions, something she has done before, fucked up (remember the stock incident, even if it wasn't her fault, she felt humiliated). Pros to Carmy for actually reacting as a friend this time and the next scenario, even if that didn't help Sydney's self-critic too much.

Next time they cook together, Sydney fucks up another recipe, one of her own. Too much salt. Again, something she has done before.

And then, Carmy ditches her.

She has to go for inspiration alone, and what does she imagine as a possible signature dish? A pasta dish. It makes sense; it is an Italian restaurant, after all. 

When she imagines this dish, she imagines it plated on the circular black plate Carmy liked, the only one he wanted.

Later, after fighting with Carmy, she tries to make that pasta dish she imagined but fails at it. 

She cannot improvise or be creative because the last time she did that, she was punished by losing her business. And then made a recipe of her own, or tried to collaborate on another one, fucked up in front of her partner and idol. All these cases, in her mind, it connected to a pasta dish. 

images by @heardchef

She has failed in the same area (pasta) in different scenarios (Carmy and his standards, that is the same as saying the industry standard, her business, fucking a recipe) doubting herself to the point she has locked herself in an art block.

About Carmy ditching her on the food tour, for what we know, she may think that was something Carmy did on purpose as a way of saying, "You are a CDC now. This is your problem." She spoke to everyone all day, saying she had a partner, only to realize there is no such thing as a partnership at the top of this industry; you can pull your weight, or you sit your ass down. Nobody wants to feel like death weight in a partnership, and now she may feel she is lacking in the things that made Carmy choose her; that is why, in 2x09, under the table, she goes, "You could do this without me." The reassurance coming from Carmy completes her arc. 

Now, these some other thoughts on this:

Sydney may still only be able to define her own culinary success by the things that had made Carmy successful. Let's remember she is working for his family restaurant. Most recipes are his family recipes (filled with trauma, but we are not going to touch that today). He is the mold she cannot fit in, the plat in which she doesn't provide anything yet, to her eyes. This is a very common problem for artistic people, success is only defined by the people before you, if your own creative voice doesn't fit that mold, you may think you are not good, or ready.

She considers his experience more valuable than her own instincts, so I really hope she gets to resolve that. 

The inspirations he decides on would be pretty interesting since now she was only trying to fit the mold of her previous failures. Something is to be said about a woman of color, with a culture of her own, trying to fit in a Western-oriented industry, fighting to be taken seriously in what is considered "high-end cuisine." Someone made a post of a female black chef who won a chef competition combining her Italian and African heritage, something like that (at least until she gets her own spot), would be pretty neat.

Finally, and to aggravate everything, SHE IS RUNNING FULL SPEED. The sense of urgency that was very evident in s1. we don't know what makes her this way (it may be "working twice as hard to get the same recognition" or a different type of trauma). “Growing too much too fast" on her business, gambling on a shot on a kinda disgraced star chef in a chaotic environment, pressuring Carmy to change the restaurant on s1, pushing her dish to the food critic, all that collapsing on her all at once. Then she took care of her own and Carmy’s responsibilities on s2, because she tough that was expected of her. Too much, too fast. If she ever wants to make a path of her own, she needs to heal this.

[jeons-catalyst]

What are your thoughts on possible jikook break ups along the years? I’ve seen a few jikook blogs discuss the possibility Jikook breaking up at certain times because of the way they seemed at certain points. Do you think Jikook ever broke up? If yes why?

Hey anon,

Jimin and Jungkook are human beings just like you and I and what that means is that if you and I can go through turbulent times or periods in our relationships then they can too.

I think it is possible that Jimin and Jungkook could have gone through tough periods in their relationship (whatever it is) which could have let to them taking breaks from each other or even breaking up. I cannot pinpoint any point in time but i do know that there’s been certain moments when things seemed a little off between them but all that could be true and still not have anything to do with them together but rather them as individuals.

So often, i have seen people (jikook supporters and haters alike) single out certain moments and use them as proof that Jikook are not together because you know, why didn’t Jk look at Jimin here or why did Jimin hug Suga instead of Jk or why didn’t Jk go to this concert with Jimin instead of Tae? People pick and choose these single moments forgetting that there is literally alot we don’t know about how these boys and the course of their lives. For starters, we don’t know the true nature of their relationships with each other. Many of us suspect that Jimin and Jungkook could be more than platonic friends but we forget to realize that all that could be true and still wouldn’t mean Jimin and Jungkook are actively dating each other or in a committed relationship. There’s just too much we don’t know to come to certain conclusions.

Also, Jimin and Jungkook’s circumstances are unique. They are not in a “normal” romantic relationship like most of us are, so one of the biggest mistakes we make is comparing them to what we are used to in our everyday conventional lives and relationships. In our lives, most of us don’t feel the pressure of being members of the biggest boy band in the world, while being citizens of and living in a homophobic country and dating a same sex band mate. Who here can say they know exactly how that feels? Literally no one because none of us have walked that path before. So yes, considering all these things i thing Jimin and Jungkook have had their fair share of hurdles as a pair.

It is possible that sometimes, somethings felt off to us because things were actually off with Jimin and Jungkook. It is possible that sometimes the weight of everything got to them and they had to battle with balancing how they felt for each other and how to manage their professional and private lives seeing as they had alot to lose or worry about if they were ever outed. It is possible that at certain moments they disagreed on how to show love to each other. Maybe at some points, they felt like what they were getting from each other wasn’t enough. Maybe Jimin got frustrated at the fact that he couldn’t get Jk to tell him that he loved him and really show him how he felt for him. Maybe it was hard for Jk to show those feelings for Jimin as much as Jimin wanted because Jk himself hadn’t come to terms with how and what he felt for Jimin. You may wonder why i brought this up.

In this clip, we have Jimin complaining about Jungkook’s emotional availability. Here, he sees the way Jungkook treats Lee Minwoo and feels bad because according to Jimin, Jungkook has no feelings for him. You can clearly see that he is worried about it and one notable difference is how Jin responds to it. Jimin’s complaints about Jungkook having no feelings for him is not something Jin can relate to and it makes sense why he couldn’t relate to it. Normally, you wouldn’t really see friends, especially guys worried about the other’s emotional availability, but Jimin clearly had a problem with the fact that he just didn’t feel that something he wanted to feel from Jungkook yet and that begs the question WHY?

Jungkook has grown so much and has learnt how to be emotionally available for Jimin in was that Jimin deserves but he wasn’t always like that and i guess even when he started doing it, it wasn’t always easy for him as it was easy for Jimin. So this could have been one of the things that strained whatever relationship they had/have. Jimin is the person who doesn’t have a problem telling you he loves you a million times a day but Jungkook just wasn’t and up till now, still isn’t really that kind of person. He might feel things but he is so bad at expressing his feelings and things like this could be tough for people like Jimin whose love language is clearly Words of Afirmations.

Jimin and Jungkook have come a long way and i can imagine that they have gone through so much both from external and internal factors. So i can definitely see there being moments where they both would have felt like throwing in the towel. Maybe there have been moments when they actually broke up with each other, or decided to stop doing whatever they were doing. Maybe there’s been moments when they’ve felt resentment towards each other. Maybe there’s been moments when their anger at each other clouded their love for each other. All of these are definitely possible and as a matter of fact, should be expected in romantic relationships under such circumstances.

I had once said that one of the biggest reasons i thought Jikook were more than friends is because of how realistic they are. I once saw someone say they like jikook but they prefer taekook because all of taekook’s interactions give you butterflies but jikook is sometimes hard to watch and i nodded and said, that’s how you can tell reality from fiction. A real relationship isn’t always supposed to give you butterflies. A real relationship under these circumstances should sometimes frustrate you to watch and even make you shed tears. There should be moments of softness, butterflies, and smiles but there should also be moments of angst, frustration and sadness that someone watching their lives unfold should feel. Tae and Jk or Jk and any other member don’t share feeling that are really complicated so there would rarely be a reason for certain things to occur between them. Jimin and Jungkook on the other hand share extremely complicated feelings and have to learn how to deal with them amidst other things. How do you expect to always get butterflies when you watch them? How do you expect to get butterflies when you are watching them at a moment when they are fighting or going through a breakup? They may be professional and act civil with each other while at work but the energy will still be picked up on. How do you expect to feel butterflies if they are mad at each other or frustrated because of their circumstances? How do you expect to feel butterflies if you are watching them in those moments when one or both of them are being childish, unreasonable or selfish? All these things are common and happen in all our relationships. The only difference is, we don’t have cameras shoved in our faces 24/7 even when we are dealing with things we don’t want to show the world. You cannot see your body language or facial expression when you are fighting with or are mad at your partner and that is why you don’t get that there isn’t a very big difference between these boys and yourself.

So yes anon, i do think Jimin and Jungkook might have been on breaks from each other or broken up at certain points. Why, i don’t know and can’t say for sure but i think some of the reasons could include what i mentioned above. The opposite might also be possible and the weird energy we felt between them sometimes were maybe about them individually, not together. They may be a in a romantic relationship but that doesn’t mean their lives completely revolve around each other. If they had health problems, family problems or career problems, all those could have aswell affected their relationship so maybe we just caught them at certain points when they were dealing with things involving them as individuals or a pair.

[seraphiism]

❀ ﾟ. ༄ ┊ 𝐄𝐆𝐎 , 𝐓𝐑𝐔𝐄 𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 , 𝐇𝐈𝐆𝐇𝐄𝐑-𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 𝐓𝐎 𝐍𝐎𝐍-𝐒𝐄𝐋𝐅 ( 𝐩𝐭. 𝐢 ) ;

( it seems to me that the dead only return for love or for revenge WHO DID YOU COME BACK FOR? )

characters : scaramouche / alhaitham / xiao fandom : genshin impact quote cr : lexie liu ; helen oyeyemi a/n : reincarnation!au

↬ scaramouche ࿐ ࿔

◸✦◿ ; ( you ask yourself every question you can think of : what, why, how come, and then your sadness turns to anger )

& A PUPPET WILL BE FREED FROM THE CHAINS OF DAMNATION, REBORN INTO A LIFE HE HAS YET TO GRIEVE FOR. it will be his undoing & uprising one in the same ; he will recognize you in a place that you once knew as the beginning of a happiness shared between two souls.

you stand before each other, reminiscent in the bittersweet nostalgia that lingers on your tongue, fills your mouth with the taste of iron.

you will know this feeling as love found and reunited. he will know this feeling as the fourth betrayal.

( how much must he endure, this trial of brutalities? it feels like something is torn from his chest, ripped away from his soul, and crushed beneath the weight of it all. )

because it is a blessing and curse, this fateful meeting, and a wanderer feels his heart pound with rage and relief. what a foreign sensation this is, the racing of wavering altruism in his chest. he has found you again, desires to seek refuge in your touch, just as he always has in all your previous lives together.

but to find you again means he will lose you again, and this cycle will repeat until your lives are no more and the gods have granted you forgiveness to rest in the depths of the earth, bodies side by side as you fall in eternal slumber.

this will hurt. it always does.

he steels himself, holds his breath as you take a step towards him : cautious, gentle, almost apologetic.

this will hurt. it always does. but the pain will be worth it. it always is.

you hold your hand out to him, pray he does not notice the way it shakes in both joy and fear of what is to come in the beginning and end of this cycle. how delicately the tears fall from your face, pierce his heart in ways he cannot explain. your lips part, fragments of the past nearly relived as his former name dances on the tip of your tongue. but you stop yourself , feel a gentle smile bloom on your lips.

"come, tell me what name you have chosen for yourself in this life."

↬ alhaitham ࿐ ࿔

◸✦◿ ; ( i forgot softness because it did not serve me )

HE WILL ONLY KNOW LOVE AS A DISTANT BEING, THE SCRIBE WHO ONLY KNOWS OF LOGIC AND RATIONALITY. in a world of survival, alhaitham knows that to bear the softness of oneself is a death wish. to harden oneself, create a shell of what is meant to be protected is the only means of living. it is foolish to do otherwise, and so he will deem those who wear their heart on their sleeve as cowardly.

so what is it that makes you different? in a time where he does not remember the past & previous selves, there is something that draws him to you. he does not catch the way you look at him, a fondness in your eyes and all the right words lodged in your throat.

because you remember him, you do, but he does not remember you, and maybe it's better that way. because you are far too different, humanity embracing all feelings and instinct, while his humanity only knows of logic and nothing of what it means to succumb to the heart. your love was a strange thing -- the way you broke down those walls, waited so patiently until he allowed himself to understand what he felt for you.

how you miss those days, yearn for the sensation of his hands on you. how gentle he was, words and expression softening in your presence. you keep your silence in this world, know what is meant to happen will happen, even if days and months have passed and passed.

but alhaitham has always been intuitive, knows that there is something more to this friendship you share. there is something deeper, something that goes beyond lifelines and lifetimes. there is something about you that is unforgettable, his dreams filled with hazy scenes that almost feel too real.

"i dreamt of you." he tells you one day, gauges your reaction carefully, notes how you tense up, instinctively tear your gaze away from his.

you are nervous and you do not know why. you almost excuse yourself, realize perhaps you are not ready to remember what love is like once more, but he stands before you, purposely blocks your path.

"we have met before. who were you to me?"

your soul freezes, feels a trepidation at the possible rediscovery of memories. you do not know if fate is cruel or kind in this moment. you swallow hard, watch as he observes the devastation and longing in your eyes. that look in itself is enough, he decides, but he awaits your answer, knows that it will be the beginning of something you both have been waiting for all along.

"i was someone you once loved, alhaitham."

↬ xiao ࿐ ࿔

◸✦◿ ; ( i wept because i have lost my pain and i am not yet accustomed to its absence )

OH, BUT A YAKSHA DOES NOT KNOW A WORLD WITHOUT CRUELTY, THIS PEACE SO FOREIGN AND DISTRAUGHT. xiao has carried his pain and sins throughout many lives, relived them over and over again until this cycle. it is too strange, the serenity in this life with you, and he cannot relax entirely. because it is meant to happen, isn't it? he has hurt too many, stained his hands with blood as they bathed in sanguine in uncontrollable massacre.

the punishment must be coming-- is what he thinks, day by day, year by year, yet it never comes. but it must be, it must be, because xiao does not know what to do with mercy, and he does not know if he is worthy of living such a tranquil life. it makes him feel guilty, makes him feel ungrateful, because he loves you so, loves spending these moments with you, but carrying the weight of the world has taken its toll on him and he does not know anything else but that.

you wake to a silence, your slumber disrupted by a nothingness except for a weary heaviness. you blink, take in the darkness, listen carefully, but there is nothing there. you close your eyes, hear a subtle shift from the warm body beside you, hold your breath, listen, listen : and you hear it.

"love?"

he does not answer immediately, wipes the tears and gathers composure before he answers you with a hum of acknowledgement. you sit up, concern plastered all over your features as your hands cup his face tenderly, feel the tears that trail down his face reach your fingers. seldom is it that you see him break, his facade always so carefully crafted and held together.

you do not speak, hope your presence can be more than enough in this moment of vulnerability. the clock ticks, the minutes pass, and the tears dry. you have spoken of this before -- this peace that neither of you can quite accept, the lack of fighting and struggle in these golden days. it dwells, visits him far too often, and he cannot escape it.

"xiao," your fingers trail down his cheek, leave a quiet strength in their wake, "you can be happy."

he trembles beneath your touch, finds haven in your arms, buries his face in the crook of your neck. how the tears still fall, their warmth felt upon your skin.

"it's alright, xiao." you hold him close, know that his grief is yours as well. "you have always deserved to be happy, whether in this life or another."

so you'll hold him until he falls asleep, hope that he will one day, eventually learn that this is the ending he has always meant to have.

quote cr : ↬ scaramouche : jennifer salaiz ↬ alhaitham : catherynne m. valente ↬ xiao : anaïs nin

[laurrrelise]

i’m losing my mind over the fic stingers under skin by @saplesss-tree on ao3.

i go so feral for derek danforth for absolutely no intelligible reason at all and i literally cannot get enough of the fics written about him, but holy shit this one DESTROYS ME.

if you haven’t read it for the love of god PLEASE run don’t walk. (it’s about an alternate plot line where eloise doesn’t kill herself and adam kidnaps derek as a ransom to get the money he stole back!)

derek’s backstory is so sad and complicated and clay is so evil and self-righteous and i cannot explain how canon the writing seems, like genuinely, reading this feels like an extension of the movie. i don’t know how @saplesss-tree manages to write derek, adam, jessica, garnett, and eloise to be so on-point with their characters in the movie but i genuinely forget it’s just a fan fiction when i read it.

tree, literally just some of your talent would be nice, please and thank you 🙏🙏

i’m adding some (probably way too many, actually) of my favorite lines because i literally think about them way too much:

• “Don’t tell my mom, okay?” The driver didn’t answer, but one of his strong hands found Derek’s and clasped tightly. Held his hand with firm, steady reassurance as he drifted off.

• “Oh, fucking spare me. If you know who we are, then you know that the president of the United States does not pay ransoms. She does not negotiate with fucking terrorists or psychopaths or whatever the hell you call yourself--” “I’m a Beekeeper.” “Great. Fucking good for you. She doesn’t doesn’t negotiate with fucking beekeepers either. What are you going to do, sick a thousand bees on the US military?”

• “Whatever. And I’ll bet that’s real cheese,” Derek accused. “Yes, it is.” “I’m lactose intolerant, so fuck you.”

^ this line will never fail to make me laugh.

• “But once I receive payment, this little inconvenience will--” “Inconvenience,” Derek laughed humorlessly. “Guy fucking kidnaps me and calls it an inconvenience.”

• “Speaking of accommodations, five-star bathroom you’ve provided me here. You’re not even gonna give me a bucket or something? There are fucking dogs that live in better conditions than this.” “You can come upstairs to use the bathroom.” “Should I bring the fucking pipe I’m chained to with me, or does that stay here?”

• Derek frowned at a picture frame hanging on the wall. “It’s still got the stock picture in it.” Clay paused. “I liked the flowers.” And they stood there for a long moment. “Alliums,” he added eventually. “They’re very attractive for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators. Though, some alliums can spread too quickly and become invasive. It’s a fragile balance.” They continued to stand there. Derek shifted his weight from one leg to the other and said, “yeah. The, uh, the purple is pretty cool.” Clay regarded the stock image seriously and nodded. “Yes,” he agreed, “the purple is cool.”

• "It's just awful, isn't it?" Eloise asked, wiping her hands on a rag and shaking her head. "That poor boy." "Never thought that about him before when all those scandals came to light," Clay said, but kept himself from being too harsh. "How many times has he thrown money at what should've been a jail sentence?" "Oh, he's just lost." Clay tilted his head at her. "How do you mean?" "Exactly what I said. He's just lost. I can't speak to the way he was raised, but I see all the bad things that end up in the media about him, and I see someone acting out for attention. I see a boy crying for help."

^ oh my god just let me sob right now.

• "Do you want to come upstairs and use the bathroom?" Derek peeled his eyes open and looked at Clay. "I want to carve into your face with a dull knife and crack your skull open with a rock. I want to put my bare hands into your head and just pull everything out. I want you to fucking scream." A beat. “Okay, so you still have a headache?”

• "I fucking hate you," Derek said, voice wavering. "I know you do. Come on, come take a bite."

• Clay took the cigarette, placing it tenderly on Derek's bottom lip, allowing him to take the thing into his mouth. Clay produced a small lighter from his pocket and lit the cigarette. On the first breath, Derek melted. Eased into Clay's hug and sighed with a kind of relief he didn't know it was possible to feel. Being rescued right this second wouldn't have felt as good. More tears.

^ i don’t know what it is, but something about the way that clay is so gentle and nurturing with derek (not always, but most of the time) even though they despise each other gets me right in the heartstrings. their physical intimacy despite literally wanting the other to die brutally will never not hurt. tree is a genius, end of story.

• “I thought ginger was only for between servings of different kinds of sushi to cleanse your pallet.” Clay stared for a moment. “We live very different lives.” “You fucking think?”

• Exhaustion won over the little part in the back of Derek’s mind that cowered like a threatened, wild animal. Derek blew out a breath and turned his head toward Clay. “I don’t believe you. It feels like you want to hurt me.” They held each other's gaze for a long time, no sound passing between them besides their breaths. “Sometimes,” Clay allowed eventually. “But only when you’re being difficult.” Clay rubbed his forearm. “Biting me. That’s no way to behave.” “You fucking kidnapped me.” “I know, but you don’t have to be such a brat about it.”

• “That’s like if I told you ‘you don’t need to breathe anymore,’” he muttered. “‘Just learn to breathe underwater because I fucking said so,’ and, ‘I’m the one with the oxygen tank. Just stop fucking breathing air.’”

• “You don’t know how to shave your own face?” Derek’s brows drew together, voice defensive. “I’ve never needed to know how before.” Clay studied him for a long moment, some mixture of disbelief and maybe sadness there in his eyes. “Nobody’s ever taught you how to do anything for yourself, have they?” A boy crying for help. Maybe there was something to Eloise’s words.

^ STOPPPP STOP IT RIGHT NOW

• The grin spread across Derek’s face completely involuntarily. And it was infectious. “I did it.” “Yeah, you did it,” Clay chuckled. “Fuck yeah!” Derek pumped his fists, buzzing trimmer still in hand. “Damn, and I didn’t even cut myself. Fuck, I did that.”

• “We’re going to clean you up around the edges here on your cheeks, your neck, and,” Clay rubbed a finger along the side of Derek’s jaw, “whatever silly sideburns you’ve got going on here.” He rubbed his palms down the sides of his face. “They’re not silly.” “You don’t actually want to keep those do you?” “Well now I fucking don’t with the way you just said that.”

• “Look, I know you’ve really never approved of the guys that Derek--” “My problem is not with my son’s sexual preferences, my problem is with you personally, Mr. Garnett,” she said.

• “Madam president, with all due respect, I don’t fucking care what happens to me, as long as Derek gets home safely.”

• He had Eloise. He had the boy in his basement, who he occasionally didn’t hate. And it hit Clay suddenly that the hive was growing.

• It pissed Derek off. It wasn’t just the drugs and self-indulgent habits and social media obsession. Clay had forcefully detoxed him from his entire life. From himself. And he was better for it.

^ THIS LINE FUCKING KNOCKS THE WIND OUT OF ME. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

• “I don’t fucking know anything about you except for your bee fetish.”

• Well, I’ve got Wallace. He’s kinda like my-- I don’t know-- my protection detail, bodyguard, babysitter, pain in my ass, conscience guy.” “So he cares about you.” “He works for me.” Derek shrugged. “Well, and, to be perfectly honest, I think he’s fucking my mom…” “Oh.”

^ again, i will never not laugh at this line

• “Like, you picked the worst possible hostage ever. I’m such a fuck-up, there’s zero motivation for anyone to pay my ransom.”

• “You are a defective offspring,” Clay said. “Wow, okay fuck you,” Derek replied.

• “It’s not wholly your fault,” Clay continued. “You were born broken because of her. You’ve never had a chance to be anything more than broken, and you never will. When a queen bee produces defective offspring, we rise up and slay her. Ordinarily, I'd kill your mother for bringing a wretched thing like you into this world, but that money-- the ransom-- it’s the money you stole from a dear friend of mine.”

• “Do it,” Derek said, voice quiet and almost as shocked as the expression Clay sent his way. He cleared his throat. “Fucking do it. I want her to fucking agonize over every second she leaves me here with you. I want the guilt to eat her alive until she either coughs up the money or kills herself.”

• "You're all right, just sitting you up a little." And Clay cushioned Derek's head in his lap, letting the boy use his thighs as his new pillow as Clay looked down at him.

• Made him hate the stairs and hate this house and hate himself for not being able to move properly and hate his mother for leaving him here. And Clay for… something. Derek had had the beating coming to him-- had literally asked for it-- so not that. But he was pretty sure he hated the guy for something. Hating Clay for kidnapping him just seemed too understated. Hating the man for kidnapping him didn’t do justice to all of the other things he could hate him for. It was like there was so much anger and aggression and fear and resentment surrounding Derek’s perception of Clay that he couldn’t even hate him.

• "You got it?" "I'm a grown fucking man, I don't need you to hold my dick for me while I piss." "There's no need to be crass," Clay said, backing off. "Fuck you."

• Maybe Mom really wasn't as much of an unfeeling, soulless bitch as he'd expected.

• “I fucking hate you,” Derek said quietly. Trying to remind himself. “I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” “I've never hated anyone more than I hate you,” he said again. Drilling it home for his tired, aching heart. “But I've never been more real with someone either. I think that might be part of it, maybe.” Clay squeezed Derek’s shoulder, loosening another tear in the boy. “What do you mean?” “I just… hate myself, you know?” His voice a mere whisper. “And being myself around you, it makes me hate you too.” Clay hummed solemnly. “You’re a very angry young man.” “Yeah, well,” Derek cleared his wobbling voice, “I’ve got a lot to be angry about. Even if I went home right this second, I think I’d still find myself up in that glass box.”

• The hand carded through his hair again. Goosebumps prickled on the back of his neck, down his back, and along his arms. Against every instinct screaming at him to pull away, Derek leaned into the touch. Not because the gentle, rhythmic motion of fingers raking gently along his scalp was comforting. Not because it was the first genuine distraction he'd had from the relentless headache and the throbbing hurt throughout his face. And definitely not because he couldn't remember the last time someone had tenderly run their fingers through his hair like this.

^ again with the physical intimacy i’m going to jump off a cliff

• “And I want real shampoo and conditioner. Your three-in-one shit is ruining my hair, I don’t know why you use that stuff.” Derek felt the soft vibrations of Clay’s nearly inaudible chuckle. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed,” he said, brushing a few curls out of Derek’s face, “but I don’t have nearly as much hair as you.” “Oh… right.”

• Sitting down next to the mattress, Clay sighed. Ran his fingers through the young man’s messy, tangled curls. “You know, I think you’re the only one that appreciates what I’m trying to do here,” Clay told him. “Under all your disobedience and profanity and needless crying, I think you’re the only one that really gets what we’re doing.”

• “Are you watching me sleep?” Derek rasped, voice sleep-laden. “No,” Clay answered softly. “The fuck are you doing then?” “I was telling you about my day.” Derek’s mind took a few moments to catch up. “While I was asleep?” “You’re a much better listener when you’re asleep.” “Okay, well fuck you too, I guess,” Derek muttered.

• “If something happens… would you visit me?” Clay asked. “In prison, I mean. Would you come visit me?” Derek lowered himself on the mattress, rested his head on the pillow, reeling. “Yeah, sure.” The words escaped without Derek really thinking about it. And he was almost surprised to realize he meant it.

• “You surprised me earlier. You almost sounded like you wanted to live, or at least like you were trying to want that.” Clay flipped to the next page. “I thought I’d let you try and figure it out for a little while longer.”

• "It's such a sure thing, the sun," Clay said. "Every evening it sets, leaving with a colorful, beautiful goodbye. Almost like it doesn't want to go. And every morning it returns with just as much enthusiasm. It's something you can always count on." There was a lengthy pause where neither one of them said anything, and Clay was the one to break it. "There will always be another tomorrow, whether you're there or not. But dead men can't watch sunsets."

alright i think that’s enough (but if given the avenue i could continue this even more trust me) anyways again PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read this fic if you haven’t already, 8 chapters are out so far and they’re all of very generous length.

the way it delves into derek’s backstory, the way he grew up and was treated by his mother, the way he’s reduced to a little boy (and is repeatedly called “the boy”) because of the way he was forced to grow up too soon, the way he acts as a defense mechanism, oh my god i could ramble forever it makes me so sympathetic to him even if he’s a douchebag idc idc i love him.

im so emotionally attached to this fic and im literally on the edge of my seat to know how it ends (especially with the way chapter 8 ended, tree you knew EXACTLY what you were doing 🤬)

anyways here it is please read it thank you 🙏🙏

[hoarding-stories]

Really really loved the name cloak ceremony. It was so cinematic and helped me kinda *get* what it's really about.

Cuz I mean I knew the whole protection bit, names have power and obfuscating your real one will of course be wildly beneficial.

But I did have an "oh shit" moment where I realized the true decision behind choosing a name, and why Sky is so big.

It's a balancing game of finding yourself in an abstract, a facet of a word that fits who you are, what you hold dear, or what you want to become/exemplify, and the perception of others who won't know or see how you connect to your name but will fill in meaning based on their personality and values or assign expectations depending on history. To lose your true name to the cloak is to move into almost a bigger shell. Something that not only encompasses who you are but covers what you will become and how you are seen.

Sky is a big name, a title, because it's so big literally and metaphorically! It's always changing and always there, and there are so many ways to put meaning to it and interpret it. Sure, there are Suvi's predecessors, who both seem like major historical figures, who have their legacies and shoes to fill, but also, it's a major thing to exemplify by itself!

Continuing under the cut with the Archmagi's little speeches & Suvi's connection to her name cuz I think it kinda tells us a bit about their personalities.

Saber:

What power then, that that great firmament might rain down. Whether thunder, lightning, great powers to cover all, and with its judgment mete out what it sees fit.

Of course the Archmage named Saber has a very weaponized view of the sky, concerned with the power it (& Suvi) holds and how it is used to defend or attack. (I wonder if he sees himself, above all, as a weapon to be wielded by the Citadel)

Sand:

What cannot be seen, who's weightless weight we bear each day upon our shoulders, turns the mountains into dust. Subtly and the movement in spaces unseen. The dominion of your title.

Tbh Sand is the Archmage that interests me the most, I'd say her choosing of her name had to do with time. The invisible currents in the sky, the hidden stars during the day, the sun disappearing at night. Always shifting even when unobservable and moving ever onwards.

Sorrow:

Things eternal. That have been with us since the dawn of time. Wisdom in the watchfulness of a constant partner ever above, defined by its distance.

Sorrow is also very interesting. The sky as something always there but never interacting. A monolith of cosmic knowledge, knowing from observation but not experience. (Perhaps a sorrow of missed connection)

Serenity:

Movement. Life, in a desert beyond which no growing thing can be seen from our vantage point. We see the beginnings, wisps of vapor that will become storms, rain to fall upon forest and field. A partner in a dance to sustain the world forever.

Serenity's view is one that I'm fond of, the sky as a nurturing force, full of change and life-giving, whose effects will spread beyond what can be observed. (Legacy, perhaps, the peace in knowing that the seeds you sow continue to grow for a long time, ripples in a pool).

Silence:

The sky is not the weather or the wind, the sky holds all things, let it be known that vastness is yours. The sorrows it will bring you, that you and your road are vast and broad and lead to all places. Many who have destiny curse it. But what a burden, to be able to choose any path under the sun.

Less of what the sky itself holds or is, but instead acknowledging the freedom something so big has. Suvi can shape her and others' interpretations however she wants. There is space to spare, and the legacies of those before her haven't restricted anything at all. That there is the possibility of things going wrong, or being missed, but at least it was a choice that could be made. (Everything that can be said with silence, when it is best to talk and best to hold your tongue. The possibility in that empty space of what could come next)

Suvi:

...The version of the sky that Suvi will claim for her own is a sky that she saw when she was 6 years old. The dead of night. Stars visible. Snow gently falling. As her world got blown apart. And she remembers the explosion of magic, she's never seen anything that big, and she thought it would destroy everything, not just her but the world itself and yet the sky looked down and held it all and watched it all and persisted. That is the sky that she claims.

& when giving Ame her name:

That night, and the day we met Eursulon, contain everything in this world I seek to protect. All below one big sky.

Very inchresting & I know I'm not the best person to do a ton of meta on subject but, I was originally going to say Silence's view was similar, then Sorrow's, but neither are quite right. The sky is always there, through fear and joy, and remains a constant no matter what changes. It holds everything, stands in relief no matter what, feels it, but can weather it and remain unchanged. Suvi wants to be strong, to be able to go through and witness terrible things but remain stalwart in the face of it, protecting no matter what. To always continue. To see and have those happy times with those she loves and see them safe while still watching and waiting in just in case.

[theluminoussunflower]

the gerard pitts hcs post

(the BEAUTIFUL gif is from this post by @yawpanderson)

someone said he had a big family before, but imo he has like twenty siblings, but none of them go to welton with him

he started going to welton bc he was exceptionally smart as a kid and needed to be challenged

that said, he feels really left out of his family

his mom is the strict and harsh one—she's the one who wanted to put him in welton

his dad is more forgiving

has really poor study habits

possibly on the spectrum, but it's the 50s, so he's never diagnosed

cannot read social cues to save his life, but also can't stand when someone else doesn't recognize his sarcasm

hates having his head touched

cannot tell when a girl is flirting with him

breaking news: he has never been on a date!

will speak without thinking and can roast someone with no problem

once had his extracurriculars taken away for a quarter because he talked back to mr. nolan

he didn't mean to; it just slipped out

can't get comfortable in bed because it's too small

when he does sleep, the world's deepest sleeper; will not wake for anything

his growth spurt happened basically overnight and was incredibly painful

i saw this somewhere else, but he gives the best hugs, and he loves hugging people

loves carbs, he would eat a whole loaf of bread if someone let him

it's a miracle he let his friends have half a roll

world's fastest metabolism—cannot gain weight even if he tried

loves listening to music and frequents the record store when he's home

loves running—a track star, if you will

loves horror stories

he prefers cats as pets over dogs because he likes how independent they are

speaking of, do not let this boy into a pet store

he will buy a hamster, no questions asked

if he makes a mistake, no matter how small, he will lose sleep over it

if money didn't matter, he would be a teacher

shockingly, he has great handwriting

he and meeks have roomed together since sixth grade

can lift meeks and charlie

really good at crossword puzzles but needs meeks' help with spelling

believes in astrology—to a degree

hates crying, just like the act; he hates when he cries, he hates anyone seeing him cry, he hates seeing people cry

he has holes in his sweaters bc he refuses to buy new clothes until his current ones literally fall apart

very insecure about how he looks and can never take a compliment

he's hesitant about going to yale bc he's afraid of being around new people and away from meeks

for the life of me, i cannot decide what his star sign is so <3

[slytherinbarnes]

I NOW WE'RE TALKING ABOUT RED BUT YOU CANNOT TELL ME THAT TEARS RICOCHET ISNT ABOUT BELLUNE LIKE!!!!!!!!!

i just found this in my drafts bc i very clearly had inspo and i cant believe i never shared it. my tears ricochet x bellune, but make it a season 3 au where we lose our girl instead of lincoln oops sorry

You sit beside Kane in lock up, having just said goodbye to your mother, wishing you could do the same with Bellamy and your sister. 

As you near the hour of what will soon be your death, you find comfort in knowing that at least Clarke will have your mother. Selfishly, some part of you is grateful that you don’t have to feel the loss of losing your twin, and that Clarke will have to learn to live with the grief. But she was always stronger than you, and if anyone could learn to live without half of themselves, your shining star can.

But in the end, it’s Bellamy your heart aches for. In a way, he’s lost his sister, his friends, those that are closest to him. In the moments of silence, when it’s just the two of you, you can see the weight pulling down his shoulders, can see the anguish that has settled into the lines on his face. Bellamy has spent most of his life lost; searching for who he is without a father, what kind of man he wanted to be on the Ark. and then losing his mother and Octavia, it left him listless, floating in the openness of space with no idea of who he wanted to be. 

It’s why he so easily agreed to save Octavia’s life by shooting Jaha; he had the opportunity to find himself again. To anchor his identity to his goal of saving Octavia, and ultimately, his people. 

But then his obsession with saving his people, after having lost so many in such a short time, broke him, pushed into the arms of a fascist chancellor who saw how easy it was to take advantage of the man you love. 

It’s a path you can’t follow him down. 

It’s a path you won’t be given the chance to follow him down, even if you wanted to. 

You look at Kane, at the man you’ve come to see as a father figure without even realizing it was happening. And now, the man who will lose his life the same way your father lost his. Fighting for what’s right. 

“It can't be all for nothing.” Kane turns to look at you in confusion, not understanding what you mean. You push on, “All of it. The spying, Mount Weather, all the hell we’ve faced can’t be all for nothing. Pike will destroy Skaikru until there’s nothing left, and everything we fought for will no longer matter.”

Lincoln wanders over and sits beside you on the bench. He reaches out to squeeze your shoulder, a silent message that he understands your frustration. 

“There’s nothing left for us to do. We have to hope our deaths will mean something. That it will finally push for the change we’ve been fighting for.”

You’re incredulous at the suggestion, at the thought of being told to just stop fighting. “So that’s it? We just give up?”

Kane shakes his head, his expression sad, but determined. “No. This is how we fight now. We go with grace, accept our punishment, hold our head high. We don’t break, we don’t show fear. The people will remember.”

He glances up at Sinclair, who has just joined the three of you, nodding in agreement. You look at Lincoln, who gives Kane a single nod in agreement, and you sit between them, wondering how this is all that’s left for you. You’re the last to agree, resigned to a fate that may save the love of your life and your people, a fate that you will not be around to see. 

-

You’ve never been happier to see Octavia Blake in your entire life. 

She ushers all of you to safety, freedom just on the other side of a hidden passageway built into Arkadia’s walls. 

A freedom that she watches slip away as Lincoln insists on staying back for his people. 

You see the betrayal on her face as she slips into unconsciousness, the same betrayal you felt when Bellamy did the same thing to you in Mount Weather. As Lincoln passes his unconscious girlfriend into Kane’s waiting arms, you close in on him, trying to change his mind. She passes out right after, and Lincoln catches her easily, passing her to Kane. You step towards Lincoln, looking at him in confusion. “What are you doing?”

“Same thing you’d do for your people.”

You give him a serious look, “Yu laik ai kru.”

You are my people. He smiles at you, but it’s sad, and the sight of it hurts your heart. “Just get her out of here. Please.”

But then Kane’s words rattle around in your head, and it finally clicks for you. We have to hope our deaths will mean something. The people of Arkadia see Lincoln as a Grounder, and his sacrifice to save other Grounders will mean nothing to them. They will only see it as someone saving their own. They need to see one of their own, someone from the Ark, risking their life for Grounders. It’s the only way they’ll ever understand what the rest of you are fighting for. 

The answer seems so obvious now, and you feel like a fool for not thinking of it earlier. 

You turn back to Lincoln, shaking your head at him, already stepping away. “Get her out of here yourself. I can save your people.” And maybe Bellamy too. 

Kane steps closer to the two of you, unable to avoid overhearing your conversation in the small hallway. His expression is distraught, shaking his head as he looks at you. “No, you can’t.”

“You said it yourself: our deaths can mean something. The people will remember. I know this place better than Lincoln, I know the guard schedules and routes. I can get them out and be seen only when I need to be. I can end this.”

“But Clarke-”

You cut Kane off, “Has my mother, and our friends, and you.”

You can see the moment he remembers that you will not go out without a fight, that you will do this with or without his support. He offers you the only thing he can, which is his blessing. “If you get them into the west woods, they can navigate the trade routes to the blockade. They’ll be safe.”

It relieves you to have his approval, though you can see the anguish it’s causing him to give it. You give him a small smile of thanks, hoping he won’t carry guilt from something that you’re willingly choosing to do. 

You can’t say the same for Lincoln, who grabs your arm as you try to step away, pulling you back towards the escape route. “La lune, you can’t.”

“We both know it’s the only way, Lincoln. You know that I know this camp better than you. I’m more likely to make it through unnoticed. If you want your people to be safe, they need to get out of this camp, at least until Pike is dead. I can’t take care of that, but I can save your people and make a statement. Maybe the people will turn on him, offer him to the Grounders at the blockade.”

You can see that he desperately wants to argue with you, but when his mouth opens, no words come out. Because both of you know he’s right, and if Skaikru wants any chance of survival, they need to see Pike do the unthinkable. He reaches out for you, his strong arms pulling you into a hug, and it’s the first time since you made your decision that you start to tear up. 

When Lincoln pulls away, his expression is sad, but you swear you glimpse a look of pride in your eyes. It strengthens your resolve further. “A warrior with a heart.”

You smile at him before reaching up and unclasping your necklace, your thumb brushing over the silver moon one last time. You press it into Lincoln’s hand, delivering your final wish. “Can you give this to Bellamy for me?”

His hand closes over the moon, the last time you’ll ever see the small charm, and when you meet Lincoln's eyes, you can see that he understands what this means to you. “Of course.”

There’s a clamor down the hall, what sounds like a commotion of guards, and you know that time is finally up. You quickly press a kiss to Octavia’s forehead and back away from the two men, looking them both over as you mutter, “May we meet again.”

They repeat it back to you before slipping into the hidden passageway, and when you press the panel back into the wall, it’s with the knowledge that you’ll never see any of them again. 

-

The escape of 4 prisoners sentenced to death has the guards scrambling, and it makes them sloppy. 

It’s easy to be invisible when that’s all you were your entire life. You blend in with the crowds of Arkadians easily, walking past most of the guards in plain sight. And when you round the final corner to the small lock up you left not long ago, you’re relieved to find that they only left one guard behind. 

He’s not expecting you, so when you run down the hall at full speed, kicking your legs out to swipe his own feet from beneath him, he tumbles easily. You yank the shock baton from his belt, cranking it up just enough to knock him unconscious, but not to kill him. You’re trying to help your cause, not hurt it. 

You pat the man down, finding a small pocket knife that you slip into your pants, along with his key card to open the holding cell door. Denae stands there with the others, looking at you in shock, surprised to see you after you were led to your death not long ago. 

“Where’s Lincoln?”

“Safe. Escaped with the others.” You look over the group of Grounder prisoners that have started to stand and move towards you. “We don’t have much time. I have to get you to the west woods before they notice you’re gone.”

The Grounders don’t need to be told to hurry; they’ve seen how easily Pike locked his people up and sentenced them to death, know that it’s only a matter of time before they’re next. The stronger ones carry and guide the weak, and you take the emptier hallways until all of you are safely outside, the fence and the woods beyond it in your sight. You want to be seen, but getting caught before freeing the Grounders will only make things worse for everyone. 

As your group openly jogs across a busy section of Arkadia, people stop to watch you, but no one says a word, unsure of what exactly they’re seeing. When you reach the fence, you toss a nearby stick at a section you hope is no longer electrified, fried long ago during spy related activities. The stick hits the ground without event, and you let out a sigh of relief, guiding Denae and the others through the gaps in the fence. When everyone is safely through, Denae turns to look at you, surprised to find you still on the other side. “You’re not coming with us?”

“There’s something else I need to do. Follow the trade route to the west, and you’ll reach the blockade in no time. Your people can protect you from there.”

“Thank you.”

You feel strange accepting her thanks. “I’m sorry for what my people have done to yours. Maybe one day we will all be one people.”

“Peace will find a way.”

And as the two of you exchange a smile, an alarm begins to sound over the PA system, prompting Denae to turn and run, disappearing into the treeline with her people before Pike and his guards even know they’re gone. You let out a sigh of relief, because at least now, everyone is safe. Except for you.

-

“La lune, la lune, la lune.”

The name falls from Bellamy’s lips like a broken prayer as he sprints through the woods, back towards Arkadia, a necklace squeezed so tight in his grasp that a small silver moon will leave its imprint in his palm for hours after he lets go. 

He can hear footsteps crashing through the woods behind him, his sister and Kane calling his name as he tears through the woods on memory alone, letting his legs carry him back to the woman he loves. 

I only wanted to keep her safe. To protect her, and my people. I was wrong, I was wrong, I was wrong. 

When he bursts through the treeline, his eyes trace the arc of Arkadia looming high in the gray skies, rain starting to fall like the Earth knows what’s about to happen. Bellamy is sure that he can stop it, that he can convince Pike to save your life, even though he failed before. He’ll give himself in your place, accept that the bullet meant for you is actually for him, one shot to atone for his sins and wipe his slate clean. Because you deserve to live, to have peace and live life until you’re old and gray. You deserve a partner that loves you, and the comfort of knowing that you’ll always be safe with the people you love. You deserve all the things you’ve dreamed and longed for, and even if he can't be there to see it, even if he can't be there to give those things to you, he will sacrifice himself in your place.

Pike walks ahead of a group of guards, guards that Bellamy would have considered friends not two days earlier, guards that are now pulling his fighting girlfriend outside the main gate. 

Bellamy starts to run again, his legs moving on instinct to be with you, but strong hands pull him back, holding him in place with an iron grip, forcing him to watch from a distance. 

Your hands are bound; hands that he once spent hours holding, content just to be with you. Your hair is wild around you, the way it looks when you wake beside him each morning, tousled now from the way you’re fighting the guards. And the necklace that would normally be glinting in the light around your neck is now gripped so tightly in his hand that blood begins to seep between his fingers. 

He wants to turn to Kane and Octavia, scream that they have to save you, that they have to let him go so he can take your place, but he is frozen as he sees you pulled before Pike, the chancellor’s hand already resting on the gun at his side. 

-

Pike is too much of a coward to kill you in the middle of Arkadia. 

You guessed as much, but once he dragged you towards the back of camp, out of sight from the rest of your people, you started to fight, deciding that going with grace only worked if there was someone there to see it. 

The people of Arkadia will know what happened to you, even though Pike tries to hide it. 

Once you are pulled through the gate and into a patch of land just outside Arkadia’s walls, you finally stop your fight. It’s almost over. Everyone you love is outside the camp, except your mother, who will have no idea what’s happened until after you’re gone. You can only hope she remembers her promise to you and Kane, and that she doesn’t risk her life when Clarke still needs her. 

You thought you’d be scared, but you aren’t. You swear it’s because your father is with you, his cologne easy to spot amongst the smell of dirt and pine. He’s keeping you standing tall and strong, giving nothing to the man that will soon take your life. A man that he once played chess with, long ago on a ship in the sky, long before anyone knew that a life on Earth was possible. 

When you had nothing but time while locked up, you anguished over all the things you were going to lose. Now, as the clock ticks towards the end, you think only of the things that give you joy. You think of Clarke when you were both small, of the pictures she would draw and leave on your pillow to find in the morning. You think of Octavia, the timid girl that became a warrior and your friend, making you more proud than you thought possible. You think of Monty’s moonshine and your mom’s laugh and most of all you think of Bellamy. 

You think of the freckles dotted across his face, the ones you would trace for hours as he slept beside you. You think of his lopsided grin, and the way he always seemed to know what you needed before you needed it. You think of how he gave you strength when you had none, the way he laughed when he thought no one was paying attention. You think of him in the quiet moments, the in between, when his face was serene with sleep or his shoulders finally relaxed at the end of a long day. You think of Greek gods, constellations, and the Iliad, of all the stories that tied the two of you together. 

And your final wish to the Universe as you turn to face Pike, is that Bellamy Blake will no longer be lost. 

-

You stand tall as they turn you to Pike, your stance confident, despite the situation you’re in. 

You don’t drop to your knees when they ask you too, making the guards get their hands dirty instead as they push your knees into the mud beneath you. 

You don’t flinch when Pike pulls out his pistol and cocks it. 

Your eyes never leave his as his finger moves to the trigger. 

The last words to ever leave your lips falls on ears that don’t understand the meaning. 

“I love you more than the stars.”

And you swear the last thing you hear before everything goes dark, is a scream that sounds a lot like Bellamy. 

-

Bellamy feels like the scream is splitting his throat apart, his anguish so raw, so palpable, that he’s sure he must be bleeding. 

He can’t understand that he’s okay, that the pain he’s feeling isn’t one that can ever be seen. He’s sure that it will kill him, that his heart will refuse to carry this and simply stop. He thinks that will be the greatest mercy, the way to reunite again with you. 

He doesn't remember Kane and Octavia pulling him away from the clearing, trying to escape the Arkadian guards that now know where they are. He doesn't remember punching the walls of the cave until his hands were nothing but blood and torn flesh, doesn't remember the screams that tore from his throat until Kane slipped Reaper drugs into his veins. 

He slips unconscious in a fit of anguish, surrounded by friends who wonder how they will share the news of your death to your other half if this is how Bellamy reacts. 

They have to keep someone on guard duty all night, because Bellamy tries to escape three separate times, swearing he’s going to kill Pike with nothing more than his bare hands. 

He has to be chained up when they kidnap Pike and deliver him to the Grounders, ending the blockade. He fights the restraints for hours, until his wrists are just as bloody as his hands once were, and only when he’s finally exhausted every ounce of strength in his body does he finally fall asleep. 

And when he dreams, he dreams of you. 

-

@anoddsightcomeoutatnight