#it left me with the sentiment that I was suffering because it was my fault

[manhattan-gamestop]

I think tumblr is better at talking about the severity of Covid than a lot of platforms, but the posts I see on here do a terrible job at highlighting that you can do everything right and *still get it*. And I don't say that to be a pessimist, but because it can be incredibly invalidating for people who have been masking, up-to-date on boosters, etc. and got Covid bc even though we did everything we could, it still feels like our fault that we had it. So if that describes your experiences with Covid I just wanna say I see you, I feel you, and you are not alone

[tinystepsforward]

ngl it makes me want to die a little bit that it's so often trans people who feel that sex is mutable but oppression is always-forever based on asab in ways that allow them to demand that information from other trans people. like it feels fucking bad. it feels bad when it's people holding up someone who posts a lot of selfies as transition goals to a degree they have to clarify what they have or haven't done or what "direction" they're going in, it feels worse when people are out there like "caster semenya is not tma" or whatever the fuck. i am, as always, not a trans woman, but here's a sentiment echoed by many of the trans women around me who log the fuck off, quoted directly from one: "people who draw a clear line where they say that semenya or khelif are tme and then call me tma are just calling me male at this point".

like i get it. i really do. we seek community and shared experiences, and we feel betrayed when people have less in common with us than we thought they did. [*more on this later.] but that's not those people's faults and my god in the case i'm seeing play out on twitter rn this poor person did absolutely nothing to intentionally mislead people, just posted pictures of their actual kid self. who looks a lot like i did, because shockingly enough "we can always tell" doesn't fucking work for trans people either!

on the one hand i move in intersex circles which are unapologetically welcoming in cis "dyadic" people with pcos, because it serves nobody to draw a clear line where mutilation or genetics or some ineffable childhood suffering are what make somebody intersex, especially when most of us (esp in places like nz) have never been karyotyped and are being treated for symptoms without a pinned-down cause anyway. the more of us there are the stronger we are, the more pressure we can exert on a medical profession which doesn't like to consider how common outliers are, how uneasy sex is at all. and then on the other hand there's dyadic trans people on the internet who've yelled me out of spaces because a couple of traumatised incarcerated trans women i worked with as a prison abolitionist assumed i was also a trans woman and i didn't immediately tell them my entire csa-involved history of being sexed in varying ways as an infant and child and/or exactly how big my phallus was at birth or where in my junk config my urethra lives so they could decide i was tme or whatever.

returning to the * for a related but not identical thought: i think presuming shared experiences leads to some fucked shit in general! "oh we all had a radfem phase" or "oh we all were channers" no we fucking weren't and it's particularly obnoxious when me & mine are trying to build trans community locally to organise and resist the growing wave of far-right backlash against our existence, and there's just white people in there on a spectrum from "straight up being antisemitic and trying to get the n-word pass" through "handwringing about how they need to make space for people who aren't politically correct" to "handwringing about how brown people are right to be mad at them but doing shit fuckall". and then the other fucking brown people in the space are on some identity politics shit where they're like "trans joy inherently excludes those of us who could get deported" or "big city white queers are killing us by being visible instead of going stealth bc it stirs up the discourse" or whatever the fuck i've heard pulled out this year. there's a bunch of reasons i primarily organise outside of trans spaces and that's one of them. i've never felt more alone in spaces where people claim we're all the same than being left as the brownest moderator or organiser in a space full of people to whom "this is a safe trans space" apparently means they get to abdicate all other responsibilities not to lapse into presumed shared patterns that are fucking racist or otherwise alienating. i've never felt more alone than surrounded by exclusively trans people who sort people into boxes and assume everyone in those boxes has the transition goals they have. like i was on cypro until it disagreed with me to the point of endocrine crisis and now i'm on t and at both those points people were so fucking presumptive or entitled to my reasons or journey or personal relationship w my body

literally just submitted on (and was invited to consult on) the nz law commission's review of the human rights act and like. it's straight up fucked how many nz trans people fully do not comprehend that any "sex assigned at birth" type definitions fundamentally exclude migrants who have no way of proving it and many intersex people who happen to have been reassigned later or many times or never assigned at all as a baby. we can't make law with this shit and that's why we have to have symmetrical protections for all genders/sexes/expressions/presentations, bc naming and defining a protected class here often leaves the people who already are left out from those shared experiences of marginalisation out in the cold when they face violence

[marshmallowprotection]

you got me thinking about cowboy au V too much my brain cant handle it 🫠

The last time you saw him, you dressed his wounds day in and day out, and kept a smile on your face despite how extension the damage to his back was. You didn't want him to feel like he was powerless at that moment, even though he had been the most powerless he’d ever been in his entire life the day of the accident. 

It wasn't his fault criminals burned his house to the ground, nor was it his fault the fire had already surrounded him by the time he woke up in the dead of night! It singed his very soul as he tried to escape, and despite how much pain he was in, the one thing that he kept asking for when he became lucid was his mother. 

Nobody had the heart to tell him what happened to her in the fire... not until after you left the town to advance your studies in medicine.

She sacrificed her life to save him that night.

It was an act of love nobody would ever be able to erase.

You tended to him just as that woman would have wanted you to when you were barely older than he was at the time. You were just children at the time, not much older than twelve, and all the same, you wanted to save his life because he was a kid who treated you with a smile every time you saw his face.

Being the only child of the town's doctor was awfully lonely, but you wanted to follow that career to make sure smiles like his would never disappear. Your father tried everything he could to save his mother in the dead of night, but the wounds were too much... too grave... and it was over before he could mend anything. You... spent hours cleaning his charred skin during that time. You prayed they would come out of the other side together... but they didn't.

You stayed by his side throughout his recovery process just to make things easier on your father's work in town. You got to know him in a way that not many people did, and whenever you felt any doubt in yourself, Jumin Han was there to place a hand on your shoulder and let you know it was going to be okay. 

He didn't suffer alone, there was always someone there with him throughout the process. That wasn't normal in your profession, but you wanted it to be.

That's why as much as it pained you to leave your small town when you did, you knew it would be worth it in the long run, because the more you learned about medicine, the better your chances would be at helping people like him and his mother from an untimely end. 

He was your first patient and the one who radicalized you the most in your humanity.

You wanted nothing more than to make sure his suffering wouldn't last for long if you could do anything about it with your knowledge. You felt much better about that sentiment now in your life, but as you watched the train move on the track and bring you to more familiar scenery of your childhood, the only thing you could think about was the knot in your throat.

You hadn't seen him in years and the idea of seeing him exhilarated and terrified you. 

What would you say?

What would you do?

With a heavy heart, you looked down at the faded photograph from the last day you were with him and Jumin. Jumin had a stern face, one that could last the time it took for a camera to process a photo, Jihyun had a nervous smile on his face that didn’t waver for as long as it took the shutter to develop… and you? You had your eyes turned in his direction, a gentle look in your eyes as your hand steadied him on his feet. 

God.

You had it bad for him, didn't you?

"Jihyun, I reckon I have to be brave today... not the kind of brave that makes me fit for a doctor who ain't scared of no blood, but the kind n' brave that'd make me face you without gettin' tonguetied. I hope yer' ready for a blast from yer' past... our past. Jumin said ya' were doin' good... but I can't wait to see myself."

[ellieellieoxenfree]

52 weeks, 52 movies: april

yeah whatever i finally got around to it rewatches denoted with *; bold denotes favorites watched.

straight-jacket (usa) — after a gay scandal potentially threatens to end movie star guy stone’s (matt letscher) career, he’s forced to marry an unaware secretary (carrie preston) to keep up appearances, which becomes considerably more difficult after he falls in love for real.

it PAINS me to give this movie a bad review. it really, really does. it has all the ingredients i should like — matt letscher, carrie preston, homosexuality, mid-century american satire — and yet it has all the life and wit of a damp paper towel. letscher appears pained to be in the thing, not so much sleepwalking through the role but actively grimacing through it. carrie preston is usually reliable, but you can see too much of the glue holding her performance together and what should be frothy and campy just comes off as almost embarrassingly try-hard. the chemistry between letscher and adam greer, who plays his communist boyfriend, rick stone, is…well, nonexistent. greer is trying, again, but one person cannot carry a two-person relationship, and stone really isn’t so much of a character as he is a stereotypical hodgepodge of liberal talking points.

straight-jacket was a play first, which shows up in glaringly obvious and detrimental ways — it’s blocked like a play, with stagey sets and shoddy CGI standing in for actual era-appropriate sets. the whole thing feels claustrophobic and limited, and there’s no immersion into the 1950s because the set design only takes us about a quarter of the way there. combining the clumsy, amateurish visuals with characters who spout viewpoints decades ahead of what they should be makes for a jarring experience. (rick, again, is the poster child for this, and i doubt anyone could have salvaged the character.)

it also just doesn’t know what it wants to be tonally. it starts out as fluffy camp, then takes a hard left (ha!) turn into serious social commentary and a shoehorned plea for tolerance and acceptance. rest assured, it does none of these things well, and its preachiness manages to drown out whatever scraps of fun could have potentially been gleaned from the comedy. the dialogue aims for pointed zingers and is instead defanged and limp; the pathos just is creaky and gloopily sentimental. i struggled mightily to figure out who this movie could have been for, and what kind of story it was trying to tell, because i don’t think at any point anyone involved in the production knew, either. it kept trying to take flight, but it’s hard to do that when every level of your story is dead on arrival.

pygmalion (1981) (uk) — linguistics professor henry higgins (robert powell) makes a bet that in six weeks, he can pass eliza doolittle (twiggy), a cockney flower girl, off as a duchess in high society.

the 1938 pygmalion is one of my favorite movies of all time — hiller and howard are lightning in a bottle, and the movie sparkles and crackles and shimmers. this was poised to do the same, because robert powell and twiggy are near and dear to my heart and i would watch both of them read the phone book. (yes, i stand by this. have you seen twiggy in the boy friend? delightful. i adore her.) and i did enjoy it, truly! but not quite as much as i thought i would, which was no fault of either lead. instead, it’s damned slightly by being a faithful adaptation of the stage play, and thus it robs us of some of the more emotionally satisfying scenes contained in other versions. twiggy suffers the short end of the stick here most; she’s a fantastic eliza, but we just don’t see enough of her. when she does get to shine, she utterly nails the role. she starts as a live wire of a girl, chaos and noise, but she transforms into composed steel and ice as she undergoes higgins’ tutelage and begins to realize the magnitude of how he’s used her and how disposable he sees her. i was particularly disappointed that her trumph at the society ball is entirely erased from this version, because it robs us of the power of seeing how effective her transformation has been, but she still takes the limited material she’s given — her confrontation with higgins, which is one of the finest moments in any adaptation — and renders it with quiet, chilling devastation. this eliza is not the hysterical woman-child higgins drags off the streets; this is a woman fully in control of her power and destiny and wise enough to know to keep her anger on a controlled simmer. i loved her restraint here. she doesn’t raise her voice or lash out in anger, but delivers her lines with precise, pointed viciousness.

likewise, when she’s fled the higgins household to stay with his much more agreeable, pleasant mother (helen shingler), she knocks it out of the park. this, unlike straight-jacket, understood the importance of adhering to social norms. eliza here feels like a proper edwardian lady, who understands the roles and limitations placed on her, and she carries herself with a quiet grace and dignity that fully centered the production in its historical context in a way i hadn’t seen to such effect before (even in 1938!).

powell, of course, is magnificent, and he relishes the chance to play higgins. higgins is one of the great roles to me, conniving, brilliant, thoughtless, condescending, full of swagger and bravado. he is an awful man but a great character, and powell inhabits him fully. when he and twiggy spark off one another, they’re delightful together. unfortunately, we just don’t get the chance to see them do it often enough. many of the major bones of the story are intact — the ‘gin was like mother’s milk to her’ line is as screechingly funny as always; the aforementioned post-society ball confrontation twists the knife. but we don’t see much of the actual training and eliza’s struggles to learn; we see higgins and his colleague, pickering (ronald fraser) celebrate their success at the ball, but eliza’s actual achievements remain frustratingly off-screen. it feels very appropriate to shaw to give us an adaptation about a woman coming into her full power and still sideline her in favor of giving us more from the men.

still, frustrating flaws aside, this is a real treat to watch for me — two of my favorite stars in one of my favorite plays. it won’t dethrone the 1938 masterpiece, but still glad i was able to get my hands on it. thanks, random amazon seller in the UK. you’re a real one. cadejo blanco (guatemala) — after her sister goes missing, working-class sarita (karen martínez) infiltrates a gang to figure out what happened to her.

there is a scene late in this movie where a young gangster — much like other members of the gang, most likely in his mid-20s at best — tells the protagonist about a criminal he knew growing up. the man stole vehicles, caused chaos, and terrorized the neighborhood, until the day he was found shot in the middle of the street. his death was unmourned; the cops did nothing to apprehend the shooter. the neighborhood, instead, greeted the news with a profound sense of relief.

that, the gangster tells her, is the fate that he knows waits for him. there is no one who will grieve his own early demise. he has no purpose in life other than to fight for an uncaring boss who will just find another warm body to replace him if and when he’s killed. it is an utterly crushing, tremendously powerful scene. he’s a gangster but he’s also just a boy. he’s too young and gangly to be considered a man yet. he’s still figuring himself and his life out, and he’s horribly aware of his own fragile mortality and the limited amount of time he has left.

and the rest of the movie is a miserable, dragging, tonally inconsistent slog around it. it is over two hours long, for some godforsaken reason, anchored by — i’m sorry, but it’s true — a flat, emotionless lead performance from karen martínez. martínez is admittedly a non-professional actor, so asking her to shoulder basically the entire movie is a tall ask, but she’s not up to the challenge. she has some great moments, such as when she corners the rich boy who keeps her around as a side piece and tells him that he’s going to cover for her while she heads off on her quest to find her sister, or she’ll spill all of his dirty sex secrets to his upper-class friends, but she doesn’t convey the emotional range needed for someone who’s heading into almost-certain death. and sarita faces some truly horrific stuff as her gang infiltration progresses, none of which ever quite lands. not all of this is martínez’ fault, because much of it does lie with the writing/direction/editing/cinematography. there’s not really a sense of urgency or dread that ever comes through. things happen, but that’s…it. i say this with the same tone i would use to say that breakfast happened for me this morning. it was a thing that occurred, without emotion or energy. the plot unfolds, but i never quite felt anything about it. sarita’s sister going missing should fill me with something. the violence (of many stripes) she faces should rouse horror or pity or anger in me. it doesn’t. it’s there. it exists. it just sort of…is.

it’s just boring, is the cardinal sin, which is insane considering the subject matter of the movie. but i kept hovering my mouse over the progress bar and asking how in god’s name i still had another 45 minutes to go. remember when you were in elementary school and each minute felt like it lasted twelve days? that was me with this movie. utter drudgery.

but hey, guatemalan spanish is beautiful, so that’s balm in gilead.

the lady assassin (vietnam) — a kidnapped upper-class girl joins forces with a trio of female assassins masquerading as tavern owners to take revenge on visitors.

this movie might be the dictionary definition of ‘i didn’t say it was good, i said i liked it.’ i cannot in any way defend it as a good production — the plot is nonsensical, with more than a few heavy dollops of fanservice; the fight choreography should credit the wires used as an extra cast member; the characters aren’t exactly rife with personality or understandable motivations beyond ‘kill everyone.’ and yet i fucking loved this movie. fucking adored it. it’s ridiculous, it’s idiotic, and it is a fucking blast. it has no pretensions about what it is, which is 75 minutes of beautiful girls in color-coded fancy dresses killing people, having vaguely homoerotic encounters, and playing hands-free beach volleyball (because why not). it has a melodramatic subplot that is best left discovered by the viewer, but it, like everything else in the movie, is dialed up past 11. it’s deliciously campy, but also, if you let yourself get swept away by the nonsense, it’s also oddly sweet and affecting.

information on the movie is limited. it plays like a wuxia satire, really leaning into the overeating and the extremely dramatic moments, but i don’t know if that was the intention behind it. i know it was a box office smash in vietnam, but is almost unheard of in the west (i ordered my copy from a specialty distributor in the UK for a song), and the few people who have seen it seem more critical than anything else.

these people are stupid and wrong and have no joy in their hearts. i’m an expert and i can thus tell you that this movie, if you open your heart to it and let it take up idiotic residence, will change your life for the better. i’m not really sure what to tell people to sell them on it. either you like hot girls with swords or you don’t. either you like fun or you don’t. either you understand that a movie does not have have legitimate artistic quality to be good, or you’re a buffoon. watch the lady assassin. it’s a good time.

other viewing

stomp! shout! scream! (usa)

mean mums s2 (new zealand)

song of summer (uk)

working girls (usa)

the thirty-nine steps (uk)

the prince and the pauper (1937) (usa)

yes, madam! (hong kong)

tattoo (iran)

who framed roger rabbit (usa)

beverly of graustark (usa)

pride (2014) (uk)

quiet on set: breaking the silence (usa)

super mario bros: the search for princess peach! (japan)

rikky and pete (australia)

naz & maalik (usa)

in person (1935) (usa)

spirit of wonder: miss china’s ring (japan)

weird: the al yankovic story (usa)

lights in the dusk (finland)

sordid lives (usa)

adorables (belgium)

the wind phone (japan)

cartoon all-stars to the rescue (usa)

evil bong (usa)

super troopers* (usa)

utama (bolivia)

dredd (usa)

wings (1966) (russia)

while the city sleeps (usa)

h is for happiness (australia)

dillinger (usa)

dune (1984) (usa)

trópico (guatemala)

breath (2018) (australia)

the divine order (switzerland)

[yangyangbaby]

You expressed yourself today

Yes.. i did feel that we are out these days and when you questioned me tonight.. i couldn't explain myself.. I'm feeling so bad and i do realize that we can't communicate well these days.. i had no more patient to what you were saying.. This is not a sign that i don't love you nor i don't understand you.. i know exactly where your feelings came from and i know just how my words could hurt you but it ain't my intension to get you hurt.. it will never be..

so many hurtful words were said tonight as an indication of how hurtful to you for what happened recently.. but believe me.. it hurt me too.. i regret at the moment when you left the room..everytime.... if you could ever hear the sound in me.. it is the broken heart sound..

I just couldn't stand with you being resentful of the work and the people in the plant.. i've looked for a shortcut trying to convince you or change your mindset so you could be at ease for work but i failed.. in fact, i made you more miserable...

You can't bring your professional reputation into this as this is not fair to you and not fair to the company..but yes.. one thing i've missed and didn't consider was how people will describe you outside if you failed to take care the plant here..

if an equipment failed and you already made the recommendation.. but the company do not want to follow your recommendation and end up the equipment still failed..will you be at fault? will others still see you at fault? if yes, then screw them..they don't see the values you bring.. if no, then why bother? they trust your professionalism and your skills... not at the tongue of other peoples..

And if this company is making your reputation bad.. then leave.. why are you still staying? because of sentimental? is the person made your sentimental worth it? the plant worth it? Then no choice.. risk your reputation for it.. what matters afterall is to what extent does it worth... and why i don't like you to be bothered by all these is because when you are serabut.. i'm the one who suffered the outcome..

i know the professionalism inspection is what your pride at.. i just want you to see that if this company ain't bring you any value in your growth, your life.. if you cant change then accept it.. if you cant's accept it.. then change...

Just leave the company if that is what make you happier...

Afterall, i just want you to be happy....

[actual-corpse]

After seeing Brian again.... I'm feeling sentimental...

Thinking back, I was a bad roommate... And I've worked to get better, but sometimes it's not just you, but the people around you.

I was thinking that I should have told him I had a crush on him way back when... I mean, what do I have to lose? I've clearly left an impression.

Idk...

I'm watching Brutalmoose review frozen foods, and he covered a breakfast sandwich, which made me think back to my childhood and how I would pack a JimmyDean sandwich to my grandparents house to heat and eat before my cousin and I caught the bus.

Thinking about the old house and my grandaddy and how I want to go home but can't afford to get a very necessary oil change before I go and how I really wanted to visit my family in South Carolina but one of the people I really wanted to see passed away before I could get the chance to go back out to visit.

And how fleeting and short time is and how brief our meetings with others are, and sometimes they come back around somehow, and sometimes they're just gone for good.

And I think back to the things my mom bought me simply because she figured I'd enjoy them... and how I could afford $500 rent and $200 phone bill and other misc. monthly payments on $12/hr 8 hours a week.

When I lived in a comfy townhouse with friends and was able to do things... and how my autism fucking ruined it (along with a roommates' undiagnosed issues)

And now I'm thinking about how my neurodivergence is ruining many things and has ruined many things... I wish I had a cure... I'm tired of suffering in my own mind... Dealing with the aftermath of things that were my fault.

Now I hang out with my cat... sitting at the tiny table in my tiny camper, watching and rewatching the same 10 YouTube videos while occasionally playing the Sims or Skyrim.

I really don't know...

I'm sorry.

[quaintelise]

July 20, 2023

Each of my mornings has been stained with the thought of you ever since it happened. Every factor and object in my world are tainted with a memory of you. You were given of all of me. And as you slipped away, I watched all of me go with you.

It has been 46 days since it happened, 44 days since I found out, and 36 days since I let you go. Now, all the promises we have made cease to exist. All the plans we made have now turned to dust.

Our conversations have kept so many plans, sentiments, and arguments. Despite our history and our promises of never leaving the other’s side, we were never destined to live life in each other’s narratives. You were never my best friend. I put you on a pedestal because I was blinded by the comfort you gave me. I wish you never did.

My greatest regret now has become meeting you. I wish I never did.

The safety and humor that you so easily offered has become outweighed by the pain my heart has dealt with. My empathy for you has transformed into hatred and disappointment. Every time I had to get it together, the common denominator for it is you.

It’s partly my fault for giving everything I had to you when you never deserved any of it. You never deserved me. You never deserved the empathy, the compassion, and safety that I bring with me. You abused it and thought me disposable. So, you threw me away. I was but another friend. I was nobody special. I’ve come to terms with it. I’ve accepted it. And now, I think of you, and I feel nothing but great and bitter loathing.

I’m not one to wish ill on other people. However, a part of me hopes you feel the pain I did, in whatever way the gods wish to give you. A part of me hopes that you emotionally suffer the way I did, too. That way, for once, you’d know how I felt.

In a way, I’m grateful for you. Because you taught me how to love, and how it traumatized me. Because of you, I cease to attach and to fall in love anymore. You’ve taken all my hope with you. As I still try to rebuild the empathy that I have attached with you, my anger shall stand in replacement.

I know that we have brought each other closure, but our years of friendship can never justify that fifteen-minute conversation that we had. And in those fifteen minutes, you never said one good reason why we’ve remained friends. You have tolerated me, you never chose me.

Though there have been times where I have itched to talk to you about something, I will cut off my hand and stab my heart before I ever reach out to you ever again.

I hope I never see or hear from you again, and I wish the same for you. This void you have left with me will fill again. And this time, of happiness, one that you have taken so much from me of. I hope that every time you hear my name, you remember me and how much pain you have caused me.

Someday, I’ll reach my dreams. And you’ll reach yours too. I hope I never hear about them. I hope my memory of you slips away. And I hope to never remember you the way I used to.

I hope you realize how much of me you brought along with you.

You can keep that. I hope that part of myself transforms into pain, and I hope you keep it forever.

[writer-akihiko]

Hello! Can I ask a headcanon between dorm leaders with S/o that somehow getting hypnotized by their stalker (ex: like the sea witch hypnotize prince erik). I want to see how they gonna save her. Thank you~ Have a nice day/night!

Dorm Leaders + Hypnotised!MC

I took inspo from your sea witch and Prince Erik example, so there's the notion of a marriage proposal between you and the dorm leader

Warning: Yandere tones, Poisoning, Mentions of Torture but not explicit

One day, on the day of your awaited date, your lover stood there and wondered why you were late. He had prepared everything for this day because today, he held a box containing a singular ring, as you had described it as the way most people in your world proposed marriage.

What he didn't expect was for his lover to look at him with utter fear as he opened your room door...

Malleus Draconia

He didn't comprehend that you were hypnotised, since he was focused on the fact that you were crying at him in fear, muttering about a monster arriving

He doesn't know what to do, he gets on his knees, begging you to look at him

He's quick to get angry at your reluctance, forcing you to look up at him

It was then he noticed a difference of your eye colour. It was a shade duller than its original colour... Which he gathered were traces of hypnotism magic

His anger vanished, reserving it for the caster of the spell

It didn't take him long to dissipate the magic. He was a powerful magician after all

However, his methods rendered you tired and sleepy. He caught you, holding your much smaller body against his own as his eyes softened at your sleeping form

"Lilia, call for Vice Dorm Leader Viper," He said, cradling you against his chest. He pressed his lips on your forehead, wishing well dreams to you. "The caster is one of his students. No doubt, the caster learned from Viper to get to YN..."

"Bring him to me alive. He'll burn for his crimes."

Riddle Rosehearts

He's immediately angry at the situation, which doesn't help your fear

Trey snaps him out of his rage, but it was futile once you yelled "Stay away from me!" To Riddle. He'd be lying if his heart didn't break a little

You were in hysterics, and Riddle had no choice but to use his magic on you. Even if wasn't sealing away any magic, it would restrain you enough for him to inspect you

Riddle's magic prowess wasn't enough to identify the exact magic, but he told Trey to take notes of anyone could use controlling magic

Seeing that you weren't hostile around Ace and Deuce, you were left in their care

On the other hand... Cater and Trey found the caster. With Riddle's unique magic, it broke the spell

Riddle was more than angry at the caster, but your safety was first. He had to deal with the caster in a more... secretive way

"YN, oh YN..." He held you close, although he kept you in the hug since he didn't want you to see his tears. "You're back..."

"The person who did this to you will face punishment for breaking my rules..."

Kalim Al-Asim

He panics at first, but then he turns to Jamil, begging him to take a look at you since something was clearly wrong with you

When you called him scary and a monster, he was in denial, muttering about how you were sick, and just needed rest

He wasn't rational about it, trying to figure out why you were sick through normal medicine but it wasn't working

He was desperate, causing you to run away from him. Under your hypnotism, you ended up in the arms of your stalker

Jamil was quick to report your disappearance, and Kalim did not wait for a single second to rescue you

Kalim's connections made it easy to find a person that was able to undo the spell on you, although you had to undergo intense recovery as well

Kalim rubbed your tired hand, marvelling at the fact that you accepted his proposal. It was a desperate one, not as he imagined but happy tears fell at your sentiment. "YN... you don't have to apologise for the mean things you said. I know it's not you..."

"The culprit will be punished severely! He harmed the future bride of the Al-Asim family after all!"

Azul Ashengrotto

He knew it was the influence of magic when Jade reported the oddity to him. He knew, and yet...

It hurt. It hurt when you said those hurtful words to him. In his heart, he forgave you but he was focused on saving his future wife

Times like this, he was glad he chose to invest in those magical orbs that spied on you in secret

Floyd was a winning key. The caster was no match for him, although Floyd had to be lightly told off to not immediately kill on-site

Once the caster was brought, it was a matter of getting the teachers to remove the spell. Azul, for as much as he wanted to do it himself, wanted you to be safe. It was better to be safe than sorry

Oh, the joy he had having to punish the caster since the student was also part of the Octavinelle dorm...

You were well-rested, although you were still comforting your soon-to-be husband Azul as he still cries over your well-being. "YN... You're safe and that's all that matters..."

"That student is already suffering at the hands of the twins anyway... So don't concern yourself with him."

Idia Shroud

Initially, Idia thought you stood him up. If it weren't for Ortho, he wouldn't have searched for you

He wished he didn't, because the words you said stung. He kept his tears in though. It wasn't your fault nor the right time

He knew what was going on. He didn't have the latest technology spying on you for nothing

He had ignored those devices since he was so nervous about his proposal, but he wished he hadn't

Even though Idia wasn't the strongest magic user, he knew his way around magicians, particularly his influence around the other stronger students like Malleus

The spell was removed, and you were safe. Idia ignored any further punishments to the caster, since it was a later problem...

Idia held his breath as you got up, steadying yourself from your recovery. "YN... I'm sorry that I wasn't fast enough... Thank you for trusting me..."

"Oh? The caster? He's burning in the River Styx. Where people like him belong..."

Leona Kingscholar

He never planned this to happen! The one thing he puts effort into and it's ruined by some lowlife!

He doesn't care about the insults you say. It filters out. He's used to it. Somehow... your insults linger a little longer than the ones from others...

He doesn't deal with you. He needs to find the person who did this and he needs to find them NOW

If it means turning them to sand, so be it. He wanted you back, no. He needed you back

With Jack's sense of smell, it doesn't take long for him to command the entire beastmen gang under him to find the caster

The caster ends up in his claws, primed for him to rip him to shreds... The spell reversal was quick, and Leona held you close to him. It was tempting to slip the ring he got onto your finger...

He kept the ring next to you, as well as a photo of you both. Once you woke up, he'd say all he meant to say that night. "YN... I'm gonna have to leave your side for a while."

"There's prey I have to hunt."

Vil Schoenheit

He felt like screaming and pulling his hair out when he found you in such a state. No... No, he, as a queen, must keep his composure

He turned away before any of those hurtful words reached his ears. He couldn't bear it if he heard such things from you

He called for Rook immediately, trusting his abilities to trace back your doings before the spell took place

Vil, on the other hand, took up his magic pen to conjure up a poison much more lethal than the one he submitted to become the dorm leader...

Epel, he had to admit, had the intimidation that caused the caster to reverse his spell. Vil spent time pampering you, even when you were recovering... It was as if he was your Prince curing you from the evil curse of the apple...

He brushed away your hair, pouring you a new cup of tea. You were quite weary after the whole ordeal, but you couldn't stop looking at the twinkling ring on your finger. "I'm glad it suits your taste, my sweet potato..."

"If I'm not mistaken, that rotten stalker should be rotting... on the outside too, with that new poison I made..."

[xx-thedarklord-xx]

Is This On?

Also on Ao3

Muggle things weren’t that complicated. If Potter could master them, then so could Draco. Refrigerators were a godsend and whoever invented the telly was a genius. He had figured out the function of a light bulb instantly, it was the electricity itself that he still hadn’t fully grasped. Where did it come from? How did it know when to work? Some things, however, didn’t make any sense no matter how many times it was explained to him.

The internet.

Draco didn’t understand where it began, where it was located or how it worked. All he knew was that he could ask questions to the phone Harry gave him and it would answer back. Sometimes the lady trapped in the phone would send him to the internet to provide information or other times to a little telly inside the phone too.

Which led him to his current predicament.

Harry sometimes used the internet to talk to Granger. There was a little camera on the computer. At least that’s what Harry said but hadn’t really ever showed him much more than that. Could he use it to talk to Harry?

Draco poked the little camera several times, trying to get it to work. He typed in the password that Harry wrote down hoping that would help. When he was met with a photo of the two of them, he tried not to be endeared. Potter would be such a sentimental sap.

“How does this work?” Draco muttered to himself as he stared at the little icons. He couldn’t remember the steps Harry had taken to talk to Granger. Would it even work if he had remembered? He didn’t want to talk to Granger, he wanted to talk to Harry.

“Internet show me Harry.”

Nothing happened.

Draco huffed. It had been a long shot anyway. Reluctantly, Draco pulled out his phone and hit the button that brought out the lady inside. “How do I call on the internet?”

She repeated his question to him as if that was going to help somehow before he was brought to a list of options.

“Skype.” Draco wrinkled his nose. That didn’t sound familiar. He set his phone down and opened the same icon on the computer that his phone had brought him to and typed in Skype.

The first thing that popped up was a little telly. Harry called them videos, but Draco liked that they were little tellies and didn’t care what Harry said. The little telly was boring and showed him too many steps to follow. What drew his attention were more little tellies that he could select from. Some were about Skype too, but others were about all kinds of things.

Make-up. Music. Food. Books. Sports.

There were too many to choose from. So he watched several different little tellies. A lot of them were boring and he ended up either leaving for another one or skipping to the good stuff. Some people weren’t the actors that they thought they were. Honestly, where was the charisma? The charm? He could do it much better.

Draco paused, thumb over the mouse as he thought about it.

He could do it better than most of the people in the little tellies. He had the charisma that they didn’t, he had the charm, the looks, the better smile. And his life was much more interesting than these people. Those with boring lives shouldn’t talk for an hour unless their aim was to put people to sleep. Oh, that was another thought. Were there little tellies to fall asleep? There were little tellies for everything. He rather liked the internet, even if it made no sense.

Draco watched a few more little tellies before he figured he knew enough to do it too. It wouldn’t let him make a little telly until he created an account, which he thought was kind of rude, but it was their rules. A lot of people didn’t use their real name, so he chose not to either. It took him longer than he wanted to find something that suited him.

Slytherin’s Heir.

Finding out that Harry and his idiot friends thought that he had been Slytherin’s Heir had been flattering. Oh, they hadn’t thought that, but they didn’t realize the kind of compliment it had been. What he wouldn’t have given to be Slytherin’s Heir. That kind of power and social status would have made him untouchable.

With his name chosen, it wanted a photo, but Draco didn’t have any photos of him on Harry’s computer. So he didn’t do anything, let the internet do a blank one. Draco’s foot tapped a few times as he realized his account was complete. Now all he had to do was make a little telly.

It took a few times to find the right succession of buttons to find the live option. He didn’t really understand what being live meant, but he did know that meant that he didn’t have to have a little telly already made, that he could create one right there.

“Is this on?” Draco asked, lips pursed as he poked the camera. “I’m not really sure if this is working. Honestly, I was trying to talk to Harry when I decided to make a little telly. Harry’s my boyfriend. Hi Harry.”

Draco waved at the camera with a small smile. He wished he could see Harry’s face.

“Harry’s actually mad at me right now. He’s an annoying prat who likes to think he’s right all the time.” Draco paused; one side of his face scrunched as the thought about what Harry’s reaction would be to his little telly.

“Maybe mad is an exaggeration,” Draco sighed, one hand pushing through his hair. He hadn’t slicked it back in a few days, too out of sorts to feel up to it. His hair fell into his eyes which was an annoying reminder of why he liked his hair slicked in the first place. “He’s more disappointed.”

Draco grimaced as he remembered the last time he had seen Harry.

“He loves me,” Draco whispered, hating that his cheeks were warm. “He says it all the time. At least he used to.”

A long-suffering sigh escaped as he slumped in the chair with wheels that Harry insisted on using even though Draco thought it was a safety concern.

“When I say all the time, I do mean all the time,” Draco grinned. “He didn’t hear that growing up at all and I think he says it so much because he’s trying to make up for lost time. I don’t mind. I like hearing it. Makes me melt a little bit to know that he loves me so much.”

Draco frowned, sitting up straighter.

“You better not tell him that though. That’s embarrassing.” He waved a finger at the camera in what he hoped was a threatening manner.

“I didn’t hear I love you growing up either. It was rare to hear my parents say anything even hinting at love. But the thing is, I’ve always known they loved me. I could see it in the things they did. When my father would show me a new spell or help me with my hand movements. My mother would bring home my favourite sweets whenever she went out. They would stay up later than was presentable with me and listen to the radio.”

The smile on his face was bittersweet. As much as he knew that his parents loved him, it would have been nice to hear it more than they did.

“I guess I picked up their habit,” Draco winced. “I tell Harry I love him… sometimes. I try to tell him more, but the words don’t come easy to me. My parents knew I loved them, and they certainly didn’t need me to say it. But I try to show Harry too!”

Draco’s hands had begun to move in the beginning but were now thrown in the air.

“I make sure whenever he’s on a case to keep his plants watered, even if the one Neville gave him has it out for me and tries to kill me. When he’s having a bad day I make sure his duvet smells like mint because I know he’s going to collapse on our bed and not move for longer than is healthy and for some reason mint is his favourite smell. I don’t really know how to cook that well but the lady in my phone helps me order from Harry’s favourite restaurant and I do that when he’s feeling sad and sometimes when he’s really happy too.”

Draco’s lips turned downward the longer he talked. It bothered him that Harry couldn’t see that he was loved.

“I’m not a people person but I willingly go with him on what he calls adventures around London. Adventure is accurate because wherever Harry goes, trouble follows. Last month we had to run from people with sticks on horses. Harry said they were the law, but I feel like if you were lawmen then you should dress better but that’s beside the point. Then there was this one time we got kicked out of a library. That was more my fault, but Harry was the one who didn’t tell me that the books didn’t talk or yell. Who wants to go to a library with silent books? That’s like going to a gallery where the paintings don’t talk. What’s the point?”

Muggles were weird, honestly. There were a lot of things they did that were smart, and he wished that Wizards would adopt too. But a large amount of what Muggles did was boring. They lived boring lives and he felt bad that they didn’t have Magic to spice it up.

“I try to show with actions how much he means to me, and I thought I was doing a good job at it, but I guess not.” His eyes closed as he remembered the hurt expression on Harrys’ face.

“He told me he wished I would tell him I loved him more. I told him there was no point. Which in hindsight, I’ll admit was a mistake. I don’t take it back, mind you. But I wish I had explained better before he left. I meant there was no point in saying it more if I could tell him through actions. Which I have been doing since I realized I loved him. I thought he knew. I thought he could see how much I love him.”

Draco swallowed around a lump in his throat. He wasn’t worried about their relationship, not really. Harry sometimes needed a few days to cool down when they argued. Only usually, it was anger that was the parting goodbye and not a heartbreaking sadness.

He looked back to the camera, hating that his eyes were wet.

“I love him, so much. I could talk about all the things he does for me that I love. Like the way he looks at me, the way he makes me feel loved and whole. The way he holds my hand too tight, like he thinks I’ll pull away. As if I ever would. Or the way I feel like I’m high on liquid luck whenever we’re together. But those are selfish to point out. I don’t want to talk about me when I bring up what I love about him. That’s conceited.

“I love the way he throws a fist in the air when he gets an answer on the telly right. I love his stupid hair that has to be sentient at this point, never lying flat. I love the softness in his eyes when he’s happy, the way they shine so brightly. Almost as bright as his smile. I love how kind he is. I know I give him shit for that, which I should, but there’s a goodness to him that isn’t common anymore, and I love that. I love how much he cares about other people.

“I love how hard he works—puts every ounce of himself into whatever he’s working on no matter how big or small. I love how smart he is, even if he doesn’t see it himself. He thinks of the world in ways that others don’t—a genius to him that fascinates me. I love how much he loves. He loves with everything that he has. He loves people in general. Wants to see the best in them, has a faith that never wavers. His friends are his family, his family is his world and the love he has for all of them is another extension of himself that is everlasting.”

Draco blinked through the wetness as he sniffled.

“I’m honoured to be part of that love. To know that he could care about me a fraction of what he feels for others is overwhelming. I know he loves me; Merlin knows that I do. How could I not? He doesn’t just say it, he shows it. And I just wish that he knew how much I loved him too. I know I don’t say it enough, and I try, I do, but I had hoped that he could see it. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t show it enough, maybe I didn’t try harder. Maybe I should have done more.”

Draco wiped at his cheeks hating that he let his emotions get the best of him. Especially on his first little telly!

“What hurts the most is that I don’t know how else I could have showed him,” Draco laughed bitterly. “I really don’t. I give so much of myself to Harry, perhaps that’s not healthy, but it’s true. I love him so bloody much and I hate that he doesn’t see that, that he doesn’t know. How could I not love him? Harry, how could you not know that I love you?

“I love you…”

Draco took a deep breath, wishing it wasn’t as shaky as it was as he twirled in the chair. That had to be the reason Muggles had such dangerous chairs, so they could twirl.

“My first little telly wasn’t supposed to go like this,” Draco smiled wryly as he placed his chin on his palm. “I was supposed to charm you all with my good looks and witty personality. And what did I do? Cry over my relationship issues. Like anyone wants to see that. Maybe I’ll tell you the story of how Harry and I fell in love next time. Or maybe the first time we met. Something happier than my tears. Pansy always said I’m an ugly crier—the jealous bitch—so no sad topics next time, I promise.”

Draco leaned forward; lips pursed as he tried to figure out how to turn it off.

“I’m not sure anyone is going to see this. Maybe that’s for the best. I just know I look like a cross between Doxy droppings and Weasley on a good day. I hope you all are having a better day than I am. I’m going to go as soon as I shut this off.”

Draco frowned, clicking a few buttons before he gave up and shut down the whole computer. The simplest solutions were for the best. He spun in the chair one more time facing the rest of their flat, wishing not for the first time that Harry hadn’t taken his happiness when he left.

——

Watching his little telly back was a painful experience. His charm and charisma were there, but it didn’t look as polished as some of the other little tellies he had seen. He’d just have to keep trying.

Draco was about to start a new one when he noticed that there were a lot more numbers than there should have been at the bottom. It had been two days since he had made it, and he expected there to only be his replay.

Not the 819,543 that stared at him. And every passing minute the number grew by the tens of thousands.

Draco double checked that he was on his little telly and not someone else’s before he covered his mouth. Did that many people see him cry? Merlin, what did he do? While the thought was horrifying, what truly scared him was that there were comments.

There were comments.

Oh no.

Draco groaned, already blaming all of this on Harry. And the internet, the internet could take the blame too. With one eye closed, he scrolled down.

NamelessHope 1 day ago Anyone else find this endearing? He’s like an old grandma that doesn’t know how the internet works.

Sorrymum 5 hours ago He’s so cute. Why can’t you be single?

Michael the Sexual Taco 2 minutes ago His partner is trash. It’s so obvious he’s in love. How could Harry not see it?

Bleach 2 days ago First!!!

CubesAreTriangles 13 hours ago Go bottom go!

Potatoes for Life 7 hours ago Nooooo don’t cry! If you cry I’m going to cry

Draco squinted at the comments. Why were Muggles so fucking weird? And what did they mean bottom? Did people just assume things like that? He liked to fuck and be fucked, thank you very much.

Meaty Meat 10 minutes ago Y r u gay

Draco snorted. Okay, maybe Muggles were entertaining.

Casey J 1 day ago I can’t tell if you’re just ranting or want advise. If it’s the former, then ignore me. But maybe Harry does know you love him. I think it’s obvious that you do, so he must know that. Maybe he needs it said too.

Randy Rants 8 hours ago You need couples therapy not the internet

ParsleySnips 2 days ago I totally cried

Pearl’s Pearly Pearls 2 days ago I want to be loved like you love Harry.

SwiperNoSwiping 1 hour ago If you two don’t break up you should do another video with him.

Draco scowled. They weren’t going to break up. A touch of hesitancy filled him at the thought. It had been 6 days since he last saw Harry. Not their worst fight, and he would’ve tried to find Harry and talk to him if it had been completely silent. But Harry sent a Patronus every morning that nuzzled him awake. The Patronus didn’t speak a message but the love he could feel was a message all on its own.

Karla S 1 day ago Am I the only one who caught that he said spell? Is your father a devil worshiper?

Gigi’s my Daddy 2 days ago Little tellies. That’s so cute. That should be our fandom name when you blow up.

Gay4You 20 hours ago I’ve never been invested in someone else’s love life this much. If you and Harry don’t make up I’m going to riot.

Draco looked through several more comments before he pushed away from the computer. There were a few rude ones and a lot more supportive ones, but all of it made him nervous. He didn’t like that so many people knew about his feelings. It was his own fault for making the little telly, but he didn’t think anyone was going to see it!

Part of him was panicking. He could delete it, probably, if he asked the lady in his phone how. But did he want to? Draco bit his lip, unsure what to do. If he deleted it, all those people who saw it would still remember it, so he’d only be stopping new people from viewing it.

Before he could go over the pros and cons of either option, the front door slammed open, causing him to yelp and jump out of the chair.

Hands raised, Draco glared at Harry, who was staring at him intently, chest moving rapidly.

“What is wrong with you?” Draco sneered. “I nearly came out of my skin. If you’re trying to kill me, you almost succeeded. Merlin don’t do that a—”

Draco cut off when Harry marched toward him, eyes still intense. His mouth was still open, ready so say something, but nothing came out when warm hands cupped his cheeks.

“Draco, I’ve always known you loved me.”

Oh no.

He closed his eyes tightly. Harry watched his little telly. How? Why?

“Hey,” Harry whispered, thumbs moving in a gentle caress. “Look at me.”

Draco shook his head. He didn’t want to.

“I’m sorry.”

That had his eyes opening before they widened. “What?”

“We’re so different,” Harry began with a wry chuckle. “Everything about us is different. And for some reason I forgot that. I assumed that our love language was the same. But the beautiful thing about languages is how different they are. I expected yours to be the same as mine and I was wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Draco hated that his voice wavered.

“You’re right, I do say I love you a lot.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Draco hurried to explain. “I didn’t mean it to sound—”

“I know,” Harry shushed him, a thumb placed over his bottom lip. “I say it because I don’t want you to forget that I love you.”

Draco shook his head, wanting to tell Harry that he could never forget. How could he? But he didn’t want to interrupt.

“When I was little, I didn’t just want to be loved by my relatives, I wanted to love them too. But they hated me, and the feeling was mutual. I wanted to love someone just as much as I wanted to be loved. And I guess I say it so much as a reminder to never forget that. I love you, Draco and I can’t help but say it over and over again.”

“I know,” Draco parroted as he pressed a kiss to the thumb still over his lip. “I love that you say it so much. I don’t want you to stop. Lately, you’ve been saying it less.”

Harry’s eyes closed briefly. “I’m sorry. You don’t always say it back and that hurts. I thought you didn’t want me to say it. I thought—”

“No,” Draco shook his head again, this time more violently. “Please no. I’m sorry. I want to say it more, and I promise I’ll try but please don’t stop saying it if I can’t.”

Harry shushed him again and if he wasn’t so close to crying, he’d probably have hexed Harry for treating him like a scared child.

“You do show me that you love me,” Harry said, eyes soft and full of the love that Draco wasn’t sure he could live without. “All the time and that’s your love language. You show me through actions, and I needed the reminder.”

“I want to give you the love you deserve,” Draco whispered, blinking rapidly, willing himself not to cry. “You deserve to hear it just as much as you give it. And I’m sorry I don’t do that.”

“I don’t need it,” Harry argued, eyes narrowed. “And don’t you dare presume to know what I deserve. I get to decide that, and I’ve already given you my heart. So it’s up to you to keep it safe.”

Draco inhaled sharply. Harry’s love was special. “I want to love you vocally too. I want to love you the way you love me.”

“The way you love me is exactly what I need.”

Draco’s nose wrinkled. “I feel like you’re settling.”

“Not your decision.”

“Harry—”

“Draco,” Harry began, flicking him in the forehead. “If you want to say it more, I won’t object. I’m just telling you that I don’t need it like I thought I did. We’re in love and it doesn’t matter how different we show it. The love is still there.”

“Okay,” Draco sniffled, wiping his nose on Harry’s shoulder when he was pulled into a strong embrace. After days of no contact, he basked in their combined warmth. A feeling he had missed more than he thought possible.

Draco turned his head, mouth near Harry’s ear as he whispered,

“I love you.”

If Harry held on tighter, and Draco felt a wetness on his neck, well that was no one else’s business.

~Fin

———

Short Extra

“Hi little tellies!” Draco waved at their new camera, one that Harry now manned, taking in Draco’s new hobby in stride.

“I had planned an intro like all the rest of them do but that’s so boring. Over here we’re better than everyone else. So I said fuck it and tossed it away. Let’s just get to the good stuff. You’ll never guess what Harry did yesterday. It was so embarrassing.”

“Do you have to embarrass me to so many people?”

Draco grinned, nose scrunching at Harry’s glare. He knew his followers wanted to see Harry, but Harry didn’t want to be in the little tellies like that. Plus, Draco kind of liked that it was just him.

“What do you mean?��� Draco blinked, adopting an innocent expression that had stopped working on Dobby when he was three. “I’m just telling my friends.”

“Yeah,” Harry snorted, eyes on the subscriber count that was rapidly increasing. “All 3 million of them.”

It still blew his mind that so many people wanted to hear him talk about his life. He had known from the beginning that he could pull it off. Had always known he had more charm than everyone else on the internet. His little tellies were clearly superior.

And to think it all stemmed from his love of Harry.

-----

This is a story for @rieraclaelin who I know has been having issues reading fic lately so please don't feel like you have to read this at all. I just wanted there to be a gift for you whenever you do feel like readings stories. I adore you!

[buckybarnesdiaries]

casablanca

first part — second part

© credits to the author, i found it on pinterest. if you are the author, please send me a message to add your @.

bucky barnes x reader. ⎢ masterlist.

request by anon: Hi hi hello, I’ve a request night be a tad much but up to you to judge, reader is a fellow avenger and gets severely hurt and when Bucky finds her after a battle he’s scared she might not make it and there’s a lot of “please don’t leave me/I can’t lose you” and such, pretty please maybe? 👉👈

word count: 904 words.

warnings/tags: a little angst.

author notes: none of my stories contain reader’s body descriptions to be inclusive.

Join the tag list here.

Four days had passed. Ninety-six anguish hours since Tony and Bruce removed the bullets and took you to a private hospital run by people like them. Geeks using high technology to rebuild the tissue damaged in your lung and your shoulder. You were weak. Your constants and your pulse were slower than normal. And they didn't know if you could get through this. But that wasn't the only thing that was destroying the Avengers.

Bucky didn't leave your side. He didn't sleep, nor eat. Surviving just by drinking water. He used to talk to you all the time, remembering all the moments you had shared together, remembering funny anecdotes from his past like that time he almost set on fire the Stark Expo. He also used to cry. He found himself falling into pieces on more occasions than he could count. When night came, Bucky lied on the bed by your side, wrapping you with his arms and trying to keep you warm. It turned into an obsession for him since Bruce told him the temperature your body should have.

He guarded your rest, kissing your temple or your forehead from time to time. He asked the doctors to explain to him what all the devices around you were for. He wanted to understand, to help in any way. Bucky was attentive to the clock, knowing the schedule of your medicines better than his own name —ragging if they were supplied one second late of the terms. He threatened anyone who dared to neglect you. And nobody could blame him. You were his soul mate, the person with who wanted to spend his life. James couldn't live without your love for not a single day.

“Brought you clean clothes”.

The soldier didn't notice Steve's presence till he spoke, offering him a backpack with his stuff.

“Nothing?”

Bucky put down from the edge of the bed, grabbing the bag while shaking his head. He looked deadly tired, taking all the strength from the serum running through his veins to stay awake and keep an eye on you. Walking in the bathroom, he took a quick shower to refresh his senses. Only leaving you alone if Steve was there. He didn't trust anyone else to take care of you without his presence.

The Captain took Bucky's place then, sitting on the bed and holding your left hand free of cables and tubes, to place a kiss on the back of it. He understood to perfection why his best friend fell in love with you. Steve was a man of small details and he noticed every one of them you used to have with Bucky. The kind of ones that showed how much you loved, respected, and supported him.

“Don't tell him I hate Casablanca”.

That funny confession left your sore throat in a hushed tone, not being able to speak louder yet. His eyes widened as he felt you squeezing his skin under your fingers, and he couldn't help but laugh in a soft cry. That sound captivated James' attention, running out from the bathroom barely wearing a pair of sweatpants.

“(Y/N)?” He whispered, stopping two feet away from your position.

Steve didn't doubt standing up to let his friend take that place. And he embraced you. An arm around your waist and the other around your neck. Carefully, but tightly. The tears fell from his dull eyes at the instant you made a big effort to place yours around his back. You had never been so scared of dying, only because of leaving him alone, lost, desolated. It wasn't for you, nor your family, nor anyone else. Only for him.

The Captain left the room, waiting a couple of minutes before giving the call to the doctors. You needed that moment. You needed to be that close before being set apart to continue checking your health and if the nanotechnology worked as it should. Bucky sunk his face into the gap between your neck and your shoulder, not being able to stop sobbing uncontrollably. Not believing you were awake. Tony and Bruce said it was the sign for you to stay alive, to beat the wounds.

“It was… It was my fault…” He wept because of the guilt he had been carrying since he found you moribund.

“No… It wasn't, Buck…”

“I… I got distracted… I lost you”.

“You told me to stay close and I didn't”. You replied going against his thoughts, pressing him a little more over your chest to be comforted by his weight. “I won't do it again. I promise”.

Bucky raised his face enough inches to peck your lips once and once, not having the intention of stopping unless you asked him for. But you wouldn't. You had been four days suffering more for him than for yourself —hearing him talking to you to feel accompanied in your darkness, being embraced fondly all night long, demonstrating to you that love wasn't enough to express his sentiments for you and how real they were.

“How much have you slept?” You reprimand him with a low tone, noticing the black bags under his eyes.

“Don't… Don't do that now, doll… Nobody could take care of you better than me”. He implored you, hiding his face back to your neck, having the luxury of shutting his eyes close for a brief second. “I had to do it… I had to do it”.

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[custom-emojis]

hiyo, i keep feeling bad because i had a very toxic friend, and i'm fairly sure she had bpd and it was influencing how she treated me, but i've seen so many people with bpd say how people leaving them can be really hurtful, and i feel bad. i understand supporting people with bpd, but i feel like if someone is really putting someone else through shit, asking them to suffer through that just because the person had bpd would be wrong, right?

like, ofc bpd isn't evil, and neither are people who have it, but if someone is dealing with their illness by hurting others instead of focusing on their own healing, that's their fault and i feel like no one should have to stay with a toxic friend just for fear that if they don't they're being ableist because their toxic friend has a mental illness.

i'm not saying this is your belief, but it's the sentiment i've received heavily from a lot of the posts i've seen about people breaking off friendships with people who have bpd, and it made me feel bad for doing that to my friend because i start to think i should've tolerated her toxicity because she was struggling with her mental health, and i don't want to feel like a bad person for prioritizing my own. so... it wasn't wrong of me to do that, right? i know she was struggling and couldn't control what she was struggling with, but i'm not a bad person for not excusing that or forgiving her, am i? sorry, i know this is super random and if it makes you uncomfy i'm very sorry, i just thought since you have bpd, if you give an answer to it i would trust you, idk.

Anon. First off im going to tell you off the bat this was a very fucking shitty ask to send me. and as a warning for my followers: I WILL be unapologetically angry over this.

First off, anon, lets get the elephant in the room out of the way: anybody can leave any kind of relationship they want, for any reason. even if its NOT toxic or abusive, if you want to leave someone and they happen to have bpd. you're in your full right to do that.

now. with that out of the way: you say

"i'm fairly sure she had bpd and it was influencing how she treated me"

Now, 'fairly sure' isn't the same as 'she has bpd'. DOES she have bpd? or are you just ASSIGNING her bpd because she was abusive and controlling?

"like, ofc bpd isn't evil, and neither are people who have it, but if someone is dealing with their illness by hurting others instead of focusing on their own healing, that's their fault and i feel like no one should have to stay with a toxic friend just for fear that if they don't they're being ableist because their toxic friend has a mental illness."

first off, if your sentence starts with 'bpd isnt evil and neither are the people who have it, BUT" then thats probably not a good start. secondly, yeah. obviously. no fucking shit. if someone is being, you know. ABUSIVE. then they're abusive, regardless of their mental illness. and nobody should have to stay with them.

"i'm not saying this is your belief, but it's the sentiment i've received heavily from a lot of the posts i've seen about people breaking off friendships with people who have bpd, and it made me feel bad for doing that to my friend because i start to think i should've tolerated her toxicity because she was struggling with her mental health, and i don't want to feel like a bad person for prioritizing my own"

You sure as fuck made it seem like you think thats my belief. Heres a little tidbit for you: "Anybody can leave anybody they want, for any reason, regardless of anything" and "people who have BPD do find abandonment to be extremely upsetting and sometimes downright traumatizing" are sentances that can and do co-exist. Even so. Even if some weird ass people WERE ever actually implying that: that is ENTIRELY not my fucking problem. Literally. I do not know you. We are strangers. I am a stranger to you.

so... it wasn't wrong of me to do that, right? i know she was struggling and couldn't control what she was struggling with, but i'm not a bad person for not excusing that or forgiving her, am i? sorry, i know this is super random and if it makes you uncomfy i'm very sorry, i just thought since you have bpd, if you give an answer to it i would trust you, idk.

No! it wasnt! and also, I'm not your fucking therapist! Me off handedly mentioning i have bpd and that my fp left me is NOT me opening the doors to you traumadumping on me and asking invasive and uncomfortable things about my complex trauma disorder!

people fucking demonize cluster-Bs enough as it is, why the fuck should i have to essentially coddle you and take the fall as someone with bpd just because your abuser had it.

you didnt deserve your abuse, nobody does! but its not my fucking job as a random stranger running an EMOJI BLOG who just so happened to offhandedly mention my bpd due to the relevance to a video game, to be a monolith for all those with bpd and try to convince people who already hate us due to stigma the very basic concept of 'we can be hurt by things, and our pain can be extremely irrational. and thats kind of the entire fucking point of the disorder, the fact that its irrational and a whole Problem. but we are not inherently abusive because of this, and evenif our pain is irrational or unfair we are still allowed to feel that pain as long as we understand where its coming from and how to deal with it. and we're allowed to express that pain'

and then, even further ontop of that. I literally said said fp was bad. they hurt me in other ways.

this is all in all, one of the most frustrating asks i think ive ever gotten.

you're not ableist for leaving them but you sure as fuck are by sending me this ask

[atlabeth]

transferred part 20 - atla smau

part 19 | masterlist | epilogue

summary: trying to run from your past is hard, but falling for your brother’s roommate is even harder. little do you know that he’s falling for you as well.

a/n: me when i have to write more than 5 words in a series thats supposed to be a smau

anywho! basically the last chapter?? which is crazy?? filled with heartfelt emotions and the moment that you've all been waiting for, it's a wild ride. so strap in and enjoy. the epilogue will be posted later today so i can finally wrap this series up!! and dont worry theres a super long sappy authors note on the epilogue. LETS GET INTO IT

wc: 2.3k

warning(s): cursing, mentions of alcohol, hurt/comfort, one suggestive comment, mentions of toxic relationships, reader talking about her self sabotaging behavior and burnout, Bad Coping Methods (dont disappear kids)

-

“You haven’t seen her?” Zuko sighed as the same words he had heard on repeat for the past hour played through his ears again. “It’s alright, thank you. Have a good night.”

He shook his head at his friends, their defeated expressions mirroring his own as he leaned against the kitchen island. He ran an exhausted hand through his hair, and he couldn’t help but think of the countless times you had done it for him.

“Your sister doesn’t play when it comes to theatrics,” Aang lamented as he plopped on the couch next to Sokka.

“Tell me about it,” he muttered. “I mean, she doesn’t pull stuff like this. Sometimes she went over the top when she was younger, staying out a little too late or doing something stupid, but she never just… she never just tried to disappear like this. I.. I guess she was too worried about Katara and me to do anything like that, but still.” He knocked back the rest of the seltzer and tossed the can on the table — alcohol was tempting, but none of them wanted to be any less than completely aware tonight.

“We all knew she was hurting,” Sokka continued. “Not even she could be fine after everything that happened with Hahn, especially the day after, but I— I guess I thought that she would open up before just dropping off the radar completely!

“No news from the girls,” Aang announced, prompting a collective sigh from the other two boys. “I gotta give it to her, she’s been very thorough with this.”

“Of course she has. It’s classic Y/N — she can disappear without a trace, sure, but she can’t put enough effort into picking up some supplies for my project on her way home.” It was a lame attempt to lighten the mood, and though he got a weak chuckle out of Aang, it was radio silence on Zuko’s part.

“Hey, buddy.” It didn’t snap him out of his reverie, and Sokka seriously contemplated throwing his empty soda can at him. “You okay?”

“She didn’t even say anything to me,” he finally murmured, eyes trained on his phone screen. “She said she would tell me if she was having a hard time, but she didn’t say anything to me. Just suffered in silence until it got so bad she just up and left. She just… left. Without a single word to anyone. To me.”

Aang’s eyes softened and he let out a loose exhale. “Zuko, she didn’t mean to hurt you — I know that much. She’s just been under a lot of stress lately, and… I guess it didn’t manifest in the best way.”

“Stress...” he muttered, trying to piece it together. There was something nagging at the back of his skull, something on the tip of his tongue, but he just couldn’t get it. “And you guys are sure she hasn’t put anything anywhere? No texts that you missed, nothing?”

“Believe me,” Sokka said. “I’ve refreshed her pages a thousand times by now. It’s radio silence on her side. God, I wish I was more invasive and put like, a tracking device on her car or something! For all we know, she could be back to Kyoshi.”

Kyoshi. Stress. This whole thing, your disappearing act.

And suddenly, it clicked.

Zuko stood up abruptly, nearly knocking over the stool in the process and warranting puzzled looks from both of his friends as he grabbed his keys off the table and practically ran to the door.

“Zuko, where are you going?” Aang questioned.

He tugged the door open and shot a glance back at them, tension having noticeably dissolved from his shoulders.

“I know where she is.”

-

Zuko tapped idly against the steering wheel, once again glancing down at his phone screen but to no avail. His relationship with you had become infinitely more complicated since the kiss through fault of both of them — he supposed that was what happened when two people who didn’t know how to talk about their emotions caught feelings for each other. Zuko was very skilled at sticking his foot in his mouth whenever he tried to talk about anything like this, and

But you had accepted his offer to talk on the way home, so that meant something.

He had originally suggested just talking on the way home like he had proposed earlier, but you had a different idea. ‘Trust me,’ you had told him. ‘It has a good track record with making people feel better.’

Your proposition was a wildflower field on the outskirts of the city, just out of the way that someone would go en route to the university. Far enough from the city to emanate an aura of peace, but close enough to be a feasible trip.

“I found this place when I was missing home,” you smiled as he parked the car. “I love it here, don’t get me wrong, but sometimes I just feel homesick for Kyoshi. You passed a field like this on the way into town, and when I stumbled here, it just kinda felt like fate. So now whenever I’m stressed, or overwhelmed, or just need a break, I come out here. And I think this is the perfect place to talk about… well, whatever’s going on with us.”

“Sounds good.” He returned the sentiment then cleared his throat. “As long as we don’t go in there. I can admire it from afar, but just looking at that field is making my skin itch.”

You laughed and nodded amiably. “Deal.”

-

One hand was splayed against your chest, the other trailing lazy circles with the pads of your fingers against the metal as you gazed up at the sky. You had the best and only seat of the view, the flora drifting softly in the night breeze as the stars twinkled from above.

You didn’t know what you were thinking, being here. The past couple of weeks had just been… crushing you. It was like your heart was stuck in a vice and no matter what you did, it just got tighter and tighter.

You had been treating everyone you knew horribly, but you couldn’t stop. It felt like a game — how terribly could you act towards them until they snapped too? Until your friends, your siblings, Zuko, recognized that they had made a mistake by trying to help you?

And you didn’t know what it was about today, but… something inside of you just broke after that morning with your roommates. So you did what you were best at, and you ran. Skipped class, skipped work, just drove around aimlessly until even that was starting to feel like too much of a trap.

And then you ended up here.

It would’ve been laughable if you weren’t on the verge of breaking down.

You had been here, just laying on the hood of your car parked a few feet away from the field on an off road path, for the better part of an hour. If you were going to drown underneath the weight of your thoughts, it was better to do it alone.

But as you heard the crunching of gravel underneath car tires, your eyes instinctively shot towards the noise — so much for being alone — and you sat up. Your brows furrowed in recognition, you knew that car, and it felt like your heart was going to beat out of your chest when Zuko stepped out.

“You remembered,” you breathed after a moment of silence. “You’re here.”

“Always.” He said it so obviously, so easily — why wouldn’t he remember? Why wouldn’t he be here?

You scooted over to make space on the hood and patted the space next to you softly, pulling your knees up to your chest in a moment of shame as he walked around to the front and pushed himself up next to you. What were you going to say to him? What could you say?

“I’m sorry,” you said out of the blue, your words pouring out of you like an emotional waterfall. “I’m sorry for just— for just leaving, I know it was stupid and I know they’re all probably worried out of their minds, but I couldn’t do it, Zuko. I-it was like I was trapped, and I know it was irrational, but I had to get out of there—”

“You didn’t have to,” he said quietly, effectively stopping your rant. “If you really had to get out, you could’ve at least said something to one of us. I don’t know what things were like back at Kyoshi, but here— here, you can’t throw yourself back onto the knife every time something goes wrong, because— you just can’t do that anymore.”

“I’m not mad, believe me, I’m relieved that you’re okay. I just..” he sighed and glanced up at the night sky, the light of the moon illuminating his features as he faced you once more. “I know you’ve felt alone before, but you’re not. You have Katara, and Sokka, Suki, Toph— you have me, Y/N! And I’m not going anywhere, trust me, but— but you can’t keep doing this to yourself, because they care about you, and I care about you.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat and chose to concentrate on the hood of the car, tapping your fingers against the metal as a way to use up your nervous energy. “You’re… you’re right,” you said after a long moment of silence, the beginnings of a mirthless smile on your lips.

“After that night at the party, I just— I couldn’t stop thinking about what happened. There was a part of me that just wanted to lock myself in my room and never come out, but I— I told myself I was better than that, and I refused to let myself fall back onto any of it. So I worked. I took extra shifts, I helped out my professors, I did anything and everything I could to try and keep my mind off of Hahn. But I wasn’t helping anything, I was just… I was destroying myself. It was just like you said. I was a candle burning at both ends but still convinced that I was doing the right thing, and eventually.. I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I ran.”

“And— there’s always been this… this voice in my head that pops up after things in my life are going good, and it tells me that something is going to go wrong. A-and it tells me that if I’m the one that ruins it, then I don’t have to ask myself what I did wrong, if I could’ve stopped it from happening— if it’s inevitable, then I should be the one to ruin it. It’s how most of my relationships ended, and— well, the only thing it’s succeeded in is making me miserable.”

You don’t even notice your hands are shaking until you feel Zuko placing his own over yours — a simple gesture asking an unsaid question, one you answer by intertwining his fingers with your own.

“That same voice popped up again once I started getting close to you,” you admitted quietly. “And this whole time, I’ve been so terrified of falling that I never considered you would catch me. But I’m tired, Zuko. I’m tired of constantly looking over the edge.”

As you turned your head to meet his eyes again, your breath caught in your throat at his close proximity. You were sure that no matter how much time you spent with him, your heart would never stop beating out of your chest for Zuko.

“I will always be there to catch you,” he affirmed softly. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

And just like before, he brought his hand to the side of your face and tenderly brushed a loose strand of hair behind your ear. His hand, slightly calloused but emanating comfort all the same, lingered on your cheek for a moment before he posed the question.

“Can I kiss you?”

You nodded, and his lips captured your own immediately. You reciprocated with an almost desperate fervor and— and it just felt so right. You had grown so accustomed to the constant warmth he carried with him that it had become a part of you, he had become a part of you, and now a life without Zuko was just unimaginable.

He was right — he already was there to catch you, each and every time. Giving you endless rides when your car broke down, sitting through the world’s most boring anthro projects, letting you bare your soul to him, telling you it was all going to be okay when nothing felt okay, and managing to find you when you had gone out of your way to not be found. And all of it— it all made you realize.

You didn’t want to keep running. And you didn’t have to. Not anymore.

Zuko pulled away and pressed his forehead to yours, breathing slightly labored as the two of you sat in comfortable silence. That is, until you broke it.

“So,” you started, a nervous chuckle following. “Are we… are we a thing now?”

You could tell that caught him by surprise by the laugh that escaped him, a sound of unfiltered joy. “I’d say that we are.”

You could feel the heat rushing to your cheeks once more as he slid off of the hood of the car and held out his hand, an offering you took happily. “We should get home,” he said, somewhat reluctantly. “It’s past midnight, and—” Zuko glanced at his phone and grimaced. “They’re all still worried out of their minds.”

“Right,” you muttered. “I’m gonna get the lecture of my life from Sokka and Katara.”

“Probably,” he chuckled. “But they’re just doing their job as concerned siblings.” He pressed a chaste kiss to your forehead and glanced back at his own car. “I’ll see you back at the apartment?”

You nodded, an uncontrollable smile pulling at your lips. “Thank you, Zuko. For this, and— for everything.”

He returned the sentiment, golden eyes filled with adoration.

“Always.”

-

if your name is crossed out it means i can’t tag you!

perm taglist: @dv0412 @siriuslyslyslytherin

transferred: @ourbestfriend-mishacollins @lil-lex1 @xxshad0wxb1rdxx @zuko-is-the-sun @akiris @irohs-teapot @thatarthistorynerd @charlenasaxen @minninugget @marvel-ousnesss @count-thotticus @what-ye-egg @furblrwurblr @thesstuff @mariachiii @ietss @dizzy-miss-lizzieeeeee @xbarrjallenx @tommy-braccoli @dreamsluvrr @floofybread @thelovelylolly @lin-biefong-is-my-life @tiffanyy-21 @sistheselenophile @theincredibledeadlyviper @bakugouswh0r3 @loganrwebb @mikaslilworld @matsunshine @iris-suoh @aizameow @h3llbun @kozuelle

atla: @marianne1806

[5ummit]

I’ve seen a lot of people on my original Censorship Nightmare PSA insisting that Apple is solely to blame for the recent tag ban fiasco and to please not get mad at tumblr uwu. And while this sentiment is mostly correct, I do take issue with it, particularly as a content creator.

Yes, The Ban would almost certainly not have happened at all if it weren’t for Apple’s insanely restrictive app guidelines. As explained in this post from someone who’s personally familiar with Apple’s ridiculous app approval process, it’s pretty clear from what we know that tumblr was probably backed into a corner and The Ban was a hastily thrown together bandaid solution to keep the app from being yanked from the app store right before everyone left for the holidays until a better longterm solution could be developed. I’m sure tumblr did not want this any more than we did.

However, while the situation tumblr found themselves in was absolutely Apple’s fault, the way it was handled rests entirely on tumblr.

I do not know how the banned tags were chosen, but what I can guarantee is that Apple did not hand tumblr a list with tags like “mine” and “reblog” and “my gif” on it and force tumblr to ban them. Apple told them the app was rejected along with the reason why (because NSFW content was found by whoever happened to review it that day) and it was up to tumblr to come up with and implement a solution to fix the “issue” before the app removal deadline.

Now a temporary ban on “sensitive content” tags in and of itself is not a terrible stopgap solution given the circumstances, and it could’ve been implemented in such a way that 99.9% of users were never affected by it at all (this is not me endorsing or approving of this solution btw, I think I’ve made my feelings on censorship pretty clear in previous posts). The Big Problem of course is the particular tags that were chosen.

There are many theories floating around about where The List came from given how absurd many of them are. As I’ve mentioned before, my personal theory is that a bunch of flagged blogs were scraped and all of their commonly used tags were dumped into a “banned tags” database. Regardless of the actual method though, what’s clear to anyone with half a brain is that no real human being was involved in picking these out. And herein lies the problem.

I get that this solution was probably hastily thrown together at the last minute by some overworked underpaid engineers on a very tight deadline. I get that. And using some sort of algorithm to assemble The List is not only perfectly acceptable, it's what should be done since it would be very hard for someone to know all of the common NSFW tags that may be used off the top of their head. However, on a platform like this with millions of users whose posts would potentially be blocked entirely from searches and their own followers depending on the tags chosen, there is no excuse for why there wasn’t even a cursory glance at The List from a real person at any point in the process. It would literally take 2 seconds to see that many of these words do NOT belong and that maybe a mistake had been made somewhere.

Absolutely the people who were hit the hardest and suffered the most from this disaster of an update were the very people whom tumblr relies on to bring users to their site at all: content creators. Engagement on this hellsite is already such a demoralizing struggle most days, but to significantly reduce the viewers of our content even further by blocking 80% of the common content creation tags (along with many other common tags) from both searches and dashboards? Unconscionable. And for what? It doesn’t even gain them anything. The vast vast majority of the posts tagged with “my gif” are completely innocuous and would not be cause for Apple to reject the app in the first place.

Not only that, but it’s not like an Apple-approved workaround for NSFW content hasn’t already existed for months, if not years. All of those sites (Twitter, Reddit, Discord) that cause everyone to wonder why their apps are able to remain on the app store when they have even more NSFW content than tumblr? They use the same toggle solution that tumblr is supposedly developing.

It would be one thing if the NSFW issue was a recent change in policy sprung on tumblr at the last minute (in which case I would be much more lenient in my judgement), but Apple’s strict guidelines are not new and have been a perennial thorn in tumblr’s side, supposedly resulting in multiple app rejections in the past. The latest app rejection that prompted The Ban was not an unforeseen event and they had plenty of time to preemptively implement the toggle solution, or something similar, before circumstances forced their hand.

Through their laziness and incompetence, tumblr actually ended up doing way more harm than any good that may’ve resulted from the app being allowed to stay in the app store until a better solution could be implemented. Remember, even if an app is removed from the store, anyone who already has the app downloaded will still be able to use it with no interruption to their experience – only new users wouldn’t be able to download it. And now, since it’s the holidays and nobody is working, we’re stuck with this horrible situation until the promised fix is finally implemented (with no timeline given yet).

So yes, blame Apple and their shitty policies and their incomprehensible app approval process. But don’t you dare let tumblr off the hook for this either.

[solarwonux]

Lucky || Joshua

Dad!Joshua x f!reader

w.c: 3.0k

warnings: mentions of suggestive themes, mentions of pregnancy

note: Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays today on this fine night I bring you Joshua Hong as a father let’s all cry together thank you very much. I hope you like it let me know your thoughts <3

pspspspsp: @sunlightwoo it’s back hehe

masterlist

“Are you and momma still friends?” Joshua’s daughter questioned tilting her head to the side, clinging on to his neck as the waves crashed around them. Joshua grinned and pushed back her beach hair. “Of course sweetheart why are you asking?” He wiped her running nose with the back of his hand before splashing a small amount of water in her direction. An annoyed expression forming on her face reminding him of the similar scold you had given him hours ago.

“She put you in time out.” She shrugged and reached to the side of Joshua’s body. Cupping her hands underneath the clear blue water before throwing it in his direction missing his face completely. “That wasn’t very nice sweetheart.” He chuckled. A wave crashed pushing them back slightly causing his hold on her to get tighter.

She pouted and pushed his face away, turning her attention to where you and his mother were sunbathing. “You made momma mad, that wasn’t very nice either.” She argued and pinched his arm, a mannerism she had inherited from you and the only thing that you did that he hated. But no matter how much your pinches hurt, because they did. He couldn’t imagine living his life without your stupid quirk.

“Momma’s not mad anymore though.” Joshua smirked and attacked her cheek with kisses, whines fell out of her mouth. Eyes burned holes in the side of his and he knew you were sending him your infamous glares. The ones that could send him six feet underground, that is if looks could kill and being married to you would’ve sent him underground years ago. He was thankful they couldn’t.

“She said you were in time out for three days.” She held up her hand signaling four with her fingers. Numbers weren’t her forte. You and Joshua had tried everything to get her to understand that three and four were two completely different numbers but she was at an age where listening wasn’t something she liked to do. The two of you figured she’d eventually figure it on her own, though sometimes Joshua suspected she was doing it on purpose. Her teasing attitude was another thing she had inherited from you making Joshua’s list longer by the second. “One less finger bubs.” He brought his hand out and pushed down her pinky to form three with her small fingers. A smirk appeared on her face as she raised it again only proving Joshua’s suspicions.

“Okay love, but momma isn’t mad at me anymore.” He stated confidently meeting your eyes only to have you send him the middle finger making his mother laugh beside you. He silently cursed but thanked god that your daughter wasn’t looking because the questions would’ve been endless. And he had barely survived the where do babies come from interrogation last week.

He knew you were still mad at him. You were fuming to the point that you were giving the summer sun a run for its money. But he had a plan, one he was sure would have you forgiving him in seconds. Only problem was the little demon in his arms innocently playing with the water surrounding the two of them--hated sleeping in her own bed. And he couldn’t ask his mother to look after her tonight because she had taken your side in the stupid fight.

In conclusion he was in a bit of a pickle.

Half an hour, that’s how long it took him to put his daughter to bed. She had requested a bedtime story, Joshua over the moon had no problem in reading one to her. But then when he was done she had requested another one and this time he had to act out every single character while she judged his performance. This had gone on for half an hour until finally her breathing got steady and she was fast asleep. How the beach hadn’t tired her out was a mystery he would eventually solve one day.

Joshua carefully turned off the lights and placed her favorite stuffed animals around her, so that when she woke up she would be met with a familiar set of faces. He tiptoed out of the room and turned off the lights. Taking a quick glance around the room, making sure nothing was out of place and that her night lights were on before carefully closing the door. His body cringed at the sound of squeaking hinges and he swore he had stopped breathing while he stood there in the dark hallway, motionless. His ears perked up to see if he could hear any sound of movement from the other side of the door and once he was sure his daughter was still fast asleep he quietly made his way to your shared bedroom.

“She’s asleep, let’s hope she doesn’t end up in our bed tonight.” Joshua walked over to where you were standing in front of your small vanity that also doubled up as a dresser. “We wouldn’t be trying to break this habit if you hadn’t insisted on her sleeping with us for the last few months.” Joshua let out an inaudible groan knowing very well he was the one at fault. “How am I supposed to say no when she asks with that sweet innocent voice and then gives me the look?” He eyed you through the mirror before wrapping his arms around your waist. His chin resting against your shoulder while you applied your eye cream gently. “It’s like she knows my weaknesses and then uses it against me.”

“It’s not that hard to break you Joshua.” You met his stare through the mirror, a knowing smirk forming against your lips. You sent him a wink before grabbing your cherry flavored chapstick and slowly applied it on your lips. The action sending shivers up his spine, his mind racing as he imagined your lips on his. The thought of the bitter sweetness of the cherry flavor hitting his taste buds made his mouth water. But alas you were still mad at him and his plan hadn’t gone in full effect yet. Patience is what he needed.

“Are you still mad at me?” He pouted slightly making you shake your head in annoyance. You huffed at his obvious question and removed his arms from your waist, pushing him away gently before making your way to your side of the bed. “I already apologized, what more do you want me to do?” He threw his hands in the air before letting them fall to his sides in defeat.

“You lost my necklace the one you gave me when our daughter was born, sorry’s not gonna bring it back.” You took off the many throw pillows that decorated the bed and threw them on the floor. Usually you would put them on the lounge chair by the window but tonight you couldn’t be bothered.

“I already told you I’d buy you a new one.” He groaned and walked over to his side of the bed peeling back the covers, stopping when he saw the tears start to roll down your face, his plan long forgotten.

Lately your mood swings were giving him a hard time and although he suspected why, he wasn’t sure if he should bring it up when the thought hadn’t even crossed your own mind. At least that’s what he concluded when you hadn’t brought it up. “It’s not the same Joshua, I know it’s stupid to hold such sentimental value over something so miniscule but it meant a lot to me and you lost it.” Joshua sighed letting the sheets go and crawled on top of the bed, kneeling in front of you and bringing his hands up to your face.

“Baby I swear I thought I had put it in the pocket of my coat when you gave it to me.” He wiped away your tears gently and placed a kiss on your forehead. “It was there when we left the reception. I even called Minghao to see if the venue had contacted him but he didn’t pick up.”

“Of course he’s not going to pick up, he's on his honeymoon, Joshua.” You sniffed and blinked rapidly trying to keep the tears at bay. “My point still stands, I’ve looked everywhere for it.” He sighed and wrapped an arm around your waist as he brought you close. Your knees hit the edge of the bed making them buckle, your body landing on top of Joshua’s as he laid the two of you down gently.

“Did you check your car?” You raised an eyebrow locking your eyes with his tender ones. His eyes grew wide and faint blush creeped on his cheeks as he recalled the very inappropriate events that went down in the passenger seat on your way home from the reception. “N-No the thought didn’t even cross my mind.” He cleared his throat, your face breaking into a smile as you removed yourself from his embrace and laid back, letting your body sink into the softness of your bed.

“I knew you hadn’t checked everywhere.” You placed your arms underneath your head watching the ceiling fan. He was chewing the bottom lip as the realization finally washed over him a very annoyed groan fell out of his lips as he dropped his head. “When did you find it?”

You laughed and moved so your body was now facing his defeated one. “Right after we dropped off your mother at her house. It was peeking out from underneath the back seat as I was putting bubs in her car seat.” You placed a hand underneath his chin and raised it. “This a new form of torture. I’ve been suffering all day today.” Joshua whined snaking his arm around your waist and pulled himself up so his chest was against yours. “I deserve an apology?” He pouted before pecking your lips.

“I’ll think about it, right now I’m exhausted.” You grinned and pushed your hand through his dark locks leaning up and kissing his nose. “I want to keep talking to you. You barely said a word to me all day and watched me suffer. I’m in a drought come and save me.” He finished and cuddled himself further into your body, his head on your chest. You giggled scratching his scalp, small satisfied sighs escaping his lips.

When you and Joshua first met on a disastrous blind date set up by your mutual friends where he accidentally spilled wine all over your new white dress, marriage was definitely not in the cards. But nothing is ever set in stone and you should’ve known his charm would win you over when he walked you home that night. Silence raining over the two of you except for the sweet apologies he would spew out every few minutes, thus beginning your loving journey together.

“What are you thinking about?” Joshua whispered drumming his fingers down the side of your body before resting them on top of your stomach. “How dramatic you are.” You joked wrapping your arms around his neck. He hummed and cuddled himself further into your body placing a gentle peck against the skin of your collarbone. “I think you might’ve rubbed off on me then.”

You giggled feeling his hand rub soothing circles against your stomach. A smile played against his lips and you wondered if he knew the secret you had been carrying for the past two weeks. It had started out as a suspicion when the food at Minghao’s wedding had made you sick. Then your emotions started getting the best of you, snapping and crying over everything and anything. When his mother came over to visit and noticed your weird cravings she had made you take a test while Joshua ran to the grocery for some parsley his mother had asked for. He didn’t question it. He had no reason to since his mother had insisted on cooking dinner for the four of you that night. But when he noticed the parsley had been left untouched in the fridge his suspicions started to grow.

He had been oddly observant lately, doing everything with caution, putting your daughter to bed every night a task you usually did and no problem in doing. Acting out all the characters in the story for your daughter was one of your favorite past times. He had insisted that you needed to rest, claiming he didn’t want you to stress out too much and just relax. So you expected he knew and was just waiting for you to tell him so he could finally celebrate. You had to admit it was fun seeing Joshua walk around as if he were avoiding the cracks on the sidewalk and the unsolicited back massages were to die for but you couldn’t keep living like you didn’t know he already knew. As clueless as he had acted, he hadn’t done a very good job at it. And After your secret doctor’s visit yesterday confirming what you had already known, you had been dying to tell him.

“Cut the shit Joshua, when did you find out?” You looked down at him as he smiled widely causing you to roll your eyes. His insides bubbling up with joy as he laid back facing the popcorn ceiling. “You aren’t very good at hiding things. I found the test a week ago when I opened your bathroom drawer looking for the tiny rubber bands to finish our bub’s hair.” He turned his face sending you a playful wink. You groaned running a hand through your face, finally realizing that your plan of total secrecy was a total bust.

“And our daughter can’t keep secrets no matter how many green gummy bears you give her before dinner.”

“I knew it was a little weird when she asked for just green gummy bears. She’s never liked them.” You nodded and grabbed Joshua’s hand. You brought it up to your lips and kissed each of his knuckles gently before resting on the side of your neck, scooting yourself closer to his warm body. “But I do, really honey you should’ve known better.” He smiled and pinched your cheek gently before leaning down and capturing your lips with his. He kissed you slowly at first, the kiss getting deeper by the second as he rolled you onto your back and carefully straddled your hips.

Joshua smirked the taste of your cherry chapstick hitting his tongue making his mind run wild. Slowly he pulled away and kissed down your neck, making his way down your clothed body not caring that small pieces of lint were getting stuck on his plump lips. He rolled your shirt up and sent you a wink before peppering kissing over your soon to be growing belly. Excitement was an understatement and he couldn’t wait to show you how much he truly loved you making a mental note to shower you with more love than usual. His plan finally going into action as he heard your soft sighs escape your lungs.

“Mommy is daddy out of time out?” The two of you panicked and you pushed Joshua off your body making him fall off the bed landing on the hardwood floor with a painful groan. Your daughter laughed hard at her father’s pain while she climbed up on the bed before sitting down next to you. “He’s on probation, baby.” You stuck out your tongue at Joshua who was looking at you rubbing his lower back. “And when were you going to tell me he knew about baby bean?” You raised an eyebrow at her. Her eyes grew wide with realization and launched herself at you hugging you tightly.. “I’m sorry momma, daddy said he’d take me to see uncle Hannie if I didn’t say anything.” She sent her father an evil look and he knew he had lost this argument just like all the other ones.

“It’s okay baby.” You kissed her temple and pulled away taking her pouting face in your hands making your heart clench. “I can’t believe you Joshua bribing our daughter into secrecy.” You scoffed. Joshua looked at the ceiling wondering what decision in life he had made that lead him up to this moment where his favorite girls were ganging up on him again.

“That’s not fair you did the same thing?” He stood up and sent you an accusatory finger making you gasp out in shock. Your daughter copying your mannerisms. “I did no such thing right baby?” You looked down at your daughter who had taken it upon herself to get under the sheets and cuddle up to your side. “That’s right momma’s innocent.”

“I should’ve known the odds were forever going to be against me when I met you.”

“It’s what you signed up for.”

“Yeah and I wouldn’t change it for the world no matter how many times the two of you gang up on me.” He smiled and stood up before quickly jogging over to his side of the bed and laying down. He wrapped an around you and your daughter bringing the two of you close humming happily. Your daughter squirming as she tried her best to let herself lose which only made Joshua’s arm grow tighter.

“But make no mistake one day I will get my revenge.” He sent you a wink before reaching over and pecking your lips lightly and then your daughter’s forehead and laid back. “Baby bean is gonna be on my side and I can’t wait.”

“Don’t get too confident, I don't want you to end up disappointed.”

[ruby-whistler]

You've probably talked about this kinda thing before (I'm willing to hunt down the post if so), but I'm pretty new to your blog and I'm curious; what makes you like c!Dream so much? Other than, like, his potential - or the skill that went into writing him - I mean specifically as a character, what causes you to sympathize with him as opposed to others like Wilbur or Quackity?

If it's personal you obviously don't have to answer! I've just read tons of posts like that from c!Tommy apologists and I realized I'd never read one from the other side of things (so to speak) and I think you present your ideas and stuff rly well :p

Alright, I’ve made a couple of replies like this, but this one is going in the masterpost to later link it to people - thank you for your interest, and I hope you don’t mind this one being a bit detailed.

Initially, on more of an emotional level, the answer to that question would be Dr3. It was how I got into Dream apologism, it justified my compassion for the character, and made me feel more comfortable where the rest of the fandom was overwhelmingly negative.

The c!Dream that people portray seems unsympathetic, and pretty fitting on the surface - a relentless manipulative villain with an insatiate thirst for power who threw away his friends in order to gain control over others for the sake of being on top.

Until you actually look into canon, and do some analysis, and realize that's,,, rather far from the truth.

See, the thing about c!Dream is, that he's a person much like anyone else in the story. He's not a "villain" or some morally black character only because of his actions. It's all about context, which doesn't excuse actions, but it might explain them and make an impact on the way we view the character himself.

In this fandom, people usually look at him, and then throw both accurate characterization and any of that context out the window.

Because power, and hurting people, and chaos isn't his goal or his motive. It's a means to an end. Everything is a means to the end to this character, including himself, which I find fascinating.

Is it wrong to do? Yes. Will it get him closer to his goals? Yes? Then he's going to do it, no matter who gets hurt in the process. No matter if he gets hurt in the process.

And this ruthlessness is not inspired by cruelty, this efficiency isn't out of enjoyment. It's out of genuine attachment and perhaps even desperation, but that's difficult to get into.

He's had such a downward spiral into doing continuously worse things - and for what? For control? For power? No, he never cared about that in the first place, why would he start now?

Do you know what he did care about?

His friends. The server. The people he feels responsible for.

c!Dream's goals have never been selfish at all, no matter how much people try to paint it that way. His ends were always for others - considering how likely the theory that he got himself locked up on purpose is, that enforces the sentiment even more.

If he didn't care about the server, why would he fight against L'Manberg and then list his reasons for it always as reasons "we" had? He pretty much never used "I" when talking about it, I know because I counted it.

If he didn't care about the people, why would he stand against Schlatt - despite understandably still despising L'Manberg - and actively support them in getting their country back when he could've just left them alone? Schlatt wasn't hurting him. Wilbur taking a tiny piece of land wasn't threatening him.

Manberg was threatening the server's peace, which is why he fought against it. L'Manberg threatened (and ruined) the server's relative peace and unity, which is why he fought against it.

It was never him fighting to control the server, it was him fighting for the server and the people in it, even if he ended up hurting them in the process, and that's pretty clear from analysing his motives before the second season.

And yeah, his thinking is flawed, I noticed - but cc!Dream has confirmed his goal in the end is for everyone to get along and, well, stop hurting each other, as well as him having an "ends justify the means" mentality.

And I guess that silent realization of - hell, he cares - was what drew me to have such a strong attachment towards the character.

So thinking about him forcing himself to do all this terrible stuff - about him being stuck powerless inside a cell, hurt over and over again - about just how desperate he must've been, alternatively, how ready to sacrifice himself he must've been back at the Finale.

If you recontextualize the story from c!Dream's perspective, it all falls into this picture of someone who wanted to protect people more than anything, and who cared more than anyone, and ended up losing everything, not entirely by his own fault, but because of the cycle of violence he was actively trying to stop.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Dream is incredibly selfless both in his overarching goals, and in his smaller more immediate ones. He will, more often than not, put himself in a disadvantageous situation if it means his friends or allies aren’t caught in the crossfire or harmed.

His relationship with his friends - Punz, George and Sapnap specifically - is incredibly tragic. He wanted to protect Punz, he showed genuine concern about him, he was willing to have one less person on his side just so that people wouldn't target him.

He wanted to protect George, but he hurt him in the process, because he was too caught up in being in the right, and Sapnap was distraught thanks to Tommy telling him that Dream doesn't care about him, and Quackity who despised Dream was there to fan the flames, so they fell apart rather easily.

He wanted to protect the cat, and he failed.

He wanted to protect Techno, stand up to Quackity, and he failed.

If you think about it, he failed to protect everyone miserably.

Alright before I break down sobbing incoherently - as you can probably see, my sympathy towards c!Dream doesn't come from him being a good person to any degree, more from just incredible amounts of sadness.

You see, c!Dream is a very reserved character, and he puts up the "cruel scary villain" front on purpose, and he doesn't talk about his emotions on purpose. However what we see of him is pretty much enough to classify him as a rather tragic character.

Most of his actions, with enough context, shift the way I think about the character in a more positive direction only because if I like the way a character is written, it's going to bleed into my feelings for the character himself. Ruthless villains are my jam. A character being fun to analyse and too complex to complicate further is pretty much the only thing I need to become attached.

Did I mention the prison arc yet? I cannot see a character suffering and not be sympathetic, I don't think that's a thing with me. Healing arc potential, isn't it?

A lot of people also relate to the character on a deeply personal level! Trauma responses such as cutting people off and emotionally isolating yourself, trying to regain control of your environment or to get back the past, some people even relate to,, what's being done to him during the prison arc. There's definitely some amount of projection going on, but I'd say I only do it to a degree where when I'm depressed I'll start relentlessly posting about a healing arc.

It's just hard to see a villain with good intentions hurt and alone, even if he's done terrible things, and not feel some amount of empathy. Most people don't care to see him that way, but my blog's mostly a place for those who do.

Anyways, here are some essays to check out perhaps if you've read this far that elaborate on some of the points further-

[ x ] [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] [ x ] [ x ]

- and here's an explanation like this from a fellow Dream apologist. Might be useful to get multiple perspectives on the subject. Feel free to also send asks if you have any questions! That's what I'm here for.

[theres-an-impulstor-among-us]

*looks at menu* Can I get uhhhh Wels angst double special to go please?

no sorry we're all out <3

jk :3

...

<iJevin> My name is Helsknight. And I have a message for Wels. I’ve got your friend iJevin and if you ever want to see him again, you’ll come to the following coordinates. Alone. Don’t bring a sword. Wait until the door opens and then enter. If you disobey any of these instructions, you’ll never see your friend again.

Wels’s stomach is squirming as he waits anxiously outside the iron door set into the cliff. He can’t see anything except a staircase downward through the window, so he’s long since stopped trying.

“Are you sure you don’t want backup?” Xisuma asks him.

“I’m sure. Hels has enough hatred in him that he can probably permakill Jevin, so I want to make sure that doesn’t happen. When I go in, keep the door open in case I need to make a quick getaway.”

“Do you anticipate that happening?”

Wels hesitates. “I won’t leave without Jevin. So… I don’t know. But I’d rather cover that eventuality than not.”

“Fair enough.” Xisuma glances sideways at him. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“Well,I just…” Wels gives a sigh. “This is not how I wanted the server to find out about Hels. I don’t know when I was gonna tell them but I know I didn’t want it announced to them all this way.”

Xisuma nods slowly. “I get that. It was-.”

At that moment, however, the door creaks open. Taking a deep breath, Wels readies his shield. “This is it.”

“Good luck,” says Xisuma, patting him on the shoulder. “I’ll wait out here.”

“Thanks.”

Wels advances carefully down the staircase, which leads down into the cliff. At the bottom, he finds a large cave with dark blackstone walls and dripstone hanging from the ceiling, illuminated by fire from braziers made of netherrack. A villain’s lair befitting a hels hermit.

“Wels!” comes a desperate voice at that moment.

Wels spins round to find Jevin huddled against the wall near the corner of the cave. Lowering his shield, Wels dashes towards him. “Jev! Are you-.”

“No, Wels, get back!” Jevin cries. “He’s gonna-!”

Before he can finish his sentence, a figure appears out of nowhere and slams into Wels, knocking him backwards. Luckily, his knight skills help him keep his balance.

“Hello, Wels,” says Helsknight, a dark grin on his face. “Thanks for accepting my invitation.”

“You didn’t give me much of a choice,” Wels snaps back. “What do you want?”

“I want to kill you, Wels. But I also want to make things interesting. I COULD have just ambushed you out there, but where’s the fun in that? I’d like to make you suffer first.”

With that, he reaches out and grabs Jevin’s hood, pulling him roughly to his feet.

“Leave him alone!” Wels snarls, bunching his muscles, ready to charge.

Hels’s grin widens and he pulls out a sword. Before anyone can react, he slams the hilt of it into Jevin’s head. Since Jevin has been away from water and sunlight for a long time, his normally slimy body has solidified enough that the hit to his head knocks him out instantly. Hels releases his hood, letting him collapse to the ground.

Wels’s heart freezes and he stares in horror at his friend, his shield involuntarily lowering. “No…!”

Sensing his advantage, Hels kicks Jevin in the jaw, causing green blood to ooze out from his mouth. A further kick to the stomach knocks Jevin onto his back.

“No!” Wels cries. He tries to step forward, to do something, anything, but his legs give out and he drops to his knees, his shield clattering to the ground beside him. “Stop hurting him!”

“This is your worst fear, Wels,” Hels says tauntingly. “Not being able to save your friends. The world can burn around you, the ground can literally be dropping out from under you, but as long as your friends are okay, you won’t care. That’s why you’ll always be so easy to beat. All a villain has to do is hurt one of your friends and you just fall apart. Weak. Pathetic. Sentimental. You really think you can continue calling yourself a knight if you have such an obvious weakness?”

When he gets no response from Wels, Hels chuckles darkly. “I thought not. Now stay there and watch me kill your friend. Not like you’ll stop me.”

As Hels turns away, Wels stays still for a moment longer, forcing the hurt and anger and guilt aside. He can’t let Hels beat him this easily anymore. It’s time to embrace his true self and stop Hels from hurting his friend again.

Readying his shield, Wels looks up and spots Hels advancing on Jevin with his sword. The image pours adrenaline into his veins and he charges forward, arcing to the left.

Just as Hels brings his sword down on Jevin, Wels jumps in front of him with his shield raised, absorbing the blow. Before Hels can react, Wels jerks his shield up, dislodging the sword from Hels’s hand, and catches it with his free hand. Kicking Hels away, Wels stands between him and Jevin, lowered in a defensive stance.

Hels stares at him in shock. “What?!”

“You were wrong, Hels. My love for my friends isn’t a weakness - it’s my greatest strength. Because I have something to live for. Do you?”

Hels’s eyes flicker from Wels to his sword, before a grin spreads over his face. “Good. You were getting far too predictable. Good to see you can still surprise me.”

“Get out of here, Hels,” Wels growls, “before I decide to stop showing you mercy.”

After a moment, Hels gives a dark chuckle. “You impressed me today, Wels. So I’ll leave. See you later, old friend.”

Eyes narrowed, Wels watches Hels walk away. Only when he’s sure his counterpart is gone does he lower his guard and turn to his friend. Jevin is semi-conscious now, groaning softly as he struggles to sit up.

Wels kneels down beside him and helps him sit up. “Are you alright?”

“Gah… my head is killing me.”

“He hit you pretty hard, so I’d say you have a concussion.” Wels winces at the sight of the blood pooling at the corner of his friend’s mouth. “Here, let’s get you back up to the surface.”

Wels gently lifts Jevin to his feet, Jevin’s arm over his shoulder. He guides his friend up the stairs and out through the iron door, which is still open from when he went in.

Immediately, Xisuma, who had been sitting on the grass a little way off, jumps to his feet and dashes towards them. “You made it! Are you guys okay?”

“Jev’s hurt, but not too badly,” Wels reports. “I’m gonna take him to the swamp; he should be okay once he touches water.”

Xisuma nods. “Okay, good. I’ll get this place dealt with so Hels can’t use it again.”

Wels smiles gratefully. “Thanks, X. I’ll check in with you later.”

“Do.”

As Wels starts the long journey to the swamp with Jevin, his mind is firmly on Hels. But after a while, he pushes all thoughts of his counterpart aside in favour of making sure his friend is okay. “How are you doing there, buddy?”

“A little groggy,” murmurs Jevin. “I can’t believe you came for me.”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“You risked permadeath just to come and save me.”

“Of course I did. You’re my friend, Jev. I’ll always come to save you, no matter what.”

Jevin gives a weak smile. “Thank you. That… means a lot to me. And thanks for saving my life. It can’t have been easy to confront your evil twin like that. I didn’t even know you HAD an evil twin.”

Wels pauses. “Technically he’s an evil clone of me from a hellfire dimension.”

“Really? How did he come to be on Hermitcraft?”

“That’s a long story. And it definitely was not my fault.”

Jevin chuckles, letting himself relax in the embrace of his best friend.

“Of course.”